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mccrillisnsiah
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Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2009)
My review of the rebooted Fullmetal Alchemist anime
Brotherhood is practically nothing more than a show you see on Saturday mornings or overall just something you see in Marvel comics. It's filled with underdeveloped characters, Saturday morning cartoon villains, a huge cast made up of filler characters, random power- ups, characters defeating the villain with the power of friendship, teamwork, etc and everyone living happily ever after without making any sort of sacrifice. Basically, it's no different from typical anime shows like Naruto or Dragon Ball. The heart, soul and just all round effort put into the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime is clearly absent in the rebooted anime. The themes brought up were way more explored and the Elric brothers' relationship and love for one another gave more time to shine and bright. The 2003 show is not an anime, it's poetry. Brotherhood came out at a time where Bones was getting desperate, so they just thought "Hey, let's just milk one of our old successful series, except not put in half as much heart and effort as we did the first time around, but instead add in more mindless action and forced humor!" And apparently it worked. It's just a mindless kids show and nothing more.
Brotherhood's one-note show-off pompous characters and excruciatingly loud, bombastic and optimistic atmosphere will make you drool with boredom. Ed and Al came off as more or less your typical Mary Sues. None of their actions ever had any consequences, and the narrative very rarely bothered to challenge and/or question their misguided idealism. And even when it did, their juvenile beliefs always triumphed. In the end, they were still very much the naive little children they were in the beginning of the story. Whereas in the 2003 series, the Elric brothers noticeably grew more jaded, broken and emotionally distant as the show went on, which is understandable if you witness all the stuff they go through. They came to realize the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows and that equivalent exchange is indeed complete dog crap. Very often in Brotherhood, the narrative options to bend the show's internal physics to comply circumstances to their favor. Ed and Al were just too much of fetishistic, moralistic and tone deaf idealists. Ed and Al had flaws in the beginning of the story. But as the show went on, they just became more and more Stuish. They started taking down their opponents with relative ease.
There's nothing wrong with winning. However, if your protagonists win all the time within a blink of an eye, it just takes away all sense of tension and investment. There was never a single moment in Brotherhood where the protagonists were in actual legitimate danger. Thinking you can protect everyone is in all honesty, quite infantile. People around you are gonna die, no matter what, and sometimes there's little you can do to save them. Even when the protagonists lost in a battle against the antagonists, you knew they would always find a way to worm out of the situation, either by other protagonists making a dramatic entrance at just the right moment or through flat out dues ex ma-china. Just watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime from start to finish and you'll see how much more realistic, secretive, and overall thrilling the villains really were throughout that series. Yet in Brotherhood, they were all rather shallow and bland villains who lost their capability of rational thought whenever the plot called for it. If you watch Brotherhood more and more carefully, you'll see how much each and every major protagonist were shielded by plot armor just because the plot said so. Hell you even got faced-heel turn villains, most notably Scar, whose race was destructed by the military in the war, who also was shielded by plot armor till the very end and never pays for any of his actions earlier in the story. The original manga author became too much of a wimp to kill off major protagonists in later chapters after the death of Maes Hughes, a friend of the Elric brothers and Roy Mustang. She obviously gotten numerous fan letters telling her never to kill another main protagonist ever again. She became too concern with pleasing the mainstream public instead of actually trying her best to make a good story in her original manga. And by the end, her work became fully mediocre and isn't really worth reading at all after only the first time.
The protagonists are noticeably more heroic and chivalrous in Brotherhood, as opposed to broken, depressed wrecks. Their actions very rarely stray into morally gray territory. This is a story about the military and the human beings are in it. It is suppose to be a drama and tragic series, along with it being somber and realistic. Not filled with cluster forced humor chi-bi faces every few minutes during a serious moment where the author wants you to be immersed in. Overall, her writing skills are sub-par at best and doesn't have any experience on the battlefield. No wonder why her work ended up being plain trash. Most of the background music featured in Brotherhood are not good either. In fact, some of them sounded pretty childish and were overall poorly used in most cases. It's okay to like Brotherhood, but it's in no way, shape or form better than the masterpiece that is the original anime. The original author added so much plot devices, plot armors and plot holes into her work. And don't even get me started on the ending. Words cannot describe how much I truly despise the ending to a greater degree. All I can say is that the author was just doing a rush job and never thought anything through at all. All Brotherhood has going for it is the new animation, the villain King Bradley aka Wrath, and some of the flashback scenes prior to the start of the show.
Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2003)
My review of the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime series
Always been my most favorite show of all time and the only anime I truly love and care about. For a series that explores warfare and genocide, the darker tone and realistic atmosphere fits the series very well. I'm so glad that the directors and writers of this show adapted the mediocre stereotypical manga into a more philosophical, religious, and coming-of-age tale that is the original 2003 anime. I enjoyed how much the protagonists - those two alchemist brothers named Edward and Alphonse Elric - had more screen time which allowed their relationship and love for each other to blossom. The backstories, origins, and identities of the villains and were well done. Really loved how secretive, competent, and thrilling they all really were. There were numerous morals and sheds of gray throughout the show overall, rather than the usual lame old thin line of black and white seen in many other shows. The State Military characters were great as well, such as Roy Mustang, Maes Hughes, Kimblee, Shou Tucker, Maria Ross, Sheska, etc. Had the anime been following the manga directly from start to finish instead of deviating from the norm, it would have never had been this great. All of the major death scenes were handled extremely well and the ending to the whole show was beautifully bittersweet. The ending was by no means depressing and neither did it made you want to cry or anything like that. It was just simply bittersweet. Despite endless tragedy, the characters still believed in hope and made the best of their situations.
Not only was the show depicting warfare, genocide, sin, redemption, and overall human nature maturely and realistically, but also a character-driven series as well as a coming-of-age tale for the Elric brothers. Unlike in the original manga series of the same name and its 2009 anime rebooted version, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, no character was a side character or a filler character. Each character played an important role, they moved the story on. The story felt neither too fast nor too slow. It was moving at a steadier pace, unlike many other anime shows, which allowed us to grow attached to the characters rather than the action. The show may have not had as much action, but when it did, it was so immersive and left a huge lasting impact, easily beating the several episode long fights featured in many anime, including Brotherhood. Each and every action caused by a character always came with a consequence in the end and tied up neatly, further proving how horrible the world really is. Each time there was an action scene, the characters were using their minds to think things through within the situation rather than just only their powers. The protagonists also often would lose against the antagonists, which made the show seem more realistic and believable. The show proved how much it didn't need conventional villains or fights being flashy/explosive or the characters being more bad-ass in order to be a good show.
The show also didn't constantly hammer every piece of information into your head in terms of character dialogue like you're a preteen; neither did the show overused those annoying chi-bi comedy faces during any of the serious moments because the directors and writers knew those things only work in manga format, so therefore they wouldn't translate well into screen because they wanted you to be heavily immersed into what's going on with the characters and their surroundings. It was very subtle and trusted you to get it on your own. It only needed to tell the most important information and that's it. It never over-clarified what you needed to know just so you don't forget. It's only a matter of paying clear attention so that you can get what you need to know while processing through the show. When you are watching the show, do not expect it to be a roller-coaster ride from start to finish. This show will always keep you at the edge of your seat, just to see what will happen next and hell, even by the end, it will leave you with wanting more. The first 34 episodes of this show are based more-or-less on the first seven volumes of the original manga, but numerous differences and foreshadowing clearly indicted that the directors and writers knew they were gonna overtake the manga as the show went on. So yes, the anime did caught up with the manga which led them to two choices: either jump to filler or make up their own original story, the latter was chosen. Anyway, I just wanted to tell the directors and writers of this anime that I give them a big thank you for producing this masterpiece. I don't even see anything majorly wrong with it at all, contrary to the popular belief. The show's second half seems perfectly fine...to me at least. Once again, thank you to the show's writers and directors for the wonderful story, characters, villains, and oh...can I just mention one last thing how awesome the somber background music in this show really is?! It really fits the show very well.