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Fullmetal ANNCast: Brotherhood


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Animehermit



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:39 pm Reply with quote
Seriously need to do something with this webplayer, it just stops middle of playing.
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Seif



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:18 pm Reply with quote
Been looking forward to this since the new schedule was announced. Can't wait to get home and listen to it.
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lemurs



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:27 pm Reply with quote
I just did a concurrent rewatch of both FMA series not too long ago and FMA:B really is a lot better. The 2003 series has pretty big chunks of filler, plot threads that don't resolve well and a bit of a nasty streak. FMA:B stays a lot more consistent throughout.
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Top Gun



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:30 pm Reply with quote
Wow, this is the first ANNCast I've sat through in ages, and I'm glad I did. Halfway through now, and I have to agree with Hope that Mike's mistaken about one particular point: the comedy moments in Brotherhood were waaaaaaay more numerous, and generally speaking really awkwardly-placed. We'd be in the middle of a mostly-serious scene, and then here comes the 57th iteration of "LOL ED IZ SHORT!!1" I don't have much patience for that sort of spastic SD comedy in the first place, but man did it grate on my nerves in Brotherhood.

In the grand scheme of things though, I decidedly prefer the 2003 series, both for the far-superior take on the shared material and the much more philosophical tone. Which reminds me, it's been far too long since I've actually sat down and rewatched it...
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justsomeaccount



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:08 pm Reply with quote
Edit: I guess that goes without saying but, SPOILERS (to not cover everything in the annoying tag for such long paragraphs Laughing )

Really nice podcast, it was pretty interesting to hear all these different opinions and voices.

In terms of the Ishbal thing in the anime of Brotherhood and its weird structure, I think I 'get' what they were thinking which was separating the esential parts for each character in their own place (for example, the Scar content was put as a flashback when Winry's theme was being addressed) so when the episode comes in they can show it in one episode in the same way the manga did it in one volume. But it doesn't work at all because great part of the manga's feeling then was a whole volume where you were totally inmersed in that moment of history and all the points of view were changing, and with that, all interplayed in terms of the current status of the war (beginning, middle, climax, end...), which not only made it very introspective from many points of views (as the story is being told in the present, and because adding them together you have the opinion from every side), but also very well paced as a overall tension and development of the conflict is shared by all the stories naturally, and not like in the Scar part where you were expecting the "introduction, climax and end" of the flashback. That's why there things like Scar's conflicts pays off much better, the same with the rest of points of view. And we even had extra POV (Winry's parents resisting to abandon the Ishbalians) and Kimbley (which I HATED they cut out the scenes where he straight up praises twice Winry's fathers as being totally dedicated to their work, it reinforces his opinion in a good sense and it even makes, when he tells that to Winry, feel a little honest and not just a lie to trick her), besides other more extra scenes with other characters.

Overall yes, my opinion is that Brotherhood as adaptation is too rushed and focused on just covering material quickly (it's much better paced after the 13 first episodes, but it's still very quick and jumbled, just look how many times they try to advance the story using the part for the ending), most probably because it was more directed to fans of the manga than on being a stand-alone solid work of fiction, and that damaged it. I still enjoyed it watching it because I am a big fan of the manga, but it's definitely not the best adaptation. In terms of manga and the first anime, I can't choose which one I like the most because there's been around 6 years since I've seen the first anime and I don't know how it would hold up, although probably the manga is where I had the most fun and because it's the first I saw it has a special place in my heart, but who knows, maybe now I'll appreciate more the mature content that the first anime has. I have to rewatch it.


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Kadmos1



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:09 pm Reply with quote
It's interesting that the Lust and Mustang fight would become an eventual spousal fight since their dub VA would become married.
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Mr Sinister



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:25 pm Reply with quote
I love both of them in order, like a visual novel with multiple routes. The 2003 is the dark route with lots of characterization and Brotherhood allows you to have more fun with the characters that were put through so much trauma from the first one and finally get that happy ending.
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Animehermit



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:30 pm Reply with quote
Now that I've had time to actually listen to the podcast:

I like both, I might like the pacing a little more in Brotherhood. I like the kind of adventure and the better world building.

I like the protagonists in the original better, but the villains in brotherhood are more interesting to me.

On the show I wish got a re-do:

Berserk deserves one, but I'm not sure about starting after the eclipse. It ends with the same problem Brotherhood had, there's differences between the two versions.

Actually thinking about it, because of the nature of the story, you could introduce puck in the beginning, and then continue from there without covering the golden age stuff at all.

I was kind of hoping the movies would kickstart enough interest in this so that maybe another TV series could be made (perhaps without the CG animation).

Another one, which I think will come as no surprise, is Gundam 0079. I think a proper full adaptation The Origin would be not only fresh enough because it's a lot different from the original, but it's been a long time since 1979.

Besides I want to get some of my friends into UC Gundam but they can't get into the older animation from that long ago, even the movies are hard to watch.
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Nocturne123



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:34 pm Reply with quote
First off, just to get it out of the way, Im not a rabid FMA fan. I do like the series, I bought all the tins and singles of the first series and I bought all of brotherhood. It has been a while since I've seen either one besides a few random episodes when my sister and friend were going through brotherhood.

I really think Hope (Zach agrees on alot of it as well, just felt Hope talked more on the subjects) is looking at the first series through nostalgia goggles for most of her comparisons. Not all, but moments that stand out are when she talks about all the homunculi in the first series having more character. While that is partly true, just because a character has more motivations, doesn't mean those motivations were well thought out. It always made zero sense to me why Ed and Al's mother got the Sloth moniker. Made absolutely no sense and what could you infer to that? That she was a terrible lazy mother? Bad characterization and choice. Though I feel Bradley was better characterized in 2003 as Pride given his position. I dont really agree with Hope's characterization of the Homunculi in Brotherhood though. I believe she said in the recording that they were embodiment of a bunch of souls of people who had those vices and created into their own being, which isn't correct. They were extensions of Father himself, which in turn characterizes the homunculi differently. They share the same motivation of Father for the most part, baring Greed, which makes sense given they are extensions of him, thus adding more depth to the Homunculus character rather than each individual homunculus themselves. I think the explanation of them in this recording was wrong for one and not necessarily better or worse than 2003, but a different focus that meant to flesh out the main villain.

That being said, the Homunculus itself was more interesting in the flashbacks in brotherhood, whereas I found Father to be a horrible villain himself, especially the ending where the final battle was completely and utterly ridiculous. I felt that Ed got a huge jump in power essentially out of nowhere just to fight Father for the sake of a giant battle, which I felt too whatever realism in FMA that there is, out of the equation.

Also, regarding alchemy, I thought it was the western Alchemy that had to do with the tectonic plates? Could have misheard when it was being discussed here, but it's why they couldnt use the alchemy they knew against Father when they confront him underground because of his whole stomping thing. Hence why they wanted to learn the Eastern alchemy.

I disagree about the whole west is good east is bad alchemy explanation. The east is definitely not glorified in this, I agree with Mike. Ling and Mei are pretty much trying to become successors so they can keep their clans alive. Implies ton's of human inequality and internal violent, terrible politics as well. I definitely didn't read it as was discussed in the podcast.

The whole reason I bring up the nostalgia glasses came to me towards the end when it was oh the original had zero filler and it was just sort of extra. Cant that be said of any filler of any show that someone happens to prefer or like? Filler gets a bad rap by name alone. Some filler sucks, some doesn't. The Tringham (sp) brothers part fairly unneeded and does play a small part later on in the series. There is indeed filler in both series, but not unnecessary really in either. They usually have some connection later on. I just found that as a way to say, yeah, I like the 2003 series better. Which is fine to say, just say it.

On art style. I honestly didn't notice it on my first watch of Brotherhood and only did when my sister was watching it and she pointed it out (she is almost done with art school). Go back and watch Brotherhood. The backgrounds are ATROCIOUS. It's kind of the problem I had with the new Sailor Moon honestly. In Sailor Moon Crystal, I felt the characters and backgrounds just clashed, almost as if they characters were taped to a picture of a background. It didn't feel like the two styles meshed. While not nearly as bad, FMA:B has the same thing going on. The backgrounds look very chalky or watercolor-ish and the characters dont. After I saw it, I couldn't help but notice it. I think the 2003 series does a better job of a uniform art style and meshing of the foreground and background. That being said, I agree the actual animation/movement and special effects are done better in Brotherhood. More fluid and the choreography is superior.

Not going to go super into it because this is WAY longer than I intended, but I think Brotherhood got generalized and glossed over in this with characters. Not everyone is as good and upstanding as is suggested. There are some characters that arent as developed and some that are comparatively, Kimbly, as Mike points out for one example. I also dont see the Iraq war so much as the Jewish people being slaughtered in Ishval. Genocide = Jews more than the Iraqi people when I see this story, especially with the more European influenced setting compared to the US. I think the Iraq war is wrongly chosen as influence over that. Especially with the jewish people's history and how many of the Ishvalan characters are displayed having completely different approaches on how to integrate into society as it is in the FMA world.

I actually think I like both equally for different reasons overall. Both endings I think are fairly weak for completely different reasons, but the road to get to those endings are good. Cant stand in Brotherhood though how all of their strife and loss got the DBZ treatment in the end. Magically fixed. Humor is terrible in both besides a couple instances.

Could go on, but I think Ill stop there for now.

EDIT: Fun listen though. Like these shows. And Milos felt like it was directed by Shyamalan. Literally like 3 twists in the thing.


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Redcrimson



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:41 pm Reply with quote
Someone asked me earlier today what the difference was between a character-driven show and a plot-driven show and after listening to this, I really wish I'd have thought of 2003/Brotherhood as examples.

Also, I would do unspeakable things to see Gunslinger Girl get the Brotherhood treatment. I don't even care if they change studios again(Production IG this time maybe?). The anime never even got to Petra and Alessandro Sad
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Gasero



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:45 pm Reply with quote
If it weren't for the misplaced comedy bits, FMA Brotherhood would be a near perfect run of a show.
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Kadmos1



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:04 pm Reply with quote
I find it interesting that while Nana Mizuki played Lan Fan and also voices Hinata, I find Lan Fan to be more of a fighter since Hinata doesn't do a lot of fighting. That is, I find Lan Fan more of a ninja that Hinata.
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No Comment



Joined: 19 Jun 2012
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:13 pm Reply with quote
Great podcast. Knowing Zac and Hope's thoughts on FMA 2003 from the Best Of The 2000's ANNCast, I figured it would be difficult for Brotherhood to top it for them, but it was still very interesting to hear their thoughts, and I'm pretty sure Mike's side was the first time I got to hear a pro-Brotherhood stance on a podcast, which is cool. I would definitely take his position of watch both, 2003 then Brotherhood.

Fullmetal Alchemist was the 3rd anime I ever watched. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was the 4th. I think trying to pull such a stunt at this point in my fandom would be tantamount to writing my suicide note. Even during the initial "all anime is amazing" high of first getting into the medium, I did have serious problems making it through the overlap episodes in Brotherhood, of course dropping shows was an unthinkable concept at that time, but it was probably once of least enjoyable experiences I had in my first 9 months of anime (except from an animation standpoint).

I think I enjoy the 2003 version just a smidgen over Brotherhood. As much as I loved the original when I saw it, I now feel like I didn't get all that I could have out of it. I've grown to appreciate FMA 2003 levels of writing quality and characterization in anime, due to how rare they are in general, but at the time I just assumed FMA's quality was indicative of anime as a medium, whereas now I can see in what regards it truly stands out. Its multiple levels of enjoyment for me are a testament to the show's depth. On the other hand, I think I still enjoy Brotherhood in the same manner as I did when I first watched it, great animation, great action, a gripping enough story, and a solid ending (I sadly have a hard time separating Conquerer Of Shamballa from the rest of the 2003 anime). I'm sure my thoughts on both are decently clouded by nostalgia, but I think they both represent some of the best that anime has to offer, in different ways.

I don't see myself rewatching either for a while unless I was showing it to a friend, so I guess I'm going off my memories for now.
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penguintruth



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PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:34 pm Reply with quote
This is a lot of writing, so forgive me for misspelling and possible spoilers. And rambling.

I am a huge FMA fan. It's my second favorite manga of all time, and both (BOTH) TV shows are tied for third in my favorite anime of all time (well, on my list of TV series and OVAs). I understand people having a preference for one or the other based on certain atmospheric differences and approaches, but I myself have no such preference. I appreciate the first series for having great emotional and thematic complexities and its reflection of our real world history, and I appreciate the second series for its internal consistency in amazing world building and well-plotted story with some really choice scenes and creative thinking. They're equally valid in my opinion.

I am really glad that Zac recognized that there were enough differences in the first thirteen episodes of Brotherhood that it couldn't just be skipped. Many times I've heard the advice to people that "Oh, you should just watch the original up until the end of the Greed stuff and then go into Brotherhood after the Greed stuff there" and the like. What happened was that Arakawa specified to Bones where she was going with the manga when they were working on the first show and wanted them to take it in a different direction, which they did starting almost immediately. If you ignore the changes early on, later on things will be very confusing, and there was a definite necessity for Bones to get through that material in Brotherhood.

That said, I really wish Bones hadn't skimped on certain elements of the early parts of the story just to get to the parts nobody had seen animated before. I felt like, with the (original) Greed material, they kind of dropped the ball, as well as with some of the other early elements from the manga. And that first episode of Brotherhood exists for the sole purpose of showcasing "This is a different version, this is a different show!", since it's anime-only. It kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the revelations about Edward and Alphonse that were supposed to occur in Lior, but at this point I suppose Bones assumed that everybody already knew.

The thing about Nina Tucker's death in Brotherhood is that while the Tucker incident is just one incident in their lives as they discover just how badly alchemy can be abused (and thus a precursor to the real corruption in the Amestris gov't), Edward and Alphonse remember this incident throughout the entire story and it's reflected on later on, as well. It may not have as big an impact all at once the way it did in the first series, but it carries throughout, whereas in the original, it was more of a BIG THING THAT HAPPENS and then kind of tossed aside for the building tension of the main plot. That Shou Tucker continues to exist in the 2003 show is almost irrelevant since he barely does anything and while we're supposed to feel he gets some kind of karmic retribution of losing all touch with sanity, it's sort of besides the point that Arakawa was trying to make in her manga, and thus in Brotherhood. I think it works to some degree in both shows, though even at the end of Brotherhood, Alphonse still feels terrible he was unable to help a girl like Nina and wants to find a way to do that.

The Nina Tucker thing is supposed to be more about how horrible it is that the Elric brothers couldn't help this little girl. For as smart and strong they are, they can't be gods, they can't do everything. By making it all about how Shou Tucker is a bad guy, you can argue that it misses how it's supposed to really reflect on the brothers.

The visual aesthetics difference between the two shows is very noticeable, which you brought up. Brotherhood has this super painted feel to it, this "things moving in a painting" visual, especially the backgrounds. The characters themselves are very solid (though super blobby at times), but some of the settings, be it background or foreground have a very mural-like quality to them. It makes for some really beautiful visuals. And the character designs are not just more accurate to Arakawa's own art, but clearly it's easier for the animators to work with when they do the very complex action sequences that occur.

Xing is pronounced "Shin" or "Shing". As for the characters... eh, I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of those characters, especially at first. They felt like they were from a different manga/anime altogether. Probably a better version of Naruto. I get that Arakawa didn't want to make the world of FMA into this one, monolithic culture, but I just never really took to most of these characters. Some of them felt weirdly overpowered for non-alchemists, and even the one alchemist (alchehestry...ist) from Xing, May, took me a long time to really attach to. I felt Ling especially was pretty obnoxious and just kind of a slightly tweaked version of Edward with little else to offer but a decent action scene or two. But he did end up growing on me through his interactions with Greed. He just isn't one of my favorite characters, and I resent that you can't find any good original Greed action figures because the closest they have is Ling-Greed. Greedling. Whatever.

The thing about the mechanics of alchemy is that actually Western, or Amestrian alchemy doesn't work like it should be working, for a very specific reason we discover towards the end of the story. Western alchemy itself, as it's supposed to work, isn't evil, but it's being buffered and actually made less powerful by the evil machinations of the main villain. Eastern alchemy, or alkehestry, or whatever, is using the "dragon lines" of the Earth, Western alchemy is supposed to be using the energy released through plate tectonics, but something is wrong with it. Thus Scar's brother's revelation that "Something is wrong with this country's alchemy!" (Scar's brother is kind of the lynchpin in... well, entirely too much in my opinion, but there you go, he's basically the lynchpin in the whole story). I do like the 2003 conceit that it's the energy that is released from people's bodies when they die in our world, but it relies very heavily on the context of that series, where in this one it's much more usable in any scenario.

I don't really believe that the two shows are really that different, thematically. I think they're differently emphasized. What are the main themes of FMA, the original manga and Brotherhood? The necessity, importance, tragedy, and romanticism all of sacrifice, that we're connected, all have a similar ultimate fate, that we have all responsibilities and burdens to carry, that oftentimes even the people who seem the strongest can feel the most powerless, and I think those are mostly the same themes as in the 2003 version. I think the 2003 version emphasizes the responsibility the brothers feel towards each other and Brotherhood (ironically) emphasizes the responsibility everyone has towards everyone else, but the same streams run through both versions.

With Maes Hughes, in the manga, and Brotherhood, it was more about how much he meant specifically to Roy Mustang, and how angry he was and determined to find the individual who took him from his life, which is why Roy questioned the homunculi he met until the culprit eventually admitted to it. What I would argue, though, is that it wasn't really necessary for Roy to avenge Hughes' death on the specific individual who did the actual killing of Hughes, but the person or person responsible for that killer, which is why I kind of like that he goes after a different character in the first series, because in a way they were in charge of everybody, even if they weren't the exact mastermind, and it was a lot closer to getting to the person who was actually responsible for what happened. (If you follow me.) I felt like they kind of dropped the impact of Hughes' death for too long in Brotherhood (really, Arakawa did), only to bring it up when it wasn't especially relevant any longer. And that Hughes' basically figured out the whole scheme of the homunculi rather than in the 2003 series when he just found a piece of the puzzle seems really unlikely (Father really should have put his plan in motion much quicker than he did to avoid that kind of thing).

I would be very much interested in any interview that Arakawa admitted she extended the importance of Hughes because of the popularity of the TV series. I've not read anything like that, and while I'm not saying Hope made it up, I haven't seen it.

Mustang's confrontation with Lust was probably my favorite episode of Brotherhood. It was a decent bit of the manga, but the episode actually improves on it with the animation and presentation of it.

As far as the giant cast, it's interesting, because the first TV series has a big cast, and the cast of the manga/Brotherhood is even larger, and yes, I felt like the Elric brothers were marginalized, too, especially since Ed is the titular character, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and there were times he was hardly relevant to the plot. However, I think it compensates for this in some ways by having so many really colorful, interesting characters of varying backgrounds and ideals, but whose paths intersect ultimately, and most of them have the Elrics in common and through them meet each other or come to some larger understanding or purpose through the brothers, so it usually works out.

When it comes to the voice cast, and I really prefer the Japanese cast, despite the popularity of the Engish dub (which I think is overrated), I felt really glad that many of the VAs in Brotherhood were the same as in the first series. Specifically, Romi Paku as Edward Elric, Rie Kugiyima as Alphonse Elric, Kenji Utsumi (RIP) as Alex Louis Armstrong, Hidekatsu Shibata as Bradley, Seiji Fujiwara as Maes Hughes, and Shoko Tsuda as Izumi Curtis. They were all excellent.

The changed VAs? Eh, well it depended. Usually I had no preference. The voices of Greed, Junichi Suwabe and Yuichi Nakamura in 2003 and 2009, respectively, were both really good. Same with Toru Okawa and Shinichiro Miki as Roy Mustang. Sometimes I preferred the 2003 voice actor, like with Winry Rockbell and Riza Hawkeye. I felt like they wanted to change them because they had bigger roles in Brotherhood, but the old VAs would have actually done a better job with those extended roles. The newer Hawkeye sounds a little too soft and weak. Sometimes I preferred the Brotherhood VA, like with Envy's really boisterously sadistic VA, the same as Dilandau's in Escaflowne. It is a cast change, by the way, Hope.

Then there were the new characters cast, and while I wasn't a big Ling fan, Mamoru Miyano did his best and I adore Yoko Soumi as Olivier Mira Armstrong.

The English dub... well, I just don't particularly like Vic Mignogna as Edward Elric. There's no emotional dimension to his performance. Caitlin Glass is shrill as Winry, Chris Patton drops the ball as Greed (fortunately Troy Baker takes over and excels), and Wendy Powell's Envy is frankly one of the worst performances in an English dub I've ever heard in my life. I can't even imagine what her approach for the character is, but it's all wrong. There are plenty of good performances, as I mentioned, Troy Baker, but also Todd Haberkorn as Ling, Stephanie Young as Olivier Mira Armstrong, Chris Sabat as Alex Louis Armstrong, Christine Auten as Izumi Curtis, Kent Williams as Father, and Colleen Clinkenbeard as Riza Hawkeye. But there's so little to work with otherwise. A lot of VAs are just phoning it in and a few are just plain terrible actors. Funimation has plenty of good VAs and some great, solid English dubs, but I don't understand the attention this dub gets. It's vastly overrated.

I'm totally with Hope about Volume 15 of the manga. That might be my favorite volume of manga ever crafted, and while the episode on it was pretty good, I was really disappointed they didn't do more. I suppose if they had people might argue they took too much time to directly tell the Ishbal story and it timed out the main story, but they could have done so much more with the material from Arakawa and I always wanted to see a feature film based entirely around that volume. It certainly would have been better than Mary Sue of Milos... I mean, Sacred Star of Milos.

As far as the injected humor, which Arakawa does to relieve some of the tension and create a cathertic effect, but also to provide kind of a gallows humor, it's not as though one show has it more than the other, but rather 2003 had several episodes unrelated to the main plot where that kind of humor was aplenty, and 2009 tends to use it when Arakawa does, which is whenever she felt like the situation could use it. I agree that it doesn't always work, but I also sort of like it at times because it shows that human beings can joke around during stressful situations.

I sort of understand where Zac and Hope are coming from with the revelation exhaustion, and one of my gripes with FMA in the manga and Brotherhood (especially Brotherhood since it frames it a certain way with the direction) is that it sometimes feel like it's just going from one "big moment" or "big reveal" to another and making the connective tissue secondary. This is the identical problem I have with One Piece, by the way. You can point to a million great "big scenes" and "stand out moments" in One Piece, but the journey between them is such a slog and it's made in such a way that clearly the writer is trying to make EVERYTHING into a "big moment" rather than let those big moments come out on their own, naturally. Now, of course, FMA has a lot better writing than One Piece (sorry, Oda), with more gravity to even the basic narrative, so it's not suffering as severely as One Piece over this. But when you get these HUGE GASP REVELATIONS every chapter, that's not compelling writing, that's just pandering, and that's how some of the final leg of FMA's story feels to me, and what keeps it from being my all time favorite. But you can easily argue the 2003 series had a problem with that, too.

I think of the Dante vs Father thing this way: Father seems very disconnected and not particularly active in the goings on in the story, but he is this dark, twisted reflection of Hohenheim's, humanity's, and even sort of the reader's own desire to gain more knowledge. To Father, gaining the power of the Gate, the "God" of the Gate will allow him to be everything there is so he can never have to feel powerless again, as he did when he was born. Hohenheim just wanted the knowledge of alchemy as a slave to better his lot in life, so maybe he can have a family and make the people around him happy, to satiate his emptiness. In 2003, Dante has a petty, desperate need to continue living because she's narcissistic and believe that if she has the knowledge and ability to transfer bodies it makes everybody else chattel, and so you get the impression that in both cases people are little more than raw material for either of these villains. But what makes Father works, what makes the large scale countrywide plot to absorb "God" work when it cheapens lives is that it reflects in the desires of the protagonists in some way. With Dante, it's almost like, "You went through all that trouble for that?" I understand we're supposed to feel that way about her motivation, but after having gone through the entire series of events, you still have to feel your time watching these struggles is justified with a bigger, all-consuming motivation. I think either plan suits their respective stories.

I think my biggest problem with Father and his plan is that once he's actually SUCCEEDED in it, he doesn't really DO anything with that power. Sadly, we discover that Father's big weakness is, ultimately, he's not creative. At all. He has no creativity. He just sits around and continues to gloat. He doesn't, for instance, just snap his fingers and turn everybody into daffodils. Or make the planet a cube. Or blast himself into space to go look for other planets to hassle. He's just as he is normally, except looking younger and with more power. Even when his plan is reversed, he still has so much power, he could find a place to lay low while he comes up with a strategy. He's waited this long, he can't do this again? We don't even discover HOW he came to be removed from the Gate, or if there are more of him, or what he actually is in relation to the Gate. He kind of just wastes his power.

And that's the problem with having one of those enormous work-shaking motivations. What do you do when you've achieved that goal? And the answer we're given is: loaf around. Only what he's been doing this entire time.. But as a "final boss" he does provide an interesting threat in CONCEPT, if not in execution. Dante is mostly just a regular person who's pretty decent at alchemy, kind of sort of.

Remember, Father still has "God" in himself at this point, even after Amestrians' souls escape. He just can't contain it for very long unless he gets more souls. But he just basically stands around as everybody chips away at his stones.

But what is amazing about the manga, and Brotherhood, is that there's a lot of internal consistency with how the characters work, how the world works, how the alchemy elements and the mechanics of everything, the technology being used, the architecture, the world building altogether. It is the mostly single vision of a single individual, Hiromu Arakawa, who created these characters and story, and comes off as being better "lived in". FMA 2003, because Shou Aikawa and Seiji Mizushima had to go in a different direction, often has these really odd, offputtingly inconsistent plot and character choices. And then there's the ending and Conqueror of Shamballa, which is VERY divisive (I like it, but many others despise it).

But like I said, I love both shows. Arakawa created this full, lush, complex, involving world you can walk around in, but I enjoy the emotional weight of the 2003 TV series.

If you're looking for two shows with different approaches to the same or similar material... Bubblegum Crisis. Well, that isn't perfect, since they aren't based on a single manga, and 2040 is a remake of the original OVA in a different context. Also, nobody prefers 2040, even though it's decent. Hm, maybe this was a bad example.

When somebody asks me, "Which version of FMA should I watch?" I answer, "Both."

Also, 2003 was written by the Angel Cop guy. ANGEL COP.

tl:dr - WELL ACTUALLY, I LIKE BOTH, GUYS. GUYS, I LIKE BOTH. AREN'T I SPECIAL? I LIKE BOTH. GUYS. GUYS! I LIKE BOTH. GUUUUUUYS!


Last edited by penguintruth on Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:00 pm; edited 3 times in total
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SailorTralfamadore



Joined: 25 Feb 2014
Posts: 499
Location: Keep Austin Weeb
PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:37 pm Reply with quote
I'm glad to hear the response to the feminism question, because that was always something that supremely puzzled me, too. I love the 2003 series to pieces (it's my favorite anime), but coming out of it I did think it could've done better by its female characters and was eager to check out Brotherhood since I'd heard so much about it in that regard. But then all its female characters were comic-booky "buttkickers" whose characters ultimately revolved around their male love interest/son/whatever. '03 might have had less "awesome ladies" but the ones who did had more interesting and better-developed struggles. (Especially Lust, the one woman in the franchise who I'd say was actually a well-written female character. Only in the first anime, though) Overall, I just couldn't understand why this series was such a lightning-rod for feminist debate among the anime community.

That's not just because it's male-centric. There are male-protagonist, shonen/seinen series where I think how they deal with gender is an interesting conversation to have. To use a recent example: I do get why Attack on Titan has inspired so many passionate conversations about whether it's feminist, anti-feminist or somewhere in-between. It has multiple plot-moving female characters where it can be argued how complex, or empowering, or whatever their characterization is. It has multiple relationships between women that are plot-relevant -- something both versions of FMA largely lacked (only real example I can think of is Winry and Sheska's friendship in the first anime). Or on the other end, I get why Death Note's misogyny gets talked about so much even though it's a small part of that show. Fullmetal Alchemist doesn't offer any of that either way, and I really want to know where this fandom obsession with its feminism started, since it's such a huge part of my engagement with the fandom on Tumblr. Which, I know, Tumblr is a site that is obsessed with applying the "social justice" axis to anything and everything, but even so: there are other conversations to be had about FMA there, like how it deals with race (which was touched on here around the 45-minute mark) or disability, that I think are much meatier.

Is it just because it's a popular shonen show? I don't see people raging as much over the female characters in the far-more-popular Naruto or One Piece, though. I'm really really curious where the origin point for this particular debate is.

Anyway, as someone with a pretty strong preference for the 03 anime over Brotherhood, I agreed with a lot of what Zac and Hope said about the series. Yet I also really appreciated and second Mike Toole's comments about Riza Hawkeye, going back to the gender thing. It's nice to hear this from Brotherhood fans, since so many of them seem to think she's one of the stronger characters in that show. I generally think the character-writing in the manga/Brotherhood is weak, but she especially felt like someone where I was teased something really interesting and then it was...all about her relationship with a guy. Even if 2003 didn't develop her as much, the ambiguity made me more interested in her and her more equitable relationship with Roy Mustang.

penguintruth wrote:
I am really glad that Zac recognized that there were enough differences in the first thirteen episodes of Brotherhood that it couldn't just be skipped. Many times I've heard the advice to people that "Oh, you should just watch the original up until the end of the Greed stuff and then go into Brotherhood after the Greed stuff there" and the like. What happened was that Arakawa specified to Bones where she was going with the manga when they were working on the first show and wanted them to take it in a different direction, which they did starting almost immediately. If you ignore the changes early on, later on things will be very confusing, and there was a definite necessity for Bones to get through that material in Brotherhood.


I second this so much. That was always a fan "truism" that frustrated me, too, and I figured it came from people who just hadn't seen one or the other in a while and were relying on vague remembrances of what happened. I mean, Sloth is a part of the group that kills Hughes in the 2003 anime, and in Brotherhood that homunculus is a completely different character who doesn't show up at all until about 2/3 of the way through the series. If you're not aware of that, switching to Brotherhood after Hughes's death is going to leave you horribly confused.


Last edited by SailorTralfamadore on Fri Jan 23, 2015 6:05 am; edited 2 times in total
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