Forum - View topicREVIEW: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Blu-Ray Box Set 2
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LightningCount
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Has anyone tried to blend the two series in a viewing experience? Like, take the beginning of FMA 2003 and then when it's about to diverge, switch to Brotherhood. Does that work? I've always wondered. Seems like someone would have made an episode viewing guide like that. (Kind of like how there are filler episode guides for series.)
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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That sounds like a terrible way to watch FMA. Those 'filler guides' are also pretty terrible, because every list I see lists episodes that are not "filler". Is it really that hard for people to watch a show normally like everyone else? |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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I don't think it would be plausible to combine the experiences like that because even the parts of the original anime that are based on the manga do deviate from the source material quite a bit like the whole story with Barry the Chopper is entirely different. I think simply watching both series back to back is enough to give you the best experience. Whichever version you end up preferring, you're still mostly going to get a quality anime experience (if you ignore the movies).
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steelmirror
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Top Gun
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Another place that has significant diversions between the two series is the Laboratory 5 arc. Because of what's going on in the story, the 2003 adaptation winds up having much higher stakes there, which disappointed me when I came to that part in Brotherhood, since what I'd rank as one of the most beautiful little character moments in the entire franchise (spoiler[Ross embracing an alchemically-overloaded Ed to bring him back to his senses]) doesn't appear in it at all.
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Zeino
Posts: 1098 |
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Oh boy, the old FMA Manga/Brotherhood vs FMA 2003 debate... And here I thought it had been settled years ago. The answer is they are both good and people shouldn't fight sbout it anymore. Hiromu Arakawa wanted FMA 2003 to be it's own thing.
What it comes down to in the end is a matter of taste and philosophical views, Do you want a series that genuinely believes in the overall goodness of humanity and if you persevere through the pain and hardship and never lose hope for yourself or loved ones then you can overcome all odds? Then Brotherhood is the series for you. Do you want a series that while not super-cynical (It does reject the abhorrent selfish nihilism of Dante and it's version of Kimblee after all) is about how even good people can make flawed and comprised choices, that the evils of the world come not from demonic outside forces like Father but from humanity itself and that says that you don't always achieve what you want, but if you try you just might get what you need, and that struggle is what makes life worth living. Then FMA 2003 will be your favorite of the two. If any of you have 55 minutes then watch this retrospective here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9VmvzHGow It will help you realize that both anime versions complement each other and the best experience really is to watch and appreciate both of them as two sides of the same thematic coin. |
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grooven
Posts: 1424 Location: Canada |
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I actually did this. I watched the original and never got around to seeing Brotherhood for ten years. I skipped Brotherhood's beginning episodes and opted for 2003 beginning instead. There are a few inconsistencies and I had to look them up and started when the stories began to diverge. What you get is a stronger opener. Which really sells spoiler[the death scenes of Nina and Hughes ] I'll always love 2003. The beginning it was much stronger than Brotherhood ever was, I also really appreciated the themes and direction it went. However, I enjoyed Brotherhood's conclusion much more. |
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LightningCount
Posts: 229 |
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Thanks for the thoughtful replies. It was not my intention to pit the two series against one another, or to champion filler viewing lists, it's just that each has their strengths and weaknesses, and I was curious if it's possible to get the best of both worlds rather than watching both--which I have. It's just, when I watched them both, I did notice that it was awkward going through some of the same material again, especially since that familiar territory of the earlier stuff seemed to have a stronger showing the first time around. (I already expressed my thoughts on that earlier in the thread...though I did leave out, as someone mentioned, the discrepancies of the amount of use of chibi-style comedy.)
It just came to mind because there are similar plus-minus scenarios in other anime. DBZ Kai is better paced than the original DBZ for newcomers, but some of the build-up and creative interludes that are lost hurt the world-building, sense of uniqueness, and character development/importance. Likewise, Gundam: The Origin OVA series (which is getting a TV version this year) is kind of an awesome new introduction to the Universal Century timeline of Gundam that enhances the emotions of what you see in the original 1979 series...except, some of its changes (being based on an alternate manga telling) don't fit with things you see and hear in that series it leads directly into: Gundam 0079. |
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BadNewsBlues
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Hope that wasn't Scar who said that being he's the same one who by this point had murdered scores of people in the name of his revenge to say nothing of the fact that Roy was a participant in the Ishvallian Massacre (which Scar is a survivor of).....which means he's already done some monstrous things but for less selfish reasons than Scar. |
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kakoishii
Posts: 741 |
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I think this is because Fruits Basket has had the benefit of being over 15 years removed from its original incarnation. While there are certainly some viewers who watched the original early 00's series, like myself, the series isn't as fresh in most people's minds. The remainder of the audience, which is likely the majority, have likely never even seen the original series, so the show runners don't have to feel pushed to rush over plot points people may remember from the earlier series. They can tell them just as they are without feeling as thought the audience will feel bogged down by retread. On the flipside, Brotherhood was only about 5-6 years removed from the original series. Much of its viewership had already seen the original series and it was still fresh in their minds. Not only that, but it's clear to most people that those early episodes did a phenomenal job of adapting the early parts of the manga. The Lior arc in particular I don't think could have been done any better as it was practically flawless and set the tone for the entire series. On some level, I think Bones knew this and thus wanted to avoid the impossible task of topping themselves and opted instead to work their way through a lot of retread as quickly as possible so they could move on to new plot points that had never been animated before. Unfortunately, this led to early arcs like Lior and the backstory of how the Elrics became the way they were to feel rushed and they for the most part lacked a lot of the emotional resonance they had before. It was a sacrifice they made that may not have necessarily panned out, but I can't fault them for making it. I guess this adds credence to the belief that neither version of the series should really stand on its own, it's only together that they make a fully satisfying watch. |
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Gem-Bug
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Thank you! Absolutely all of this. Both are different versions of a similar story, and both are quite excellent because of those differences. |
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SakuraFox512
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Definitely. I always recommend to anybody who asks how to navigate the series to watch through episodes 1~28 of FMA 2003 first, and then switch over to Brotherhood in its entirety before going back and finishing off '03. It provides the stronger early moments (so that somebody can actually get the full impact out of Hughes' character, the Nina + Tucker story, etc.) while stopping at a relatively clean break point before episode 29 comes and FMA 2003 starts rolling really hard in its own direction for its remainder. |
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EndGears
Posts: 10 |
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I'm firmly in the camp of someone who greatly prefers the original adaptation, but I respect Brotherhood and people who like it. I just don't like Arawaka's story and Aikawa greatly improved on the source material for me at least.
I just wanted to post saying THAT YOU CANNOT COMBINE THE TWO ADAPTATIONS! Brotherhood basically rushed the manga A BIT. It only skipped two of the chapters and the first fourteen episodes are pretty much the manga with yes some rushing, but that's normal of adaptations. The myth that FMAB rushed anything is because the original added major amounts of ORIGINAL content and it was just downright much better directed. FMAB is literally mostly the manga, even from the beginning. The biggest issues with Brotherhood is because they copypasted the manga, for the most part, and really the manga beginning is by no means good for me at least, only slightly better than FMAB's which FMAB did make worse by rushing it. Irie literally said this: "Instead of saying that there wasn't much creative freedom, I'd rather say the standard was basically just the manga. That was sort of like the Bible for the whole thing " regarding Brotherhood. Combining the two is disrespectful to both the original and FMAB and cannot be done. Timeline hijinks, tons and tons of original content, just a total different tone and adaptation make even the beginnings different. There is no way to combine the two.
Or people could just watch both adaptations back to back? I really want to say that combining the two does not work and should not be encouraged. The Hughes stuff was original FMA greatly expanding his role in the manga/hanging it and the way he dies is completely different. There is zero clean break, in those episodes you literally have divergences and so much original content, Lab Arc a huge point of difference to point to where it was a huge arc in the original, WHICH WAS MOSTLY ORIGINAL BTW, and only one episode in FMAB in which FMAB's episode was a literal 1:1 adaptation of the manga! Nina? Her role was greatly expanded on in the original and her death and the circumstances around it was completely different to set up more original content. Combining the two cannot be done and should not be encouraged. [EDIT: Do not double-post. Use the "edit" button instead. ~Zalis] Last edited by EndGears on Mon May 06, 2019 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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SakuraFox512
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Opinions are fine, but I feel like it's a little overblown to say that combining the two is "disrespectful" and that you totally cannot combine them. I suggest the method of watching I mentioned to newcomers, because most people I've been around wound up preferring Brotherhood overall in the end, while still liking 2003. So I considered what could be the best way available to get the strongest experience out of FMA, given what I know about Brotherhood's breakneck-to-the-point-of-detrimental glossing of the early parts of the story (2003 took over twenty episodes covering many events that Brotherhood touched upon in maybe half that), yet better overall pacing and generally better job of fleshing out the characters who aren't named 'Elric'. I also took in others' opinions on where they felt things strongly shifted between the two adaptions and which adaption covered similar events the best. To your other points, regardless of Hughes and Nina's situations not being exactly the same between 2003 and Brotherhood, the point was ultimately that if you watch Brotherhood first, neither event is nearly as striking, simply because 2003 handled them better. You don't have enough time with Hughes in Brotherhood to care half as strongly when he kicks the bucket, because he's dead by episode 10 in there and got less screen time, for starters. Brotherhood also didn't adapt the train incident at all, and his addition to it in the 2003 adaptation served as a far better 'character-establishing moment' for him than just popping in to be friendly to the Elrics upon meeting them like he was in Brotherhood. And I'm aware that there are differences in 2003 already by the time episode 28 is done, my point was they haven't reached critical mass by then -- you can easily jump over to Brotherhood at that point and run through it without much confusion, because the differences that are present at that point are pretty simple to note, instead of things you'd need to reflect on more or get 'stuck' on. Shou Tucker? Scar explodes him in Brotherhood early on, so there's no real potential confusion about how his plotline differs between 2003 and Brotherhood. Laboratory 5? It also wraps itself up quickly in Brotherhood, only coming up briefly later as part of the Nationwide Transmutation Circle, whereas 2003 made it clear it would hold more immediate weight and the other differences contained are basic enough (ex. Barry's background is a bit different and his personality's not the same, but the former isn't vitally important to remember, and the latter is self-evident).
Sure, but when it comes to something that's above 100 episodes total between both adaptations and one of them tends to be more divisive in its reception (I enjoyed 2003 plenty, but the general opinion on it is clearly more divided than Brotherhood), that can be an issue. If you, say...suggest 2003 first and they don't like it much for whatever reason, saying 'try Brotherhood out' becomes a harder sell, so to speak (and vice-versa). Meanwhile, if you were to tell them to try Brotherhood first and they like that, their viewing of 2003 is weakened because several earlier moments it excelled on (such as Hughes and Nina's) were at least partially blown. Any initial surprise is gone (obviously), and moreover, blown on a weaker telling of the events. |
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EndGears
Posts: 10 |
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Cause it is disrespectful. Aikawa and Mizushima + all the other staff of the OG adaptation did all that work and greatly expanded/improved on the source material and you're relegating what was considered one of the best anime of all time to simply serve as a way to excuse FMAB's beginning? Cause that's really what this post and other people who suggest this path feel to me. It's a way to make Brotherhood appear as better and just further place the original adaptation into complete irrelevancy. Sorry that you feel FMAB's beginning wasn't up to par, that really doesn't give you the right to use another adaptation to better another one. FMAB is more if an adaptation of the manga than FMA ever was. The orignal's beginning is like it is because the staff of that show had the sense to greatly expand on the manga. Hughes was considered a throwaway character in the manga. Arawaka literally said she didn't expect Hughes to be loved so much and she had to add more Hughes stuff because the original adaptation did so much with him. Nina was nowhere near as important in the manga or FMAB and served a completely different purpose in the original and her death was better because the original greatly expanded on her character. I could go on and on about the changes done and how much they greatly impact the stoey I really have no problem with people who prefer Brotherhood. I do have a problem with people who try to shoehorn in original adaptation content because they want to make Brotherhood look better. That's what so disrespectful. The original adaptation deserves to be watched as a standalone. It's not supposed to be used as some weird chimera hybrid. The manga/FMAB has zero right to its content. Let people decide what they want to like more instead of trying to glorify what is already now considered to be the best anime of all time these days.That's pretty pathetic if FMAB needs another show to make it better. The last thing the original needs is for it to be just considered as just supplementary material for FMAB. It's already been disparaged enough. An anime that was ranked 1 on MAL, viewed as a classic, ranked 1 in Japan in the two years it wasn't even airing, and considered to be the best anime of its time being treated like this is beyond disrespectful imo. I'd actually prefer people just outright skipping the original adaptation than doing this hamfisted method of shoehorning content. |
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