Before I go into what I think about Brotherhood I just want to say a couple things.
1) There will be some spoilers because I want to compare some plot points of Brotherhood and the original Fullmetal Alchemist. 2) I'm only talking about what happens up to episode 39 because that is all of the dubbed episodes I have seen so far. I only watch dubbed and not subbed because I'm not a crazy person. 3) Some people think that I outright hate anime, which isn't entirely true, I just hate most anime.
.... Anyways, now that I'm up to episode 39, I have been introduced to a lot of the storyline to be able to make a judgement of the overall show. I thoroughly enjoyed the original and I was glad to hear that there will be new run of the show that is supposed to follow the story of the manga more closely. I didn't really have much of an opinion around the beginning of FMA: Brotherhood because both series follow a similar story line up to the 5th Laboratory incident. Some stuff happens sooner in one series than the other, like when Hughes is killed. It's basically right after the 5th Lab that both series branch off into different directions with the story.
You know shit is about to go down when you can actually see his eye. The parts that I'm really liking about Brotherhood are most of the new characters that are introduced. Lin Yao, who at first was kinda annoying, develops into a more compelling character throughout the series. Of course he is kinda taking a backseat at the moment now that he isn't human anymore....for now I guess. Olivier Armstrong is also quite entertaining to watch despite having a standard "hardass" personality. The only new character I don't really care much for is probably Shao May.......might just be because of that stupid panda midget thing she has.... Oh and I just remembered that Alphonse is way better in Brotherhood because he basically can do what Ed can.
As for the plot, I'm really digging it. I'm kinda tied on which creation story of the humunculi I prefer. Both are pretty good. The idea of there being two Hohenheims has me very interested in what will happen later in the plot. As for the evil plans stuff, I prefer Brotherhood's over the original FMA. The scope of Brotherhood is a lot bigger because the plan is to use all of Amestris as an ingredient for a Philosopher's Stone instead of the original FMA, where Liore was just going to be used to create the stone.
Oh anime, you so crazy. Wait, dude! I need to talk to further the plot and tell you why I'm so strong! I do have some issues with Brotherhood, though. My one major problem with it, is the amount of typical anime "wackiness" that occurs throughout this show. The original did have its share of it too, but Brotherhood takes it a lot further. I think that nearly every episode so far has at least one moment where I just *facepalm. I hate that shit, it's why I dislike most anime. My other annoyance is just the common situation of, hey I'm fighting you, but wait I need to stop the fight and inform you why I'm kicking your ass. There is way too much explanations going on when they should just keep on fighting, but it's not really a major problem. A lot of anime suffers from this, Dragon Ball Z is probably the winner if my childhood memories are accurate.
Overall, I'm enjoying Brotherhood very much. FMA is one of my favorites, so being able to see a different story of it is fantastic. I am aware that FMA didn't follow the manga storyline which is why a number of people hate/don't care for it, but I myself don't care about that reasoning. For what it was, FMA's own story was still pretty solid. That isn't stopping me from liking Brotherhood either and at this point, I will have to wait till the ending of this show to finally know which series I prefer over the other.
Lastly, I want to add this because anything involving anime in Giantbomb requires it.
It's only funny as long as anime fans continue to bitch about it. 31 Comments
Before I go into what I think about Brotherhood I just want to say a couple things.
1) There will be some spoilers because I want to compare some plot points of Brotherhood and the original Fullmetal Alchemist. 2) I'm only talking about what happens up to episode 39 because that is all of the dubbed episodes I have seen so far. I only watch dubbed and not subbed because I'm not a crazy person. 3) Some people think that I outright hate anime, which isn't entirely true, I just hate most anime.
.... Anyways, now that I'm up to episode 39, I have been introduced to a lot of the storyline to be able to make a judgement of the overall show. I thoroughly enjoyed the original and I was glad to hear that there will be new run of the show that is supposed to follow the story of the manga more closely. I didn't really have much of an opinion around the beginning of FMA: Brotherhood because both series follow a similar story line up to the 5th Laboratory incident. Some stuff happens sooner in one series than the other, like when Hughes is killed. It's basically right after the 5th Lab that both series branch off into different directions with the story.
You know shit is about to go down when you can actually see his eye. The parts that I'm really liking about Brotherhood are most of the new characters that are introduced. Lin Yao, who at first was kinda annoying, develops into a more compelling character throughout the series. Of course he is kinda taking a backseat at the moment now that he isn't human anymore....for now I guess. Olivier Armstrong is also quite entertaining to watch despite having a standard "hardass" personality. The only new character I don't really care much for is probably Shao May.......might just be because of that stupid panda midget thing she has.... Oh and I just remembered that Alphonse is way better in Brotherhood because he basically can do what Ed can.
As for the plot, I'm really digging it. I'm kinda tied on which creation story of the humunculi I prefer. Both are pretty good. The idea of there being two Hohenheims has me very interested in what will happen later in the plot. As for the evil plans stuff, I prefer Brotherhood's over the original FMA. The scope of Brotherhood is a lot bigger because the plan is to use all of Amestris as an ingredient for a Philosopher's Stone instead of the original FMA, where Liore was just going to be used to create the stone.
Oh anime, you so crazy. Wait, dude! I need to talk to further the plot and tell you why I'm so strong! I do have some issues with Brotherhood, though. My one major problem with it, is the amount of typical anime "wackiness" that occurs throughout this show. The original did have its share of it too, but Brotherhood takes it a lot further. I think that nearly every episode so far has at least one moment where I just *facepalm. I hate that shit, it's why I dislike most anime. My other annoyance is just the common situation of, hey I'm fighting you, but wait I need to stop the fight and inform you why I'm kicking your ass. There is way too much explanations going on when they should just keep on fighting, but it's not really a major problem. A lot of anime suffers from this, Dragon Ball Z is probably the winner if my childhood memories are accurate.
Overall, I'm enjoying Brotherhood very much. FMA is one of my favorites, so being able to see a different story of it is fantastic. I am aware that FMA didn't follow the manga storyline which is why a number of people hate/don't care for it, but I myself don't care about that reasoning. For what it was, FMA's own story was still pretty solid. That isn't stopping me from liking Brotherhood either and at this point, I will have to wait till the ending of this show to finally know which series I prefer over the other.
Lastly, I want to add this because anything involving anime in Giantbomb requires it.
It's only funny as long as anime fans continue to bitch about it.
@Axxol: You can read the first two paragraphs because I only get spoily afterwards but basically Brotherhood and FMA branch off in completely different ways, storywise, right after what happens at Laboratory 5. The Homunculi are also different in how they are made and who they listen to. It's very different. So far, I'm enjoying it. Oh and some characters that were minor in FMA become major in Brotherhood.
@ZeForgotten: Some people definitely have embraced this in a religious kind of way but man some anime fans really get butt hurt over it. People need to chill.
@Axxol: Be sure to also check out the movie, Conqueror of Shamballa. It continues the original FMA story right after the series ended. It gives that series a final ending.
" @Axxol: Be sure to also check out the movie, Conqueror of Shamballa. It continues the original FMA story right after the series ended. It gives that series a final ending. "
" @ZeForgotten: Some people definitely have embraced this in a religious kind of way but man some anime fans really get butt hurt over it. People need to chill. "
Those religious nutjobs are getting worse than Tom Cruise himself. I think people on both sides need to just sit down and chill but sadly I know that it's not gonna happen any time soon.*
@OroJackson: You should definitely check out the original. Both of them are very good. They both are similar up till the events of Lab 5. Also if you have netflix, the whole FMA series is on instant.
The 2003 anime fails extra hard because of Terminator Archer. Seriously, it is like the people who worked on it didn't actually understand how anything in the series worked. What were they thinking?
@rubberluffy: I seriously don't see how the original "fails" hard unless you are one of those purists who don't like anyone tampering with the manga's story. Although, I completely agree with your point about Archer........I actually completely forgot about that cyborg part until you brought it up.
@Where_Am_I: I've been watching quite a few. The girl who leaped through time wasn't that bad of a movie.
" @rubberluffy: I seriously don't see how the original "fails" hard unless you are one of those purists who don't like anyone tampering with the manga's story. Although, I completely agree with your point about Archer........I actually completely forgot about that cyborg part until you brought it up.
@Where_Am_I: I've been watching quite a few. The girl who leaped through time wasn't that bad of a movie. "
Well, fail is a strong word, but I don't really want anything to do with the 2003 series in general. I didn't really care for it before I knew there even was a manga.
And I really can't stand the dub for some reason. I think it is Vic as Ed. I didn't mind him as Junpei in Persona 3 but for some reason his Ed bugs the hell out of me. I think it is because his screaming is so overdone compared to Paku Romi's. Most other people sound alright. But Kimblee's Japanese voice is probably some of my favorite voice work in years.
" @rubberluffy: I seriously don't see how the original "fails" hard unless you are one of those purists who don't like anyone tampering with the manga's story. Although, I completely agree with your point about Archer........I actually completely forgot about that cyborg part until you brought it up.
@Where_Am_I: I've been watching quite a few. The girl who leaped through time wasn't that bad of a movie. "
Funny, I watched that a week before I left for university extremely baked... Needless to say, I was really into it.
I remember watching the original back in the day. I heard this one is a lot longer so I thought I shouldn't bother with it. Is it as good as the first?
@Afroman269: My other annoyance is just the common situation of, hey I'm fighting you, but wait I need to stop the fight and inform you why I'm kicking your ass.
Out of all the anime I have watched I thought FMA was better at avoiding these moments compared to others. I'm watching Soul Eater at the moment aswell and its just completely riddled with them.
I've seen the whole thing because I am "a crazy person" ;-p
I think you'll like the end especially the very last shot during the credits. It was one of the best moments in anime, I think. Since FMA:B and the original share some overlap, I think it's best to see the original first to about episode 28 then switch to Brotherhood. The first dozen Brotherhoods are compact versions of the previous series first 28 shows. The thing was, the manga wasn't done when they did the original so they made up an ending. Brotherhood is truer to the vision that the author created.
Brotherhood is great and among my favorites but not my all-time favorite. I'm not even sure I have one really.
@JoyfullOFrockets: Brotherhood is better than the first overall as a story although if you really liked the latter end of the original, then you might be disappointed because Brotherhood is entirely different. It's much more epic but also less humbling for the characters. The original stressed the penalty of breaking the rule, and while that is present in Brotherhood, the larger intrigue unfolding take precedent. There are more characters, too and one important in the original is pushed to the background.
@JoyfullOFrockets: So far it's pretty good. If you can tolerate the anime goofiness, then I suggest to try it.
@PenguinDust: I agree with most of what you said and the reason why I'm quite interested in Brotherhood is just to see the different ending. Even though the movie, Conqueror of Shamballa, extended the original and gave it a better ending, I was still slightly disappointed.
@Jasta: Like I said, it wasn't a major issue but when it happens, it's annoying. Basically all of anime suffers from this, so I don't really hold this one thing against Brotherhood. I just felt like pointing it out.
" @Axxol: You can read the first two paragraphs because I only get spoily afterwards but basically Brotherhood and FMA branch off in completely different ways, storywise, right after what happens at Laboratory 5. The Homunculi are also different in how they are made and who they listen to. It's very different. So far, I'm enjoying it. Oh and some characters that were minor in FMA become major in Brotherhood.
Could you tell me what episode number that would be?
I've asked in chat windows and various anime websites and I never received a proper response.
One of the sites were having a discussion about Nazis being in FMA. I was never under the impression that any of the characters were Nazis or even shared their views.
@Axxol Ya, just checked. It's episode 8. It's the 5th Lab episode and that outcome was completely different so start there. Also check out episode 1 because that was different. As for the Nazi stuff, a lot of people always keep saying that the original was full of that. If you look for it then ya sure but even then, Brotherhood has the same thing when they push the whole blue eyed people exterminating people. The only time that it blatantly talks about Nazis is in Conqueror of Shamballa, where Ed is in the alternate universe in Germany.
@PrimeSynergy said:
" @LiquidPrince said:
" I didn't read that, but Brotherhood is amazing. "
Ditto. "
After all that hard work in typing!!! lol, it's all good, ya Brotherhood is pretty good.
Fullmetal Alchemist is probably one of the most enjoyable animes I've seen.
Dubbed anime is for crazy people though.
@JoyfullOFrockets said:
" I remember watching the original back in the day. I heard this one is a lot longer so I thought I shouldn't bother with it. Is it as good as the first? "
@Cloudenvy I don't believe in constantly reading subtitles, especially in a tv series. I make an exceptions for movies. Also, fullmetal's dub version has some pretty good voice acting so I have no reason to go sub......only Ed is voiced by an annoying guy.
31 Comments