ReviewStop. Watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA). Watch it. Why? Well, because although Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (Brotherhood) is an entire product on its own, it offers only a rushed glimpse of the early episodes this time around. Character development is deeply harmed in this department, as well as the darker and more high-stake atmosphere of the 2003 masterpiece. So do yourself a favor and watch the original first. It will make Brotherhood more enjoyable and it will allow you to see the amazing setting crafted in this tale with other eyes.
The original FMA was a mix of dark fantasy with your usual teenage comedy moments. It could be cheesy sometimes, but when it got serious the experience was superb. You had a struggle against beliefs, diplomatic secrets, mysteries about past and presents experiments, fights the protagonists had no option but to run and a more believable simulation of the harsh reality, where someone can't do anything with will alone (but that surely helps). The issue there was the different ending, finishing the show before the manga and thus creating an alternative closure to avoid being left like dozens of manga-inspired shows out there. The ending was not bad, it was in fact very good, but it had a narrowed scale and more complexity that made it hard to understand first-hand. So came Brotherhood.
Why create Brotherhood? You ask. That's a hard question. Perhaps to simply end the show the way the manga creator wanted. Perhaps to deliver more of the same to the great number of fans the series already had, or maybe to screw up everything. Anyway, Brotherhood succeeds in creating a very good and enjoyable show, but fails in delivering the same kind of experience as the original. Where you had more dark fantasy now you have shounen super-power, where you had tears and sadness now you have stupid jokes, where you had despair and struggle now you have amazing powers and flashy characters.
Summarizing, Brotherhood delivers an experience far more fitting the typical shounen-super power genre than before. We still got the same good setting, which is in fact expanded to fit a whole world instead of being narrow, and we still have some intrigues and bits of dark fantasy elements, but those became so rare that when they have an importance you'll probably ignore it and follow the great sequences of fights and super powers clashing.
If you don't know what this is about, I got your back: this is a tale about two brothers that tried to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life, only to fail and lose part of their bodies in the process. These brothers then start a journey to recover what they lost when they gambled with human transformation, and for that, the older brother, Edward, the military ranks of the State Alchemists.
- It has enhanced graphics
Brotherhood is a superb show in this department. While the art style is the same as before and is of dubious liking with the large-maw characters, big-eyed kids and overuse of cartoonist smiles, the animation is top quality. The show presents many battles and scenes that make good use of animation and here you'll have no problem. Brotherhood is, in fact, the best job in animation for a 50-or-more-long series that I've seen and that can surely catch your attention. Perhaps the art style is a bit too childish, but as the episodes goes on you'll overcome that with no problem and see that it fit the show nicely, much like the original FMA.
It also got some new shounen sound direction
The original FMA established an epic parameter for sound track and sound direction, perhaps only failing with some noisy characters that yelled more than necessary. Brotherhood tries to reach that parameter. However, while the voice-acting is pretty much the same, the sound track was changed in style so it could better translate the new focus of the show. The merging endings are present to increasing the addictive value, the background music are good but not that lasting, sound effects never become an issue, but openings are not as good as the original FMA. At least two of the more pop-style music of the intros aren't consistent with the show, one even has some kind of south-american rythm mixed with arabic stuff that was completely bizarre. They're not bad, only lost in the middle of a shounen show like this.
Same Story, Different Focus
Brotherhood has the same basis overall. The main change in the plot is on the villain side, changing the secret and nearly absent villain for a more direct and common one while also throwing more fantastic elements to the story. The overall feel of Brotherhood is that the storyline is more childish, giving more importance to fights and over-the-top scenes than to character development and political intrigue like it was in the original FMA. We still have good amounts of comedy parts, maybe even more than before, making some very important story elements less serious in Brotherhood than in the old show. The tale and also be divided in three parts:
Part 1: Rushed Initial Events
Brotherhood starts rushing the story that is the same as the original FMA. A part that once had 30 episodes, and a very good pace, now has about 12 episodes and a terrible rushed pace. You'll see some awesome characters from before appearing only for one episode, many development arcs missing, etc. The focus of the narrative is clearly rushing things, as if in a urge to reach the different story parts. It's easy to understand that, the audience don't want to see the same show again, but the amount of great character development lost here is tremendous. A shame, because for the other two parts Brotherhood rarely tries to develop its characters.
Part 2: Typical Shounen Sequence
The second part is where things are new. You are presented to a new villain, the once immortal enemies are now nothing more than powerful foes that can be beaten by the main characters with some effort, the cast expands exponentially with the presentation of foreigners and chimeras and many other flashy characters, etc. The show grows bigger and finally gets interesting, making for a far better pace and delivering an awesome shounen experience, with thrilling fights and some revealed secrets.
Part 3: Bones Convoluted Ending
The third and last part is your typical bizarre ending. There is some age of time to ready things for the ending, but then the pace goes downhill, becoming so slow to the point of taking 10 episodes to a single day. Characters vaporize for many episodes to coincidentally appear someplace else and save the day. Flashy entrances become overabundant. Etc. That's fine, every shounen show has this, but the last episodes try to bring mind-twisting stuff, throwing god into the fray in a Evangelion-like scene and delivering nothing truly good in the ending. A shame, but not unexpected. If people thought the alternative ending from the original FMA was not good, I think this kind of typical closure was what they were expecting.
The cast change
Much like the story, characters are only a shadow of what they were in the original FMA. The rushed start harms character development a lot and after that very few bits of story are separated to increase the cast quality. What happens in fact is that only the cast number goes up and never goes down. The death of three important characters that were simply major events of the original FMA turns to be one-episode short stories, and from then on, all characters that die are completely unimportant to the show. Those who have some importance or at least are "cool" enough, always return from the dead, be it from some magical miracle or for some stylish plan that faked their deaths. The cast is still charismatic, but now it's more in a shounen way then by their depth. You have many over-the-top scenes where the characters do awesome things to deliver some fan-service, but besides that you'll be watching something more akin to Saint Seiya, where the protagonist always struggle but always manage to sur the problem by force/magical power/will; The cast gains in number, but not a single new entry is truly magnificent, and every single one fails to develop from their starting points. From a more analytical point of view, this is the biggest flaw of the show, especially when comparing to what it has done back in 2003 with the original FMA.
And we can blame the manga
It's easy to identify a shounen show that is based on manga. It usually exaggerates in cast size because it's easy to create new characters in the paper to please fans. It also focus more on combats because they take more pages and usually require less work by the artist. When working with animes though, things are different. A numerous cast means the narrative needs a workaround to give enough screen time to everyone and you need convincing voice-acting so they're not complete dummies. Combats require a lot of animation time and usually use a big budget for a small amount of minutes. Brotherhood certainly succeeds in making it more like a manga-tale, a rare feat by all means. The combats are awesome, with top-notch animation, even the workaround for the additional characters is well done. The cost for such a good manga-inspired tale is the rushed initial part and the change of focus from the original FMA. Where you had a tale that focused on the struggle of two brothers in their journey amidst secret military plots, now you have your usual save-the-world stuff that you see in almost every shounen around there.
The mood
Brotherhood is certainly one of the best shounens out there. It has lots of action, thrilling combats, silly jokes, a cast with a character for every design-style, super-powers in form of alchemy, etc. But, as other shounens the show is clearly targeted at younger audiences. The original FMA had the silly jokes and some great fights, but it had more mystery, secrets, struggle, and other elements that made it pleasing to a more demanding audience. That's not what happens here. In many episodes (most, in fact) when things start to become sad, depressing, or simply serious, you can be ready for a stupid joke to break the atmosphere and that you're watching a kids show. A pity, but still a superb watch.
Comments
FMA Brotherhood is to alchemy like Naruto is to ninjas. Alchemy here became more like super-powers disguised. The original FMA also had such a concept, but the references to equivalent trade, the limitations that many alchemists faced, etc, made it at least not so over-the-top. Now you have super-warriors that move in unbelievable speeds, villains that are extremely powerful simply because the author wanted, enemies can now be defeated by the protagonist or major characters but are simply unbeatable by any other way. They can burn to death when facing Mustang, but can't be bombed to death by an army of soldiers.
Important or "cool" characters, never die. The show fears losing characters like many others, perhaps to preserve them for future products or simply because the targeted audience is not old enough to endure and understand death. This type of thing really annoys me, especially when grouped with the absurdly rushed earlier parts and the lack of character development, making me create a love-hate link with Brotherhood.
I can recommend it to anyone. It's a great show by all means. But I can't watch it without comparing to the original FMA, and when doing so it's impossible for me not to notice how childish Brotherhood became and how many good and more mature elements were sacrificed to create an experience that could target a larger audience. I can understand their strategy. The audience that had 15-20 years back in 2003 was about 21-26 years in 2009 and most probably stopped watching animes because of work or other reasons, so they needed a show that could target those in their early tens to increase the audience. But it's sad to see that happening to one of your most cherished shows.
