Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)
Vintage:
October 4, 2003
Status:
Completed
Summary:
After losing their mother, Alphonse and Edward Elric attempt to bring her back using the forbidden science of human alchemy. However, alchemy operates on the theory of equivalent trade, and breaking the human alchemy taboo carries a heavy price. Ed loses his leg, and Al loses his body. Ed is able to seal Al's soul inside of a huge suit of armor, at the cost of his arm. Years later, Ed (now with two mechanical limbs) and Al (still trapped in the armor) leave their childhood home, each brother concerned with the other's happiness. Ed, who has a natural talent and skill for alchemy, becomes nationally certified and is soon known everywhere as the "Fullmetal Alchemist." Their true objective is to search for any information on the fabled Philosopher's Stone, hoping it will allow them to regain their old bodies. All of their hopes rest with this mythical stone, which may not even exist at all. However, the brothers soon learn that they are not the only ones after the powerful stone.
I won't throw words in order to explain why it is so magnificient, just watch it, I promise it won't be wasted time.
But, I must comment on a specific aspect of this anime: people say it doesn't follow manga and that is usually the main reason such anime as this get low score sometimes. I must admit I don't read manga and I therefore couldn't care less about those remarks. The same people say Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood follows manga, and usually it gets high praise. Another thing I must put into perspective before conclusion: I watched Full Metal Alchemist before I started to watch Brotherhood.
Conclusion: it doesn't matter if anime follows manga or not as that is not measure of quality. In fact there are quite a number of high quality anime which doesn't follow respective manga. In this particular case I adored FMA, but when started to watch Brotherhood, I couldn't finish it, I stopped at episode 20. It was simply bad compared to the first one. And if Brotherhood follows manga closely, then that manga is bad too.
This anime has magnificent story, atmosphere, you'll be sitting on pins and needles all the time. It is hard and sad story, one you will well remember.
I strongly recommend watching the movie Conqueror of Shamballa after finishing this, because it is the real ending of the series.
