#I'm holding vnc and fma in contrast to something like dmon slayer or jujtsu kaisen

[neversetyoufree]

I just realized that there are a lot of similarities between FMA and VnC; from certain characters and their dynamics to story beats. And that’s because Mochijun’s inspiration was Hiromu Arakawa. Isn’t that right?

Hey anon, I'm super interested to hear what dynamics and story beats you think parallel between FMA and VNC, because I'm personally having trouble thinking of any? Like I genuinely really want to hear more about this idea and what connections I'm missing.

I suppose you could make the small angry+strong sunshine duo comparison between Ed and Al and Vanitas and Noé, but just about every other thing about their dynamic is very different lmao. It's been a hot minute since I read FMA though, so I could be forgetting something.

As for Mochizuki being inspired by Hiromu Arakawa, I actually didn't know that until you said it here! I did some googling, and here's an interview (in French lol) where she talks about that for anyone else curious. Thanks for the fun fact, anon :D. I know they've also talked in public before about being fans of one another's series, which is extremely cute. It's always exciting to me to see the creators of things I enjoy supporting one another's work.

That said, though, I'm not sure how much I think FMA was an influence on VnC specifically? Mochijun has talked about her inspirations for VnC, and a lot of it came from Interview with the Vampire, Sherlock and Watson, and her actual visits to Paris. I suppose the whole thread of Paracelsus and the Babel Incident could be inspired by Van Hohenheim's whole deal? But we know so little about all that right now that it's hard to say if there's much parallel beyond "mysterious alchemical history."

Now that I've finished saying, "huh, I dunno about that" in various tones to every part of your post, though, I do have one way that I agree FMA and VnC are similar! I have a longer post about this in my drafts that I might dig up someday, but I think they're similar in the way that they approach their shonen/action elements.

Shonen tends to often be really driven by fights/action. The characters want to get stronger, and the process by which they get stronger forms the heart of the series. It's why training and tournament arcs are such staples lmao. With FMA and VnC, however, the action isn't really the series' core. There are a lot of fight scenes in both, but the fighting and getting stronger is never really the point.

I hesitate to get more into the specifics of what I mean by this now because, frankly, I haven't reread FMA in like six years, and I'm almost certainly going to forget something big and/or say something wrong if I try to talk about it in too much detail. But I hope you can kind of get what I mean?

They're both series that are very invested in forcing their characters to examine certain themes and question themselves. To be a little reductive, FMA is about ethics and VnC is about death and salvation. It's just that sometimes the means by which Ed, Al, Noé, and Vanitas are forced to question those ideas is by fighting.

A lot of shonen (though certainly not all) falls into the category of "stories about action and fighting that also have themes," whereas FMA and VnC are more "stories about themes that also have action and fighting."