Monday, March 25, 2013

Guest Post: Fullmetal Alchemist!!

Laura from My Baffling Brain is here to talk about my favourite anime show today! Woo! Take it away, Laura.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

First of all, thank you to Allison for having me on her blog, and giving me the opportunity to write about one of my favourite things!

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is my favourite anime; I’m currently watching it for the fourth time in less than a year. It really is the best I’ve seen, so far. Here are my reasons:

Characters

There are a lot of characters involved in this anime, but every single one of them is necessary to the plot. The characterisation is excellent; each character has their own distinct personality and style. The villains are also amazing for the same reason – at times you even feel sorry for them, which I think is good in any story. My favourite character is Ed, one of the main characters (I also love Roy Mustang and Lin Yao). I don’t think there are any characters I really disliked, except for the villains (and I had a real love/hate relationship with them!)

I also think the Japanese voice actors do a great job, particularly considering that the two main male characters are voiced by women.


Plot

The pacing is really good – each episode moves the story along, so there are no fillers. I’ve seen it three times so far and there still aren’t any episodes I would skip past to get to the good bits. It can be quite a dark anime, with some really sad, tragic moments, which makes it quite mature. I like the humour that is used to balance it out – it works really well and doesn’t take away the seriousness of the story.

The story is heavily themed around sacrifice, and this is probably one of the reasons I love it so much. Stories with sacrifice are my favourite kinds.

Emotion

So many emotions ran through me while watching this anime, and I think it’s hard to create something that brings up so many emotions. It can make you feel sadness, anger, joy and fear, all in one episode!

Alchemy

I love the concept of alchemy in this anime – it’s such a unique idea, and I really wish I could clap my hands together and change something. Although I think if I could I’d use it for everything, and become really lazy!

I also really like the law of equivalent exchange, and think it makes a lot of sense that everything comes at a cost.

Ending

The ending was great, even better than I had expected it to be, and it tied up all loose ends just like an ending should.

Soundtrack

I love the soundtrack to this anime; I listen to it all the time. It really suits the story, with some dramatic pieces, some incredibly sad (to the extent that when I listen to them I nearly burst into tears) and some very playful.

So if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for having me, Allison! And for adding pictures :)

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    1. Thanks so much for posting, Laura! I always forget this is originally in Japanese, cause I always watch it in English. I really like the English voice actors.

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  2. I know nothing on this subject what so ever . . . But I am always interested to see what you write Miss Laura. Nice to see you doing guest spots, your blogging world grows . . . . . . . well done

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    1. Thanks :) I appreciate your reading it, even if you don't know much about it :)

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  3. I watched this for a while, it was an interesting show.

    ......dhole

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  4. I'm a slow burner for anime - it takes me a while to want to pick up a film/series, but FMA looks pretty cool. Shall have to give it a shot :)

    Jamie

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    1. It's very good, it's what got me into anime in the first place :)

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  5. I watched Fullmetal Alchemist first and then watched Brotherhood. For those of you looking to check this show out, know that there are two different versions and Brotherhood is by far the better of the two. The first anime was made when only about half of the manga was done and the creators were given free reign to decide how to develop the second half of the story themselves. Brotherhood follows the manga ending and is just superior in every way. I also recommend watching this with subtitles rather than dubbed. The Japanese voice acting is, in my opinion, more more suited to the characters than the English.

    Anyway, this is an awesome show. It wasn't my first anime, but it was the anime that truly showed me what incredible storytelling the medium is capable of.

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  6. I loved FMA. And I have loved as much of FMA:B as I have seen. But Netflix callously never releases the rest of it and keeps torturing me.

    I don't read manga, so for me the two versions are just each enjoyable on their own terms as two alternative takes.

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