Full Metal Alchemist

Post by **Tiff** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:53 pm

Okay, so a friend lent me like 25 episodes of FMA (in Japanese), and...my GOD. I LOVE this show. It's...good god. One minute it's hilarious, the next it's so heartbreaking i'm tearing up.

But I've got just a bit to say about episode 7: (MAJOR SPOILERS)

[spoiler] OH...MY..GOD.

I watch horror movies....and this..this was the most HORRIFYING thing i've ever seen. Nina. and the dog. OH. GOD.

Derek never really gets upset at movieso r anime...but his expression was just....horrifying, and he teared up, and i teared up, and we just...GAPED at the computer screen.

Seriously. That was..I almost threw up. And it was so fucking emotional.

*SHUDDER* [/spoiler]

x___X

Sylphiel · Post by **Sylphiel** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 9:36 pm

I haven't seen the anime yet since I don't really have access to it, but I heard it was good so I got a copy of Volume 1 of the manga and read it. Really like it so far, definitely interesting. ^_^

Jumbled Thoughts · Post by **MarioKnight** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:24 am

FMA is an awesome show. Sadly a couple of my files were broken and I refuse to watch more until I get good files, so I have yet to finish it. However I'm in the mid-30s right now I believe, and Tiff, if you think episode 8 sent you on an emotional rollercoaster, you're in for a really wild ride. I won't spoil anything for you, but you should really prepare yourself for episode 25. I felt a lot of emotion of everything I've seen, however that episode itself really causes you to almost cry at the end. I really can't wait to finish this series as it's one of the most impressive anime I've seen in a really long time.

Post by **Tiff** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:41 am

MarioKnight wrote:FMA is an awesome show. Sadly a couple of my files were broken and I refuse to watch more until I get good files, so I have yet to finish it. However I'm in the mid-30s right now I believe, and Tiff, if you think episode 8 sent you on an emotional rollercoaster, you're in for a really wild ride. I won't spoil anything for you, but you should really prepare yourself for episode 25. I felt a lot of emotion of everything I've seen, however that episode itself really causes you to almost cry at the end. I really can't wait to finish this series as it's one of the most impressive anime I've seen in a really long time.

X_X yeah we called my friend upa nd yelled at him after watching it, and he said it only gets worse. I was like "HOW CAN IT GET WORSE?!"

*dies*

Dinozore · Post by **Dinozore** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:53 am

[spoiler]Hughes dies. And he was the only person in the whole anime I've see (up to 26) to be normal. And his daughter at his funeral T_T[/spoiler]

Jumbled Thoughts · Post by **MarioKnight** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:16 pm

Dinozore wrote:[spoiler]Hughes dies. And he was the only person in the whole anime I've see (up to 26) to be normal. And his daughter at his funeral T_T[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Yeah, if his death wasn't sad enough, his daughter's reactions at the funeral added so much emotion and sadness. Seeing that episode in both original and dub forms, the emotional impact of the end of that episode really hits hard.[/spoiler]

I wish the first season ended at 25 and not at 26. 25 was a great point to take a break before things picked up again in 26. Also, Funi did a great job on the dub. Seeing the first season in both formats, I was happy to see the dub conveying the emotion of the series just as much as the original did.

sailor_serenity33 · Post by **sailor_serenity33** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 10:27 pm

I love FMA its one of my favorite shows. My favorite character would have to be Ed. I think hes so funny when people make a reference to his height. if you haven't watched the show i highly recommend it.

Hikari · Post by **Hikari** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:09 pm

I've watched the whole series on this DVD from Japan. ^.^ *whistles innocently*

*SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL EPISODE AND OTHER STUFF THAT HASN'T BEEN ON AS YET*

[spoiler]The scariest thing I've seen must have been the scene where Izumu tried to bring back her child, later known as Wrath, who was aborted...of course, it ended up like Ed and Al's mother...but oh God, that was freaking SCARY...and yeah, Hughes' death was sad. T_T

Ahh...the last episode was a huge cliffhanger. >_______< Envy killed Ed, but Al revives Ed, and Ed revives Al...confusing. o.O And what the hell happened to Dante and Gluttony? o____o AND ENVY!?! TT___TT WHERE ART THOU, MY LOVE?!!?!?![/spoiler]

So...has anyone heard of that new movie that came out in Japan not too long ago? :3

Cardcaptor Takato · Post by **Cardcaptor Takato** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 10:46 am

I have kept meaning to respond to this thread since I finished watching FMA, including the movie, so here's my thoughts. The first time I saw FMA was when I watched the dub of episode 4 on Adult Swim sometime back. The episode was enjoyable enough but I wasn't completely wild about it and the dub just didn't draw me into the show any. For awhile I didn't really care to see more of it but I later started to become more interested in it and decided to re-watch it from the beginning, this time through the Japanese version and I immediately fell in love with it. In fact, FMA has surprisingly managed to top CCS as my all-time favorite anime. What I love about this show is that almost none of the characters are useless and they all have some importance to the plot and it seems like everyone's actions effect each other.

I loved how Ed and Al weren't always perfect around each other and in fact they make a lot of mistakes throughout the show. They laugh together, cry together, and argue with each other, but were always there for each other, and their differences in fact become their strengths rather than their weakness. I loved all the other characters, too. I thought Winry was hilarious with how she would always threaten Ed and Al if she suspected they were getting into danger again and I always laughed when she would hit Ed on the head with her tools. And I liked how she wasn't completely useless like a lot of girlfriends in shounen tend to be.

She was actually important to the plot and I loved when she teamed up with Sheska to investigate the [spoiler]murder of Hughes and the various military conspiracy plots.[/spoiler] I loved Sheska's obsession with reading and how she wasn't just another pointless side character like she would be in any other anime but she actually contributed to the plot through her investigations. I also really liked Roy and Riza. I thought it was funny how Riza would get pissed off at Roy when he flirted with other girls but she wouldn't express it by smacking him like most anime girls would. Instead it seemed like she got her point across more by just walking silently by which I love about her in that she can express her emotions without being so noisy about them. One of my favorite scenes is when Roy says that when he becomes Fuhrer, he'll make all the female personnel where mini-skirts and Riza just walks silently by.

And I liked how none of the characters are truly good or evil, but they all have their own reasons for their actions, and there were sometimes where I felt like the homunculi acted more humane than the human characters, like Lust who was my favorite of the homunculi. I loved how the series can go from making you laugh to making you cry, which I think are the best kind of anime. The Nina subplot in particular really made me bawl my eyes out and no matter how many times I've re-watched it, I still cry during the scene in the last episode where [spoiler]Envy goes through the gate and Ed starts crying and just says his brother's name.[/spoiler]

Of course I also love the music, my favorite songs being Kesenai Tsumi, Motherland, Ready Steady Go, Brothers, Rewrite, and Lost Heaven. I didn't think the movie was quite as good as the series, unfortunately, but it was still pretty entertaining. I liked how they tied in the Nazis and WW2 with Ed and Al's journey without it feeling too out of place. I was really impressed with the animation in the movie, especially during the scene where Wrath [spoiler]is leading Al down the staircases to the underground city. I thought the animation in that scene was just gorgeous.[/spoiler] My biggest disappointment was I thought some parts of the plot of the movie were inconsistent. Like one moment the movie says that [spoiler]alchemy can't be used in the "real" world, but then Ed can suddenly open the gate with alchemy. And Eckart was able to open the gate at first but then suddenly she isn't able to open it on her own anymore.[/spoiler] I also felt like Eckart was too under-developed as a villain compared to the rest of the villains in the series and she was almost [spoiler]too easy for Ed and Al to defeat to me.[/spoiler]

As for the dub, while I think the dub is decent enough, I think it's vastly over-rated in anime fandom, and I I like the Japanese version a whole lot more. I thought Al had a good English VA and I liked how Funi went to the troube of actually hiring a real kid to play his part, but it's like almost every other kid in the show sounds way too old for their age. Ed is 15 for the vast majority of the show but half of the time in the dub he sounds like he's in his 20s. I thought Romi Park did a better job of sounding more youthful to me. And I liked how she could change her voice to sound deeper as Ed got older throughout the show, making it sound like Ed is really aging, whereas Ed's English VA sounds the same throughout the entire series, which sounds really off-putting during the flashback scenes to Ed's childhood. And Ed's English VA just sounds too throaty to me. I didn't like Nina's English VA at all. She sounded more like some adult comedian trying to impersonate a kindergardener rather than sound like a kid and almost all the other minor child characters in the show suffer from the same problem. Of course I tend to think kid's voices in dubs are mediocre in general with only rare exceptions, but it's just even more annoying with FMA with how much effort Funi went to with Al's VA yet the other kid characters get such mediocre VAs.

I didn't like Envy's English VA at all. He sounds way too old to me, like some old granny rather than a murderous psychopath. I also didn't like Gluttony's English VA, who I thought sounded more like a generic cartoon villain rather than a horrifying cannibalistic monster to actually fear. Most of the other English VAs sound ok to me but are nothing all that special. Besides Al's, Lust and Major Armstrong's VAs are the only other ones I actually liked. I actually thought Lust's English VA did a better job giving her character the right sexy vibe and Major Armstrong was even more hilarious in the dub than in the sub. But two VAs out of the entire rest of the cast isn't enough to make me like a dub.

I also feel like the dub's translation is much too "quotey", so to speak, for my tastes. Like in one episode where Lust is looking for [spoiler]Marco's notes[/spoiler], in the Japanese version she just says it's going to be a pain to look for them. But in the dub they have her say that it's like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Not only do I think that line makes no sense at all, but it feels cheesy and out of place in what's supposed to be an otherwise serious scene, and it feels out of character to me for Lust to be making such cheesy quotes. I wouldn't mind it so much if that was like the only instance where this kind of thing happens, but it's like every other episode is "quotey" like this, and I just don't see why Funi feels the need to take such liberties their adaptation like this. It's like they're purposely trying to make the dub over-elaborate or something when there's no need for it when simpler lines would sound more natural half the time.