Posts Tagged “full metal alchemist”

As a fan of the the first anime series and of the originating manga, I was interested in how this new version, FMA Brotherhood, would turn out. I was initially optimistic and I haven’t been disappointed so far after watching the first four episodes (through FUNimation’s video portal, just to clarify).

I like how Brotherhood is running faster than its predecessor. Shou Tucker’s story originally occupied two episodes; it’s now been told in one. A similar condensing happened with Cornello and Lior, with Rose’s “revived” brother and Ed in chains being cut, omissions I’m fine with. The mining town incident with Lt. Yoki was wrapped up in a few lines during an office conversation. I think the Clause/Majihal and the train hostage situation are being passed over entirely for the sake of a quicker storyline, which may be for the better. Those took place before Ed got his State Alchemist title, anyway, and it would benefit the series to not waste time on events of the past and instead focus on the main narrative.

Even though this remake seems “darker” – however you wish to read that – there are still the same moments of humor, e.g., Al being confused as Fullmetal during the brothers’ first appearances and Ed being sensitive about his height.

Something that bothered me about the first series, now that I look back at it, was Michiru Oshima’s orchestral score because it could be overbearing at times, particularly in the last quarter of the series. Akira Senju is handling the soundtrack this time around and though there are some tracks with similar dramatic vamps, there have also been less bombastic ones including a sullen, Middle Eastern-sounding string piece in ep. 3 (15:25-16:37 on Funi’s timecode) when Al was telling Rose about how he came to be a suit of armor. Regarding the opening and ending sequences, I didn’t care for either at first but then I grew to like most of YUI’s “again” – the quick bridge still annoys me a bit.

P.S. Alex Leavitt wrote an interesting post recently about the art design differences between the two series based on their first episodes.

I was offline most of Tuesday as I spent time out with some friends watching Transformers on Blu-Ray (still an average movie but in greater visual fidelity) and playing video games. In doing a cursory catch-up on Twitter messages (i.e. NOT trudging through numerous pages of updates), I came across one from Borderline Hikikomori’s CJ Blackwing that linked to RACS’ Full Metal Alchemist anime page. According to them, FUNimation will be releasing two season sets this upcoming spring: Season 1 (ep. 1-28) is set to come out January 27th and be a smushing together of the previous first and second DVD box sets, which collectively bundled singles 1 through 7, while Season 2 (ep. 29-51) has a date of March 10th and collates box sets 3 & 4, aka singles 8 through 13.
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One of the factors I consider in deciding whether to buy a DVD beside the movie itself is what kind of bonus features are packaged in with it. For example, I could have bought only the standard edition and saved ten bucks but I would have not received the talk session, the audio commentaries and portrait cards. The bound-in book had good material in it like interviews and sketches, although the placement of it between the two disc holders doesn’t seem optimal because it might start to fall out over time. That is my only major complaint with the extras as the other bonuses were definitely enjoyable.
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What better way to bring a popular series like Fullmetal Alchemist to a close than with a theatrical feature? “The Conqueror of Shamballa” attempts to resolve the cliffhanger of the TV series successfully and manages to do a pretty good job of that during its 104-minute runtime. I am sorry that the below review was a bit delayed (was busy with schoolwork yesterday) and a little disjointed. I have decided to review the extras and the movie in seperate posts so look for another entry on the two documentaries tomorrow along with those postcard scans I promised. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, I finally got the limited edition version of the Fullmetal Alchemist movie (as well as Love Roma Volume 4)! I would have made this post yesterday except my shipment from Amazon wasn’t delivered because my apartment’s mailbox is too small. Damn skinny malibox! So it was held at the city’s main post office and I picked up after school this afternoon. Anyway, below are some pictures from the unboxing. Sorry in advance for the crappy quality — I had to use my cameraphone because my digital camera’s batteries are recharging.

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