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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood -[adult swim] (w/index).

I agree that his revenge plot wasn't very subtle in either version, though it was definitely subtler in the first series. In the sense that it was left ambiguous (though still addressed) until the climax of the story.

And I think what Charred Knight is getting at with "the villains being very obviously villains" is that Arakawa's villains do tend to have fewer shades of grey. The whole good/evil divide in the manga, by that definition, isn't very subtle.

And for the record the "revenge plot" is not addressed in the manga until the final arc. The word "revenge" does not even enter Roy or any other character's mouth until this point. So trying to act like the manga was in your face about "revenge" is ridiculous. Roy trying to find out how killed Hughes is not the same as it's all about revenge.
So no I don't understand how the first anime is more subtle just because Roy briefly mentions about revenge towards the end of the series. Again the only difference is finding out who killed Hughes ends up being a bigger part of the Manga's plot (the whole revenge aspect comes much later).

And for the record saying it's an "after thought" was not an insult to the first series. I am just saying it was not as important to the main storyline. It wasn't left ambiguous, it was just left briefly for the end. Can we not say that the two series have different focuses?

If you are saying the main villains don't have sad back stories then yes I would agree with you. And yes the villains are more straight villains types but most of them do have more to their characters besides 'just being evil." But really does a villain have to be gray to be well written?

Also there are gray characters in the manga: Scar, Roy, and Riza come to mind.

Anyway, it wasn't a big deal, I wasn't really annoyed until Mustang's line (and it may be dub-only, but I doubt it,) "I think Hughes deserves an answer. I'm going to do this because I have to. This is something I have to do."

Unfortunately explaining what I mean about "why Roy's revenge for Hughes" is a bigger subplot in the manga is again going to lead to spoilers (kind of an issue on this thread). I can discuss it with you on the other thread to explain what I mean.

While Mustang stating his goal out loud isn't exactly necessary, the manga at least deserves credit for the ambiguity concerning whether/how far Mustang is willing to use violence to reach his goals.

However, I have to praise Christine Auten for her performance as Izumi. I liked her in the first series dub and I might even like her more here, because her performance is so strong. It's really great. She even sounds a lot like the Japanese voice actress. She's come a long way as a VA.

Yay, King Bradley.

Episode 14 is one of my favorite Brotherhood episodes. Watching it dubbed was very enjoyable.