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FullMetal Alchemist Club

xEryChan

Demon Child
Hello and welcome to the...

FullMetal Alchemist Club
fWacHQC.jpg

If you are a fan of the series, whether it being the 2003 anime, Brotherhood, or the manga, this is the place for you. Here you can discuss everything FMA related with other fans of the franchise, whether it be the characters or share fanart, etc.

Rules

  1. All SPPF Rules Apply
  2. No Bashing or Flaming other members or characters.
  3. Stay on Topic. This thread is meant to talk about FullMetal Alchemist only.
  4. One Liners are not allowed. Please explain more when you post.
  5. Respect Each Other. The key to a nice, clean discussion is respect. Treat others how you would like to be treated.
  6. When posting a fanart, please give credit. It's rude to post something you didn't make and not give credit for it.
  7. You can talk about shippings from FMA you like here but if you wish to discuss it in full, then go to the Shippers Community then.


Members

  1. xEryChan (Owner)
  2. Victorian Rush
  3. Power Up
  4. Akkipeddi
  5. keepitsimple
  6. Genaller
  7. 345ash-greninja
  8. VampirateMace
  9. Mizz Nikki
  10. gwen-watson

Graphics

None as of right now, I’ll edit this post if any are posted.



There is no form to fill out to post here. Just post and you are automatically in.

So, shall we start this off with a topic?

What is your favorite series and why? (03 or Brotherhood)
 
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Victorian Rush

Weather Manipulator
Huge fan of the FMA series and I am currently up the 4th episode of 03 so count me in.

I’ve started watching 03 now and I’ve finished the third episode. I did watch Brotherhood first and I really loved it. I also am really enjoying 03 as well. There is quite a difference between the two, I appreciate how 03 put more of an emphasis on Ed and Al and the events that led up to them to performing human transmutation. We also learned that Winry s parents were killed in Ishval whereas in Brotherhood we learned that that in episode 6. I also love how they showed us how Winry and Pinako took the news of the death of Winry’s parents and didn’t just completrly brush it off like Brotherhood did although it does play a bigger part later on when Winry learned about who killed her parents.
 
I’m in. Just a comment tho to everyone, when discussing 03 vs FMAB, pls use spoiler tags to offer @Victorian Rush some protection from being spoiled

Anyway, on to the question, I prefer 03(it’s my favorite anime of all time) and I’ve made it pretty clear. I’m not a huge fan of Brotherhood tbh. I value what 03 did over what FMAB did.
 

Akkipeddi

All set to be a nice guy
Count me in. Truthfully, I've never watched anime, but I decided to finally watch a series, and I couldn't have started with anything better, because FMAB was amazing. The way in which the story was built up, to the amazing world and its characters.

03 was nice too, but to me, Brotherhood is hands down the superior series, for its tighter story and much more interesting cast. It says a lot about how good the rest of the characters are, when an awesome protagonist like Edward ultimately isn't even my favorite character of FMAB. Mustang, Ling Yao, King Bradley, Hohenheim, Scar, Hawkeye, Winry and of course shorty, thanks for taking me on an amazing adventure (and loads more too).

Also, on a side note @Victorian Rush, @xEryChan, @345ash-greninja, hopefully you guys can get around to watching Code Geass soon, so that me and @Genaller can hopefully create a Code Geass club as well (it is after all his favorite anime, and joint top for me).
 
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xEryChan

Demon Child
Hello everyone, I will add you guys in the first post now.

Having watched both series, I can say full heartedly that I think Brotherhood is better by a long shot. Brotherhood may have started off slow but it really picked up when they revealed who was controlling the homonculus and it got very interesting. I found myself watching episode after episode. All of the fight scenes are very well animated and I got really invested in Ed and Al’s characters and their really heartbreaking backstory. It is such an amazing anime and I am so glad I watched it.

@Akkipeddi I did watch the first episode of Code Geass today before I had to do some homework. About to watch the second one.
 

keepitsimple

site of lies
I guess I should join considering this thread's existence was my idea to begin with lol. I doubt that I'll be very active though.

I prefer Brotherhood but only because I didn't watch all of 03, so depending on what I think of it after I actually get around to that, Power Up may no longer be surrounded or he may still be.
 

Genaller

Silver Soul
Well I’ve been a long term fan of FMA and consider it to be 1 of the greatest pieces of media of the 21st century, so sign me up! Amusingly enough this recent buzz for FMA on SPPF can be traced back to the first Other Anime Face-Off where FMA:B won prompting 345 to check it out to see what all the hype was about. It then became his favorite series and he ended up getting Xery, Victoria and Akki into it as well. Even if it occurred due to circumstances more heated than I would’ve liked, I’m glad that ultimately more people have become aware of this treasure of a franchise ^_^.

As for the question at hand, I’d say Brotherhood is considerably better overall; however, I will give 03 high praise for its early episodes that do a fantastic job at getting you to care for the characters and in most cases the common material of both series is handled better in 03 which is understandable since Brotherhood was made with the premise that a good portion of the audience had already seen 03, and so wanted to get through the old material as soon as possible in order to focus on the brand new content.

Just to give 1 example where 03 outshone Brotherhood in common material consider the flashback where Trisha Elric passes away (ep 2 Brotherhood and ep 3 03). IIRC in Brotherhood we momentarily see the Elric Brothers find Trisha fallen down unconscious and then we are merely told that she passes away due to a long term illness with the next scene being her funeral. In contrast 03 gives us a proper emotional death scene showcasing Trisha’s final moments with Edward dying as she asked him for a sentimental favor relating to Ed’s dad with us witnessing Ed’s immediate reaction to her death. I think it goes without saying that 03 did a far better job at conveying how much loosing their mother affected the Elrics which in turn better justifies why the Elrics would go so far, even committing the ultimate taboo, to try reviving her.
 
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345ash-greninja

Auto-Memories Doll
Making my first post in this thread, I'll firstly say that I'm a huge/massive fan of the FMA franschise as a whole. I got into the 2009 series FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood about two months ago, and was thoroughly marvelled by the amazing show as a whole. It pretty much instantly became my #1 ranked anime as a whole by far after I finished watching that epic masterpiece of a show, which also happens to be widely acclaimed and praised among majority the anime fans overall as agruably the greatest anime ever. After that I also watched the series previously made in 2003 of the same franschise, which I also really enjoyed as a whole, but certainly not anywhere nearly as much as I did with Brotherhood. So please kindly count me in too as well. :)

In this first post of mine, I'll be getting elaborately into the FMA 03 vs Brotherhood debate here, which will very likely be the most dominant topic in this thread, I will first make a comparison between 03' beginning upto the middle part and Brotherhood's beginning to the middle part, making an assessment of which one is arguably superior to the other in terms of writing and quality:

03's beginning was preferable only in some aspects. Like, they showed certain things more elaborately like Ed and Al's backstory, their childhood, Trisha's illness and her last words along with her dying moment, that major incident in their life where they tried to transmute their dead mother back to life and in the process lost their bodies (Ed partly and Al fully) and the consequences of that incident like Winry and Pinako treating Ed, like applying bandages to his wounds, and later on they are also seen fixing the automail arm and leg onto his body, which was better. Though I'll still say that solely that major alchemical incident was done and shown better in Brotherhood, we can see there Ed's confrontation with the Truth, where the Truth literally talks with Ed. Truth's words to Ed basically gives us a mysterious enigmatic feeling about what kind of an entity Truth be. But in 03, Truth isn't presented as an entity who talks, basically entirely what's behind the Gate is represented as "The Truth" here, so that mysterious and enigmatic feeling about Truth the viewers got in Brotherhood doesn't exist here. Plus, when the incident was shown in Brotherhood, we got see what happened there fully upto when Ed sacrifices his arm to bring back Al's soul; however in 03, when the incident was shown first time, due to Al being the narrator there, the moment Al's body in taken away, a blackout happens with things then shifting to the moment when Al regains consciousness with his soul being bonded into the suit of armor, seeing Ed severely wounded like that fashion, so we don't get to see the moment there where Ed transmutes Al's soul onto the suit of armor via drawing an alchemical seal with his own blood. Due to that, the emotional weight of that incident in Brotherhood is just way more, since we basically there get to see Ed screaming and wailing in agony for his younger brother, yelling that Al is the only part of family he has left and he wants him back at any cost, even at the cost of his life, it pretty much signifies Ed amd Al amazingly strong and deep brotherly relationship, they unparalleled dynamic and genuine care for each other, and how much literally both of them are willing to sacrifice for sake of each other, serving as a testimony to their brotherly bond at such an early point of the series, which helps the viewers get invested into both of their characters all that much more.

03 also showed Ed's way to becoming a reputed state alchemist more elaborately, like firstly the fight on the train, and then Ed's alchemy exam in order to qualify for the military as a state alchemist, and then some heroic acts one after another as a state alchemist which made him more reputed and famous.

But there were certain problems clearly evident even there: 03 had two meaningless and horrible fillers in episode 4 and episode 10, showing off Ed's acts of heroism as a state alchemist, which had literally no bearing and impact on the plot whatsoever, nor were those episodes interesting literally in any way even as fillers, they totally lacked the excitement and the intriguing factor that pretty much every episode of Brotherhood had. The Clara/Psiren episode, a.k.a. episode 10 just takes the cake among those: that episode was actually so much boring that I swear that it's even comparable with the crappy SM fillers in Pokemon, even the fights in that episode between Ed and Psiren were done in such a way that they lacked any tension and the feeling of a tight situation.

Brotherhood certainly didn't have any episodes as horrible as those two (episodes 4 and 10). Those two underwhelming episodes take away a lot of points from 03's beginning as they basically showed that 03 was doing some needless and excessive plodding at the beginning sometimes trying to set up the whole thing, shortly in some parts they were extending the beginning way too much.

The Barry the Chopper episode was quite good, the imposter Elric brothers two-parter episodes were fine as well, the episode showing Yoki's backstory was...well, decent, but still, those two extremely underwhelming fillers do in fact take away a lot of credit away of 03's beginning, it basically just makes it clear that chose to extend and stretch the beginning way too much, in the process making it quite late in fact to get into the main scheme of things, going deep into the plot, which Brotherhood on the other hand got really deep into the plot much earlier without any needless plodding like 03 did via episode 4 and episode 10, which arguably helps the viewers get even more hooked into and invested in the show a lot earlier. Sure seeing Ed and Al's backstory and how they gradually got into the military helps the viewers get invested in their characters a lot as well, but seeing the plot thicken and the show getting deeper and deeper into a thick, elaborate and grand plot, resulting in a trigger of turn of events (which are all integrally relevant) one after another is basically what arguably gets the viewers more hooked and drawn into the scheme of things in the show as a whole, or at the very least that was what basically happened with me.

As Brotherhood progresses from the beginning to the middle part of the show, the plot thickens and thickens and thickens, things get very deep into the plot, events after events which are really notable, impactful both in terms of emotional weight, character interactions and intense, epic action moments, and most importantly, really very integral to the plot, start happening one after another, drawing the viewers into the grand scheme of things much more effectively compared to what 03 does. To analyze how subtly Brotherhood triggered the turn of (majorly impactful and notable) incidents one after other as it went from the beginning to the middle part, as it gradually thickened the plot let's take a look:

We have have Ed and Al's meeting with Izumi at first where we get to know everything about how Ed and Al gradually learned alchemy overcoming plenty of hardships and jams under the strict supervision of their teacher alongside getting to know Izumi's backstory as well (how she committed the taboo in order to transmute her dead child back to life and lost part over her interiors), and then things suddenly (but still subtly in a connected manner) shift to Ed and Al's confrontation with Greed and his sidekick chimeras, an powerful exciting scuttle between Ed and Greed and then afterwards Bradley's cool antagonistic brutal badassery take place with him brutalizing Greed and his chimeras. After that, we have the Xing characters (Ling, Fun and Lan Fan) introduced and pretty much immediately get to see a lot of moments which gets us invested into them in an instant, we get a good taste of Ling's courageousness, determination and her strong dynamic with Lan Fan in their fight with Bradley where Lan Fan sacrifices her arm in order to keep the prince of her clan safe, so that Bradley can't keep track of Ling anymore via the dripping blood and Ling on the other hand, being determined to save Lan Fan too even when she was nothing more than an injured baggage to him...hard to not get invested into Ling and Lan Fan's characters and like them after seeing all those incidents. And almost alongside that too, we have Ed and Al's second confrontation with Scar where incidents of immense emotional appeal and weight take place, we fully get to see Scar's backstory, and Winry's backstory too...it's revealed that Scar killed Winry's parents and Ed accidentally reveals it in front of Winry, which leads to subsequently some really touching and impactful moments which appeals emotionally in a incredibly strong manner to the viewers; it really hard not to genuinely feel deeply for Winry at the point when she picks up a pistol nearly and takes aim ar Scar, the murderer of her own parents, but...still for some reason can't shoot. She has an emotional breakdown after some time, bursting into a flood of tears due to not being able to shoot the killer of his parents, when Ed consoles Winry in a deeply touching and caring manner, making her realize that the only reason she couldn't was that because that was the genuine nature of her and her parents, they were meant to just give life and not take, her parents treated and saved the lives of many Ishvalans who were the sheer enemies of them Amestrians at that point, she herself gave Ed one arm and a leg and gave him a new life and in the end, promises to never makes her cry again, and even if he does, the next time she cries, it'll be tears of joy. Those deeply touching and caring words of Ed towards Winry severs as a testament to how much incredibly and amazingly strong Ed-Winry dynamic, which showed how genuinely and deeply they actually did care for each other; overall it was a subtle and masterful representation of emotional appeal and impact via deep character backstories and wonderful interactions. That also showed that how subtly Brotherhood actually could move on from epic and intense action/fights to suddenly really strong amd touching emotional appeal and interactions.

The aspect of depicting the turn of events, with all those events being being really impactful, notable in terms of intense action, wonderful character interactions, unveiling deep character backstories and making a strong appeal emotionally, and most important of all, being integrally relevant and important to the plot, whilst gradually going deeper and deeper into the plot, is what Brotherhood did masterfully: with the trigger of the turn of events starting to happen, each of those important, notable and major incidents while happening one after another feel so much connected with each other. It doesn't feel like we are randomly leaping from one major incident to another, they are so integrally connected with each other and the plot that while witnessing the turn of events, it feels like we are watching a real compact and plot heavy anime, where almost everything/almost everything feels really worthwhile and really important plot wise. We are moving from one major incident from another, with literally each and every incident feeling amazingly connected to each other, integrally important and relevant as well in the plot.

This compactness and the integral connection with one major important event to another is something which is very much felt like missing in 03, and certain events in between feel not all that much important, a bit stretched and unnecessary as we move on from the beginning to the middle part in 03, due to some extra stretching and plodding at the beginning, which makes certain events feel quite a bit random and a bit unnecessary, which makes it feel like the compactness and the integral connection from one major/impactful event to another which Brotherhood has, in very much missing here, a.k.a. in 03. Almost every event doesn't feel as integrally important and worthwhile plot wise like Brotherhood (which by an expect actually pretty clear illustrates the shher different in quality in the construction of the two shows and how much better constructed a show Brotherhood is compared to 03).

This concludes my comparison and analysis of FMA Brotherhood and FMA 03 upto the beginning--->middle part of the shows. I'll make many more elaborate analysis' making comparison between the middle--->end part of Brotherhood and 03 as well, along with the several other aspects of both of the shows as well as a whole.
 
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xEryChan

Demon Child
Was wondering when I would see you here, @345ash-greninja, especially you’re the one who got me to watch the series. I have updated the OP amd added you in.

I think it’s time to propose a topic.

Who are your favorite characters?

My favorite characters are Edward (duh), Hawkeye, Alphonse, Mustang, Ling, and Greed.

Edward is, without a doubt, my favorite character from the series. I got invested into his and Al’s characters and their very heartbreaking backstory. How can anyone not love the dynamic duo of Mustang and Hawkeye, especially Mustang. Both of them are awesome and I love the relationship they shared and how loyal Hawkeye was to Mustang all through the series. I loved Ling from his debut, he had me laughing, especially when he decided to follow Ed, Al, and Winry to Central. I also really loved Greed as well, easily the best homunculus. I really loved his character and easily, at the end while he was dying, he admitted that all he wanted was to have some really good friends, which he got.

I have to give a special shoutout to Maes Hughes. His constant gushing over his daughter was hilarious but you could see that he really did care for Ed and Al and just wanted to help them. His death really made me sad the first time I watched the series. He didn’t deserve that, not one bit.
 

Genaller

Silver Soul
Gotta give a shout out to Fuhrer King Bradley (Brotherhood). The guy is a certified badass and easily the most compelling villain in the entire series not to mention 1 of the most layered characters in the series in general. He’s also the most sympathetic since he was bascially molded by the state since infancy to be the ‘ideal’ ruler (and it can also be assumed that he was subtly conditioned to never defy father) with everything from his rank to his child decided for him.

He had an outward exterior of a compassionate leader yet beneath that was a much colder individual. It’s still worth noting that he had his own code of ethics (1 that was heavily individualistic and pragmatic) that he lived by and held others to making him far more admirable than his villainous colleagues. He took pride in his status as a homunculus yet in his heart yearned for the ability to choose something of his own free will like humans do and was only able to have that for 1 thing; his wife!

Furthermore he fought with honor almost like he was a ‘face’ (a.k.a 1 of the good guys) with his opponents needing to use underhanded tactics and ‘divine circumstances’ (e.g. cutting through another person to land damage on him and the eclipse blinding him at a critical moment respectively) to get the better of him. What’s especially ironic here is that despite being aligned with the homunculus and being a pivotal part of many of the atrocities committed for the sake of their plans (e.g. Ishvalan extermination), he died peacefully feeling content with the life he lived and will be remembered in the history books of Amestris as a hero who died defending his country (eventhough he was on the side that wanted to commit genoicde on it).

This is probably my favorite scene of his:


I love this scene on so many lvls. It’s such a diversion from conventional story telling (in isolation Bradley could even be argued to be the valiant returning hero in this scene) yet so immensely badass.
 

VampirateMace

Internet Overlord
Room for one more? I loved the 03 series back then which got me started on some of the manga as well, but I still need to get in the rest of brotherhood. So I guess I risk some spoilers being here, but eh, that's okay. I was feeling kind of resistant to it, in Western culture remakes are often a bad thing, but I know this is more accurate to the manga, and I think with a larger budget.

As far as favorite characters go, I always found myself really invested in Ed's personal storyline, and just the idea of what they now have to go through because of his mistake. And also a few cute/kindly side chars I regretted being attached to for reason obvious to anyone that has watched/read far enough.

Additional topic; anyone got any cool FMA merch?
- I bought a replica of his watch when I had to work in a situation where cell phones were strictly not allowed (I've always had issues trying to wear wrist watches).
 
Room for one more? I loved the 03 series back then which got me started on some of the manga as well, but I still need to get in the rest of brotherhood. So I guess I risk some spoilers being here, but eh, that's okay. I was feeling kind of resistant to it, in Western culture remakes are often a bad thing, but I know this is more accurate to the manga, and I think with a larger budget.

As far as favorite characters go, I always found myself really invested in Ed's personal storyline, and just the idea of what they now have to go through because of his mistake. And also a few cute/kindly side chars I regretted being attached to for reason obvious to anyone that has watched/read far enough.

Additional topic; anyone got any cool FMA merch?
- I bought a replica of his watch when I had to work in a situation where cell phones were strictly not allowed (I've always had issues trying to wear wrist watches).

Ayy finally, some people who watched 03 first!


Anyway, on the topic of FMA merch, I'd really like to get all the official 03 art and all the guidebooks and stuff. There's even a book out going over each episode of 03 and the animators/producers/ directors views on how the show went and why they did what they did. Lots and lots of content

Side note

Just found out that FMA 03 three games made for the PS2 and they have animated cut scenes! I watched one or two and I'm already wanting to watch all the cutscenes :D

The games follow original plots, one of them I think takes place somewhere between 17 and 18 of 03, personally, I just want to watch all the cutscenes :D
 
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Mizz Nikki

Operations Director
Hey, so I have watched both series (03 and Brotherhood) and I can tell you I am a big FMA fan. Do you have room for me?

I did watch the 03 version first but I watched the entire series of Brotherhood in a few days and as for which one I prefer, I think Brotherhood wins by a landslide. Everything about that series is awesome and really puts the later episodes of 03 to shame. I loved the storyline, all of the characters were really well handled, and all of the fight scenes are just plain great. I’m in awe after watching that bloody brilliant series.

Not that I don’t love 03 because I do but there no comparison as to what series is better. Brotherhood is ten times better.
 

Victorian Rush

Weather Manipulator
I still love this series so much and it will always have a very special place in my heart as will my overall favorite character and my baby for that matter, Edward Elric.

I have finished watching 03 and I definitely agree Brotherhood is ten times better. I’m not saying I didn’t like 03, it was a really good watch but honestly, the crappy ending and the several issue I had really ruined the whole series for me and for that, it doesn’t make it to my top ten anime list. Probably top 50 at best.

I really want to get a replica of Ed’s pocket watchbut I wouldn’t know where to get one.

Who are your favorite characters?

By looking at my avatar, you could probably guess Edward is my favorite character. I love him, he is a very well written character with a tragic backstory. Not to mention, he is an absolute badass and I live for that. Honestly, it’s just so hard not to fall for him. He is one freaking awesome character.

Besides Ed, I also really really love Hawkeye (best girl), Mustang, Greed, Alphonse, and Winry of course long live EdWin bit Ed is and probably always will be my favorite.
 
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VampirateMace

Internet Overlord
Well it was a few years ago, but I got it from one of those 'Hello Kitty Stores' at the mall. One of those happy moments when I stumbled on something that fills a need and looks cool. You can probably find them on Amazon though.

First episode of Brotherhood was more epic then I remembered, so that's promising. Of course then I realize how many other animes there are I want to steam.
 

gwen-watson

A Marvel Baby
FMA got me through a great deal of my adolescent depression, so it's got a huge place in my heart. I would also like to join in if possible.

Favorite character is Alphonse, beyond shadow of a doubt. I also really like Hughes and Edward, as well as Izumi.

However, I'm in a very small minority that actually prefers the 03 series over Brotherhood. I won't really get into why, because I want to avoid flame wars and controversy. But no matter what, I love anything FMA related.
 
FMA got me through a great deal of my adolescent depression, so it's got a huge place in my heart. I would also like to join in if possible.

Favorite character is Alphonse, beyond shadow of a doubt. I also really like Hughes and Edward, as well as Izumi.

However, I'm in a very small minority that actually prefers the 03 series over Brotherhood. I won't really get into why, because I want to avoid flame wars and controversy. But no matter what, I love anything FMA related.

Not that small of a minority :D
 

Victorian Rush

Weather Manipulator
I’m actually tempted to rewatch Brotherhood again but this time in Japanese. I watched the dub the first time around so I want to watch both versions. I’ve seen clips of the sub and Romi Park is really great as Ed. Al’s VA is also really good as well. Heck, the entire cast is great.
 
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