And so, this series is finally over. What a ride it’s been!
As an epilogue, this episode managed to wrap everything up pretty neatly. The future of some characters are very neatly detailed, while for the others it’s left to our imagination. It’s great to see that both Ed and Al have gone their own ways, where Ed chose to take it easy in order to be able to raise his family, while Al took more ambitious plans. Roy meanwhile grew a moustache and got a step closer to beconing the next fuhrer, while getting his sight back with the help of a philosopher’s stone provided by Marcoh.
I admit, at the beginning of this series I tended to complain a lot about Winry, but looking back, this mostly was due to the way that the first season treated her, than her role here. She was a fine love interest in this series, and the creators didn’t try to shoehorn her into the main plot at the last minute. Instead, they used Al and Mai (and Izumi and her husband too, I guess) for the bit of romantic tension, which strangely seemed to fit a whole lot more.
Anyway, I was quite surprised at the reactions I got last eek, when I said that I’d pretty much label this series in my top 5 of 2010, so let me elaborate a bit further on that. At this point, I still can’t decide what my favourite show of the past half year has been, and I’m very much doubting between the Armed Librarians, Yojou-han Shinwa Taikei and this series. Assuming that two more series of that same caliber appear in the upcoming half year (which is reasonable, I suppose), that’s how I came to make that statement about this series being top 5 worthy.
Full Metal Alchemist was indeed freaking epic, but the thing is: the Armed Librarians were also really epic in their own way. Yojou-han on the other hand may not have been epic, but it was a masterpiece nonetheless. These three all had their own points at which they stood out as memorable. Full Metal Alchemist did this with its length, detailed setting, cast of characters, and the way its action scenes had been written. In comparison though, if for example Bounen no Xamdou would have been 39 or 52 episodes long, I would not have rated it inferior to this series.
And don’t get me wrong, this isn’t one of those series like Gurren Lagann, Kanon or Haruhi in which I, while enjoying the series, do not agree that their popularity is deserved. Brotherhood realyl deserves all the popularity it’s getting, but granted, I have seen quite a number of series that made more of an impact on me.
I don’t think that this has to do with being shounen or seinen or what. I mean, with series like Les Miserables being labelled as kids’ series, and series as Koihime Musou labelled as seinen… do we really have to hold it against them when a series has shounen elements? Besides, if this really is a shounen series, it really was one of the damn best of its genre.
The fantasy action genre, along with science fiction, is very much my favourite genre out there, so my standards are really high for it. What this series didn’t have, which I did experience with other series of its genre, was this addictive style of storytelling that keeps you at the edge of your seat. The kind that keeps juggling all kinds of emotion at once. Full Metal Alchemist instead was like a bulldozer, especially near the end. Is that bad? Of course not! it’s still a freaking awesome series.
Rating: * (Good)
Roy is NOT the fuhrer yet.
While its not clearly shown in anime, Roy is 2-star general.
Grunman became the fuhrer(which i am not surprised, and i would not be surprised if Grunman planned to use Mustang to propel himself into that position anyway)
Oh and the end of episode anounced that there’s a movie coming up.
My bet is that we will get a re-adaptation of Ishval wars flashback(which suffered badly in anime, due to 75% of it being cut)
Personally, I don’t care about the genre, as long as the series is good. There’s plenty of forgettable and not worthwile stuff in every genre, but there’s a lot of amazing and outstanding series as well if you care to take a look around. I’ve seen lots of exellent series, almost in every genre you can think of, that I loved and will never forget because of very different reasons (intriguing plot, mind-blowing action, lovable characters, great humor etc.), or even a mix of all those reasons in a lot of cases (to name the few: Baccano!, Monster, Planetes, Noein, Seirei no Moribito, Nana, Honey & Clover, Nodame Cantabile, Clannad, Michiko to Hatchin, Black Lagoon, Juuni Kokki, Cowboy Bebop, Princess Tutu, Gankutsuou, Bokura no… and many, many more), but it doesn’t change the fact, that the series which made the greatest emotional impact on me, which broke my heart many times in every posiible way, and which I love the most above all others, IS SHOUNEN through and through, however you look at it (One Piece), and I’m not even slightly ashamed of it (to the contrary).
So yeah, all this discussion about whether FMA:B is shounen or seinen doesn’t make much sense to me. If you classify it as shounen, does it automatically mean that FMA:B is worse or inferior to the rest of the series of the passing season only because of that fact? Sorry, but I don’t get this way of thinking.
Anyway, psgels, I’m glad you liked the series. I still find the manga much better, but it doesn’t change the fact, that Bones did an amazing job here and (most of the time) did the manga justice. So yeah, can’t wait for your review of the whole series 🙂
Thanks for make me excite episode to episode,for the incredible batles,the excelent animation and sound trak…thx for all arakawa, bones.
bye bye fullmetal alchemist brotherhood, a awesome shonen, for me the best in the story.
p.d. sorry for my inglish, i dont write it good
Roy became Fuhrer? That definitely did not happen in the manga. In the end he was rising up in the ranks but was not leader of the country (and he didn’t have a mustache lol).
Anyways Brotherhood is not one of my top series either….now the manga on the other hand.
But I agree about the whole anti-shounen crowd. It’s just stupid. There are excellent shounen and there are awful seinen series. Being one or the other does not guarantee the series’ quality.
Anyways I am really happy you blogged this series. It’s been fun seeing someone’s reaction who didn’t read the manga.
Truly great anime, much better than the original series. I agree completely with your review. Well, excluding that Gurren Lagann part; I’ll pretend I didn’t read it 🙂
I must say that FMA:B was a great anime that held it’s own against other top anime, i also agree with it being freaking epic, I hope the movie is good.
no roy x riza
@UnknownVoice in which part of the review says that Mustang became fuhrer?
I think exactly as you in the matter of gurren lagann, haruhi, etc…. Good review :)!
I’m quite curious about this new movie. There’s no other info on it at all.
I’ve thought the last two episodes were a bit lacking, mostly because they weren’t adapted from the actual manga pages, but rather from storyboards (keep in mind, they were both animated before the chapters were officially out) and quite frankly… the animator’s own ideas about the setting and stuff just pales in comparison to the original manga.
You know, Paninya and Garfiel in the Elric Family Picture for example.
Yeah, sorry about the fuhrer part. That was my mistake, I edited it out now.
@ Blackbishop
I think Psgels might have edited his review a little about the Fuhrer bit (which is perfectly fine we all make errors from time to time) 🙂
little typo: realyl
While I’m hardly a big fan of shounen series, I agree with your assessment of this series as one of the best of 2010. It was overwhelmingly solid in craft, an excellent adaptation of a brilliant manga, epic in scope and themes, with some great action scenes and awesome characters. What else do we need? There are many shounen series and many of them are crap, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t recognise brilliance where one sees it.
One of the worst anime original changes is Mustang’s mustache. I give it two thumbs down.
I think Mustang’s mustache made him more memorable.
I lol’ed when I saw Mustangs’ mustache, it’s one of the funnier changes the producers added to the series. Also the picture of Ed and Al’s teacher…
Ed finally hooked up with Winry. I’m satisfied with the ending.
i was wondering what happened to ed’s left leg? i thought he would get it back along with his arm? did i miss smthg…
nah, you didn’t miss anything Reltair, ed didn’t get his left leg back, and I’ll definitely miss fmab, but at least it isn’t completely finish as the movie, (which i am curious about) will be coming out.
hmmm @Coldm13
i apologize for being technical, but the guy with the name ‘curious’ made that comment, not Reltair :O
damn, i thought with no action beforehand that ep 64 mightn’t be good, but damn if that wasn’t as satisfying an anime ending as i’ve seen.
great, GREAT series and not just from an anime standpoint. the whole equivalent exchange/alchemy/kabbalah/god/truth concepts are really interesting and worth studying on their own merits.
as for psgels opinion on the FMA:B being merely one of the best 5 of 2k10, i like that cuz right now it’s tied with rurouni kenshin for my favorite anime series of all time and to go by psgels there’s more good anime to be had. that is good because now i’m about to enter some serious fullmetal withdrawal (lol)
props to psgels btw for a kick@ss blog, i def enjoy(ed) the brotherhood reviews and seeing how other people felt about Bones’ adaptation. major props to Bones too cuz they largely nailed it.
because now i’m about to enter some serious fullmetal withdrawal (lol)
I hear you. It’s so sad that the series has ended… ;_;
The only thing I wanted to see that wasn’t included (in either the ending to this anime or the manga) was one final scene between Roy and Riza. Oh, and I thought that bringing back Dr. Knox was unnessicary, for whatever reason, but aside from that I can not complain.
Also, despite blaming the soldiers from Briggs and General Armstrong for the uprising (which I don’t believe happened in the manga), there is no scene where it is shown how she is exhonerated from that charge. I believe it was really pretty unnessicary to include the ‘blaming Briggs’ scene anyways… it would have been better, imo, to simply put in a small scene where Brenda tells everyone not to tell anyone that the Further had returned, and hoped things worked out.