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randomnameless · 9 months ago

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Rewatching the 2003 FMA anime -

It sure brings back nostalgia, 2003!FMA was the thing that made me hook up on anime/mangas since middle school, looking for OSTs, opening/ending songs, I even went to my first anime convention thanks to FMA (and brought a trinket for 20 euros but i couldn't care at that time, it was merch!) - hell, FMA was the phenomenon that made me discover the world of fanfics and, by extension, "learn" english to browse more fanfics (i know).

20ish years later though...

(i still read fanfics)

Sure, Arakawa told Sony (Dybex?) to make their own stuff and that they did, so judging on the "faithfulness" of the adaptation itself is a moot point - but the story and the characters in themselves?

Sorry -20ish years me, but damn if that anime is full of inconsistencies, i-hope-it-was-non-intentional meanings, retcons and, tbh, the protagonists are, quite frankly? Not likeable at all ?

One of the major plot lines that completely was created from scratch regarding the canon manga, and is the trademark of the 2003!anime, is how human transmutation, aka trying to resurrect the dead, well, doesn't resurrect dead people, but creates a new living being - those beings later are revealed to be homonculi.

FMA, even the 2003 anime, had that part with the living armors battle, where the protagonists wondered what it meant to be called a human, or even what is a human. Alphonse is only a soul tied to an armor, a "living" armor if you want, but Edwards refuses to consider other "livign armors" as less than humans and kill them, because if he does so, he will have to see his own brother as "not human anymore".

And we saw Tucker - a scientists so hellbent on passing his exam that he lit sacrifices his 4 years old daughter and doggo - who has a human body, human soul and human mind : what makes Tucker more "human" than a living armor, or even Alphonse?

Comes the homonculi reveal and one of the main issues of this anime : 2003!Wrath.

When we are introduced to him, he's just a weird kid with mismatched members, who lost his memories, doesn't understand empathy but bar that, he eats, hugs people, bathes just fine.

And yet, the second he is revealed to be a homonculi, a being born from alchemy, he is considered as a monster and something that should be killed, because he should never have existed in the first place.

And who says that?

Not the antagonists of this arc, no, our protagonists, Edward and Alfonse themselves! To sum up, Wrath has been behaving perfectly fine despite his background being a mystery, but when he is revealed to be a non-human being, our protags want to kill him - because he is a homonculi.

Yeah. GG protags.

Earlier we had the confirmation 2003!Wrath's weird mismatched limbs are actually Edward's missing ones, they accuse him of having "stolen" them - which is true ! - but Armstrong (who is more of a joke character in this continuity than in the manga!) asks them the ultimate question, even if his limbs are Edward's, what are they going to do? Sever them to re-attach them to Ed? Of course not, Ed says...

But in the following episode, we have Al fight against 2003!Wrath, asking him to "give back" his arm and leg to Edward...

What is the viewer even supposed to understand here?

Then we have the entire Greed arc - which also ends on a dud, I mean, Edward screams to whoever wants to hear it that's he's going to kill Greed, and then he truly kills him but screams in horror because he killed someone? Dude? - which, thanks to his chimeras and the bond they created, was enough to tell the viewer that those beings, homonculus, aren't monstruous by nature, sure Envy and Lust are asses, but Greed was shown to care about his newfound friends, and could even live with humans?

No, they're still monsters created through Alchemy, they're not human, thus need to die.

WTF?

2003!Wrath's character background basically oozes of pathos/tragedy : sure, he was not the "baby" Izumi lost when she "created" him, and yet, he was still in a baby-like state who was abandoned - and we later learn his wish was to have a mother - and he is furious at the circumstances of his creation, and abandonment.

And then, enters 2003!Sloth, who is a result of the Elrics' human transmutation. For sure they couldn't "look after" her immediately post transmutation - but they, uh, never wondered where the "thing" they created went? What it did? If it died?

(in the manga Pinako says she buried it as she found it dead when she came to their house)

Sure sure, the main villain Dante (Hell hath no Fury like a Woman Scorned : the Villain) conveniently passed by and snagged the "thing" that would later become Sloth, and yet, we're left to wonder, is the sin the alchemists refering to when they're talking about homonculi is the sin of creating them, or the sin of abandoning them?

It's basically the entire thing with Frankestein's creature, what was the biggest sin, to have created him, or treated him like trash?

To Izumi, who tried - but too late - to reach for baby Wrath, his righteous anger and Izumi's mothering tendencies when she immediatly knew "what/who" he was seems to indicate the second option - she feels like dirt for abandoning Wrath.

But when Edward fights 2003!Sloth - there is no introspection, especially as we see her own flashbacks as a thing that was recovered by Dante - and groomed by her - he will merely kill her because she is his "sin" and because she is a homonculus.

Not because of what she did, but because of what she is.

Our hero, everyone.

...

Yeah... and it's not helped at all by the fact that Mustang, maybe one or two episodes later, tells 2003!Pride that he cannot give a fuck about Pride being a human or a homonculus, but he will kill him to avenge Hugues' death and because of his war-mongering actions as the Furher.

Mustang, Armstrong and Pinako (who tells Ed to shut the fuck up when he goes in his spoiled brat mode wanting to beat Mustang for not telling him about Hughes' death and rushing to his own) were really the heroes of this story lol.

Or... not, concerning Mustang himself, and that's where we enter in the disturbing implications stuff from this anime.

2003!Mustang has PTSD from the Ishval war, in the Marco flashback we see him execute orders and basically nearly have a manga!armstrong level of breakdown - but when we see him roasting Ishvalan children, randoms and all, what really pushes him to the edge, and what the showrunners put emphasis on, is the killing of Winry's parents, aka two amestrians.

Who, in this show, accuses him of having killed her parents and bring the tense moments and accusations of war criminal and murderers? Winry, not the two Ishvalan kids whose mom was toasted during the war.

Make no mistake, the death of a civilian, regardless of their nationality, is always a tragedy.

And yet, between the thousands "brown" Ishvalan people and the couple of "white" Amestrians doctors, which death seems to have affected Mustang more? Which one is often brought to the forefront whenever Mustang, Ishval and civilian casualties are mentionned?

Oh I can't tell if it was 2003, but the, uh, depiction of the Ishvals is just...

Like, people really religious, dark skinned, living in a desert, shunning Alchemy (depicted as science and scientific approach here more than in the manga) and being hellbent on doing "God's" work?

Hm.

They stone someone who's a "great sinner", if it wasn't clear, and the one who initiates the massacre of 7k randoms is, well, an Ishvalan claiming to do this in the name of justice.

2003, right.

Oh, and about this incident, Scar justifies it as "the military" having occupied Liore and, well, Rose's ordeal. And yet, the 7k people he sacrifices weren't the ones who were in Liore (they're part of the randoms who were brought by Archer and Mustang!) and assaulted Rose, no, they were just randoms.

And when you compare this anime to Brotherhood, it gives more spoltight to Mustang's cast of randoms, or even has random loldiers in the background (either being annoyed at Armstrong's antics or, when he was alive, at Hughes') so we have some "randoms in the background" depicted with sympathy. And yet they're all killed to make Alphonse in a philosopher's stone, and Al's first reactions is to run around and swim??

7k lives sacrificed for... Al learning how to swim???

In general 2003!Ed'n'Al are my least favourite protagonists, both because they're too impulsive (Ed effing injures Havoc and Fuery!!), rude and, well, act like brats (I mentionned it earlier, but damn if Al asking Wrath to give back his members is just... wtf).

Alfonse himself becomes a prop and doesn't see much fight - doesn't fight at all - when Ed apparently knows how to create automails (what's Winry good for then?) from scraps of metal and their relationship ultimately ends up as Ed always going "I have to save my brother!" which seriously sucked, especially since earlier in the series (during the lab 5 attack!) Ed had faith in Alphonse knowing how to defend himself.

On that topic, the relationship between the brothers seems... really strained. Where was the Ed who finally managed to apologise to Alfonse and Alfonse vowing to tell him everything we had after the Lab 5 incident?

Now Ed physically restrains Al to talk to their father, doesn't tell him (and straight out lies) about excavating Trisha's remains (who is also Al's mom!) when Al keeps secret about Tucker's phone call. Are they even close anymore? IDK.

The brothers don't trust (never did tbh) Pinako and Winry, Mustang and Armstrong, and eventually, don't trust each other anymore - which can even give that ending some sense : they are now separated but why does this even matter anymore?

Remember when they promised not to die for the other, because they refused the pain of living all alone after the first meeting with Scar where Ed was ready to offer his life to have Al be spared?

Well, the ending of this anime basically pisses on this - Ed is "nearly" dead? Alfonse doesn't want that, so he sacrifices his life to make Ed return, even if it means he will die in the process and leave Ed alone. Ed doesnt' want that? So he will sacrifice himself to make Al return, effectively leaving him alone (but he works on irl missiles to return home?).

I remember FMA!2003 being lauded for its mature themes, but what themes are we talking about?

The long monologues some characters deliver to explain their vision of the world, and are never challenged about it? (or it's Ed calling BS to Dante's argument that equivalent exchange sucks)

What it means to be a human? Sure, at the end before dying, Ed seems to realise 2003!Wrath has to be taken care of (like not killing him but providing him real care) because he earlier noticed that he cried real tears with 2003!Sloth died so it's a progression from his "he's a homonculi he needs to die"... and yet, he already had this realisation when he talked to Wrath after another round of "give me back my arm'n'leg" on the top of a roof in Dublith!

It's kind of hard to say whether FMA!2003 is a good anime or not with all the things I've read/watched in the last 20ish years - because Arakawa ended her manga which is imo the best out of the three "tellings" of her story - and while I still love the "Brother" songs to death, part of me is just, very disappointed after revisiting this anime that I used to love.

Like, man, I didn't remember Ed to the POS he is in this anime, aka a character without any growth (he legits insults Armstrong over Ishval in iirc episode 7, only to apologise at the end of the episode because he acted like an ass, to give a "they must have had fun using those weapons in Ishval" at him again in the last episodes...) and Alfonse targetting Wrath to "recover" Ed's limbs - before his "awakening" as a homonculi - will always leave me with a weird feeling.

The OST is good and the animation not that shabby for something over 20 years old, and maybe the younger!me already perceived something was wrong/unlikable with Ed'n'Al, that's why I was looking at fics centered on Mustang's group -

But is it an anime I'd recommand now? Or even call a good anime?

No, not anymore. I'm hopefully not in middle school anymore fwiw and to its credit, in 2003 there wasn't a lot of new stuff or even fantasy anime that was released, and FMA!2003 was something really important and interesting at that time.

If it were to be released today? I'd say it'd maybe warrant a netflix exclusive release.

#FMA 2003 #making a comparison with the manga wasn't the goal of that post #I tried to tackle the things i didn't like from the 2003 anime alone without taking into account the manga #but if i did the saltometer would be way higher #Poor Ed'n'Al #Mustang goes to duel Bradley mano a mano because he wants to avenge Hughes? And he gives up on his plan to because head of state????#arakawa wrote the inverse! Ditto for the goodbye scene Ed asks him to return alive bcs they'll see each other #this time it's just 'we won't see each other again but good luck?'#oh well

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