Category: Finished Series: Action

Whoa, this really was one of the best FMA episodes we’ve seen for quite a while now. It’s great to see this series fired up again. There were a lot of great things that happened in this episode.

First of all: Hohenheim’s background. We learn that he put forth that scary look of his on purpose. It’s interesting that he didn’t realize what kind of effect this would have on Ed. Why he did that, I’m not yet sure, but I think it’s pretty obvious right now that he holds some sort of Philosopher’s stone. In fact, I believe it to be created from those children we saw him with during the recap episode. What’s also interesting is that he actually discovered Father’s plans, while Ed was spying on him, thinking that he was just busy with another one of his experiments. But there’s still so much about this guy that still needs to be revealed, though. I’d love to see an episode dedicated to when he met his um… wife. (Did they ever get properly married anyway?)

The part where Olivia killed off Raven was also really well delivered, it’s amazing how good of an actor Olivia turned out to be, although it’s a bit of a shame that they had to resurrect Sloth in order to get the right information out of him, but at least she now has confirmed that the military is up to something huge.

Also, Wrath is getting more and more scarier in the way that he keeps using Winry as a hostage, when he actually invites her to Briggs in this episode, as his way of saying “don’t try anything stupid”. I must say, that even though I disliked her at first, this is a very plausible reason for her to get involved with the main plot. Instead of the first series in any case, in which she just… appeared and never really left for God knows which reason?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Quite out of the blue, this episode comes and delivers answers to some of the more burning questions that the early episodes have asked. I was prepared for the worst in terms of this show, but damn. It still amazed me to what extend this series is willing to go.

Being epic is of course easy to do: just create some sort of deus ex machina bomb that has the power to destroy the world and voila: you’ve involved the entire world in your story. Making it count is of course an entirely different story. This episode finally revealed what the homunculi were doing in Lior, and why Hughes had to die, among others. I at first thought that they were simply trying to make as many philosopher’s stones as possible, but these people are actually turning the entire COUNTRY into a transmutation circle! Bloody hell.

To think that Father didn’t take over a country in order to create his plans. He instead created a country, in order to carry them out. This explains the country’s round shape, why the capital is right in the middle of it and much more. The next big question is of course going to be: why? What could this guy possibly want even more? He possesses eternal life, is the most powerful man in the entire country, nobody can harm him in any way in the way this is going. What could he possibly want so badly that he’d create a 500-year long plan that involves so much preparation and such a hassle to carry out?

And where does Hohenheim fit into this, really? He must have had something to do with it, but what? My speculation at this point is that Hohenheim is indeed an immortal, and created Father as some sort of clone of his, which then got a mind of its own and then started that incredibly elaborate plan of his.

It’s also interesting how this episode explained the first episode as well. Wasn’t that supposed to be a filler? Interesting choice, especially considering the lack of original material in the rest of this series.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I wonder, after seeing Ed pay with a coin in this episode: how does money work in the Full Metal Alchemist universe? I mean, any alchemist could just gather some copper and nickel and make a fortune.

Anyway, this episode mostly consisted out of building up, although that introduction scene of Sloth rocked. The guy is pretty stereotypical (at least the “sloth” of the first season was a bit of a creative take on this trope), but the action scene was as good as usual. Heck, Sloth might be even tougher than Greed, who is supposed to be the strongest shield.

My guess would be that either Sloth or Gluttony was the first homunculus to be created. From the homunculi whose backstory we already know by now, you can see somewhat of a pattern, in which father experiments with various techniques to create homunculi, so naturally this would mean that his creations would keep getting better and better (see Wrath, who does stand out as the most skilled and emotionally stable homunculus so far). Gluttony and Sloth look like early prototypes: they have interesting powers, but tend to be too stupid or lazy to really be left on their own.

I do wonder, though. Father’s plan has always been one of secrecy, and silencing those who know about the alchemists. Why then does he send Sloth on such a mission, in which he’s bound to attract attention to himself. I mean, if he was looking for someone or something, he could have easily used Envy to infiltrate the base.

This episode was very much about getting Olivier to trust Ed and Al, which is of course a bit tricky considering how they can’t tell her exactly what they’re after, due to Winry. Still, I think she got the message at the end. The creators did well in portraying her as a hard-to-impress character.
Rating: * (Good)

Haha! I knew it! Even though the creators may have been trying to not show Marcoh’s new face for a while, they still were trying too hard in the way that absolutely nothing of his face was shown. Not even hints. Besides, the total absence of Mai Chang also showed that the hooded guy that travelled with Scar was one big decoy; otherwise there was no reason for him to split up with Mai Chang and the moustache guy.

Nevertheless though, that fight between Scar and Kimbley kicked ass. While not the deepest character, Kimbley has this air around him that makes him fun to watch. He’s definitely a big change from the first season. It’s one thing that he was a purely evil maniac back there, but the absolutely pathetic way the creators used him in the final parts of the series really made him into one my least favourite characters of the first series.

It’s also interesting that the creators actually paid attention to the effects of heat and cold on metal in this episode. It seems that the winter has arrived, and on top of that Ed and Al have travelled to a high and cold mountain range in the middle of a blizzard. And his automail actually causes him troubles. The strange thing however, is that alchemy suddenly also stopped working. Seeing the nature of alchemy and Rentanjutsu, could it be that something exists that only allows alchemy to be used in certain places? Like, rentanjutsu is the alchemy that’s used throughout the world, but someone created renkinjutsu, which only can be used inside the country.

Armstrong’s older sister is also quite different from what I imagined. While Armstrong always had something comical about him, his sister is dead serious. Or at least, at first sight. And yet, she seems to be even more dangerous than he is.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Ah, thankfully the inconsistent animation of the previous episode was just a one-of-a-kind thing. This episode made up for it with pretty nice animation and a number of very creative shots and camera-angles (you especially have to love the Armstrong-scene in this episode).

Anyway, there’s lots of interesting stuff going on in this episode that introduces even more side-plots. We finally get our fist glimpse of the strange blond-haired woman we’ve been seeing in the OP. She’s the head of the Armstrong family. One particular filler episode from the first season suddenly gets an entirely different dimension. ^^;

Kimbley also waste no time to go after Scar, although his subordinates desperately need a lesson in the art of ambushing (seriously, did they really think that it was a good idea to corner Scar, a man who is known to fight back, on a bridge, from two sides? It’s like saying; “go ahead; escape. We’ll just shoot ourselves.”). The creators are also hinting a bit too much that Scar is travelling with that moustached guy that’s been hanging around him. they’re trying way too hard to hide his face.

In the meantime, Ed and Al also meet Bradley’s son and Grumman has taken up cross-dressing. A very eventful episode overall, I’d say.
Rating: * (Good)

The animation in this episode felt a bit off fro usual. Especially in the first half, the charactr’s expressions lacked sould and detail, it seems. This is especially strange considering we just had a recap a few weeks ago. My guess is that something went wrong with the outsourcing this time, because the characters’ expressions looked stiff and forced.

Anyway, as for this episode: i don’t understand why people were complaining about the lack of development for Knox during the previous episode: he actually got some attention in this episode. We see some of his past apprentices, what has become of them and we got to see a glimpse of the work he did in the past. To me, this seems like the creators have decided rearrange a bunch of chapters. Have some faith, will you?

In any case, this was clearly a build-up episode so there’s not a lot to say about it, other than that we finally get the proper introduction of Kimbley. thankfully he seems less stereotypically evil, although the scene between him and Envy was a bit too much of a contest to see who could create the biggest evil grin (like I said: the facial expressions in this episode were just OFF).
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Okay, as requested: an entry about the recently released OVA of Full Metal Alchemist called the Blind Alchemist. It’s going to be a short entry because it’s a pretty straightforward episode, but it’s interesting to mention it nonetheless.

So basically Ed and Al meet an alchemist who is supposed to have successfully performed a human transmutation. It turns out that he also failed to perform one, lost his eyes, and ever since his family has been deceiving him by using a fake girl from some orphanage. It’s an interesting story without a conclusion, though it doesn’t really need one. The family will most likely happily live together until either the alchemist dies, or something else of that magnitude.

What’s interesting about this story is that it comes from the time in which Ed and Al still believed that human transmutation really brought back the dead. Ever since we learned that it didn’t, but the interesting thing here is that the transmuted person was actually kept alive. My guess is that there is some poor soul caught in that body, unable to do anything. It’s her who I feel sorry for the most.
Rating: * (Good)

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)