#Ed Tucker My Fucking Beloved

[theearnestonion]

I continue to be fucking abnormal about podcasts

anyways go listen to Where The Stars Fell

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Hey I thought your post in response to that ask articulated really well why I don't like mangahood's approach with the ishvalans. And your line about how the bulky, towering scar is contrasted against the cowering form of winry made me think, and I went back and checked and yes, even though the manga does do more to show the ishvalans during the genocide, it's still showing only men. Men dying, young and old. There are no women or children there. We do see the children who have been treated by the rockbells and those are boys too. It really shows how dehumanised Poc men are. Because if arakawa actually showed mustang burning little toddlers or wailing mothers or trembling teenage girls that look like winry it might make us actually think that *gasp* he is a monster in a way him killing ishvalan men who are actively fighting back does not. Also one of the reasons why 03 Rose's stated SA makes the 03 version "darker" for many people than the on page deaths of ishvalan men other then SA being much more horrifying for people than violence like that.

You really hit the nail on the head regarding mangahood's choice of showing rebellion only from the perspective of Ishvalan men, and the mass slaughter of only Ishvalan men. Barring the Ishvalan child who Envy kills to throw a match into the amply-built tinder that was Amestrian occupation of Ishval (and once again, note who does the "unthinkable evil" against a "real innocent": Envy, not our lovable human war criminals), Ishvalan women and children evaporate from the scenes and topic of genocide.

The audience can logically infer that women and children have been murdered in the ethnic cleansing of Ishval, but by hiding this infuriating imagery we spare the creators and audience the additional horror that people are primed to feel when it isn't men being mowed down. This is what I mentioned regarding in-built biases of the audience being catered to by the narrative, as well as baked into the narrative.

There is a cisheteronormative and patriarchal bent to fma that people, even supposedly feminist fans, struggle to identify and contend with. Particular to mangahood especially, as fans continually pedestal this continuity as being "filled with strong, powerful, fleshed-out girls and women". It's not that this statement isn't true to some extent, but (without my rambling for 6 trillion paragraphs solely on a tangent) there are major holes where women/girls are treated with normative sex/gender constraints or wholly erased. Ishvalans are a massive blindspot here. Ishvalan women and girls barely exist in mangahood. The only figure we really see in Brotherhood, who even has any lines whatsoever, is the elderly woman who is sure to regale Ed about how monstrous Scar had been to the kindly Amestrian doctors.

So this leaves the men who, again, there are barely any that can be considered capital-c Characters (Scar and Miles. That's it.) But, they make excellent fodder for our heroes to butcher and feel sad about, and for our noble national coup to also butcher, but no one even acknowledges that loss of life. el-oh-el. And when we're not seeing them as vicious rebels who dare point their weapons at Amestris, Ishvalan men can stand in the background making this face 😟 at Scar's actions. If, ala the manga, we meet any who suffered from the genocide and hold animosity towards Amestris/ians, we can both feel some sadness for their situation while also feeling alienated from those who would hate our beloved protags.

I love trotting this out, but the fact that everyone can easily despise Shou Tucker for what he did to Nina and his family, but they cannot fucking connect the fact that Mustang, Riza, Hughes, Armstrong, Marcoh, and every single other participant in the genocide murdered children, families, girls and women by the hundreds of thousands means anything these fans have to say about fma as a story about genocide and imperialism is grotesquely lopsided at best, outrageously racist at worst. Tucker has actually enacted fewer atrocities against children alone than the staggering numbers Mustang et al committed. But Tucker killed his little white daughter. Mustang et al murdered invisibilized brown children. Don't mention the elephant in the room.

And to swing back to the point about the magnitude of dehumanization men of colour, and thus men characters of colour, face: yeah, the scores upon scores of murdered Ishvalan boys and men hardly registers as anything more than mildly off-putting to most fans. A sad factoid of the show's and manga's canon, nothing more.

(Or. Y'know. Excellent whump material for your fave military ships and light-skinned characters to grow. Haha. Ha. Haaaa. 😐 Don't worry, this isn't just the fans either. Arakawa, ma'am. Wut.)

Fma 03, in contrast with mangahood, really didn't fuck around with this topic. Again, not enough major named Ishbalans and Ishbalan women, but women and children ARE shown being decimated by the Amestrian forces. We actively talk about the horrors they too suffered. We don't sugarcoat that Mustang et al are war criminals first and foremost. We don't pretend like Winry is the greatest victim of the squashing of the Eastern Rebellion. And the truth is, 03 paying direct attention to Liore (and the choice to depict Liore as a predominantly brown ethnic group) is another way to show that this is systemic. That it doesn't matter who is in the Amestrian military: they will follow orders to invade, murder, and rape their targets. Ishbalan and Lioran men, women, and children are not spared. And this isn't revealed so you can weep for fascists, it's so you can see the fascism inherent to nationalism and the military.

People run from 03 because it's "too sad," "too dark," "makes the lives of its characters hell," but they love genocide when it's feel-good, (imperial) family-oriented, and ship-fodder! When it says "All Lives Matter," not when it says "Your life is built on the mountains of corpses your nation piles high for its own gain. And you are no less culpable even if you didn't pull the trigger yourself."

"Rose gets raped in 03, and because we think rape is an untouchable topic, we're going to slander the team behind this anime as racist misogynists," people who say this shit couldn't analyze media or politics in any meaningful way if their lives depended on it. Yet this is a common enough refrain, even amongst some 03 fans. Depiction is not inherently endorsement, and far too many people are exceptionally terrified of the reality that rape, sexual assault, sexual slavery, and trafficking are war crimes. Any war, any invading soldier, will have been party to or directly committed rape. They are routine to the point of mundane actions that imperial armies utilize.

Rose, as well as 03's narrative and characters, never demean, mock, sexualize, or reduce her down to the atrocity Amestrian soldiers (and likely Hakuro) did to her. But mangahood and some 03 fans? Boy, they sure as fuck do exactly that! Great job, assholes! Is this feminism? The denial of systemic misogyny as it aligns with imperialism? Not girlboss shonen action wholesome #inspirational enough for you to look directly at and address, instead of bluster and hide away from?

Cough. I'm getting off-track here.

Rape is not a uniquely worse form of violence than murder, let alone mass slaughter. Genocide and ethnic cleansing includes rape. Though girls and women suffer rape from the soldiers of imperial forces at a higher rate than boys and men generally do, they too can be and are raped as well. But, once again, we can't and shouldn't think about that. We can't think about and shouldn't witness that in our silly fun media. We can't discuss this in fan spaces. We can't consider rape on par with tearing brown men's bodies apart in an explosion. We can't see girls and women as brutalized victims of our protag war criminals, period. All of this, murder and rape, violates autonomy, the body, the people, but one form of violation is deemed 'worse' than the other and so that makes 03 "too dark and edgy with nothing to say" while mangahood is "so deep, so anti-imperialist, so anti-military."

All while fans and the narrative forget (willfully and otherwise) that Ishvalan men are being mass violated by the thousands.

Scar killing their violators, his violators; the rapists and murderers of Ishvalans, is villainy. So says mangahood, so says Arakawa, so says the Broho team, so says the fans.

Good thing Scar gets ~~~~~reformed~~~~~

--

Thanks for the ask! I'm glad I was able to articulate some mutual feelings on the mishandling of genocide, Ishvalans, Scar, and the Rockbells. And I appreciate that you double-checked the manga to see how it stands up in comparison to its 09 anime adaptation!

We cannot One is All, All is One our way out of white supremacy, imperialism, nationalism, and racism/colourism. No matter how desperately people close themselves off from acknowledging the truth.

[faul-lacks-motivation]

A Simple Analysis of the Differences Between FMA (2003) and FMA:B

I just spent the past week rewatching both Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and I have THOUGHTS that I need to put out into the void to get over the emptiness I feel from finishing such a wonderful series. Thoughts surrounding the distinct story and theme differences in the endings of both series. Please, come along for the ride if you wish. Spoilers a-plenty ahead. 

To preface, I first watched the original Fullmetal Alchemist series about ten years ago, in either 2009 or 2010. I loved it. Everything was amazing, except, I was disappointed in the ending - which is really spawning this whole analysis. After I finished the series, and the movie to cap it off, I found Brotherhood on the streaming service I was using, and was rightly confused. FMA was one of my first introductions to anime, so I didn’t know much about the world of anime or manga. Because of this, I asked my older brother and he told me not to bother with Brotherhood. (Idk if his thoughts have changed regarding this). So, it wasn’t until, maybe four years later that I decided to give Brotherhood a chance. First, I saw a few random episodes on Adult Swim, and was confused that 1) Al could do alchemy without a circle, and 2) why the hell was Ed so tall? For the first confusion, I blame that on forgetting the lore of how the hand clapping alchemy plus the truth gate worked, and thought it was something special only Ed could do. Around this time, I realized that my school library had the FMA mangas, so I decided to start reading them, and was of course, enamored. Then, I think the library didn’t have all of the mangas, and somehow I had realized that the Brotherhood anime was basically identical to the manga, so I decided to pick up in the anime where I left off in the manga. 

I honestly don’t have much memory of watching FMA:B all those years ago. Maybe that’s because the last, what, 20 episodes is the finale, lol. But I do remember enjoying the ending, and wishing that I could pair the entirety of FMA with the ending of FMA:B. What I enjoyed so much about FMA was the serious, dark tone of it. At the time, I felt like FMA:B had a lighter, sillier tone to it, and I was pining for those depressing moments in FMA where Ed was losing his mind. What can I say? I like intense characters and shows. 

When I began my rewatch a week ago, I was reminded of just how dark FMA was. Of course, I still enjoyed it. I had a wonderful time reliving the show and rediscovering plot lines, and watching the boys do everything they can, but then I got to the last few episodes. To be clear, and for those who maybe haven’t watched FMA, the whole show is dark and depressing. There is very little hope. It is far more brutal and bloody, with the reality and trauma of war, even resulting in the r*pe of a beloved side character. Really, the writers just went off, which I think is evident by the story line of Tucker. The flipside of that, is that the darkness and trauma is toned down in FMA:B. It’s not as gory, and there’s more hope. Even the whole reconnecting the nerves thing that Ed goes through with his automail is far less painful. There is more comedy in FMA:B, but I realized in my rewatch that it is deserved and does not disrupt the tone and still allows for the show to be serious.

Don’t get me wrong, I love FMA for what it is. Like I said, I like intense characters, and I was waiting for those intense battle moments where Ed is scrappy and resourceful, and maybe on the verge of a mental breakdown. We get that in FMA:B too, but just not as much. During my rewatch, though, I realized how slow the pace of the show was, especially when you get to the second half. I’m sure we can discuss that this was because the anime started when there was just a few volumes out and the creator wanted the anime to take on a different story, which they certainly did, but it is slow. Especially when you compare it to the pace of Brotherhood. 

Now, my biggest qualm is the ending of FMA. It always has been, and here’s why: there is no internal change within Ed and Al. They end where they began. Writing and pace aside, the end of the FMA series has the boys alone. Loneliness is the one of the biggest differences between the two stories. Throughout FMA, the brothers are always keeping their mouths shut and just trying to stay on track with their mission. The adults, and Roy’s gang, try to step in, try to help and offer support, but the boys are still pretty hell bent on keeping it a family matter. And this gets into the “no hope” aspect to the tone of the show. After shit goes down in Liore and Al becomes the philosopher stone, he and Ed take off on their own. Sure, Roy’s gang stops them, and tries to help, but even then, Ed and Al still stubbornly keep their secrets. Perhaps this is because they truly feel there is very little hope. They know that the philosopher stone is made from human lives. They thought that they had saved Liore, when in reality, they contributed to how fucked up it got (which is a huge difference in FMA:B). Now, thousands of soldiers are dead, they’re fugitives, and Al himself is a philosopher stone. I can even argue that Ed is far more emotionally stoic in this series, which contributes to the tone. 

Sure, the boys do achieve some change when they encounter their mother-homunculus. They find acceptance with her death, but they are still alone. And mind you, at this point in the show, we’re winding down, yet these battles don’t feel intense and climatic. They’re somber. Sad. A big theme of FMA is “what does it mean to be human?” This is a big part of Lust’s character, and she does what she can to help the boys, and then fizzles into death, thinking about her human life and love. Sloth acknowledges that she could love Ed and Al, but she wants to kill them, and at the very end she accepts her death. Wrath, a lost child who wanted a mom because he felt abandoned, now loses his mother figure in Sloth, and loses his mind. He’s crying out about wanting his mother and wanting to bring her back (a foil for Ed? What? No way). The boys are separated, having felt loss once again.

Then, we get the final battle. I’ll gloss over the parallel world thing, but what we get, is the boys going into battle alone. Sure, Al didn’t have a choice, but Ed did. He is so caught up in his turmoil and his desperate need to save his brother from his mistakes. He can’t fathom bringing in anyone else, and the crazy part is that all the adults in his life let him go into battle alone. There is nuance to that, of course, it’s not so cut and dry, they all had shit to do, but still. Even with Hohenheim around, he offers very little to his sons, and also goes off into battle alone (which yes, is similar to FMA:B, but his decision kept the boys out of the loop, and fucked up everyone). 

And then, in the most anti-climatic moment, Ed dies. Envy shocks him with the reveal of his appearance (which I would call bullshit on), and he straight up dies. Not in a heroic way, just in a sad, he ran out of luck way (which is reflective of the serious tone of the series). And really, even with all of that, the boys basically luck their ways into saving the world. Once the villain is taken care of, Al does something out of desperation. He uses the philosopher stone, and sacrifices himself, to save his brother. What ensues is a cycle of toxic desperation and sacrifice. He uses the stone, which really, they both said they shouldn’t use because of the lives lost. What he does, is not accept the reality and finality of death, which if they were going to have an internal change by the end, it would be accepting that. But he doesn’t, so he brings Ed back. And then Ed, not respecting that his brother wanted to give himself up, decides to then sacrifice himself to bring Al back. What we see, is the same problem that they got into in the beginning. Their incapability to accept death and move one. They can’t even find a new way to bring their bodies or souls back, Ed does what he did when he was a child to sacrifice himself to bring Al back. And the sad thing is that Ed is completely calm during this. He knows what he is doing. And, it is sad. Even after that, when we learn of the new, younger Al, who doesn’t even have his memories of the past 3-4 years of him and his brother, states that he still wants to continue their mission. What we see, is that nothing was learned. Al is going on the same mission he started the series with. And sure, at the end of the movie that finished the series, they are back together, but they are alone in a different world without alchemy. And we, as the viewers, know that there is very little chance of them coming back to their home world. FMA ends, with the boys alone, still. 

Now, on the flipside of that we have FMA:B. Instead of the boys stubbornly refusing help until the very end, they let others in. They know that they need help. It’s why the finale is basically the last 20 episodes, because there are so many moving parts to save the day. And I’ll be real, when watching those final episodes, I did find myself wanting more of solo brother moments. I wanted to see more of Ed’s resourceful fighting, but because he had so many people on his side, he didn’t need to resort to that. And that truly is the point of FMA:B: having people on your side. Getting down to the last moments, what we have is 1) a far more epic battle, and 2) Al still sacrifices himself. BUT, this sacrifice feels justified. In the moment he decides to do so, he knows that Ed is about to die (emphasis: about), and that his soul seal is about to break. His sacrifice calls back to the other soldiers who sacrificed themselves to get in a mortal blow on the enemy. And Al uses logic with this. He realizes that if Ed gave up his arm for Al’s soul, then the reverse is true, and in that moment, Ed needs his arm in order to fight back. Al knows, that either he does nothing and they both die, or he sacrifices himself because he was going to die anyway and save his brother and everyone else. 

And Ed accepts this. He is angry and upset, of course, but he is able to stop the bad guy. And then we see his internal change. He is offered a philosopher stone to bring back Al. He says, no, of course not. His own father insists and offers himself because he is a philosopher stone. Again, no, of course not, this is our problem, we can’t sacrifice anyone else. So he thinks. He realizes everything he now has in his life, everything he gained, and decides to sacrifice something he really doesn’t need: his alchemy. If you think about it, the only reason he got so invested in using alchemy was out of lonely desperation to bring back his mother, and then to restore Al’s body. Why would he need alchemy when he has the support of so many loved ones and his brother? 

With FMA:B we get a satisfactory ending. Because the brothers are able to change and allow support from others, they are able to get back what they wanted. (I would assume that Ed probably didn’t care too much about getting his limbs back if it meant he got Al back, but hey, one out of two aint bad). Ed and Al are able to move on, and look brightly into their futures. Personally, I found that Ed being unable to use alchemy a bit of a bummer, but again, he recognizes that he doesn’t need it, and in the ending he reflects that the sacrifice was worth it, because it was. He got back his whole world and then some. 

What we have are two very different stories. I would argue FMA is a cautionary tale of loneliness and refusing help. FMA:B is the opposite. While both are enjoyable and intense and cinematic, that difference sticks with me. 

[authoratmidnight]

Two anime asks! Cardfight vanguard (the original, G, and/or 2018 version, your choice), and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Already covered all versions of CFV here

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching| might watch | currently watching| dropped| hated it | meh| a positive okay| liked it| liked it a lot!| loved it| a favorite

don’t watch period| drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes| give it a go, could be your thing| 5 star recommendation

I fucking love this series so much.

fav characters: Ling, Greed(esp after he joined with Ling), Al, Ed, Izumi, Olivier...I could go on cause they’re all so great.

least fav characters: Shou Tucker

fav relationship: Greed-Ling, Mustang-Hawkeye and Mustang and all his subordinates, Ed-Al-Winry

fav moment: Ed basically punching god in the face with his bare hands because ‘fuck you that’s why’.

Also I have a soft spot for the scene were the Briggs men are returning from underground tunnel and they’re like ‘whelp it’s been 24 hours they’re not going to open the door’(as per Olivier’s orders) but then it does open to let them out and when he questions the guy guarding the tunnel he’s just like ‘hmm, 24 hours, not by my watch see?’ and holds up this very obviously broken pocket watch before adding ‘The general gave it to me every time you went on away missions, pretty nice huh?’

headcanons/theories: I honestly don’t think I have any, the series deals with everything fairly nicely. Though I’d like to think that if Ed and Winry have a daughter (as it’s hard to tell if their babies are boys or girls) they’d name her after Nina. And that Roy and Riza would finally get hitched once they’re out of the military/should the rules change (since Word of God says military rules are the only thing keeping them from getting married).

unpopular opinion: I prefer it to the ‘03 series. The ‘03 series does have a fair number of good points (the OVAs are great and there are parts that are manga accurate) but, I don’t like it. I understand why they had to change things, and that’s not a bad thing (I’ve watched plenty of series that went off the rails in regards to canon and liked them) But I don’t like what they did for FMA.

If the main characters that I’m growing to like have had a shit life and lost everything, I want to see them succeed, not have it torn away from them at the end after they’ve tried so hard and lost so much. And Brotherhood lets them finally win.

Not to mention the movie was a huge let down. I was hoping it would fix the sad ending problem but nope. It just decides that to make Ed less lonely they’d drop Al in the real world with him. So now Winry gets to suffer alllll over again. Lovely.

Not to mention, the homunculi. I was not impressed by their whole ‘but we want to be human waaaa’ schtick :/ That’s not how they are, they see themselves as better than humans.

Also, nooooot very keen on the ‘03′s decision to go ‘let’s make the Amestrian military’s real world counterpart be *actual* Nazis and put beloved characters like Hughes into a Nazi uniform.

Like, WHAT THE FUCK? That’s a yikes from me.

how’d you find it: I found the manga at the school library, read it and got hooked. Watched the ‘03 anime (cause at the time it was the only one available) and then eventually heard they were doing a more manga accurate series called ‘Brotherhood’ and decided to watch that.

random thoughts: I don’t understand why people insist that Hoenheim was a bad father. Like, did we watch the same series here?? Are we talking about the same character??

Cause he really isn’t. There’s probably other absentee fathers in anime that are far, far worse. Like for godsakes, he didn’t leave home with the intent on abandoning his family. He left b/c he was so consumed with self-loathing for his very being that he wanted to find a way to rid himself of his immortality (something forced on him without his consent for the record) so he could live out his life with his wife and kids and then things spiralled out of control on both ends (he didn’t expect his wife to up and DIE while he was gone nor did he expect to learn about that big-ass transmutation circle intended to destroy the world).

Ahem. I have, a lot of thoughts about him and I think he gets an undeserved bad rap.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Haddock’s FMA Live Action Thoughts (Part 1)

I live and breathe Fullmetal Alchemist. Specifically, the manga and Brotherhood. I’ve never actually watched the 2003 anime, because by the time I entered Arakawa’s great world, FMAB was already out and I could enjoy the story exactly the way the author intended. I adore the characters, marvel at the plot structure, howl at the humor, and constantly glean the text for its infinite parallels, allegories, and subtleties. When I tell people FMA is one of the greatest stories in human history, I damn fucking mean it.

I went into the FMA live action hearing mixed to negative reviews from most of my friends. I am thankful for those forewarnings, because then I could go into the movie with the knowledge that I wouldn’t get The Perfect Story (TM) Arakawa envisioned... and leave myself to try to casually enjoy new experiences.

Personally, I come out with a mixed-to-positive perspective of the movie. I’ll go into depth about why I feel this, including all of its spoilers, but I’ll give the quick, clean rundown now.

Biggest Cons:

Odd, unnecessary changes to the plot.

Some areas of costuming. Coming to mind are Ed’s hair, Winry’s skirt, and Envy and Gluttony’s looks.

Acting. Lots of characters were mediocre actors. Some were bad, like Cornello and Winry.

Biggest Pros:

The scenes that harked closest to the manga and Brotherhood.

The special effects.

The settings and scenery!

Now, below the Read More, my thoughts in more depth. I’ll arrange my sections by topic. 

In Part 1 here, I’ll talk about Casting/Acting, Scenery/Setting, Special Effects, and Character Portrayal (including Feminism). 

In Part 2 here, I cover the topics of Plot Changes, Heart/Intent, and... last... because I always love to go out happy and positive... My Favorite Things about the Live Action.

Frankly I could talk about each of these sections in depth... but I’ll try to be semi-brief. And pigs will fly and Ed will drink milk before I’m ever ACTUALLY brief.

Casting and Acting

By and large I found acting to be the weakest part of the FMA live action (It’s tied for worse with how plot changes were handled). I’m pretty sure acting is the reason why some of my friends said they were unable to finish watching the movie. Overall, I found the acting to be insufficient, usually in the sense that it was obviously unnatural and acted, or that it was overdone.

Now, I’m not going to be one of those people complaining about kids being imperfect actors. Kids are kids. It’s not the simplest thing to find a great acting kid. The little boys for Ed and Al got the job done, and the girl for Nina was pretty darned cute. Give the kids love, please.

Adults, I’ll be perfectly honest... almost everyone in this movie could have done a much better job.

Bad Acting

The characters whose acting bothered me the most were Cornello and Winry. That was bad acting. Winry was highly overacted and nothing was authentic about how she responded to situations. Cornello appeared rather hokey. As harsh as it sounds, I admit there were only a few rare times that I was appreciative of Winry’s appearance in the film, and for the most part, I really could have (and would have preferred to have) done without her. Okay, okay... sorry... I didn’t like her acting at all and it bothered me tons.

Mediocre Acting

I’d say the majority of the actors fall into the mediocre range of the spectrum. They weren’t great actors, and there were a number of scenes that they didn’t wholly sell. Well... I think most scenes they didn’t sell it completely, and I could always feel the “acting” part of the “acting.” But there were enough areas where I was fine letting it be. 

To take one character as an example, Ed tended to be overacted during dramatic moments when he had to yell, such as when he found out that the Philosopher’s Stone’s main ingredient was human souls. However, he never quite bothered me either. I’d get that uncomfortable, “Hm, that’s not good acting,” sense, and then brush it off and keep watching my Ed on screen. I’m someone who can let some things slide in quality so long as I can appreciate the overarching product, and the live action’s mediocre acting is one of those things I could overall let slide. And there were moments that our Ed did a good job, too, such as when Ed was crying pretty hard at the very end. I mean, that felt like quite the authentic cry. I liked that.

Best Acting / Casting

I’d put Lust, Al, and Mustang in the mediocre --> good range, where I feel like they did their job better than most. They never felt “off” in their acting. But I could have used more from them. In one large sense, I feel like “more” could have been had with a little better directing, better dialogue/moment choices, and better back-and-forth with other casting?

The best casting for characters was Shou Tucker, Maes Hughes, Riza Hawkeye, and Tim Marcoh. Those four characters, when they were on screen, just resonated exactly what those characters should look and act like. I mean... just look at that screencap above from Hughes. That is fucking FMA. And when they had their big moments and acted them out, I was nodding and saying, “Yup. That’s them. That’s them all right.”

Setting and Scenery

Oh yes. The setting! The scenery! The visual background! Huge plus. The scenery in the live action was spot on for me. Very often, the setting visuals were exactly what I would envision of manga turned to film.

This is totally Resembool and the Eastern Amestrian countryside. The fact that this was the opening shot of the film and was exactly what Resembool looks like... well, it gave me a big grin. Extra points for doing the same overhead camera angles of the rolling hills and railroad tracks we always see in FMAB.

(FMAB E46 for comparison)

On board with Reole and thought it looked great, cool vibe to it. I could excuse the presence of palm trees for its neat architecture and look.

(FMAB E3 for comparison)

And... ummmm YEAH that’s East City!!!

(FMAB E4 for comparison)

And talk about Marcoh’s place feeling exactly the same. Some variation in things like door color? Sure. But the same vibe and overall format? Abso-fucking-lutely.

(FMAB E6 for comparison)

Even when there was some unique variation to a location, it still looked nice and right in line with the FMA world. For instance, Shou Tucker’s house, we didn’t see a large library with rows and rows of shelves... but the large, fairly-nicely-decorated building overflowing with books and laboratory equipment gave quite a great Tucker residence vibe, and I rather liked it.

Now, I’m no expert on historical accuracy of the props compared to the time setting FMA mimics, but for a lay audience viewer’s eye like mine, I really liked what I saw. 

Oh, and good variety of colors and visuals throughout the movie. I hate when movies try to be edgy and make everything gray or dark.

Not going to lie, I’d say this movie is worth watching just to see these scenes from the pages turn to life in a live action setting.

Special Effects

I got very mixed reviews from url and irl friends about the special effects. I had lots of people say they were bad, some people say they were great, and others saying that at the very least I should appreciate Al.

And yes, let’s appreciate Al. Because lots of the BEST screencap moments in this film are when it’s a close-up on Al.

As far as the rest of the visual effects are concerned... I’m in the mixed-to-positive perspective, myself. I’d say that 80% of the special effects were fun and good for me, 20% passable or off.

I’ll admit I’m usually the last person to notice if special effects are outdated or wonky. Lots of people will complain about special effects in a movie, I’ll go see it, and think, “What the fuck is wrong with it?” Other times, I’m forgiving about imperfect CGI and don’t care about its lack of 100% realism. Why should we expect every studio to have an unending Hollywood budget for CGI?

When the boys were transmuting their mother, them flying through the air looked very off and fake. The dolls were extremely obviously CGI, but they’re supposed to be creepy and off-putting anyway, so I couldn’t care too much. But Lust and Roy moments were quite fun, Truth was a cool interpretation, the chimeras in their cages were good, the alchemy was all in the nature of the manga, and I think overall the CGI worked.

And seriously, this FMA movie requires *SO MUCH* CGI... you really gotta give them credit for doing as much as they did!!! Seriously, wow. It’s got to have been a lot of work. And it works!

“Perfect” CGI? No. Something I can work with? Yeah, totally. Especially since I was a kid before CGI was cool and everywhere. Remember when Toy Story was state of the art animation? I think this looks pretty cool!

Character Portrayal

Not all aspects of a character in a long series can enter a short movie. That’s the nature of the different genres. A movie can capture the essence of a character, shine light on some facets, and make passing references to other facets, but there’s obviously much more limited space working with a two hour movie versus dozens of show episodes or thousands of pages. Even FMAB has to do a slight amount of reduction, or portrays characters in a slightly different light... Roy and Al are subtly more favorably depicted in FMAB, we lose almost all of the cat jokes, there’s nothing about the miniskirt army, we skim over Yoki’s origins, Youswell characters are lost, some characters’ motivations and plans are cut out, etc.

So in the FMA live action, I didn’t expect to get everything. I was going to be fine if they got the overall essence of my beloved personalities (or even part of their overall essence!). I was even fine if they cut out certain characters for the sake of streamlining the plot, so long as it was done respectfully, kept the overall flow and heart of the story, and didn’t cut quality in narration.

That said, I’d say it’s a mixed bag about how successful they ended up being pulling characters onto screen. I don’t hate it, but there are many areas easy to constructively criticize.

Deleted Characters

I think, by and large, I’m mostly okay with which characters were deleted, when I think about the concept of deleted characters in general. Considering that a movie is so much shorter than a television series, I understand needing to streamline plot and make cuts. Sometimes cuts means scenes. Sometimes cuts means characters.

Omitting Bradley was a bad choice, in my opinion. He’s technically “easy” to cut away plot-wise in the first third of FMA, as easy as some of the other characters they’ve cut... but it comes at the cost of reducing narrative efficacy beyond Bradley, too. Bradley’s integral to the concept of Amestris and the conflict of the story. He’s the leader of the country. He’s a homonculus. His seat is Mustang’s goal. Without Bradley, the most the FMA live action could do was make a few vague comments about Roy wanting to climb the military’s ranks. Without Bradley, the talk of internal conspiracies and who to trust didn’t have much grounding. And all that’s really not the point of Mustang, Mustang’s character, or the issue with Amestris. Seriously, at the very least, it would have been better to give Hakuro’s extended part partially to Bradley. And I can think of many other better ways to have worked Bradley in. He didn’t need to be in lots of scenes... but... the story needed a lot more of the sense of Amestris as a military state and who the leader of that military state is. 

Note: There’s definitely bias in what I’m saying here about omitting Bradley being a bad choice (as versus, like, Scar), but I still am going to believe that the movie would have been better with even a little Bradley.

Scar’s not the best choice to delete, obviously. That said... I’m mostly fine with Scar being deleted, despite the fact he’s such an integral personality in FMA, even more integral to the first third of FMA than Bradley is. The reason for my “being fine” is not because of scenes (I would have loved the scene where Scar, Armstrong, Al, Ed, and Mustang encounter each other on the streets???). The reason is because I wanted to avoid controversy. I feared there’d be a race and ethnicity debate from a live action Scar portrayal, such as if his actor were pale skinned like the other Japanese actors in the movie, or they used makeup to make him darker skinned. Scar’s absence in the live action prevents any such uncomfortable possibility. He’s a major, important character, yes, and a bad choice to delete. But........... I could see how they could swing the story without him, if the writers were very (very, very) careful. And I do think regarding this aspect of the live action, they managed to do that.

Alex Armstrong is someone who I feel is a memorable, token character of FMA, unusual to be absent from the live action. He could have at least made a quick appearance like Maria Ross did. He might have been better to include over someone like Cornello. At the same time, I can see how, for the sake of time, Armstrong could be considered a character to be cut. He’s not the first person I’d cut myself, but I can see the reasoning. I can get behind it with a shrug.

Alex is far less of an issue than Scar, so yeah. I really can’t protest to that.

Barry, I miss him, but I think they did a good job with giving his lines about false memories to Shou Tucker instead. That worked. And I didn’t expect to see people like Pinako, Rose, Garfiel, Paninya, or Brosh, anyway.

Here’s the thing... though...

Here’s the problem with all of this.

If the writers hadn’t changed the plot of FMA, instead sticking to the manga...

...they wouldn’t have needed to delete almost ANY of these characters.

The rest of Team Mustang could have been easy background characters, no sweat to incorporate. Drop a few names in there, one or two lines to someone named “Fuery” instead of a random MP... tada. Same thing with Brosh and Sheska. Have them walk by. All the fighting between Roy, Envy, Lust, Ed, Al, Tucker, and Hakuro at Laboratory Number 5 could have been reassembled to be Roy, Lust, and Havoc again (and frankly been more dramatic, climactic, and less convoluted). Scar? Easy. He’s a BIG deal in the story. Bradley? Easy again. Yay. Maybe some challenges with Greed and his gang... but still. You could do a lot better by hugging the manga more closely.

If they had stuck to the original story and made a movie incorporating Chapters 1-39 directly, they wouldn’t have had to do any of these deletion choices at all.

Deletions should be to amplify the story and make it streamlined. But the deletions in the FMA live action did the opposite. It resulted in things being more convoluted, less clear, less natural, and minor characters being amped up to fill in the gaps.

First, you can feel the absence of the other characters because of how much they tossed to Winry. I know the underlying reason why they wrote Winry this way. She’s a well-known and remembered FMA character, they couldn’t delete her. But it’s hard to incorporate said well-known character when she’s out of the action in Resembool or Rush Valley. So letting Winry travel around with Ed and Al is a simple way to bring her more centrally to the plot and include someone they feel could not be forgotten. The problem is that I don’t think amping up Winry’s role worked at all. It felt contrived and odd, like she was just tacked on without explanation to create a trio. She ran around, talked, but didn’t contribute hugely. You got her more lines, yes, congratulations. But you didn’t make anything newly successful that way.

And here’s the kicker: the live action amped up several characters’ participation because of the absence of others. The goal? To try to make a central antagonist our heroes could defeat in the first third of the FMA story. They made Shou Tucker into a bigger villain so that he was a central problem start to end. They had quite a bit of liberty with Hakuro - again, so we could have a start-to-end villain who is taken down at the end. I see the logic. But again, they didn’t need to do that.

We had Lust, Envy, and Gluttony already! And, if you hadn’t deleted him, Scar!

(That same sort of unnecessary take-and-give happens in the rest of the plot, too, as I’ll talk about more specifically later in Part 2).

Accuracy of Characters’ Personality Traits

The live action’s character portrayal wasn’t perfect. It’s not something that offended me or put me off, but it was something I noticed. Ed could have been more fiery and grumpy, to give one example. Still, since they showed off some of his quirks like his sprawled-out sleeping, his hate of being called “short,” and his fury toward human cruelty... I was fine enough with Ed being as he was. You didn’t get all of his essence, but it worked enough.

I think where you notice the character portrayal being the most of a subset, the most narrowed, is with Mustang.

Roy Mustang is shown only his cold, serious side in the live action. It’s not an incorrect interpretation of his character, but it’s also far from complete. They wouldn’t have needed to do much to make it complete. It wouldn’t be hard to slip in a few flirtations. It wouldn’t be hard for Roy and Ed to actually bicker like six year olds in a scene or two. It wouldn’t be hard to portray Hughes and Roy’s friendship better. The narrowing thus felt slightly odd.

That said, I was fine with the idea of Roy being shown only his serious side. Again, I know that movies only show so much, and Roy’s serious side is a cool side of Roy. But I wanted that serious side in line with Arakawa’s character. What they did was take Roy’s coldness and his part at odds with Ed... and actually pull it to the point he says a few lines and does a few things that aren’t in line with his manga/FMAB personality. It’s like they slightly misread his personality when they wrote the script. In the live action, he straight out tells Ed to obey the military and almost obstructs the Elric brothers from their goal of searching for a Philosopher’s Stone. He almost seems borderline suspicious of his good friend Hughes. And it’s Hakuro of all people who decides to hook the Elrics up with Shou Tucker.

They do these changes to try to incorporate their own plot. Show Roy growing by handing Ed the Philosopher’s Stone at the end. Things like that. But they didn’t need to do any of that to portray Roy, the plot, and anything else well.

So that wasn’t spot on for his portrayal. While I can’t hate the movie for or be disappointed about how they portrayed him, it’s also not something that made me gravitate to my number one favorite FMA character as much as I usually do.

Character Representation and the Handling of Women Characters

Some characters were put more to the sidelines than they could have been. Al, though he had some notable moments fighting and performing alchemy, was given secondary attention compared to Ed. Writing definitely focused on Ed’s side of the brotherhood, Ed caring about Al, Ed trying to get their bodies back... rather than amplifying the brotherly team effort Arakawa gave them. It’s a common fallacy in movies and shows... they try to make the protagonist more protagonist-y, make the protagonist more central, make the protagonist do everything. But that’s not the charm of the Elric brothers. You need them both at their best and most present. 

It’s more emotional that way, too, and would have bettered not only Al’s portrayal... but Ed’s as well. The character they ironically were trying to better, they took away from instead.

I also felt like there was a pattern to which characters were more likely sidelined. I know that FMA is a story centered around the military, and the military in Amestris is more men than women... but Arakawa writes a variety of memorable, important women, too, in the manga. For every strong male character she has, there is a woman alongside him kicking butt just as powerfully and memorably. Did you feel the same thing I did... where it seemed like the women were the most likely to be reduced in the live action? (Apart from Winry, ’cause you got to [clenches fist] have a movie’s stereotypical love interest for the protagonist, you know?)

Izumi Curtis, extremely important character, 100% absent. Maria Ross has almost no lines, and two-thirds of them are Envy impersonating Maria. The only time Maria herself appears is to bring Ed a sandwich. Riza’s role is reduced, too. She has only one major conversation in the movie... though at least she fared better than others, and we got to see her in action.

It’s true that lots of male characters were deleted - Havoc, Breda, Fuery, Falman, Bradley, Scar, Brosh, Alex Armstrong. But of the women characters who remain, they didn’t make much of an impression. And that’s my point. Trisha grazed by. Winry’s automail talents and obsession was downplayed, rarely mentioned. Maria and Riza were notable for one plot point each. Lust was the one woman given a lot of good stuff and that’s because she’s the main villain leading this adventure. Lust’s presence still doesn’t erase the fact that the plot, the events, the “good stuff” felt like it was given all to the men.

We only barely passed the Bechdel Test when Winry talks to Nina briefly about playing together.

I felt like something was slightly “off” about how the women were presented on screen. We didn’t get sexualization, thank the heavens, but neither did we get butt-kicking women representation like FMA always has had.

The Best Parts of Character Portrayal

But!!! There were definitely some portrayal aspects I enjoyed a lot! And honestly, as much as I’m not gungho about how lots of characters were portrayed, I didn’t find them objectionable either? It was fun?

To give just one example of something I quite liked: Doctor Marcoh showed how you don’t have to have extensive screen time to nail down a character. He felt like Marcoh. You see the skittish, concerned man who tries to shoot the unexpected visitor who opens the door. You see the man hesitant to talk about the Philosopher’s Stone, but in the end gives Ed a clue to discover information about it.

And I mentioned the actors who always felt on... Riza Hawkeye, Shou Tucker, and Maes Hughes, too.

Overall, while I didn’t get the full characters, everyone was the character I knew. And it was great to see them on screen!

Like, Ed chasing after Cornello at the start? Way fun. Roy blasting fire at homunculi? Right on. Al sweetly, awkwardly explaining alchemy to the citizens of Reole? Yay. Nina rushing in to play? All for that. Shou Tucker telling Ed that they’re alike? Oh fuck if that wasn’t one of the best scenes in the film.

Alright. With that, I’ll post this and start to write Part 2!!! I’ll be talking a lot about plot in that one, so hold on tight.

[pk-platinum]

review of just half of the live action fma movie

Im going to be going off the things from fma brotherhood and some of the manga I read. 

First, they kill off trisha almost immediately. No time to get to know her or anything. This is probably because they assume the audience should know what is going to happen. She collapses and the reaction from the child actors is just. blank expressions. The transmutation scene comes in so abruptly as well, kind of like theyre trying to get this exposition over with, so theres no emotional attachment to build up.

The emotion in the scenes is something Im going to mention a lot, because its something conveyed so well in the anime and manga and is what is extremely memorable about fma for me. The sun is out super bright in the trish death scene AND the scene where theyre transmuting their mother- where in the anime the colors are subdued and it’s nighttime, which is far better at setting up atmosphere and even foreshadowing. 

They move next to Ed fighting father cornello whose acting is passable- he mostly makes awkward expressions. The effects are shown off and are also passable- although its not nearly as “FUCK YEAH” as the sounds and flashiness of the anime transmutations. the effects move slowly and the action has a lot of slo mo in it, although it doesnt really add anything compared to the fast paced fighting at the beginning of the anime. 

eds wig is so distracting for me because you can tell his braid was added on and is clunky and just..odd looking. Again, when father cornello takes a woman hostage, the sun is so fucking bright its offputting. I feel like im watching a commercial for easter eggs. additionally, we are not informed of cornello’s motives as if you are probably expected to know who he is when you start the film. 

Im not going to explain every plot point but there are events that are skipped obviously to save on time and its a bit jarring- especially since we know the plot is carefully crafted by arakawa (the author) and is honestly- perfect. I cant think of a time where I was confused during the anime. However here, even having seen the anime twice now- im still like, oh who’s this? whats happening? so so far, not only is this movie not particularly good for new viewers- it also confuses fans. 

Im going to go back to the emotion and set design again- I want to point out the shou tucker scene, one of the most dramatic, saddening, dark scenes in fma. 

this lighting, obviously gives off a sinister vibe. 

now heres the set from the movie. i shouldnt have to say anything else

 i want to say the acting does NOT make up for the fantastic animation the series has. much more emotion is conveyed through these facial expressions. seeing tucker get his ass kicked in the anime was much more satisyfing because he made faces that made him look like a crazy bastard.

side note: the fma brotherhood soundtrack is fantastic-meaning the background music. the music in this movie is, ok, it does its job, but its not better than trishs lullaby or some of the back tracks for the anime. 

Lastly, the reason my brother and I stopped halfway through: Al gets upset because of his “manufactured memories” and SHOVES ED. THIS IS SO OUT OF CHARACTER. not to mention my brother goes: “al would never be so whiny either” since he was yelling at ed out of nowhere about random shit. this is another scene where also the lighting is so bright and out of place. 

conclusion: sometimes, live action adaptations…are worse, and the movie does not work as a standalone film or a faithful adaptation to a beloved manga and anime.