10/31/2022 0 Comments Full metal alchemist brotherhoodIn the original Alchemist, this death felt like a sucker-punch to the gut it was raw and emotional, and totally unexpected. The most glaring example of this problem is the death of one particular major character. But even so, everything still felt like it was moving a bit too fast in Brotherhood. #FULL METAL ALCHEMIST BROTHERHOOD SERIES#The original series spent a great deal of time embellishing upon and adding to the events of the manga before it finally diverged. I will admit, however, that this is more in line with the pacing of the manga. As a result, the enormous amount of character development in the first half of the original anime has been compressed in the best of cases and utterly discarded in others. However, in those first thirteen episodes, Brotherhood covers all of the material that Alchemist covered before diverging – reaching the equivalent of episode 30 in the original series. The first season of Brotherhood – its first thirteen episodes – share the original Alchemist‘s continuity almost completely. But there is one important change a cruical difference that permeates and encompasses almost every other change that Brotherhood makes in its first season: Pacing. I could go into detail about the various minor changes to the story – Lior isn’t in a desert anymore, Hughes doesn’t meet the Elrics until long after Ed’s certification – but all of these details are fairly minor, and I would end up spending all of my time talking about what amounts to nothing. I’ll admit that this is a small nitpick, but it stuck out just enough that it sat at the back of my mind and bothered me all the way through, almost like a stone that was stuck in my proverbial boot. The overall effect is animation that looks a little less detailed and pristine. Everything is a little more stylized: colors are a little brighter, and the shading is all a little flatter. The character designs are more in line with their depictions in the manga, which I suppose is to be expected, but it’s more than that. The first thing a fan of the original Alchemist will notice in Brotherhood – aside from the differences in the plot – is the change in animation style. This is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. This leaves Hiromu Arakawa and Bones a golden opportunity, to create a new series that follows the manga faithfully, right to the end. The manga looks to be winding up to its climax, and the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime was wildly popular and successful. Not content to dull the series down with filler and padding so that the manga could remain a step ahead at all times – such as certain other anime series are apt to do (I’m looking at you, Naruto) – the writers at animation studio Bones decided to take what material was already in the manga and expand the story in their own direction, resulting in a series that maintained good pacing throughout and had a definitive ending to its story arc. The issue – and, indeed, the whole reason why Brotherhood exists – is that the original Alchemist series began airing in 2003, long before the manga was anywhere close to concluding. Both series draw their premise from an original Fullmetal Alchemist manga series produced by artist Hiromu Arakawa that started in 2001 and is still ongoing today. It is an alternate continuity – of sorts. The most important distinction to make, in order to understand the differences between these two series, is that Brotherhood is not a sequel to Alchemist. So it should come as no surprise to learn that I have a lot to say about its much younger, newer sibling, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It was primarily Fullmetal Alchemist that reinvigorated my interest in anime, an interest that later grew into a hobby and then finally to full-fledged fandom, and would eventually lead me to land a contributor position at a certain online magazine we all know and love. It had deep and complex characters that broke with tradition and cliché, and had a plot that was, for the most part, masterfully paced and thoroughly enjoyable. I will make no attempt to deny that the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime holds a very special place in my heart.
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