DESCRIPTION

CAST

MOVIE ActionHagane no Renkinjutsushi: Shamballa wo Yuku Mono
MANGA ActionHagane no Renkinjutsushi
OVA ComedyHagane no Renkinjutsushi: PREMIUM COLLECTION
SPECIAL AdventureHagane no Renkinjutsushi: Reflections
ANIME ActionHagane no Renkinjutsushi: FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST
NOVEL ActionHagane no Renkinjutsushi

REVIEWS

• 

  TK8878

  56/100
  FMA '03 is too unfocused to reach its full potential.

  

  Spoiler-free review

  Review in brief:

  Fullmetal Alchemist possesses a dark tone, some amount of moral ambiguity (mixed in with the usual force-fed black-and-white morals), and frequent drama within a shounen adventure core. Unfortunately, despite its high underlying potential it chooses not to maintain the level of detail needed to keep its ambitious story consistent or preserve suspension of disbelief, prioritizing its quota for mindless action and comedy instead.

  Review in full:

  2003's Fullmetal Alchemist may reside in the shadow of its younger, manga-faithful sibling FMA: Brotherhood, but many still recommend watching it beforehand. It is said to feature a slower & more digestible pace, a darker tone, and deeper thematics. I haven't watched Brotherhood for comparison but I can attest that this anime does at least attempt to make good on these points but not in an effective manner. In fact, the theme of this review will be that this anime does have many commendable aspects to it, but it's mixed with some wholly uninspired elements that result in a product with a frustrating lack of purpose akin to a gem-encrusted plunger.

  Even from the very beginning problems are made apparent, thanks to the decision to start off in the middle of the story. The first episode starts by saying close to nothing about the setting & lore and simply throws the Elric brothers into action while bluntly stating their basic motive of "get our old bodies back". It establishes rules for its world (mostly pertaining to its alchemy) and immediately proceeds to break them without explaining what allows it to do so. This occurs throughout the show, but starting off like this makes it especially difficult to suspend disbelief as it keeps happening. Some of these rule-breaks are explained many episodes later but said explanations are often done quickly and hand-waved away, as though the anime doesn't want to explain itself. These faults in the storytelling appear in both visuals and dialogue.

  _Yep, there was totally enough metal in the stone wall to make a cast-iron door complete with bull-themed decor. What are tailings anyway?_ The main issue with the visuals is that the explanations for many transmutations don't match up with their animations, making them hard to believe. In the first scenario Edward is able to transmute both a wood-and-metal spear and a large stone wall from sand with only the slightest visible disruption/reduction in said sand. It's animated as though these objects teleported into the scene rather than created from nearby materials (the given explanation) and given some of their compositions relative to the materials they spawned from they may as well have. A large amount of transmutations have this problem. Edward is also able to animate a giant stone statue early on without any known catalyst. This is given a explanation through dialogue but only at the very end of the show and even that explanation is questionable, vaguely expressed (in an attempt to cover multiple inconsistencies at once), and something Edward had no idea about at the time. More to the point, the show waited nearly 50 episodes before even attempting to explain where the energy needed to make a multistory stone statue walk somewhere else (last I checked statues aren't even made with functioning joints) comes from in a system that supposedly requires "equivalent exchange" to function. In the end, transmutations with this inconsistency are never directly questioned. They are only indirectly and partially answered in about 40 seconds of exposition. In spite of its exposition issues, the story of Fullmetal Alchemist is actually quite involved and entertaining. There's many intriguing details and events that build up who the Elric brothers are and what they do. At the same time there's also plenty of needless comedy and filler fights thrown in that detract from what is a touching journey at its best and make it a stale shounen slog at its worst. It is this disjointed method of storytelling that sees serious plot points explained in a convoluted way, raising many questions (such as the previously mentioned transmutation issues) and forgetting half of them before a point is reached where the show feels comfortable with providing answers. Perhaps it would be more tolerable if these sidetracks provided a worthwhile experience, but when half of the jokes are just Edward having a height complex & Al being an empty suit of armor and half of the fights are mostly basic melee slugouts with minimal amounts of alchemy involved it's hard not to see it all as being tacked-on. _Apparently using alchemy __before__ it's absolutely necessary is just too darn complicated for ~~the writers~~ Edward._ The Elric brothers' journey is by no means a walk in the park and they often find themselves getting involved with shady characters and sinister happenings. Sometimes rather complicated (for a shounen anime) issues that have no clear-cut answer are brought up, leaving the brothers (and the viewer) to find their own. At other times the show goes out of its way to be extra dark and force-feed a particular moral to the audience not with reason but with shock value through gratuitous violence & gore or emotional manipulation. It's frustrating because there are plenty of moments in the story where interesting subjects and events come up that practically beg to be mentally digested but there's also many moments where the show clearly expects your brain to be turned off. I consider dark & edgy stories to be a guilty pleasure of mine but here it mostly felt unnecessary. In particular, the ending emphasizes a lot of the problems I've mentioned and raises many unanswered questions. Many actions taken beforehand (such as motivations for some of the villains as well as some of the lessons the Elric brothers learn and grow from) are rendered pointless by it, and it's not helped by all the meandering & pointlessly melodramatic dialogue leading up to it. It also creates a lot of holes in the final explanation of "the gate". I won't spoil "the gate" here as it's a major plot element but I will say that the way the ending abuses the function of "the gate" by conveniently forgoing the conditions for it to do what it did just 2 episodes after explaining it was its worst aspect since so many key events are built up around it throughout the show. Out of all the times this anime threw its own logic to the wayside, this last one with no hope of being explained is by far the worst. It all seemed to happen just to present sequel bait for a continuation (the Conqueror of Shamballa) that doesn't promise to answer those questions. All but one of the villains are overly corny, predictable, and simple. Many of the sin-based homunculi (such as Gluttony and Envy) can be entirely characterized by their names alone. Many of the villains in general are nothing more than psychopaths that know no other actions than gloat and kill (because what else would they need to know to fight?) and the amount of them means a lot of seeing the same cutout villain appear many, many times with a different face (and not just because characters don't always stay dead when they're killed). Meanwhile, just about every non-villain character (even the filler episode side characters) can be defined by a sole desire they possess. This approach to characterization is both nonstandard and uniquely fitting to the underlying theme of the anime, but these characters need more than a desire and a couple bullet-point traits to be truly convincing. While there are some characters that receive decent development, many of them end up dying partway through, clearing room for much shallower characters that don't really develop. It's a shame because this clear effort to give as many characters a place in the story as possible (even down to filler episode characters) does end up making the world feel more alive, but only at the high cost of some of the anime's standout characters. _Enjoy your favorite characters while they last. No really, not all of them last._ Outside of the lacking visual explanations the animation is fairly standard though with the caveat that it tends to go light on the visual effects. That said, such conservatism doesn't add to its presentation. On a more positive note, the animators did a great job with their use of color palettes to complement each scene. The sound is of considerable quality with a fair number of memorable, setting-appropriate music pieces and convincing voice acting (I watched the Japanese version). The OPs are all quite nice as well; so nicely animated at times that it makes the rest of the anime look worse. All in all, it's enough to make the setting feel fairly convincing and whole, even though maps and regional history are rarely brought up. This isn't an issue however since the rest can easily be filled in with a grade-schooler's level of understanding on European history. I could say so much more about this anime (even without veering into spoiler territory) but it would all just be discussing more fantastic toppings on a cardboard pizza. I really want to like this anime and aside from the ending I don't regret any time I spent on it. Unfortunately, every awesome thing it does is sandwiched between two unbearably uninspired elements. It makes me wish I could just pull out the meaningful parts of this show and throw away the poorly utilized shounen action & comedy it was all glued to. # Verdict: You would be hard pressed to find a person who truly dislikes Fullmetal Alchemist's story with its interesting journey and the myriad of themes it at least attempts to explore. However, that story is put at odds with the shounen conventions it was placed with and the experience is diluted to the point where its standout properties can barely be tasted within the watery and stagnant concoction it became. # Related reviews: # [Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa](https://anilist.co/review/3816) ->
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• 

  xandorito

  86/100
  A character driven anime thats well writtten. It may fall flat in some aspects but all around makes a great experience

  Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 Review

  I’m going to warn you outright I’m not the best at analysing anime, but I’ll try my best
  .
  .

  I don't think of Equivalent Exchange as a law of the world anymore. I think of it as a promise, between my brother and me.

  

  Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 (FMA 04) was the first anime adaption, preceding Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (FMAB) which came out 2009 and is usually praised as the better of the two. That being as FMAB follows the manga to the very end while FMA 03 takes an alternate pathway as at the time of production the manga had only been partially completed. Because of this both anime tell very different stories, and because of that for the most part, I will be disassociating the two, ill do a quick comparison between the two at the end though.

  Fullmetal Alchemist 03 tells a story about two brothers, Edward Elric and Alphonse Eric who are in search of the Philosopher’s Stone in an attempt to get their bodies back after a failed attempt to bring their mother back to life. This attempt causing Ed to lose his arm and leg and Al to lose his entire body and having his soul bonded to armour. From that base plot we are welcomed to the world of alchemy, the magic that harbours the world but is treated more like a science under the idea of Equivalent exchange. To obtain something you must pay a price of equal value.

  

  The way they treat alchemy is very well done, they explain it well enough that it makes sense, there aren’t too many flaws in the way they use it and it seems quite grounded to some degree though sometimes it does feel like the writers just went with things that ‘kinda made sense’. Which works with the anime. The entire series has a very well-grounded feeling. Especially within the characters, all the characters in the series get a fair amount of development, even in the side characters sometimes. We get to understand everyone’s separate motivations, their personalities and most importantly their faults. No character in the show is a completely good person, everyone is in a moral grey area. Everyone has done wrong things and the show doesn’t hide it, these wrong doings also for the most part harbour consequences, a misdoing a character does will be brought up 20 episodes down the line and have actual implication.

  That is too say that isn’t with every character. Some of the main villains receive some barely bleak character development and their motivations don’t really make sense and one of them even passes it off by telling Ed he should understand even though their situations barely intersect at all. A lot of villains also get the whole “I just like watching people suffer” trope which, for a series so focused on character building really shouldn’t be doing for such significant characters in the plot. Luckily this isn’t apparent for all of the villains, but sadly for strong chunk of them. I feel as though personally, the writing of the other characters more than makes up for this from a subjective view though.

  The characters go hand in hand to create the plot of the series, and while not as grand of a plot as FMAB it is still quite a well put together one, it isn’t fully cohesive, at certain points it feels disjointed and jumps a bit around, there were many times is later parts of the series I’d felt like I’d missed something and had to stop to make sure I hadn’t.

  Now let’s have a look at the animation and the sound which are both quite superb. While being made in 2003 the animation barely has any low points, and even has some really high points. There is a few hand to hand combat moments that look really cool in motion (even if they don’t last long lmao). The OST is also is just as good, especially with openings such as ‘Rewrite by ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION’ and ‘READY STEADY GO by L’Arc-en-Ciel’. The ost really also fits with the overall mood and aesthetic of the art style to the point where I actually prefer the styling of this against FMAB.

  

  FMA 03 and FMAB are very different anime, FMAB is more shonen focused story with masterfully written characters and a very solid and cohesive plot. FMA while is comes from the same source material, deviates from that shonen focus and becomes something entirely different, while I believe the plot isn’t as strong as FMAB, I do prefer the darker aspect of it, and the way they answer certain plot points shown in the manga in comparison to FMAB.

  Overall I'd reccomend this anime to anyone who wants to watch a more plot focused anime, with shonen parts sprinkled in and to people who have seen FMAB and are interested in an alternate version of the story.

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• 

  infinitely

  73/100
  Fullmetal Alchemist is a great attempt at a twisted, epic, fairy tale, but it gets lost in its own ambitions

  Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)

  Series experience:
  I watched Brotherhood a few years ago, and I read the manga earlier this year

  Short review: Fullmetal Alchemist is a dark action-adventure sci-fi tale which ponders themes on humanity, sacrifice, and loss. A character-driven series that moves you along through the motivations of our two heroes, you'll have to suspend your disbelief for a bit and go along with the flow. Throwing comedy and action into the heavy mix, you get a more existential piece but with a rather flimsy plot and a lackluster ending.

  Full review:

  Warning: review contains spoilers

  I can't help it. I've seen the originals so in my mind I already had biases towards certain things in FMA. Either way, I sat down to watch this entire series for the first time, and these are my thoughts.

  FMA starts off strong. With a similar beginning to FMAB, people do mention how FMA fleshes out it's characters better, giving them backgrounds and screen time, making the loss of certain supporting characters more emotional and with depth. Personally, I do like this aspect of the anime, because we get to see the people that affect Ed and Al's purpose for their journey.

  There are some bits of the manga that are only adapted in the 2003 series as well, so that's always a plus. Fun omake chapters such as the Military Festival being expanded on or the origin of Black Hayate's ownership sort of add a more friendly feel towards the Mustang unit. There are some background stories (with one adapted from a light novel) that show us Ed and Al's rough start in their Philosopher's Stone research, and the casualties that accumulate in their travels. The setting up of everything in the first half of the anime was done really well, we learned a little bit with every few episodes - the pacing is really good.

  I think the second half of the show, though, does not live up to the first. A few gripes I have - first, the writers did put in some twists and turns, but nearing the end, the plot was veering so far off the tracks I wasn't sure what was happening anymore. Now I know it is a fantasy anime to some extent, but so many things just didn't follow the rules set by the world. Philosopher's Stones were made so easily by the end; and the gate led to.. our world? Even equivalent exchange felt like such a loose rule because Ed kept transmuting tiny things to big things OR kept changing chemical compositions but only when convenient to the plot. My personal favorite plot twist they added was the birth of the homunculi. Having them be the result of human transmutation is really interesting, and also a great angst driver, but it renders their entire OWN characters useless beyond who they were modeled after. This makes their names and traits kind of pointless - why is Sloth Sloth? Why is Wrath Wrath? Which then kind of contrasts with the other homunculus written after the manga characters who stay true such as Greed. The new plot, although interesting, did not feel as planned as the the manga's/Brotherhood's.

  The praise 2003 had over 2009 was also mostly for the characters. I liked the idea - what they were trying to do. A gray area, nothing is black and white, etc. Ed's character in this version really does grow up a lot. He sacrifices so much and makes difficult decisions. I personally think that's great. We have interesting takes on the war too. The reality of following orders as a soldier, the infinite number of casualties that will traumatize one, and the endless cycle of revenge that follows are all topics that FMA covers pretty well. As a watcher it gives you second thoughts on your favorite characters, reminding you your heroes are just people too. A downside though, for me, is that this comes at the expense of a lot of supporting characters - and erases some strong qualities of some female characters too. I've heard people say FMAB is more shounen. I think that makes FMA 2003 seinen then. Being directed towards more mature male audiences has its upsides, but as a female watcher it does disappoint me sometimes with the unnecessary fanservice. It's in the small things I honestly don't think a lot of guys would notice but that awkward Winry ending animation, the drawing of Riza's chest at times, making Sloth sexy for no reason (even though Lust is supposed to be the homonculus representative of that), focusing on Rose's body even though she had other things to worry about, etc. all of those could deter a possible female fan (who would in turn enjoy Brotherhood more). Winry's character here is more shallow as well, and Ed hardly cares about her (Envy doesn't even bother copying her face when they are goading Ed.) She's an automail otaku caricature and by the end I don't know exactly what was her purpose in the show. When her parents were revealed to be murdered by Roy we even get more Roy angst that anything about her. Hawkeye (as much as I love Royai) is also here not Mustang's underling who he respects the most but more of the lover/bodyguard type. It's so out of character when she cries his name and breaks her soldier character. The writing for these girls just becomes inconsistent and wonky.

  I could go on and on about the female characters but sort of all the characters just suffer loss of personality and development. The villains are so 2D - Frank Archer is ?? evil for the sake of being evil I guess. Kimblee? Likes violence. Bradley? Yeah he's a homonculus so that means bad. Wrath? A spoiled child who was really interesting until the writers decided to kill off personality and make him mentally age backwards or something. The big bad created for the series, Dante, is also quite bland. Popular characters like Havoc and Armstrong are reduced to caricatures too, becoming comic relief in scenes where laughter is wholly unnecessary.

  Lastly, animation and music. The fight scenes are animated pretty nicely but I feel like they could have been smarter. Ed doesn't feel as snappy as he does in Brotherhood and as smart as in the manga with what he can do with his arm and his alchemy. He just keeps trying to punch his way through (and get beat a lot). Same goes for a lot of the other characters. Roy snapping his way through everything is pretty accurate, yeah, but it's like they forget he's a pro strategist. I could go on. Music wise, I personally think sometimes the atmosphere is a bit forced on you. I get that the anime wants to go a darker route but I'd prefer to not be told so directly. I don't quite know how to explain this right but some of the "oriental" sounding music is also a bit off-putting to me in such a steampunk looking setting. The openings and endings are pretty good, but even having watched them all (I don't skip OP/EDs) they're not as memorable as FMAB's.

  Overall, I don't think it's close to Arakawa's original tale. While trying give us more to think about, FMA tends to lose itself in its own introspection, making the story fall apart at the seams. As a standalone anime, I would say it's all right - it plays out like a typical shounen, crazy OP fight scenes, some fanservice here and there, lack of care for it's own world's rules; but with a darkness unique to it that still draws and maintains a group of fans loyal to the series.

  Plot 6/10
  Animation 8/10
  Characters 8/10

  Overall personal enjoyment 7/10

  Top 3 fave characters (this is so different from my faves in FMAB lol)

  Lust probably - her motivations were quite unique and her realization at the end (I hope) earned her her catharsis
  Maria Ross except when she went all fangirly on Hohenheim - I like how she was a good mother figure to Ed and Al
  Wrath before he went bonkers on Sloth - his wanting to be whole/wanting to be human bit was really sad and his dynamic with Izumi was pitiful

  Others: Izumi, Ed, Roy

  

  Thank you for reading!

  Review for the manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Review
  Review for the recap OVA: Fullmetal Alchemist: Reflections Review
  Review for the sequel movie: Fullmetal Alchemist: The Movie - Conqueror of Shamballa Review
  Review for the Premium OVA Collection: Fullmetal Alchemist: Premium OVA Collection Review

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