It isn’t just about coloring in the world, but about shaping their ever-changing worldview. Early episodes that could easily be considered “filler” (like “The Phantom Thief”), flesh out the universe that these characters exist in and provide more emotional turmoil for Edward and Alphonse to navigate.
#FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST CHARACTERS SERIES#
Whereas Brotherhood and Arakawa’s FMA manga often sidestep some of the more intense discussions that they introduce, and even rush through the chapters that have already been adapted by Fullmetal Alchemist anime in order to get to what it deems as corrective and “true” material, the 2003 series takes its sweet time with world-building. But different isn’t bad, and Fullmetal Alchemist’s changes are sometimes more appropriate for the narrative than those of Arakawa’s original work. The most glaring thing that Fullmetal Alchemist does, due to its source text still being unfinished during the time of its creation, is veer wildly off-course from said material. They both start, more or less, with exactly the same core plot and themes of loss and connection. They both dive deep into what actually makes up a human, not just the physical elements (water, carbon, etc) but the soul itself, and how it and the body are connected by the mind what it means to be human in a world that’s increasingly inhumane. If the latter of these sounds heavy, it’s because both series and their source text have more weight than most popular shonen anime usually do. Their journey places them in harm’s way more often than not, dealing with everything from goofy con-artists to the military and the abundance of war crimes it commits. As children, they attempted a forbidden human transmutation in order to bring their mother back from death, and in their failure, lost pieces of themselves (Edward losing an arm and leg and Alphonse his whole body, his soul now attached to a suit of armor). Both series follow Edward and Alphonse Elric, a pair of brothers who, in a world where alchemy reigns supreme, seek to restore their bodies to the way they were.
Though where they cited Brotherhood as a corrective to the problems of the original series, I find it to be quite the opposite. It’s not unlike Game of Thrones in many ways, as Gita Jackson noted in their piece comparing the two shows. Over the years, Fullmetal Alchemist has gotten a bad rap due to its divergence from its source text. But, no, I am here to maintain that Brotherhood is the lesser series of the two, and we, as a culture, should be embracing it as the philosophically dense, gorgeously directed work of art it is. After all, the years have been unkind to the 2003 series ever since the 2009 adaptation became a critical darling simply for being a “faithful adaptation” of its source text.
“Surely you jest, Juan,” you might say, wondering if I mistakenly confused Seiji Mizushima’s original adaptation of the text and Yasuhiro Irie’s second, more commonly known as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Nearly two decades after its original release, it has been made entirely unavailable to watch legally (hooray for piracy!), replaced by the second attempt at adapting Hiromu Arakawa’s shonen manga of the same name. In hunting down what streaming platform it was available on, I realized something: it was gone. While working on the latest one, I thought the series Fullmetal Alchemist would be the ideal choice for this particular person. In my spare time, one of the things I love doing most is curating lists of anime for friends to watch when they request advice in that genre.
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