Let me tell you a story. A story of two brothers who missed their mommy something fierce. So they both decided to become magic users to conjure themselves their mommy back from the dead. Once they both knew how to cast Melf's Acid Arrow they summoned an inhuman horror called a homunculus and joined the army. There they bloodied themselves terribly and did lots of questionable things all for the sake of the state. Intrigues abounded as they became enmeshed in political struggles between the military and the commons while hunting down the philosopher's stone and then climbing a corner with the legs spread wide apart, one against each face, with the feet relying on friction or very small holds.
Now how's that for an ending? Not very good was it? That ending came from a "random article" search on Wikipedia, and for all I know that's what the geniuses behind Full Metal Alchemist did too. It smacks of such murderously bad endings as those that are found in shows like Gasaraki and Neia Under Seven. For reference, those were really bad endings. Like those other two mistakes of animation, the ending here trivializes everything that came before it. Granted, it wasn't as bad but it's not far off. FMA allows itself enough time to stack up the bullshit so it doesn't fall over immediately, but in the end it does. In my opinion, I can't even really give a total assessment of this show because it's just broken. Broken like someone followed it into an alleyway and done did something damn wrong to it. I'll admit I don't know what the anime-manga relationship here is, whether this ending was bolted on for the anime and the original manga series actually make sense and continues to this day, or if the anime came first, but I can only review what I have before me. How one can even hope to be fair to this show after sitting through 51 episodes for that ending I'm not sure, but I can only try.
I have been searching for the diamonds in the ruins of that ridiculous finale and I have come up with some. I don't want to be totally negative, I'm just extremely disappointed. All that aside, FMA is a very entertaining anime. This operates on a few different levels. First for sure is the action sequences are well done and well paced. Battles of all kinds are interspersed throughout the show and they are imaginative and well animated. The alchemy effects allow for a lot of cool moments, as well as providing a framework for all the strangeness that happens in the show. Alchemy thrives on a few basic principles that everyone will have remembered verbatim by ep. 51.
The second leg of this entertaining quality is that the meat of the story is very realistic. In fact the events seem to strangely mirror those occurring in our own world, and the military politic and the actions of the series villains always seem to make sense. The motivations are the classics; revenge, redemption, megalomania and greed. They intertwine so expertly that the eps seem to go by very quickly as the Elric Brothers uncover one terrible truth after another. I loved it in this phase, where the children of pure intent are repeatedly sullied by their quest. They end up being pawns in most instances but the story treats us well in regards to the point of view so we're nearly as much in the dark as they are and rooting for the twerps the whole time.
Thirdly, FMA has a way of injecting lots of humor and humanity into it's characters. You really care about them and what happens to them. Even the throwaway ones, like Winry, can express important points and draw the viewer further into the story. There's lots of emotion from these people too and most of the time it doesn't seem forced or contrived. I would even venture to say that the emotional aspect of FMA is one of it's strongest suits. Most of the time in anime you're really just hoping that the characters emotional reactions just make some basic sense let alone creating a bond with the viewer, so this is a major feat. Of course they seem whiny at times but hey, this is anime. If the characters didn't whine what would they do for dialogue? (oooo!, was that unfair? yeah probably)
Technically, the show is very solid. English and Japanese tracks both serviceable. The Funimation discs feature great picture and sound, not to mention four or five episodes of Mr. Stain on Junk Alley. If I do have a compaint about the disks, it's the horrible un-skippable ads on every disk opening. For the record most normal people don't care about Broly's comings and goings.
In summation I would like to point out that Darryl Hunt is the Bassist for Folk-Punk Band The Pogues. he *CYBERDOG* joined in 1985 after Cait O'Riordan left the band to marry ElvNachiappan (Nassar) is estranged from his twin brother. He himself has two twin sons (Prashanth). The naive, NRI father wants his offspring to marry only *ALTERNATE WORLD MALARKEY* twin girls due to the circumstances which caused him to separate from his own brother. Through a series of completely implausible events, onemagnesium To deal with the inherit vibration problems *HITLER* of a 90 degree V6, a balancer shaft was installed in the
PORTRAIT OF PAPA ELRIC
(stolen from my new nemesis, Answerman)
The Anti-Claus reading from a list of good children (he's upset- look at his EYES)
