Category: Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

Whoa, an entire episode dedicated to the background of the Ishbal Massacre. It shows how Roy, Hawkeye and Hughes met and how their experiences in the war changed them into trying to find a way out of this endless violence. Usually in when a massacre in anime takes place, you get a bit of depth on the ones who ordered it, but not often do you see an in-depth look to the ones who actually carry out those orders.

There are two major questions that have arisen from this episode: First of all: what was up with that tattoo covering Hawkeye’s back? In this episode, we learn how she’s the daughter of the alchemist who taught Roy Mustang his tricks, but there seems to be much more to her than just that. I’m not even sure whether Roy knows about that tattoo, but my guess is that it has something to do with her father.

Second of all: we meet Kimbley. This guy was one of the worst characters of the first season: the creators set him up as a competent and ruthless criminal… only to abandon this halfway through and turn him into an incompetent imbecile afterwards. My guess is that even though the creators came up with a very nice alternative story for this setting, they never really knew what to do with him, or they realized too late that that bomb guy also needed a part.

In any case, in this episode we learn where the Philosopher’s stone that was made from the Ishbalians went to: Kimbley. I’m surprised at how little of these people were actually needed, and really wonder why an entire city needed to be wiped out, just for ten guys who could also be simply taken from the prisoners on death row. The big question also is: why Kimbly? Why entrust something as important as that stone to someone like him? And where the hell is he right now? My guess is that since there already were seven humonculi at that point, Father was experimenting with new ways to use the Philosopher’s stones, but there still remain a lot of question marks in the Ishbal chapter.

And yeah, Scar also now has a new target for revenge. I’m not sure whether he’s really going to be an ally of Ed now, however. It’s all going to depend on whether or not he can forgive the guy for killing Winry’s parents…
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Well, so this episode was an aftermath to the previous onslaught of plot-twists.

Surprisingly, Wrath lets both Ed, Al and Roy Mustang go, threatening them with killing their loved ones if they dare to take action back. On one hand, it seems a bit stupid to let these dangerous people loose. But yeah, on the other hand if he’d just keep on killing people whenever they’d discover his secrets, people would eventually get suspicious.

Ed, Al and Roy now need to get as many people as possible on their side. They’re going to have to organize a good protection on their loved ones if they’re going to stand a chance against this guy. Roy in this episode makes the first step by recruiting Armstrong, but a whole lot more needs to happen.

The part I liked best about this episode was back at the doctors. It had a strange combination between a breath of fresh air, the elated and then disappointed Lan Fang as she discovered what happened to Lin, the tension between her and Mai Chang and the rather quirky antics of that doctor. It’s another great example of how well this series plays around with emotions.
Rating: * (Good)

Any attention-paying viewer will probably have caught this episode’s major plot twist unsubtly foreshadowed in the OP. I did not.

Seriously, I thought that that pony-tailed guy was that bomb dude, the one who kept blowing up his comrades in the first season. Don’t as me why, but I never expected this episode to turn LIN into the new Greed, but it really came as a surprise to me when Father popped up a Philosophers’ Stone and used it on the guy. Now this explains a lot about why Ishbal needed to be sacrificed: they were intended to be the bait for the next Greed, since the previous one ran off. Now apparently, you need to get rid of first Greed’s body first, before you can create a new one.

Also: Father. How completely different from an evil overlord he started out, personality-wise. He’s actually behaving like a nice grandfather, until Ed and Al make clear that they have no intention to cooperate with him. What’s even more peculiar is that while he knows Hohenheim, this guy seems more like some sort of distant relative to him, even though Hohenheim’s dream hinted that the two hate each other.

That room had even more unexplained things: for some reason, Ed and Al’s alchemy didn’t work, and for that matter no alchemy was supposed to work, and yet Scar wasn’t bothered by it at all. Then there’s also Father’s Philosopher’s Stone-like alchemy, but my theory of that is that he’s got a whole bunch of Philosopher’s stones living inside of him, which also keep him immortal.

What’s also interesting: this episode introduced a second door-thing. Lin’s case isn’t just a matter of simple brain-washing, and something tells me that like with the Heaven-like door in which Al is still waiting for Ed, Lin is also still somewhere inside that Hell-like door. If that’s true, then what about the first Greed? And Wrath?

Also, in this episode I discovered that this show has been showing plot twists after the ED. And it’s a good thing I did this time, because Gluttony died inside of it. Agh, I hate it when series pull these things, because I always skip next-episode previews. Did this series do this more often, or was this the first?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Recap.

We basically saw Hohenheim and some strange woman talk while the past twenty-six episodes were recapped. I’m not complaining however, because for a recap it was a very good one: it contained the best bits of animation along with the best soundtracks for an intense 20 minutes. Hohenheim meanwhile looks at people dancing around a campfire and has some sort of evil twin or clone or something show up. It then turns out to be a dream of his.

If this really wasn’t part of the manga, then I think it’s the creators’ way of foreshadowing. My guess is that they were forced to include a recap at this point, so instead of just boringly do an episode in which nothing happens, why not throw in a taste of the future? I must say, with the dancing children I’m beginning to see more why Hohenheim was supposed to be that kind man; he indeed doesn’t seem like the same guy as his white version.
OP: New OP this time, starts off well but then degenerates into generic J-rock.
ED: Another slide-show. The music is decent for a j-pop ballad.
Rating: ** ()

Oh my god. Talk about an amazing episode, seriously. This episode contained so many plot twists and amazingly directed action-scenes. It really ranks among the best episodes of this series so far. I’m really beginning to understand why the story of the manga is so highly regarded.

To start off with, this episode really took me by surprise when those bodies on Envy suddenly started talking to Ed. I first thought that it was just another illusion by Envy, but damn, those are the souls of real people there, who once were sacrificed in order to create this homunculus. That fight scene also showed how scared Ed still is of ending lives. Common sense should have told him that those bodies were nothing like normal people, and yet he lost all will to fight for that moment.

It was a bit questionable that May Chang and scar were able to track down Al and Gluttony that easily, but there’s probably some reason for the two of them to be present in the next episode. To make up for it, we got some very nice build-up during the journey that Ed and Gluttony made to “father”, and some awesomely animated fights between Scar and May Chang and the various chimera.

On top of that, we get the back-story on king Bradley. He once was a human, specifically “bred” to advance the experiments on homunculi by “father”, and I guess that he was trying to create a homunculus from a human. I guess that that’s why every homunculus is different: they were all created through various means.

And what the heck, Al is actually still at that door?! That’s one hell of a twist, and yet it makes so much sense: it’s been made clear that bodies don’t simply disappear to the realms of god, so it still must have been somewhere. The same goes for Ed’s limbs: where did they get to? And is there perhaps also some homunculus walking around with the Izumi’s guts? In any case, this proves to be a major step forward for Al to get his body back. All they need to do now is make a truce with the homunculi, borrow one of their stones and have Al attempt human transmutation. The only problem seems to be to get the Homunculi to cooperate.

Also, on a different note, when I checked MAL, it suddenly came up with a total amount of 63 episodes for this series. This obviously hardly says anything, since at MAL they like to use any baseless rumour for these amounts of episodes, but at the same time 63 seems a bit too random to just have been pulled out of thin air. Is there some trustworthy source to support this claim? Or is this just the case of another noob who just went with a number that sounded right?
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Okay, I was wrong last episode: Envy didn’t die, his arm just disintegrated. Should have known. Anyway, this was a pretty exciting episode with a lot of interesting twists. Ed and Lin spend the entire episode inside Gluttony’s “stomach”, along with Envy, but apart from that a lot more interesting stuff went on. But oh my god, Envy’s true form. I’m not sure who exactly came up with the designs for that… thing, but I can’t seem to think of anything that resembles it. It also turns out that he was the one who triggered the war in Ishbal, which means that the Humonculi actually tried to get rid of Ishbal once. What exactly didn’t they want the Ishbal’s to find out? Does it have to do with the research of Scar’s brother? Hawkeye also turns out to get reassigned to be the Fuhrer’s assistant, which is a very risky move. If he wanted to use her to find out who’s helping her, he could have just assigned her to one of his allies, and have this ally report to him so that they can later systematically eliminate all of them. Why would he want to put himself at such a risk? Is he that confident that Hawkeye isn’t going to cause a problem for him, or is there more behind it? And to think that the headquarters of the Humonculi lies right in the middle of Central City. it makes sense, with Bradley in control, it’s a great place to hide out. It also makes me wonder: before Bradley was created was there someone else playing Fuhher? Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Whoa, I must say that this episode really caught me off-guard. It really is one of those episodes that’s a perfect example of how good this series can be: fun and tense at the same time, hardly impossible to predict and full of some very surprising plot twists. Where to start? Because the creators killed off Marcoh in the first season, I really expected the same here… yet he is merely kidnapped. It does make sense: whatever the Humonculi are after is somehow related to the Philosopher’s Stone, so it would make sense for them to recruit the help of someone who is very knowledgeable about it. But the really fun part in this episode was the part that took place in the forest. Overall it was a very creative action scene with this series’ trademark style of delivering comedy, action and drama all at the same time. Especially Gluttony got a bit of depth: we learn that he at least has half a braincell, and isn’t a complete berserk. Yet again, this guy is developing so completely different from the first series. We also get our first glimpse of pride… who turns out to have powers of either invisibility or telepathy, and I also really liked the parts that featured Lan Fan, as she was unable to do anything for her master due to her losing her arm. My favourite of this episode was Envy, though. He was a very nice villain, and it’s a bloody shame that he died in this episode. there was so much potential left in him. This episode ended with Roy Mustang, finding out that the problem isn’t just that the Fuhrer is a Humonculus, but he also has a ton of allies at his side. Thinking back, the first season never mentioned any of this, right? Now that I think about it, it would indeed have been a bit strange for just one or two humonculi on their own: one screw-up and everyone knows who they are. With enough allies on their side, they could cover up for them in those cases (such as, right now with Roy). Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Another excellent episode, aside from the parts that focused on Winry. You know, I understand what purpose she has: keeping Ed and Al down to earth. The thing is that she just keeps hogging up too much screen-time even though she’s mostly unrelated to the story. Especially since the creators are pulling this series at a high pace, cutting several scenes along the way, and yet they seem to refuse to want to cut any of her airtime. It’s a good thing that she’s returned to the Auto-mail City. That’s also going to enable her to grow as a character. Anyway, this episode really showed Lin and Lan Fan’s abilities, both as thinkers as as fighters. I really expected this fight to end with both parties simply retreating, what seems to be the trend in a lot of other series with lots of fighting, but Lin actually succeeds in not only capturing Gluttony, but he also manages to trick Wrath at the same time. Lan Fan cutting off her own arm… that just shows how well she must have been trained and how deep her devotion is. I personally can hardly imagine how one would be crazy enough to successfully cut off one’s own arm, but if the alternative is death… But at the same time, Hawk did make the mistake of using a bit too obvious of a disguise. Anyone who works for the military who has worked with her could have seen through her, which is especially risky since they’re suspecting King Bradley to have something to do with her. Interesting subversion of the “Sailor Moon”-syndrome, though. Anyway, that little girl that was with Scar finally comes in action. I have no idea who she is, how old she is, why she’s helping Scar and how she became so incredibly good at alchemy despite being just a child, but she seems to be someone to look out for. Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Hmm, this episode was a bit of a step back for this series. It had a great potential, but in my opinion the creators wanted it to make an emotional impact a bit too hard and so the episode featured a bit too much overacting and clichés. The fight between Lin and Wrath was great: it really showed yet again that this is a series in which nobody is just going to get himself killed that easily. The fight was inspired and dangerous, without overpowering the characters in your typical shounen-esque series. It really showed that Lin’s performance for the past few episodes was indeed very much an act, and is a force to be reckoned with. But yeah: then we cut to the fight between Ed, Al and Scar. In order to buy some time for Lin to show up (of course not knowing what happened to them), Ed and Al start talking about philosophy. Ed then mentions Winry’s parents, just at the moment which Winry chose to show up in order to check up on him. So she gets emo, grabs a gun that happened to be lying around, and fails to shoot the guy who killed her parents. I’ve never really been a fan of her, and I really feel that her voice actress was really trying too hard in this episode. It’s a shame, because Scar was really good in this episode. His background is much like in the first series, but a lot more brutal and realistic. He feels sorry for what he did for Winry, but at the same time his mindset is not idealistic enough to just drop his guard and try to make up for her loss in every way he can. But yeah, I really do wish that the creators are going to make Winry go back to Resembool soon, because she really doesn’t belong as a main character in this series. Once in a while she does something slightly useful, but the show often gets too angsty with her around, with this episode as the epitome. If I want to see angsty teenagers, there are plenty of other shows I can go to. Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>

Apparently last week had some sort of important sport event that caused quite a few series to go into hiatus, among which Full Metal Alchemist. Now that it’s back we can continue with the hunt for the Humonculi, and quite a surprising aftermath to the previous episode. Because as it turns out, Havoc lost his ability to walk. I’m not sure whether this is permanent or temporary (you never know that in anime…), but nevertheless that was a heavy sacrifice that Roy had to pay in order to be able to kill off Lust. On top of that, Ed and Al also realized (with Barry’s original body being the way it was), that Al’s real body might be rotting away right now, and that he might not even be able to go back to it. At the same time, we also learn that Ed seems to be sleeping an awful lot. Something tells me that this is also going to become important later on. The rest of this episode focused on a plan to lure out the Humonculi. Scar showed up again, in the city that Ed, Al and Roy happened to be in, and so they come up with the idea to use Scar, in order to lure out the Humonculi who seem to get rid of scar. They suspect this because of the way the Homunculi have been fighting scar, and also that the Fuhrer has a good chance of being a Humonculus, if I understood correctly. Also, for some reason the facial distortions in this episode were a lot more out of control than usual. Especially with Ed on his fixing spree, and afterwards when he tried to talk to Roy Mustang. The scenes themselves were quite hilarious, but they didn’t mesh too well with Scar’s sudden appearance. I liked it more when the comedy was more subtle. That’s really the moment when you don’t know when to laugh or not. I wonder how Winry’s going to react when she finds out that Ed and Al were chasing the one who killed her parents for revenge. Something tells me that she’s going to find out sooner or later, and I don’t think that she really would have taken revenge if she was in their shoes. Still, at the moment her part in this series has been rather pointless so far, aside for the emotional support for Ed and Al. I do hope that she’s going to end up doing something useful, rather than hog lots of screentime like she did in the first anime series. And as usual: when discussing this episode, please refrain from mentioning events that happen after this point in the manga. Rating: * (Good)]]>