Category: Finished Series: Action

This has got to be among the best Full Metal Alchemist episodes to date. And with more than a hundred episodes on the franchise’s track record, that has to say something! It mostly focused on two fights: the one versus Kimblee and Pride, and the one versus Sloth. Both were awesome in their own ways, full of great twists and turns, making for one hell of a ride.

Seriously, I’m getting the same vibes here as when I watched the action scenes of Bounen no Xamdou. What Bones did here is deliver animation with such a force and power. This is exactly what I’m looking for in an action series. And this time, the stories and backgrounds actually did get well developed. While at this point Full Metal Alchemists’s animation still isn’t quite as good as Xamdou, it has far surpassed Xamdou at this time as an action-series for me, due to the plot, characters and setting in this series.

Kimblee’s death (or at least, I think he died) also really surprised me. In the way that Pride kept playing with his victims like a cat, it was a very good reminder that there are plenty of mortals in this series, and this even showed that having a philosopher’s stone doesn’t make you immortal. To contrast, there were also plenty of heart-warming moments during the same fight: three side-characters who I wrote off as being useless in battle really created an awesome escape sequence.

Also, the clone army really proved to be one of the flaws in Father’s plans: having them rampage around is nice enough, but the way in which they fail to recognize either friend or enemy leads to a lot more soldiers changing sides, especially when you’re in front of such a charismatic leader as Olivier. This episode forced a ton of characters to do things they usually would not: Ed also finally ended up using weaponry, the Armstrong Siblings working together.

One point of criticism for this episode was during the Ed’s fight. I mean, the army of closes did go a bit into overkill there, and it wasn’t that well animated anyway, with a lot of clones just being CG dolls. It reminded me a bit of these cheap fantasy series in which teen-aged leads have to battle on hordes of copy/paste zombies. Not to mention that the clones decide to just stand still whenever some major plot twist happens. Really, if I was such a clone, I wouldn’t care about what happened around me. All I would care about would just be these tasty human beings in front of me.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Whoa, so many things happened in this episode. What an awesome way to enter the fifth and final season of this series; it was action-packed from start to finish and just about every side-story the creators showed here kicked ass.

The clone-army, which we saw awakened at the end of the previous episode, was indeed as intense as I expected. It had it coming that they would freak out, but I really have to give credit to Bones for animating this so well. It also was very nice to see not just Barry the Chopper’s body back, but also the same wall that was created in the same fight still standing. It’s the same as in Lior: these things ain’t gonna fix themselves, and it really adds to the setting to keep track of the damages that are done to buildings and surroundings during the past fights in the story.

The best animation in this episode definitely came from Envy, though. His scene was short, but incredibly powerful, especially considering that Mai Chang is going to have to face him all by herself. It may have been stupid of her to take Envy back to where he wanted to go, but at the same time this flaw does add to her character. What would be awesome now if for her to actually redeem herself, and learn from her mistakes.

Also, against my expectations it was Kimblee instead of Sloth who came to rescue Pride, but of course that makes all the more sense, since Kimblee could reach the guy a lot faster than Sloth would, and he also would not have any problems blowing up a wall. It’s still a bit of a mystery why Al let it all happen, though. Even considering that he didn’t know at all that this was possible, you would have to get some sort of clue after seeing Pride hit on his helmet for who knows how many hours. But then again, Al has been going through a rough time. My guess is that he was so relieved that he was able to something despite his condition, and I think that he was much more focused on not trying to lose his body. Which made his comeback all the more worthwhile.

So yeah, an awesome episode. If the rest of this series is going to be like this, we’re in for one hell of a finale. It’s just a shame that the new OP was a disappointment, though. Both the song and mood in my opinion failed to capture what this series is about, and instead made it look like some cheesy sentimental drama. All of the shots we saw were of people looking gloomy or angry, being sad or looking downward. What I got from this series however, was to look upward: don’t resign to your fate; instead you should do something about it!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Okay, so we may not have Roy Mustang in action for about twenty episodes or so, same with the people around him, but I loved how in this episode it becomes clear how much he managed to prepare in the time he was away from the spotlights and how many allies he managed to gather. And even Ross and Havoc, who disappeared for even longer, have been carrying out their own agenda in an attempt to assist him. And while they pretty much slaughter the army in this episode, the creators did take care to give every one of these soldiers their own identity with this subtle characterization, rather than just packing a clone army of mindless slaves or something.

The second half of this episode was more about the stealth, as Ed and his father try to get to Father. In the meantime, we have also three homunculi who are trying to do the same (Envy is nearly at Father, Pride will get rescued by Sloth any minute now, and Wrath also should show up somewhere in the next few episodes). Truly promises to be an action-packed finale. Especially considering how at the end of this episode the clones were activated. I really have to give credit to Bones: that was one creepy scene.

In the next episode we should also see the new and final OP, if the creators indeed planned to have a new OP at the start of every season. I wonder whether it can beat the current one, though. It’s been by far the best OP of Full Metal Alchemist yet for me (including the first season, of course). But damn, this really means that at this point the total amount of Full Metal Alchemist Episodes is already in the three digits. The thing I really hope for this season is for its success to inspire more series to just go with the right amount of episodes that their story requires, rather than just stick to 26.
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Sorry, but I have to get back to Pride again. I just keep wondering what it means to be considered “the strongest” homunculus, and whether he can really be measured as such, especially considering the other homunculus. Does he have the biggest amount of strength of the homunculi? I doubt that actually, considering Sloth and Envy. The biggest defense? Nah, Sloth and Greed are also incredibly sturdy. Meanwhile, I believe that his speed is about equal to that of Lust and Wrath. I think that what sets him apart is more his combination between strength and range of weapons that can hit from multiple directions.

So while he might be considered the “strongest” homunculus, I doubt that he’s been the most useful one. He might have the upper hand in battle, but he never uses that. Ed in this episode could be excused, but what about the others? He could have easily killed all of them, and yet only the lion got a few wounds that don’t seem too serious. Compare that to Wrath’s battle against Greed, in which Wrath just kept pushing his attacks on Greed, leaving as little opportunity as possible for Greed to recover. That’s something I consider stronger than some kid who holds a lot of power but doesn’t use it, and I believe that Wrath would actually be able to make minced meat out of Pride if they ever were put up against each other. And even Ed: why didn’t Pride just grab him in the way that he took control of Al?

In any case, that didn’t mean that I didn’t like this episode. It was another excellent build-up to the inevitable promised day, and how different parties are coming together again. I liked how the four chimeras finally saw each other again (not knowing that they’ve decided to betray Kimblee). And despite my gripes about Pride’s fighting ability, the part about his relationship with his ‘mother’ was definitely interesting.

As for Roy’s plans, I’m also curious about those ones: what was the point in kidnapping Bradley’s wife: the end of this episode showed that the military clearly doesn’t intend to consider her safety; especially with Bradley gone now. Next episode should again start with an intense action scene in which we can finally see Roy in action again.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

On a side-note: I finally changed the banner for this site, after having the previous one for more than three years by now. The image comes courtesy of Rel, an amazing artist. I’ve made a few other potential banners in the process. Do you suppose that these might look more appropriate?

After this I’m planning to overhaul the side-bar. My plans are to:
– Move the most recent post upwards for easier browsing.
– Sort the series entries on recommendation-worthy.
I’ve also been toying with the idea to include a small section containing a link to my favourite episode each week, or something similar. How does that sound?

With this episode you can really see that the pacing has slowed down: an entire episode was dedicated to just one fight, save from two or three scenes about Mustang. It makes you wonder: did the creators at the start of this series know how many series they were going to have to work with? Or did they intentionally rush the first half of this series, in order to give the finale ample time to play out? It’s refreshing to see though: most endings of long series are rushed, but by the looks of it this series is going to get all of the time it needs.

In any case, for the supposedly “strongest homunculus”, Pride looked pretty pathetic in this episode at first, when he couldn’t even beat Ed. Wouldn’t it just be easy to surround Ed with his powers and strike him from multiple sides? It looks to me that while Pride may have the most convenient ability, he’s also quite uninventive, and instead had to actually eat Gluttony in order to gain the upper hand. It’s probably because he’s not used to these “cleanup” duties, which seem to have been part of Lust and Envy’s role, when they were still alive/free.

I thought that Wrath would be back for revenge quite quickly, but surprisingly he’s hiding somewhere. This series has been quite skillful in having characters carry out their own agenda when they’re not on the screen, so who knows what he’s been up to.
Rating: * (Good)

Contrary to the large scale of the past number of episodes, this one was nearly entirely focused on the group of Ed, Greed and those two Chimera. But that still didn’t prevent it from being as excellent as usual. I really have to admit that the way in which the action scenes of this series is written is stuffed with a ton of creativity. That fight against pride was really excellent, especially in the way that we finally get to see one of his major weaknesses.

What I also liked is how this series shows that not all human experiment victims are dissatisfied with their bodies, and want to go back to who they originally were. Like the two chimeras in this episode said: at times it’s pretty convenient to have such a body. With Al, it’s of course an entirely different story. Convenient as it may be to have a mechanical body, he’s completely under Pride’s control now, not to mention that the link between the armor and his mind can sever any minute now.

There was a little Deus ex Machina in this episode, though. While it’s awesome to see Lan Fan back, I do wonder how she 1) knew where Lin was at the time when Ed put a lot of emphasis on secrecy, and 2) knew where the heck she should look for in the total dark.

In any case, I’m expecting a very long finale here. I mean, the promised day is like what? The next day? At this point there still are 16 episodes left. Overall though, I’m very glad that for once we get a series that gets enough time to tell its entire story, rather than it being cut off at a random point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)