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Fullmetal Alchemist is Overrated
3 years ago
Not bad, just overrated. *Spoilers*
After absorbing FMA through cultural osmosis for like 15 years I finally watched Brotherhood and I'm not really getting the hype. It's a -good- show, but I'm having a hard time seeing it as more than that.
My first issue is that I don't find the Elrics very interesting as protagonists. Their origin story is iconic and interesting, but beyond that Ed is bland, shonen kid and Alphonse is passive for most of the story. To be fair it's an ensemble cast and some other characters make up for Ed and Al, but they're the main focus. I'd like to be invested in them, but I was mostly uninterested.
None of the humor landed for me at all, which is bad because it pops up a lot to 'lighten the mood.' Is anyone laughing at short jokes or people mistaking Al for the Fullmetal Alchemist more than once? It was tired by episode one and I'm just forced to roll my eyes for the rest of the series when it shows up. The only thing that reliably made me chuckle was Alex showing up and being demonstrative as hell.
I'll say it, I find alchemy boring as used in the story. I was expecting a Nen (Hunter x Hunter) system where every alchemist has really unique, cool powers that have to be carefully counteracted, but most fights just amount to launching the alchemist's element at the bad guy. I laughed out loud a few times when Ed would get into a big fight and whip out his... dinky little arm blade. Like you can control matter and that's what you're bringing to the table? I wanted more imaginative alchemy, is all.
Finally, I found my suspension of disbelief failing a lot in regard to the writing. For example Alphose sitting with Pride in the dome and just letting him tap rhythmically, repetitively on his helmet for half a day. Boi have you never heard of morse code, and beyond that why wouldn't you just take your helmet back anyway?! Ridiculous.
Also the gang not letting Roy kill Envy. That made me mad. I get it, he who hunts monsters, but Roy hasn't been shown to be psychopathic at all for the whole series. He's been remarkably level-headed and stable given the situation. And if anyone deserves to be burned to a crisp it's the monster gleefully absorbing people and starting civil wars and who also killed Roy's best friend. I never bought that Roy would start down a path of madness after killing Envy, it felt contrived to serve the no-killing theme (which was done much better in Trigun BTW) There were enough additional examples that it hurt my enjoyment of the show overall (Like Envy tricking what's-her-name into bringing him back to Central. I know she's a kid, but really? You're going to believe this guy after everything he's done?)
I can't fault the look and character design, that's for sure. The characters are very recognizable and appealing. I think my favorites overall are the Armstrong siblings and Roy. The animation is at minimum good for the whole run and when they splurge for the big fight scenes it's excellent. I didn't like the backgrounds, but that's not much of a knock.
So yeah it's a low 7/10 for me. I can see the appeal, but I feel like almost everything here has been done better elsewhere. Like in HxH ~
After absorbing FMA through cultural osmosis for like 15 years I finally watched Brotherhood and I'm not really getting the hype. It's a -good- show, but I'm having a hard time seeing it as more than that.
My first issue is that I don't find the Elrics very interesting as protagonists. Their origin story is iconic and interesting, but beyond that Ed is bland, shonen kid and Alphonse is passive for most of the story. To be fair it's an ensemble cast and some other characters make up for Ed and Al, but they're the main focus. I'd like to be invested in them, but I was mostly uninterested.
None of the humor landed for me at all, which is bad because it pops up a lot to 'lighten the mood.' Is anyone laughing at short jokes or people mistaking Al for the Fullmetal Alchemist more than once? It was tired by episode one and I'm just forced to roll my eyes for the rest of the series when it shows up. The only thing that reliably made me chuckle was Alex showing up and being demonstrative as hell.
I'll say it, I find alchemy boring as used in the story. I was expecting a Nen (Hunter x Hunter) system where every alchemist has really unique, cool powers that have to be carefully counteracted, but most fights just amount to launching the alchemist's element at the bad guy. I laughed out loud a few times when Ed would get into a big fight and whip out his... dinky little arm blade. Like you can control matter and that's what you're bringing to the table? I wanted more imaginative alchemy, is all.
Finally, I found my suspension of disbelief failing a lot in regard to the writing. For example Alphose sitting with Pride in the dome and just letting him tap rhythmically, repetitively on his helmet for half a day. Boi have you never heard of morse code, and beyond that why wouldn't you just take your helmet back anyway?! Ridiculous.
Also the gang not letting Roy kill Envy. That made me mad. I get it, he who hunts monsters, but Roy hasn't been shown to be psychopathic at all for the whole series. He's been remarkably level-headed and stable given the situation. And if anyone deserves to be burned to a crisp it's the monster gleefully absorbing people and starting civil wars and who also killed Roy's best friend. I never bought that Roy would start down a path of madness after killing Envy, it felt contrived to serve the no-killing theme (which was done much better in Trigun BTW) There were enough additional examples that it hurt my enjoyment of the show overall (Like Envy tricking what's-her-name into bringing him back to Central. I know she's a kid, but really? You're going to believe this guy after everything he's done?)
I can't fault the look and character design, that's for sure. The characters are very recognizable and appealing. I think my favorites overall are the Armstrong siblings and Roy. The animation is at minimum good for the whole run and when they splurge for the big fight scenes it's excellent. I didn't like the backgrounds, but that's not much of a knock.
So yeah it's a low 7/10 for me. I can see the appeal, but I feel like almost everything here has been done better elsewhere. Like in HxH ~
To me, FMA is an extremely competent series. It's entertaining through and through, and I actually really like the characters and situations, but I find myself feeling it's kind of samey from beginning to end. HxH on the other hand is more uneven, having some really high highs, and some boring lows, not helped by how the series was produced, given the state of the manga.
In the end though, I always find myself going back to HxH, which I've rewatched alone and with others. In contrast I've never felt the need to go back to FMA. Maybe the contrast between the best and worst parts of HxH result in a more entertaining experience. At least, that's the way I see it, I've enjoyed both as I said.
I think I know what you're talking about with parts of HxH being boring, but for me it has no lows :3. So we agree on high highs.
But I am at least glad you at least have it a chance and detailed what you liked and didn’t like. 🙂
I guess I can't really disagree too much with most of your assertions. Alphonse definitely suffers from being a decidedly passive character and not getting much development. The Roy/Envy moment was one that bothered me too--I suspect it was written that way more for Envy, to make him seem pitiable and pathetic and ultimately crave his own death, than for Roy.
I think the real appeal of FMA is in the scope of the story. It's about the horrors of war and the sinister machinations of society just as much as the struggles of adolescence and family, themes which are both far-reaching and personal. There are so many characters throughout the series with complex and interlocking dynamics, and even the weaker ones have something distinctly memorable about them. It's also just really unique, at the time it came out it was very rare to see Japanese media taking place in a historical European setting, I suspect that's a large part of why it's distinctive to so many.
Personally, I'm most familiar with the series through the 2003 anime, which I watched through in its entirety a few years ago. I think it doesn't get enough credit for some of the adaptational changes it made (e.g. Hughes appears during the train hostage crisis episode so we get to see more action with him). On the other hand, it gets really weird with some of the stuff it does further down the line after it starts diverging from the manga, with a twist at the end that is particularly divisive. I'd say you might appreciate some of the things that are done differently, but if you were put off by the product overall then it's probably not going to make much of a difference.
The horrors and complications of war was definitely an appeal and probably when the series was most working for me. A highlight was when Roy was like "Yeah we're going to have to go on trial for Ishbal war crimes even if we pull this off." And how Alex's sister hates him because he deserted when we know he was just too pure for mass murder.
But looking at the total package eh, it's fine
Very good, but maybe not as hype as it was in, what, 2009?
This comes from someone having read the mangas multiple times and holding that Thing dear.
Your arguments feel valid and i get your criticism.
40 sum episodes in and I was just like: "So, who of these people am I meant to care about? Because if the answer is non, mission accomplished." All the interesting characters were sidelined pretty early on, and the main characters were all bland at best, and stupid or annoying at worst. We stopped watching after that, largely due to the fact that 40 episodes in I felt I could have started watching at the episode we hit, and still of completely understoopd everything that was going on, simply because nothing had changed.
These are the bad guys, they're based on the deadly sins. Ok, cool, got it. I got it 35 episodes again when you established that was the thing. Now we're 40 episodes deep and guess what, they're still the bad guys, and still haven't really done anything. I should state a large issue I have with anime is the pacing of it, but this felt ridiculous even for anime. Anyway, glad I'm not the only one that didn't see what all the hype was about. I put it in the category of: "Not bad, just not for me."
7/10 is still pretty good though!!! But alas, these are the sorts of problems that come from adapting shows in piecemeal like that lol.
Haven't read the manga yet but I suspect it'd top FMA:B though!