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Fullmetal Alchemist - Brotherhood Official Discussion Thread

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L

Lain

Member
duckroll said:
I think it's a lot more than a "nice fight" myself. There are several other things besides what was already mentioned that made the fight pretty important imo.

- It's the first time you actually see Envy getting desperate and annoyed at the fact that he's been outgunned and outwitted, and his reaction to it. This is important character development for his character, because he doesn't really have much scene time in the series compared to other characters.

- It's important development for the Xing crew, because it's the first time you see Lan Fang and Ling working together well, and also the first time you see Ling actually fight with a sword. This builds up the audience's expectations of his character's fighting skills for his later clash with Wrath, because up until now he's been shown as a rather weak character.

- It shows that Ling and Lan Fang together can easily match Envy AND Gluttony, which is the ONLY reason the plan to draw out the other Homunculi would make sense to begin with. Otherwise, without a good idea of what they're up against, it would be really foolish for Ed and Al to even agree to drawing out Scar AND the Homunculi, especially if they don't know if together they can handle all their opponents.
Click to expand...

You know, you're right.
Once again Bones let me down, it's like they can't ever do it right (for me).
I didn't like their first FMA anime because of the way they changed the story, and it looks like in the end I'll be annoyed by this one as well.
 
B

BlueWord

Member
Just watched episode 19, and I feel safe saying that this is probably the best episode yet. If this is a sign of things to come, then
Kimblee vs. Al
is probably going to make me shit myself.

I had one little concern, though. Did
Hawkeye freak out like that in the manga? She seemed really torn up over Mustang's 'death', really open with the tears. I can't remember, but I think her reaction was a little more subtle in the manga.

Also, the missing Envy fight is regrettable. I hope they fit it in further down the line.
 
C

Crash Station

Member
Wow, Mustang totally fucked Lust up! It does suck that they removed that
Envy fight since Ling is my favorite character
but they might be able to fit that in somewhere down the line. Still an amazing episode with great animation.
 
B

B.K.

Member
Yeah. I'm hoping they fit that fight in somewhere else too. There wasn't any time for it in this episode. Based on the preview, next week should be all about
Ed and Hohenheim
. Maybe they can fit it in somewhere in 21 or 22.
 
L

LaneDS

Member
Agreed on best episode so far. So awesome. There's one shot of Al in particular from the episode I think would make a badass wallpaper (
when he's got the cut up arms
).
 
T

Tacitus_

Member
BlueWord said:
I had one little concern, though. Did
Hawkeye freak out like that in the manga? She seemed really torn up over Mustang's 'death', really open with the tears. I can't remember, but I think her reaction was a little more subtle in the manga.
Click to expand...

Haven't seen the episode yet since I can't seem to find subs, but in the manga she emptied all her guns and after that, seeing that it had no effect, collapsed on her knees sobbing: "just kill me then"
 
H

Hero

Member
duckroll said:
I think it's a lot more than a "nice fight" myself. There are several other things besides what was already mentioned that made the fight pretty important imo.

- It's the first time you actually see Envy getting desperate and annoyed at the fact that he's been outgunned and outwitted, and his reaction to it. This is important character development for his character, because he doesn't really have much scene time in the series compared to other characters.

- It's important development for the Xing crew, because it's the first time you see Lan Fang and Ling working together well, and also the first time you see Ling actually fight with a sword. This builds up the audience's expectations of his character's fighting skills for his later clash with Wrath, because up until now he's been shown as a rather weak character.

- It shows that Ling and Lan Fang together can easily match Envy AND Gluttony, which is the ONLY reason the plan to draw out the other Homunculi would make sense to begin with. Otherwise, without a good idea of what they're up against, it would be really foolish for Ed and Al to even agree to drawing out Scar AND the Homunculi, especially if they don't know if together they can handle all their opponents.
Click to expand...

Pretty much agree with this. I don't understand how the anime is going to cover this now instead. It's very disheartening since the series was following the manga pretty decently.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Hero said:
Pretty much agree with this. I don't understand how the anime is going to cover this now instead. It's very disheartening since the series was following the manga pretty decently.
Click to expand...

Well, this might be the biggest omission from the manga so far, but it's not like the series has been totally faithful so far either. They've removed tons of rather "important" development scenes from the manga, and moved entire other scenes around to diminish their dramatic impact. I think as far as an adaptation go, it's pretty weak. The animation's pretty nice though, and the action has gotten better.
 
H

Hero

Member
duckroll said:
Well, this might be the biggest omission from the manga so far, but it's not like the series has been totally faithful so far either. They've removed tons of rather "important" development scenes from the manga, and moved entire other scenes around to diminish their dramatic impact. I think as far as an adaptation go, it's pretty weak. The animation's pretty nice though, and the action has gotten better.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they did move stuff around and take out some things but up until now I didn't have that big of a problem with it. I mean I guess the only option they can do is have a flashback of the others fighting Envy? Would that even work? Who knows. The manga chapter needs to come out now to make up for this.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Hero said:
Yeah, they did move stuff around and take out some things but up until now I didn't have that big of a problem with it. I mean I guess the only option they can do is have a flashback of the others fighting Envy? Would that even work? Who knows. The manga chapter needs to come out now to make up for this.
Click to expand...

Why would there be a flashback or anything? The fight didn't happen, plain and simple. Since it didn't happen, there's no reason to expect it to be used later on or anything. Something that's skipped is skipped. In the anime's continuity, it never happened.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
The pacing for these last few episodes have been fine... I don't think I'd ever read the manga so I have no idea how it "really" happens, but stretching this out to a few more episodes just for some extra battles seems a bit much.
 
T

Tacitus_

Member
duckroll said:
I think it's a lot more than a "nice fight" myself. There are several other things besides what was already mentioned that made the fight pretty important imo.

- It's the first time you actually see Envy getting desperate and annoyed at the fact that he's been outgunned and outwitted, and his reaction to it. This is important character development for his character, because he doesn't really have much scene time in the series compared to other characters.

- It's important development for the Xing crew, because it's the first time you see Lan Fang and Ling working together well, and also the first time you see Ling actually fight with a sword. This builds up the audience's expectations of his character's fighting skills for his later clash with Wrath, because up until now he's been shown as a rather weak character.

- It shows that Ling and Lan Fang together can easily match Envy AND Gluttony, which is the ONLY reason the plan to draw out the other Homunculi would make sense to begin with. Otherwise, without a good idea of what they're up against, it would be really foolish for Ed and Al to even agree to drawing out Scar AND the Homunculi, especially if they don't know if together they can handle all their opponents.
Click to expand...

Now that I have the manga infront of me, I can say something about these.

The first one you get, no opposition there, but..

Easily match? Bullshit. Ling was bluffing through the fight and he almost collapses after it. I don't have the official english translation, but the one we have here has Ling saying something like this:" I can't believe those guys! It seems they even had more aces up their sleeve. And there were even more of them. We were barely saved."

Furthermore, Ling didn't have much of a fight, he had less than 10 fighting panels, and they consisted of him throwing his sword at Envy, getting it thrown back to him and splitting lunging Gluttony in half (not to mention he was 'comedically running' between him throwing the sword and getting it back).

Also Ling tells the brothers that they can sense the homunculi AFTER the brothers draw up the plan about drawing Scar to the open to get the homunculi appear. While they're thinking up the plan, they're worrying how they'll do it (with Ed saying that they'll figure out something and Al mentioning that the last time they fought with Scar, it wasn't even a fight. Ed even asks Winry to stay since he might.. uh propably will break his automail (and gets his ass kicked by Winry)
 
C

Cloudy

Banned
OMG, Mustang is an ultimate BADASS! He is waaaay better than in the original anime

The animation has improved since they got past the recap stuff too. Just wow :eek:

ps: I heart Hawkeye :D
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
LaneDS said:
I heart you.
Click to expand...

No problem and yeah, that was one of my favorite shots from that episode - so glad it got capped.

Ended up re-watching the episode again last night - and I swear it feels like Bones is finally making good use of their budget, at least for this episode. The quality of the episode, especially the animation during Roy's beatdown of Lust was amazing.
 
M

Momar

aka Ryder
Episode 19 was fucking gnarly, holy shit. I watched episodes 7-19 in the span of 3 days, now it's going to suck having to wait for episodes again :(
 
B

BeEatNU

WORLDSTAAAAAAR
Cloudy said:
OMG, Mustang is an ultimate BADASS! He is waaaay better than in the original anime
Click to expand...


I agree with this, this whole episode had me wanting more right away! I was actually liking Barry alot :(

interesting how the whole end part went through though.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
speedpop said:
Really enjoying this rendition a lot more than I did with the original version.
Click to expand...
I've said it before: After seeing the manga, very few people will like the first FMA anime... and no one who has been exposed to the manga prefers the first anime to the manga. No one.

Now you see part of the reason why, even though jokes, subplots, dialogues, and fights are missing in brotherhood. :D
 
R

Rhino

Member
speedpop said:
Really enjoying this rendition a lot more than I did with the original version.
Click to expand...

This.

Episode 19 was soooooooo good.

Loved watching Mustang
burn the fuck out of Lust at the end
:D
 
B

BlueWord

Member
Just watched episode 20, another good episode, though certainly not in the same way as the last one.
Hohenheim got very little screen time, but I think that, in the context of the anime, it should be enough of an intro. He wasn't there for very long in the manga, either.

Also, I think there might be potential for the Ling/Envy fight in upcoming episodes... I'm not sure how they'd fit it in, but the preview showed him and Ran Fan sitting, with weapons drawn. Unless there's another fight involving those two coming up that I can't remember, of course.
 
C

castlegar

Member
Just watched episode 20. It was good, I think, but I'm very tired so pretty much the entire explanation about the mix-up with the transmutations went over my head. Would anyone care to explain what they mean when Izumi and Ed claim
that the people they transmuted were not who they intended?

It would be much appreciated
 
B

B.K.

Member
michaelsrevenge said:
JWould anyone care to explain what they mean when Izumi and Ed claim
that the people they transmuted were not who they intended?
Click to expand...

They meant exactly what they said.
It's impossible to transmute the dead. You can't recreate a person. The things they made weren't the ones they meant to make.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
B.K. said:
They meant exactly what they said.
It's impossible to transmute the dead. You can't recreate a person. The things they made weren't the ones they meant to make.
Click to expand...
Yep.... further clarifications in the spoilers..

Up until this point, Ed, Izumi, and Al have all believed that reviving the dead was possible, but that the theories they developed were incomplete. Since they believed their theories were incomplete, they also believe that the things they transmuted.... ie, Izumi's baby and Trisha, were the real thing, just incomplete.... Izumi thought that she had transmuted her baby only to end up killing it again... same thing with Ed and Al with regards to their mother. They thought they had revived her in an incomplete form that could not survive, and so they ended up making her suffer through an additional death.

But Ed, Al, and Izumi were all wrong. It was not that their theories were incomplete: the very underlying assumption that you can revive the dead was wrong...

btw.... with regards to the whole soul/body thing (which was kind of skimmed over):


Basically:
1. Al has memories from before being affixed to the armor that Winry can verify as real memories... memories that Ed doesn't have. Therefore, the soul Ed affixed to the armor was Al's soul. In addition......

2. Al has memories from after being affixed to the armor. Memories are stored in the brain, so Al's body must still exist, and his brain must be fully functioning, because.....

3. Alchemic theory states that humans are made up of three components: The mind, the body, and the soul. Ed believes that the body and soul are connected by the mind, which is why a body is attracted to a particular soul... this is backed up by what happened with Barry the chopper... his soul was attracted to his body since they had a common link through the mind, and barry was able to locate his body based on basically pure instinct.
In other words, Al's soul is currently forced onto the armor suit, and is connected with his missing body through his mind.

4. Al's body was not taken to transmute Trisha, but as a fee to go through the gate... and Ed's arm was used as a fee to pull out al's soul. Trisha was dead... she couldn't be revived, because she didn't exist anymore. On the other hand, Ed was able to retrieve Al's soul... it shouldn't be possible to be able to pull something from the gate that is non-existant, so Ed can only conclude that Al is still alive somewhere in there...

Furthermore, Ed realizes that when he reached his hand out for Trisha (see episode 2 of brotherhood), she wasn't there.. Al realizes that when he reached his hand out... it was his body that was there (see episode 14), and he then saw Ed from the view of the thing that they transmuted(again, see episode 14, al's memories).... Al's soul was fixed to that thing for a few seconds, but was quickly rejected and went back to the gate... then Ed retrieved it from the gate and forced it onto the armor.

The rest of Al is still inside the gate.

I could post the panels (about 5 of them) if the mods approve...
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
Re-watched 20 again over the weekend...wasn't too crazy about it though it's kinda hard to go back to a slower-paced episode like this after the awesome that was episode 19.

I liked Hohenheim's voice, suited him fine and strangely I loved the part where both Ling and RanFan were eating - no reason why though.
 
F

Fox1304

Member
Watched episodes 19/20 today.
Epic 19, opening for a slower 20.
19 was so nicely drawn, the part where
Mustang burns Lust
was really nice, with an awesome music. Lot of wallpaper material there.
Spoiler wallpaper pics :

http://i31.tinypic.com/zkfi0z.png

http://i25.tinypic.com/1r7l7b.png

http://i32.tinypic.com/bedea.png Totally in love with Lust's design in this one :D

Couldn't stop laughing when Al's arm fell off later ... dunno why :lol
Not a fan of Hohenheim's new voice too ... but I think it goes well with the character.
 
R

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
Well... fuck me... I held off from watching the series but I fell to temptation and watched 11-19 in 2 days. Holy shit at 19. Holy...freaking... shit. That was epic.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
Relix said:
Well... fuck me... I held off from watching the series but I fell to temptation and watched 11-19 in 2 days. Holy shit at 19. Holy...freaking... shit. That was epic.
Click to expand...

Yes, 19 was just amazing all around, despite having things cut from it.

And yeah, definitely loved Lust's design right before the end - God she was so hot. At the same time, I'm starting to think that 19 also served as fanservice for Mustang - if judging from the reactions of many of my female friends :p. For me, this episode (as well as the corresponding manga chapters) merely cemented as to why Roy Mustang is one of the best characters in the series.

I'll probably re-watch this episode again tonight.
 
L

Lirlond

Member
Just finished watching episode 21, and /wow/.

Although I'm not too sure, but doesn't
Pride
appear soon? Like, right after this fight??? Will be an amazing reveal!

Personally I can't wait for
Hohenheim's Flashback
 
B

B.K.

Member
Lirlond said:
Although I'm not too sure, but doesn't
Pride
appear soon? Like, right after this fight??? Will be an amazing reveal!
Click to expand...

No. It'll be another 10 or 15 episodes before you see
Pride.
Although
you did hear his voice in the fight between Ling, Ran Fan, Envy, and Gluttony that was cut.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Loved episode 21. Glad to see them start to use some cliffhanger endings for episodes like Arakawa. Also: FINALLY some Ed and Roy banter that doesn't get cut! :D

Sidenote: I guess the music that played at the end of episode 19 is the "Official Roy Mustang Theme Song" or something based on its two usages so far.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
Great to see that ep. 21 brought back the action after the plot development of ep. 20.

Despite them re-working events again, it worked pretty well, though I'm lamenting the loss of the 'steak analogy' dialogue between Roy and Havoc.

Finally get to see Ling and RanFan in action against the Homunculi, so that makes me happy.

Poor Havoc and it was great seeing Knox again, as well as seeing Roy and Ed's banter.

Also seeing the previews for next week makes me more and more anxious for the Ishval flashbacks.
 
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