Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood Part I

A lot of people love Brotherhood because it’s closer to the manga than the 2003 series. There’s a lot to like in Brotherhood, but compared to the 2003 series, it’s really oddly paced, and the story isn’t as well constructed, especially early on. I’ve found that every time I try to watch it, I struggle with how disjointed the early episodes feel and how badly motivated and based on coincidence a lot of the plot is. It definitely feels like they were just trying to cram in all the early parts of the manga so they could get to the juicy stuff. A tacked-on anime original first episode that introduces all the major characters (the Elric brothers, Mustang and Hawkeye and their group, Hughes, Armstrong, even Kimblee) by showing them tracking down and fighting a rogue State Alchemist, Isaac the Freezing Alchemist. (By the way, Isaac’s ability to control water should make him so overpowered—like Magneto levels of overpowered—which I guess was necessary for him to be a credible threat to nearly every heavy hitter in the FMA world, but then he just goes down like a punk when the half hour is up, and is never mentioned again.) Then we spend 13 episodes trundling through chopped together clipshows of the early stories: the battle with Cornello in Lior, Shou Tucker turning his daughter into a chimera, the first encounter with Scar, meeting with Dr. Marcoh and deciphering his notes, the visit to Izumi, the battle with Greed.

The only story I felt got real justice in the first thirteen was the Fifth Laboratory and the following death of Hughes. I give the writers credit for realizing that they had to get this right for the emotional punch to land later on when Ed and Al and Winry find out that Hughes is dead and how he died. I was almost ready to drop the show again until I got to that first Fifth Laboratory episode and the exciting and fluidly animated fights against the armor suits guarding it. The Izumi visit and following battle with Greed were also pretty well handled until their abrupt end (but that falls into Part 2, so I’ll complain about it there instead.)

The Lior story is the worst adapted by far, and sort of sums up all the problems I’ve had with the writing throughout Brotherhood, but especially in the earlier episodes. In the 2003 series it was spread over two episodes, and served as a great introduction to the series and the world. We found out what alchemy is and how it works; we got an exciting battle against Cornello and his chimeras; we got to understand Rose’s character and the position she was in; and later on, Lior was used to make the point that fanaticism outlives any single demagogue, since throwing out Cornello didn’t actually change anyone’s mind. In Brotherhood it’s all squeezed into one episode, so there’s no time to let any of these concepts play out. Rose is a poorly defined character. The fight between Edward and Cornello is decent, but in a later fight where there should be tension, Ed and Al just turn into chibis and stomp on over all the bad guys. (Brotherhood has a terrible habit of turning everyone into chibis or throwing in a “Don’t call me short!” joke at the absolute worst times, like when we’re in the middle of reeling from a series of startling revelations about the nature of the Amestrian government.) There are also some scenes that were important world- or character-building in the 2003 series, like Al introducing the concept of alchemy by fixing a radio or Ed having a complete list of physical ingredients in a human body and knowing they can be bought on a child’s budget, that become pointless in Brotherhood because we already know about alchemy and we already know about their past. On the other hand, Ed’s final speech to Rose carries more meaning in Brotherhood than it did in the 2003 series. Some of this might be a difference in how Vic Mignogna and Romi Park interpreted the speech; in the dub of the 2003 series, Mignogna delivers the speech like it’s supposed to be inspirational, whereas Park’s delivery in the Japanese version of Brotherhood comes off as if Ed is saying it’s just a grim reality of the world that can’t be escaped from. Either way, the speech has more weight because we already know that Ed and Al have been through significant hardship themselves; it’s not the naive blather of a hero who’s never faced a setback, but the hard-won wisdom of someone who’s been through hell himself.

That sums up my two biggest problems with Brotherhood so far, even where I am now 28 episodes in: the story has been squeezed and squished and chopped and rearranged so much that plot developments feel rushed or poorly motivated; and the series seems to think there’s a mandated quota of “I’m not short!” jokes per episode, and it’s not too concerned about where they fall. The humor in general isn’t good. It’s definitely from the old school of anime humor, where the height of hilarity is guys and girls with secret crushes on each other yelling at each other, ending with the guy getting bonked on the head. The manga had some much better character-based jokes, especially involving Mustang and Hawkeye, but none of those made it in. Unfortunately, the lack of downtime to get to know Mustang, Hawkeye, and the rest of the crew affects a lot of the plot in Part 2—as we’ll see.