Forum - View topicNEWS: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Premieres on U.S. TV
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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HA HA HA HA! I get to watch anime on a NICE TV for once. I'm at my parents' house for the weekend and they went to bed, so I hijacked the HD den-beast and am ready to watch some FMA~ (I will have to keep the volume down, but que sera sera.)
I guess I'll take notes as I type and post when finished. Never done that before! Anyway, I've seen this episode. I think I watched five episodes of Brotherhood before giving up. But I'm willing to follow it if it's just one episode a week and I can watch the old familiar dub cast in action again...because I am such a huge fan...of the manga, first anime, and the dub...even if I still think the first series was superior and the opening eps for Brotherhood were a big old fanpandering slog devoid of any cinematic finesse. X_x * A commercial. OwO And it is badass, like, a pretty nice little advert there. Sorry, um...show's on in five! My parents just closed their door. This is probably very good. I'ma turn this bad boy up. * Al speaks! It is higher pitched than I expected, MUCH more so, but not girly, really. Let's see how it goes! * Oh, you did NOT just edit the theme song, I loved this opening--psh, well I knew they would. It's only normal. (pout) Seriously, though, if there's one thing this series trumps the previous one in, it's the opening and ending theme...the first ones, anyway, I haven't seen the future ones. * Oh good, some natural dialogue in this opening fight with Isaac. I KNOW I remembered this being really facepalmingly forced originally. But it looks like they changed Ed's weirder lines all through here, not drastically, just...you know, more like actual things a person would say in english. * Well I've only seen the episode in question once, but I caught an edit here! Isaac falls and turns the water into steam here, but they kinda cut out the part where he...actually falls and everyone reacts, just for time, I guess. This is a hard episode to cut for time. Isaac is walking walking walking OH WAIT NOW HE'S ON THE GROUND, steam, escape, wut. So yeah. * And they painted in Mustang's thought bubble? LOL. I mean "GASP! Can't have anyone knowing this show is from Japan!" Actually, in their defense, the only thing in that bubble were the words "And he comes barging in, as usual" or something to that effect. Painted in a gloomy purple, it...pretty much means the same thing without putting up subs for a dumb exposition line. Touche, then. * Hughes is peppy! I mean, WOW, he's peppy. I know he was weirdly high-strung in the Japanese here too, but Sonny Strait just sounds plain goofy. Oh well, I know better than to expect as much out of his character in this series since it is straight from the manga after a few initial episodes or so I am told...and manga Hughes...well, I like anime Hughes better. I honestly do not think much of the FMA manga at all until about 8 or 9 volumes in and then I think the world of it. It gets so much better. I think Hiromu Arakawa started taking pacing and storytelling tips from the anime adaptation to be perfectly honest. Timewise, it does make sense. * Elicia is different here. I guess the original little girl that played her got a little too old, which is too bad. I don't think anyone but an actual small child could have rent my heart in two so bad spoiler[when Hughes died in the first anime.] That was...intense.  Not nearly as ADORABLE now with an older woman faking chibi-Elicia, but it works. That's what happens with kids and all, the darn things get older.
* Well, I'm in love with Mignogna's Edward again. I just...I don't know, he is good in this. I think he's typically quite good as a voice actor, but he is a REALLY good Edward here, and goodness knows he loves the part to death, which must help. * Ha ha, a pun here, clever little rewrite. In the Japanese, Elicia gleefully shouts "Training training!" after the boys say intensive body training is why Al won't take off his armor. Just that cute repetition thing a lot of kid characters do in anime, I think. Heh, they changed to "Training, training, CHOO CHOO, whoo~" No no, Elicia, not that kind of train... * Brian Massey is less goofy and psychotic as Isaac than the seiyuu was. It doesn't particularly matter since Isaac is an extremely minor character and all, but it's just something I noticed. When I first saw this in Japanese, I spent the whole episode laughing at Isaac and going "generic vengeance-hound is generic!" but not so here. Without all the cartoony yakuza-esque trilling, I kinda feel for the guy. I mean, he IS right about the military and everything he's trying to do here (save for killing officers just doing their jobs, of course,) the good guys are in fact in the wrong, and it's no spoiler to say so in Brotherhood because they...ruin the surprise, the turds who wrote this adaptation. Yes, the fans already know, but please make this a standalone. Please? I'm sorry for calling you turds. ...In any case, when Massey said (not shouted hammily) "Don't you people understand I'm trying to save this country?!" I really did feel bad for him. * Oh gosh, I want to put Al in my pocket and take him home, oh gosh. Maxey Whitehead is the cutest thing. I mean, seriously, I really love this Al. I'm not sure if maybe...I mean, she is CLEARLY more timid-sounding than Aaron Dismuke was, but that's about the only big acting difference between them. Voicewise, she's quite a bit higher pitched, but bottom line, I'm not sure if maybe she's...CUTER even than Dismuke. Maybe! I don't know, they're both good, so I refuse to compare. (So cute, so cu~te.) * "INDEED! None other!" It's Armstrong! ...And every line he speaks makes it obvious this is a fan exploitation episode for a fan-exploitation sort of series. Hooray? Oh well, I do love me some Armstrong, and it is kind of funny. * "Water from his canteen, huh?" I wish they'd been more adaptive with this line and cut out the shonen-y exposition repetition. Another thing that Series A didn't possess so much of and Series B is squirting out of every scene, PARTICULARLY in the first episode. It's like a big exposition buffet or something. "Oh, we have forced explanations for EVERY aspect of this series! Look! Here's some about the corruption in the military, some about the brothers' guilt, some about Mustang being an ambitious arse and Hughes is a family man, and Kimbley is a crazed war criminal who will no doubt be important later, and here's some homunculi and a cameo of their master, and OH, this took 20 episodes or so originally! Look at how we save time!" X__x * I can't help but kinda giggle as a 47-year old man ramps into falsetto (with heavy scratch in it) to play a ten year old-ish boy who is crying and screaming and bleeding all over the place. Oh, anime...the funny thing is that while he doesn't sound the least bit like a ten year old boy, his acting is REALLY genuine again here, so I totally do not care. I mean, he wasn't just screaming, that was a really good little ten seconds of fairly layered acting there, considering I know what's going on in that scene (and so does the rest of the viewership, I'd assume.) * Okay, this isn't about the dub, but...EXPOSING THE MILITARY AS COMPLETELY EVIL in the first episode kills so much of the impact of this story, as does randomly cameoing the ultimate villain for no reason other than to tease the fans...I don't care if everyone knows about these details or whatever, please try to make this standalone in some way? One of the very best things about the first series was how it played with this angle of trust and moral gray area in the military, even leading to an analogy spoiler[between Amestris and pre-WWII Germany, and not in a cheap "Godwin's Law" kind of way, but an excellently executed one.] I hate feeling like I'm watching a product made to be sold to fans, and, you know, that's what this feels like, every inch of it. I hope it gets better. I really am just watching to see manga material and the dub now. 
* Oh look, Riza's only line in this episode is an in-joke from the first series that no one else will get, much less know who the character is! Yay! ...I am growing increasingly bitter and must cut it out and focus on the dub here. * Laura Bailey! As Lust! Yay! Seriously, I haven't heard much of her in things lately. She moved, didn't she, was that it? Either way, she's long been one of my favorite VAs to listen to, so it's good to hear her Lust again. (Without the capital letter on that name, that...sentence would be fairly awkward.) * And it looks like the ending theme was edited too. Don't miss that as much, as they didn't cut out the good part like they did in the opening...I mean, seriously, they cut out all the best segments in that opening...(sigh) must remind myself it's NOT a big deal... =w= Well, that was fun. Shame that was the end of Bryan Massey, but what can you do? Only...a coupla dozen weeks before we get to hear Lin! * And I went ahead and stuck around for the opening of Bleach, because Bleach tends to get awesome openings (this one was weird, though, are they in a filler arc. maybe? I don't know, I don't watch it!)...and -CLICK- ain't gon watch the rest... ^ I am screwy when I type without forethought. So many emoticons and ellipses...wow. Oh well, that's basically what I got outta that! 
He sounded the same to me. So much the same that I didn't have anything to comment on. I think his lines at the beginning were WRITTEN a little awkwardly, in terms of the tempo and the spacing, and that'll mess you up. Fuhrer Bradley was the same way, his first couple lines. But they were exposition-tastic and forced in the Japanese, so hey. As for Hughes, I agree that he sounded different, which I noted, but I thought he was crazy peppy and strange in this version to begin with, back when I first watched the subbed episode. So that's not him, that's the writing. His one serious line was also FLAPFLAPFLAPFLAP really fast, so either adultswim sped it up a little or it was just a bitch to match...I think they sped it up. As for Isaac, HA HA HA, I thought the Japanese was kinda "intolerable"...well, not really, just cartoony and RAWR, I AM EVIL AND BITTER. I laughed when he died. This time I felt really bad for him. So no, Massey's acting was better. I don't even find that very debatable as a matter of "not knowing the language" or whatever, it was a big difference, and I preferred the low key approach, episodic character or not. As for whether or not he can act, have you seen Baccano! perchance? His performance in that should be proof enough that he can act, oh yes he can, and he can act hammy-crazy as well...he just chose not to here, and I very much appreciated it. Last edited by JacobC on Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:26 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Fiction Alchemist
Posts: 438 |
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Last edited by Fiction Alchemist on Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:15 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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JesuOtaku, you have to be kidding me if you thought the script rewrites helped the episode. Funimation should learn that they aren't creative or witty and should stop trying so hard to rewrite scripts to be "cool". That's when you get crap like "Smellric brothers" (Greed is not an eight year old) and "Give mommy a hug, my prince of cool" like in the first series dub.
English Isaac sounds like they literally pulled in somebody from the Funimation office and gave him a few cards with lines on them. I have a hard time believing that person is a professional voice actor. He made him sound like a generic angry voice. |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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You always give the FMA dub such a hard time so much in that I can't really agree with alot of what you said, penguintruth. Seems very exaggerated, but to each their own. Really love the dubbing in this episode and hope it continues forward.
But, I think I'm going to love the first series better. This one seems to have too much comedy for me if they keep this up. |
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BunnyCupCakes
 Posts: 224 Location: The Sunshine State |
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Eh, I didn't think Isaac was that bad.
He did sound alittle awkard in the beginning but I think his VA pulled it through pretty well. And while I adored the OP and ED songs to the first series, the new ones....aren't so great. Maybe the songs will grow on me over time -shrug- Either way, I enjoyed this episode very much. |
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penguintruth
Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Well, I admit, I'm probably in the minority about the dub, at least here. But I do know of several others who felt the same as I did. And don't worry, this episode was an anime-only thing that packed in a lot of wackiness the manga, and thus most of this show, usually doles out better. I think you'll like the new show plenty. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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@Fiction Alchemist Um, the edit was really tiny. Yes, he does fall, but he doesn't hit the ground. I could be totally wrong, yeah, but IIRC, what happens is he falls, the soldiers turn, he's hit the ground, he smiles, he turns everything to steam, and panic ensues. So what they would have cut would be like...three seconds. It was miniscule. Heck, maybe they just sped it up and I blinked and missed those uncut frames that were just --vvvvvt-- run through. They have done that in the past, particularly with fights.
Um, those two lines were kinda "eh" in the original, you're right, but not crappy horrible. Greed does say some retarded things, that was not out of character. The "prince of cool" line was stupid. Still that has zero bearing on the tiny things they changed here. I don't even remember the Japanese lines in that fight, but I remember wincing at them. They didn't change anything to be witty. All Ed says is "Don't act too impressed" to Isaac before Al attacks, which makes sense and all, and then "Well, you did ruin my coat" instead of...was it something about "DERP MY ARM'S METAL AND NOT REAL" originally? Without the disrespectful sarcasm?  Either way, they weren't corny changes or anything, adaptive writing is a godsend for anime because colloquialisms, speech patterns, the list goes on and on...they just work very differently between Japanese and English. And that's okay, you enjoy each language track differently. I'm all for improvement if it's possible though.
As for Brian Massey, okay, we'll agree to disagree on his performance as this completely generic angry character, (generic angry voice, generic angry character, I think it works, anyway. I'll take the one that shouts hammily far less between them personally, but it is a cartoon and a crazed villain-type, so I can't blame you for choosing the cartoonier Mr. Freeze between them.) BUT I do really wanna combat you on Brian Massey, because you are quite mistaken in thinking he's just reading off cards in a gravelly voice. The gravelly voice is his natural register, and the choice to downplay the character instead of rant and rave like the seiyuu played him was conscious, not a bad case of monotone. I implore you to watch at least the first 40 seconds of this, seriously. In that case, he did need to be crazy over-the-top nutso without sounding like a cartoon character. He had to come off as VERY threatening and still screwy. And danged if it isn't one of the best dub performances I've heard in a long time. |
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Haterater
Posts: 1727 |
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Ah, thanks for the heads up, penguintruth. The comedy threw me off some, so hearing it flows better later on is good.
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taster of pork
 Posts: 594 Location: My House |
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I don't like the new dub
 Ed sounds alright. But Al sounds to young and Mustang sounds to old.
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jr240483
 Posts: 4381 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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well it has been over 4 years since the original so you shouldn't be susprised age has changed Mustang's voice. Everyone else is still as decent as the original though they should have kept Al's old voice. At least It's at midnight instead of 1am or 2am like what they did with CG so i'll take that trade off for an eariler timeslot. |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7344 Location: Maine |
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No, "ALONES" (by Aqua Timez) is the opening for canon episodes. Kind of a shame we got a song like that to follow up YUI's amazing "Rolling Star" which was used partially for filler episodes. For me it's the second worst Bleach opening, behind "Shōjo S" by Scandal, I just can't stand that one, or the opening animation for that matter (Bleach does NOT need a dance routine!). Aqua Timez did do a much better job on their second Bleach opening, "Velonica" which is quite decent and accompanied by some really stunning art. And since everyone else is doing it, some quick impressions of the new(-ish) dub: Ed - Perfect, Vic hasn't lost his touch. Al - Sounds like a shy little girl whispering. Some times she sounds like the Al we're used to, but it might take a while to really get there (assuming we ever do). Mustang - Initial reaction from his first lines was that he is much deeper than before, but he eased back into the roll quickly. Bradley - Doesn't sound quite as aged as the original run, there's something missing in the way the lines are delivered, he almost sounds younger. Hawkeye - Seems they're sticking with the deep, sterner voice of old. While that worked with the first series, it might not work here since this Riza is much more easy going, cheerful, and feminine. Curious how the voice will be handled later, it was only one line this time. The rest were fine by me, though I like how arrogant the Japanese Kimblee is over the brash boisterous English voice. But again, it wasn't a lot of lines so we'll see how it goes later. Emerje |
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Mika20
Posts: 32 |
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It's really no surprise to me on how different some of the characters will sound. From watching episode 1, I think all the voices are alright. I knew Al's voice was replaced, but so far I think he sounded good.
I really like it with no problems at all. The show is still awesome and funny. |
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Everminde
Posts: 9 |
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Although I'm a huge fan of the first anime, I'm open minded about Brotherhood. If BONES felt strongly enough about the original material to do a retelling, who am I to argue with that logic? Looking forward to it.
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kpk
 Posts: 484 |
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And by *This* you mean.. The Japanese? |
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penguintruth
Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Huh? No, I meant the English dub of the first series was better than this episode's English dub. And since I wasn't a fan of that English dub, that should tell you how I felt about Brotherhood's first episode English dub. |
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