Fullmetal Alchemist kicks ass. It’s one of the giants of anime. The story’s awesome, the action is fast paced and it’s damn entertaining. For this review, I’m going to take a look at the original manga of the series. With two versions of the anime, the original and Brotherhood, what comes as episode one may be controversial, however I’m continuing based on the manga in front of me. Inside the front cover there’s a small note from the creator, which isn’t unusual for a manga and is often funny. Hiromu Arakawa tells us “I love B movies. I love the way they make me think “What the hell is this?! That’s crazy!” yet still draw me in so I watch the whole thing”. He attempts to bring this flavor to his own work, and asks us to ask these questions as we continue. No problem there. Now, let’s take a look at Fullmetal Alchemist.
Before we begin, let’s examine the cover. As a first volume, this has to be able to draw people in, which is does so easily. The two heroes look damn serious, one in a piece of badass armor and the other putting on a white glove over a mechanical hand. I love the colours here, the use of metallic grey and a bright red, and the bold title taking up a good third of the cover. Looking at this, you know something awesome is contained in this manga. Right before the first chapter, we’re given a glimpse of an experiment gone wrong. Our hero lies on the ground, missing a leg, shouting how it shouldn’t have gone that way and that “HE’S GONE”. Between the panels is pitch black, with white writing telling us that “teachings that do not speak of pain have no meaning” and that to gain anything we must first give up something in return. Throughout the first two chapters, we get glimpses of what happened here, but only a page here and there. I quite like this, because it means we’re not bogged down with an origin plot. Anyway, after a two page spread showing that we finally made it to chapter one, we cut to an announcement from a religious cult, the Church of Leto. The announcement gains the attention of our heroes, who we get a really up close-up shot off. A local asks a fair question when he inquires if the two are street performers as we get our first real look at the two. We have one guy in a badass giant metal suit of armor with spikes jutting out of it on the shoulders and helmet, and then we have a rather short kid in a red coat. They definitely look odd. After an accident whereby a radio is smashed by their clumsiness, we get to see what alchemists are. By drawing a strange circle on the ground and placing the materials within it, the guy in the suit reassembles the radio with a flash of light. The two announce themselves as the Elric brothers (the smaller one saying ‘a lot of people have heard of us’, the egotistical ass). Their reputations precede them, as the villagers rush to the guy in the metal armor calling him the Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric. With a rather angry expression, the smaller one corrects them. He is in fact Edward and the guy in the suit of armor is his younger brother Alphonse. Being called little sets our protagonist off on a rampage, showing it’s his sore spot, his anger switch, something that of course will become a recurring joke. Why the bigger brother is half the size of the younger one is soon explained.
We’re given more information on the cult, that it is led by a father Cornello (sounds like an ice cream) who claims to have the power to revive the dead. The Elric brothers head off to the church to investigate and speak with its number one follower, a woman named Rose. Ed and Rose discuss religion, her being the devoted follower and him being the skeptic. After Rose says that Ed would grow if he had faith (another shot at his height, ha ha), he asks if she really believes Cornello can bring back the dead. Here’s where we get a glimpse of Edwards intellect. He lists of the chemical makeup of a human being, confusing the bejebus out of Rose (and us). Knowing all this, Edward tells her how there has never been a successful human transmutation. There is some missing ingredient that science cannot ascertain. Calling himself agnostic, Ed calls alchemists the closest things to God before he decides to tell the myth of Icarus to Rose. He tells Rose that those who get too close to God, as the boy with wings got too close to the sun, crash down to the ground (REMEMEBER THIS FOR LATER). We cut to father Cornello as he performs his miracles for the crowd, turning a small flower into a slightly bigger one. Here’s a point when I really liked the anime version more, when he brought a bird back to life. The brothers in the crowd recognize these miracles instantly as alchemy, however something is strange (even for them). You see, there’s a rule in the world of Fullmetal alchemist that to gain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange. By making the flower bigger without any sacrifice, the leader of the cult somehow broke this rule. The Brothers get serious as we cut to a shot of Edwards eyes, him saying “I think we’ve found it”.
Cornello learns of Edwards’s arrival which makes his subordinate shit his pants nearly. He speaks of the child prodigy that is Edward Elric, a boy who became a state alchemist (a soldier of sorts) at the age of twelve. In a very James Bond villain moment, Cornello tells his minions to ‘take care’ of the hero, that maybe he never arrived at the village, wink wink. The baddies set a fairly descent trap, luring Ed, Al and for some reason their most devoted follower Rose as well, in with the promise of meeting Cornello. As two guards restrain Ed, the head lackey puts a pistol into Al’s eye and fires, blowing his helmet across the room. That would usually kill a person, but there’s one slight anomaly. You see, the suit of armor is empty. The headless suit punches his would be killer into next week and Ed quickly kicks the shit out of the guards. After a truly what the fuck moment, Ed calls the situation of his suit of armor brother a story for another time…. And Rose doesn’t question it. The brothers head in to confront Cornello, with Rose nowhere to be seen. Cornello plays the nice priest for all of two seconds before Edward explains how the villain performs the so called miracles. He possesses the philosopher stone (which he somehow got it off Harry Potter), a mythical item which allows one to bypass the law of equivalent exchange. Cornello reveals his evil plan because that’s only polite when your about to kill someone. He shouts how nobody will believe them even if they do survive. That’s when Rose appears. And where was she hiding… INSIDE THE GHOST ARMOR. Who the hell sees an empty piece of armor moving and then agrees to get inside. Having heard everything however, Rose still follows Cornello with the hope that he can bring her love back to life.
That end’s chapter one but chapter two is where the manga really goes up a few notches. Cornello (which still sounds like an ice cream to me) releases a giant beast to kill our heroes. It jumps for Ed, who creates a freakin awesome spear by clapping his hands together. We see that our hero doesn’t need any strange circles to perform alchemy. As cool as this spear is, it gets sliced and diced by the great chimera however. The beast claws at Ed’s leg and bites his arm but a second anomaly appears. Ed’s right arm and left leg are metal (hence his title of Fullmetal alchemist). It’s damn convenient the beast only attacked those two body parts. Ed brings his leg straight up and boots the chimera in the chin, utterly devastating it. Ed serves himself up as an example of those who trespass on God’s domain, as Rose remembers the myth of Icarus that Edward told her. The manga only gives three pages here to explain our heroes back story. After their mother’s death, the two children sought to use alchemy to bring her back. Having gained all the physical material needed, the two preformed the transmutation, which utterly failed. In creating a husk that died seconds later, Ed lost his leg, and Al’s entire body was taken by some mysterious darkness. Ed finally sacrificed his arm to drag his brother’s soul back and placed it in a nearby suit of armor. And thus the big mission for the series is revealed. The two brothers seek to regain their original bodies, which can only be done by breaking the natural laws of the universe, using something like the philosopher stone.
Cornello performs his one and only awesome action as he turns his cane into a freakin minigun and goes to town on the alchemist. But when you’re facing a suit of armor and a boy who can create shit in front of him by clapping his hands together, a minigun is fairly useless. The brothers and Rose escape through a door Ed creates (pretty awesome) until they are met by more guards. With a demonic look on his face, Edward creates a badass blade on his arm which sends the guards screaming away, wetting themselves. Edward comes up with another cunning plan then. Really, it’s the same damn plan, only bigger. Ed walks up to Cornello, who again announces his evil plans for no good reason, as Al rigs up a speaker system so that the entire town can hear. With the evil scheme ruined, Cornello attempts one more offensive; however as he tries to fuse his arm with a gun, the philosopher stone breaks, really fecking his arm up. In a fit of anger at the fact the stone was a fake; Ed turns to the giant statue behind him, transmuting it to squish Cornello who unfortunately escapes. To end the story, we cut to Cornello who hides from the disgruntled crowd he tricked. As he curses those damn kids, some real villains appear from the darkness, Lust and Gluttony. Gluttony, a very small, round fat man sits on his ass eating what remains of the chimera, while Lust, whose name is not ironic, sits on him. There’s a very clear sense on who’s in charge between the two, as Gluttony asks if he can eat people. It turns out that they were the real masterminds and that they gave the man a philosopher stone to cause a bit of mayhem. Cornello, not enjoying being mocked by the two mysterious figures, rushes them only to be killed in the most badass way in anime history. Lust extends her fingers with lightning speed, poking a hole through his head. Finally, we cut to the Elric brothers, completely oblivious to these events, heading off to their next destination.
That’s the start of Fullmetal Alchemist. We’re introduced to a hero that can clap his hands together to make awesome shit like spears and blades. Compared to the rest of the series however, this is kind of weak. Over the last couple weeks, reviewing first episodes, I really can’t find any great openings. Looking at this one, we get two people who come across a cult with a leader who seems to enjoy telling people his dastardly deeds. The heroes use the same plan twice, which bloody works twice, of hiding shit to let people hear the villain as he rattles on. I mean, this becomes a freakin awesome series, full of deep meanings as Ed and Al battle against the seven sins and even against a guy who eats God. The action gets a lot better then kicking a lion thing in the chin or getting a statue to punch a guy as we see one alchemist snap his fingers to set shit on fire. Taking all anime into account, the heroes generally do shit all in the first episode, explaining themselves to random people and maybe fighting a single baddy. Luckily, the second episode really picks up in Fullmetal, which gives me an idea. I’ve got to take a step back and overview more than just the first episodes of these shows. As for these written reviews, well, there coming to an end as well. Ha ha ha ha.
