Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Critique and the Perils of Adapting
Introduction: I have been a fan of Full Metal Alchemist since I was a kid. I watched it almost every Friday night as a kid back when it was airing on YTV, and it was probably one of the darker animated shows I watched at that time. The 2003 version is what I am talking about and I notice that version of FMA tends to have a mixed reception nowadays which is strange because back before Brotherhood ended and rewatching the former on Youtube(back when you can watch Funimation Dubbed anime on the site), the comments sections were very positive on it but when Brotherhood finished airing back in 2011 (which is funny because my 2nd watch of the 2003 version also happened that time), a lot of the reception towards the 2003 version started to change and you tend to be in one of three camps regarding that version: you either pretend it didn't exist, you thought the first half of the show was good but the anime original sections were bad(I will deconstruct that notion later) or you liked the whole show. On top of that, Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood also has lots of "critical immunity" and is often considered one of if not the greatest anime of all time. The manga is also considered to be writing master class too. Okay, I rambled on long enough, this blog will basically go over the reasons why I think FMAB while being a decent to good show isn't as great as it's claimed to be and this will also cover the manga too. I'd probably give the show a 7/10 and I generally wouldn't give a fighting shounen anything higher than that. I will discuss the show on its own merits first, then I will go over why I prefer the 2003 version(in case FMAB fanboys thought I was being a 2003 fanboy and disregard my opinion for that alone, yes they do exist and they get that defensive) and I will discuss the ideas of an adaptation and if being "faithful" is always a "good" thing.
The early sections and why they suck: This part of FMAB is often derided the most, and even fanboys of the show straight up admit that they are terrible. I do think that people don't go into enough detail as to why they are bad to begin with. Yes, they rushed certain aspects of it, but some changes straight up make no sense at all. For example, the first episode being about a rogue State Alchemist named Isaac McDougal, he is very lacking as an antagonist and the guy basically is a poorly written anti villain because all he does is just say the military is evil and blames them for the Ishvalan Massacre, but yet the guy is willing to kill innocent people himself to get what he wants and the plot never acknowledges this. He is a pretty nothing antagonist and I bet you probably don't even remember him at all. The show only ever acknowledges him for one scene and it's pretty much a throwaway. He's never even in the flashbacks either and plus he wasn't even in the manga, which FMAB fanboys love to mention when talking about FMA. Then the next episode makes another questionable decision which makes no sense for the following episode. They decide to show Ed and Al's entire past before the Leore section. With this, Leore is robbed of its purpose. Leore was clearly supposed to be the opener because it sets up multiple mystery boxes like how Ed knows so much about the human body, what alchemy is, Al being a suit of armour, brothers' transmutation of Trisha Elric, but by having all these questions being answered in the previous episode, Leore is rendered redundant and serves no purpose. It sets up the armed uprisings I guess, but that gets resolved later in the show and the Father's plan of using it as a piece for his transmutation circle fails anyway. Sets up Rose? Well, she doesn't do anything in general. Later sections involving the Death of Hughes and Nina's Transmutation and Death By Scar have little room to develop, and actually feel like emotional moments. This can extend to the manga too, since those moments had little fleshing out or any build up that can lead to any emotional resonance. Nina gets transmuted and killed in the same chapter that she is introduced. Then there is just a lot of the other moments like Lab 5, Al's existential crisis, the Brothers burning down their house, and Ed trying offering his life so Scar can let Al go, all lacking any kind of emotional build up and all feeling hollow as a result but I can go over other stuff on why it's bad but I rambled long enough.
Lacking villains: This is one of the big reasons why the show and also by extension the manga never connected to me as much as other people. Most of the villains in FMAB outside of King Bradley are pretty much a joke. Gluttony and Envy are both basically jobbers and lose or get humiliated in every fight they are in. Envy in gets humiliated by Marcoh(who somehow learns how to destroy a Philosopher's Stone) and he never even puts up a fight against Mustang yet a bunch of generic super soldiers can. The most Envy ever amounts too is advancing key moments of the story like killing the Ishvalan Kid and killing Hughes and his death scene lacks emotional resonance or build up because he acts like an evil bastard throughout the entirety of the show, and in that one moment, I am supposed to feel bad for him? Well, this could work, if there was any other side to him than being an evil bastard who hates humanity but there isn't. Gluttony is an immortal punching bag then again most of the homunculi are outside of Bradley and Father. Sloth is also nothing more than an immortal punching bag despite having a really hard body and can move super fast(the latter is established late in the story for some reason). Pride is basically the Ginyu Force from DBZ where despite being hyped up as a threat never really does anything really evil that makes me want to hate him. He's just an obstacle and nothing more. Lust and this is going to be a funny one is actually one of the show's better villains. She actually is more threatening than the other homunculi outside of Bradley and Father. She was the villain that pushed Mustang to his limit and not to rely on cheap tricks to do so. She made Hawkeye doubt herself and even made her not want to live and she help seal the death of Barry the Chopper. Why can't the villains of this series be more like her? Then there is that Mad Scientist Character who was more a threatening than most of the villains in the series and yet I hardly know anything about him in general, after the back story reveal of Bradley's origins, he no shows for a while and it's weird to me since he is a villain that managed to do more damage than the majority of the homunculi. Kimblee is okay, but outside of impaling Ed and using Winry as a hostage, he never amounts to whole lot either. Then there is Father, the dude is basically Cell from Dragon Ball Z, and he's about as on par with him too. The former's back story reveal is very good, but the problem is that he never shows that kind of character in the show again. He mostly just sits around a lot and just looks bored or monologues about how inferior humanity is. He doesn't start doing much of anything until he takes a page out of the before mentioned, Cell's book and becomes "Perfect". Then there isn't really much to him still outside of being a typical overpowered shounen villain. Among all these issues I have is that none of the villains show any kind of agency or individuality of their own. They are all just generic henchmen outside of Bradley. Bradley is easily the best villain because not only because he is the most threatening but because there is a certain honesty about him I like, he is a puppet but he acknowledges that and tries to live life the best way he could by what is given to him. He also really feels "alive" when he is in battle, the thing that he was bred for. His death was stupid, Bradley could've killed Scar 20 times over but for some reason the latter had two alchemy arms and the former somehow got blinded by the solar eclipse. It felt like a huge Deus Ex Machina to have the good guy win. So overall, not a big fan of most of the villains.
Overreliance on Face Turns: Alright, another big issue I have with FMAB is that it relies on face turns so much. It relies on the trope so much that it starts to lose all meaning. For example, Barry the Chopper, I find it so silly that a guy whose sole philosophy in life is, "I kill therefore I am" to be so willing to be bossed around by Mustang and his crew. Then there is Kimblee who gets the weirdest one of all, the guy is basically is as evil as it gets while it is somewhat foreshadowed that he turns face, the way it's done is so ridiculous, he somehow has a conscious inside of Pride's body and has a weird respect for Ed that was never even shown up until that point. It felt like a Deus Ex Machina because Ed was in trouble and he had no way out so the plot needed a way for him to get out. The rest of the face turns are nothing really to write home about but they do suffer from the before mentioned problem of lacking agency. A lot of them just turn good and never get challenged by their beliefs at all. There is one face turn that gets a particular amount of praise and one I never understood at all is to be Greed. Honestly? This might legit be one of the most over praised face turns I have ever seen. My big issue with it how little screen time Greed actually gets to develop. Greed tends to have a weird thing to show up but then no show for a long period of time to the point where I almost forget that he exists. The reason why I say a character like Zuko from Avatar works is because not only he gets a lot of screen time but because his ideals are constantly challenged and he is always in doubt of what he wants but when he realizes that his destiny is to be friends with Aang and be by his side, Zuko starts to change as a person and becomes less angry and more calm about his state of mind and the world. Compare this to Greed, where he shows up acts like an arrogant ass to everybody then no shows for awhile then suddenly the living embodiment of Greed changes his heart and wants "friends" even Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z and him learning humility felt way more natural than this. My big problem with Greed is that he acts like arrogant ass most of the time and his true desires is never really shown all that well.
Unanswered Questions that Bug Me: There are some weird things about FMAB's plot that bug me in general, they might be answered in the show they still bugged me anyways:
How did Father create Amestrian military out of the Ashes of Xerxes? He clearly needed people and he and Hoeinheim were the sole survivors, how did he do it?
Can Ed use transmutation circles at all when giving up his clapping alchemy powers?
Why didn't Sloth use his speed at Fort Briggs?
What exactly was Ling's plan in case if he didn't find the Elric Brothers to tell him about the Philosopher's Stone? Was rotting in a gutter his Plan A?
Why do characters have a such a great sense of direction in big places, why do they keep bumping into each other? This happens so much throughout the show for example Ling knowing where Gluttony was in the City despite being way far off from the Elrics and fighting Bradley beforehand? Winry just so happening to walk in Scar's fight with Ed and Al in the alley way and also walking in when Ed and Scar are talking about Winry's parents, or the gang was able to randomly find Al in the snow.
Why didn't Father and the gang keep the Elrics and Izumi locked up instead of letting them go free?
Why is forced human transmutation a "last resort"?
Did Father spend his whole existence preparing for the solar eclipse? Did he ever have a backup plan before he went all "Perfect Form Cell?"
Why didn't Alexander Armstrong use his alchemy on his sister when fighting over the land?
The Over praised Female Characters: An aspect of FMAB that gets mentioned a lot are it's great female characters and honestly? The only one that really stands out to me is Hawkeye but some aspects of her feels like a missed opportunity like her having flame alchemy research on her back. It only gets mentioned twice and not much else is done with it. Oliver Armstrong has an interesting survival of the fittest mentality but she is mostly just a one note show boater and doesn't anything else besides that. Izumi Curtis really annoyed me with how modest she was, she kept calling herself a housewife even though she can already do more than what most people like her can do. She barely has much to do in the plot herself. Lan Fan is basically just a servant who knows how to fight and Mei Chan is an annoying kid that somehow gets away with getting involved with the military and corrupt conspiracies and the part where the Youswell Town started to help her was really cringey to me because everyone in her vicinity was going to help a random foreign girl. Winry is decent but her romance with Ed feels forced mainly because she spends most of her time screaming and beating him up rather than doing anything genuinely romantic.
The Humour: This will be short but a criticized aspect of FMAB is the humour and it feels really out of place most of, if not all the time. It's not only really unfunny but it can take me out of serious scenes too. Seeing Ed get called short for a lot of the show got old really fast and it's funny how the show contradicts its own humour where Envy turns into a big CGI monster and gets his ass kicked while Mei Chan can beat up monsters over half her size and Oliver Armstrong literally man handles a guy that is way bigger than him. The exaggerated expressions are super obnoxious, and while they get phased out the more the show goes on, it's still there to varying degrees. I do find it funny how fanboys defend the humour by saying, "2003 version had it too" and the "manga also has it". My response to that is, the 2003 version at least phases out it's terrible humour much earlier on and the manga and the anime both having the same problem doesn't fix anything.
Fights are Mostly Decent: While the fights in FMAB aren't as bad as your usual shounen fare I say it generally pales in comparison to other stuff Studio Bones has made like Sword of the Stranger, Samurai Champloo and the short but sweet Production I.G fights like Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, Morbito the Spearmaster, and Psycho Pass Season 1 and the movie. FMAB also turns into DBZ by the end and I always hated it when it did that, it just feels like such a jarring change in direction in terms of fight chorography.
Awkward Pacing: This might sound like a weird compliant but I felt FMAB moved at a really slow pace at times. I don't know whether or not I read the manga but it felt like plot stays on a certain plot point for too long. While the parts the FMAB does adapt properly are fine at first, I feel like the Pride fight in the forest and the final battle with Father took way too long. They both went on for so long that it started to get more and more boring.
The Ending is alright: The lack of consequences. This is a big reason as to why the ending doesn't land with me. There is hardly any consequences for the characters' actions. Mustang lost his sight but he gets it back, Ed loses his clapping hands alchemy but I am not sure if he loses his transmutation circle alchemy. Hardly any major character even dies and they missed a huge opportunity with Hoehinheim where he could've sacrificed himself for Al but instead Ed just uses the power of friendship to do it. And what's dumb to me is that Hoehinheim dies later anyway which I am just wondering what the point of that was. And Ed and Winry having a romantic relationship was just a forced romance to appease shippers and nothing more. Their relationship in the series never felt romantic at all. Hughes even acted like she was more of a surrogate sister to the brothers.
Comparison to the 2003 version and why I like it more: Brotherhood is a decent to good show but I argue if it's going to appeal to me now, it's going to a lot more to appeal to current mindset than face turns and being more consistent than your average shounen. It wouldn't be Brotherhood and the manga anymore but it would appeal to me more. That's where the 2003 version comes in. That show felt more personal and focused. I actually connected to Ed and Al more as brothers because the show actively explored their relationship. The conflict was much greyer and the homunculi had a family dynamic where Brotherhood mostly lacked. I also feel like 2003 didn't have way too many characters for the sake of it. The homunculi actually had agency and goals of their own. Sloth wanted to get rid of Ed and Al so she wouldn't be haunted by the memories of Trisha Elric. Envy wants to kill Hoehinheim and everything related to him because he was ignored by him and want to destroy any trace of the Elrics. Wrath wants to find a mother and protect her. Lust wants to become human again. Gluttony has acts like a child and is often needs Lust to guide and comfort him. Another reason why I prefer the 2003 version is because the homunculi were more a threat every time they showed up, someone would die or they the heroes would barely escape with their lives. They felt like genuine threats to me. Envy was more threatening too since Ed never even had a single victory over him. Izumi Curtis is a big improvement, she actually has a backbone actual conviction rather than saying, "I am a lovely housewife coming by" constantly. The biggest reason why I prefer the 2003 version is because that show deals with the human condition more and is explores how far Ed is willing to go to create a Philosopher Stone. The death of Maajahal was an interesting mainly because Ed killed him in self defence, then in Lab 5 he fought the Slicer Brothers and when he won, he showed them kindness and compassion and seeing all the episodes and content 2003 added(more on that later), made me sympathize with his conviction. Then he was forced to make a Stone but the thing is, Ed said that he might've actually have done it, after that, he fights Wrath where he has Ed's limbs but Ed still doesn't have the conviction to get what he wants. Ed's first fight with Greed happens and Greed taunts him that he doesn't have the what's necessary to get what he wants. Then the final fight with Greed happens and Ed kills him, he is shocked by the fact that he killed someone, but later realized that you have to do things you don't like to get what you want. I feel like Brotherhood and by extension the manga is lacking things like this. The 2003 version has it's issues too like the rushed ending, Bradley isn't as awesome and how it bit off more than it could chew with other side of the gate but that show did more than FMAB and the manga did for me. You could argue that FMA 2003 is more of a reimagining of the manga rather than a direct adaptation but that is a different topic.
The point of adapting media and what is the point really, when people bring up FMA, they always bring up the manga as to why FMAB is better than the 2003 version? And my question is, why? Just because something is similar doesn't make it good and something is different doesn't make it bad. I mean they say FMAB, makes 2003 "redundant" but that can both work ways. FMAB is redundant because you could read the manga, unless if color, animation and voices really mean that much to you. I feel like the only reason to watch the Brotherhood anime is for the Dub particularly Ed Blaylock as Bradley. Other than that FMAB is the same story but with a way worse beginning. I used to hear that and still hear, "you should watch the early parts of FMA 2003 and then switch to Brotherhood". Let me tell you with the most absolute conviction in that is objectively wrong. FMA 2003 gets derided for having anime original content later when that is a lie, FMA 2003 has a lot of anime original content even in the beginning. There's stuff like the Majaahal episode, the Pisiren Lupin the Third parody episode, the Fletcher Brothers, Al running away from Ed and Winry and meeting up with Ishvalans, a Barry the Chopper origin story episode, an entire sub plot of Hughes wanting to protect the Elric Brothers so Mustang can focus on his military career and episodes where Nina Tucker has more screen time that she never had in FMAB or the manga. All these anime original episodes have build up to their own twists and turns that compliment the 2nd half. So if you dislike the 2nd half, you better not like the 1st half either. And the fact this misconception exists proves my point that most didn't read the manga and use it as confirmation bias.
In conclusion, FMAB is an decent-good show and is a souless adaptation of a manga that I think is about the same in terms of quality even worse in some ways. It's better than a lot of shounen but that isn't saying a whole lot.
