#nore rewatches fma

[norellenilia]

I am SO MAD that Izumi is considered Ed and Al's motherly figure. She's so mean to them: she speaks to them very harshly (this may be different in other dubs, but in french she uses a very angry tone when she speaks to them, when they're younger or even when they're having lunch in Dublith and she says to Ed "Eat!" with a very pissed off voice), she punishes them by violently hitting them (and we're not talking slapstick humor), she scares the hell out of them... She's very, very abusive.

And what also struck me in episode 27 is that she speaks very gently to the other kids, like she's very calm with the boy who broke his toy train and rudely says that her mending looks weak, she patiently berates him, and when Ed asks a question that, yes, is a very touchy subject for her and she knows she must prevent Ed from even considering the idea of human transmutation, she just punches him. I know this was during a training session but what was the point?

And don't get me started on the scene where she beats them up after they tell her they tried to bring their mom back to life. I can understand a slap out of anger or fear, Maria did this to Ed but she apologized right after, here we have none of that, she just beats them up and never apologizes, in a scene that is in no way meant to be funny. She beats them up after they finally decided to tell her what happened to them (and to me, the fact that they were literally too scared to tell their "motherly figure" what they had done, to seek help, advice, or just have her presence, tells a lot), Ed gets ready to get punched again but she hugs them and they lean into the touch because it seems like it's one of the very rare occasions when she actually shows affection towards them.

That, to me, is typical of abusive relationships. You get all the negative things, the beating, the yelling, the contempt, but then there are the good moments, like her stroking Ed's hair after putting a bandaid on his nose, or the hug of "comfort" after they tell her of their trauma, so you're ready to forgive the rest. And of course they're gonna accept that hug they desperately needed from her, she IS indeed the closest they had to a mother after Trisha's death.

I also remember that later, during a fight with the chimeras, she says, "I can't let any of my children die again" when she fights to protect Ed and Al, to show us that she loves them as her own children.

But if you love your child, you don't hit them. Plain and simple. I don't care if you stroke their hair or hug them afterward.

I really don't like how she's portrayed.

[norellenilia]

Finally continuing the FMA 03 rewatch I started 3 years ago, I just rewatched episodes 17 to 25, I have many feelings.

So, SOOO many wholesome moments, from Scar telling Al that he saw his real tears, to Ed and Winry remembering that time when Den ate Alphonse' cake slice and poor baby boy cried his heart out, to Al being so nice to Sciezka

Winry is incredible and I can't remember why the hell I used to hate her when I first watched as a teenager, without her the Elrics would've gone nowhere

They're also very ungrateful towards her, but at least Ed makes efforts to be better when she calls him out on his bullshit

That old Ishvalan dude looking after Rick and Leo has his tunic patched with some floral fabric and I find that incredibly funny

Ed is called out so much more in this than in mangahood, and we're clearly meant to think that he is indeed wrong, like in these 9 episodes I rewatched, Winry yells at him several times about him being unfair to her and to Pinako, Al yells at him, Maria yells at him, the Slicer Brothers yell at him about how him calling them humans makes their lives in the armor meaningless etc, and I feel like everytime, I was like "yeah, they got a point" and the show wants us to think that yeah, Ed should apologize to Winry and Al, yeah, the Slicer Bros situation is more complex than Ed thinks it is, he's not always right, in fact he's quite often wrong, and PROVEN wrong throughout the series, or at the very least he is told that his worldview and his experiences are not the only ones that are valid, and all of that is what's making him grow, and it's been a while since I read the manga/watched BH, but from what I remember, Ed is The Hero, therefore He Is Right almost every time, and honestly I prefer 03's version, I find that more interesting

The rain poured so much harder at Hughes' funeral this time around bc since the last time I watched this scene I lost my dad too

Anyway I love this show, can't wait to go past the Dublith section because I've had a lot of rewatches stop after that for some reason??

[norellenilia]

Damn, I remember the first time I watched FMA 03, when I was 16 or 17, I stayed up until 1 am to finish it, and today, watching episodes 38 through 42 turned me into such an emotional mess that I have to take a break lmao what happened??? My own emotional traumas, that's what happened

I'm feeling so many things again

In episode 38, when Ed and Al are fighting, Al drenches Ed in water and he says "it's going to rain!!!" and I'm like haha no don't try to pull a Mustang on me I know this episode won't make me cry and GUESS WHAT the flashback with Trisha convincing Ed to go and find Al so they can talk things out and Al looking so happy that Ed isn't upset with him anymore it's so cute I CRIED

I need -- no, I DEMAND a spin-off series where Winry and Scziezka solve murder mysteries together (I'd love to write it myself but I know I'm not nearly good enough at coming up with mystery stories lol), they're adorable I'm so happy they totally get together post CoS

Martel's death hits SO MUCH HARDER than I remembered holy shit, she and Al actually got close, we see more of her, her death is so horrific and hearing sweet sweet baby boy Alphonse cry just BROKE MY HEART I never wanted to hug an armor so badly

Scar's brother's last moments, the way he looks so terrified and desperate to protect his little brother from Kimblee and Scar being so devastated when he dies I just-- *clenches fist*

Sloth using Ed's PTSD against him that's so UNFAIR; also I was thinking that I was a bit disappointed that this anime did not include the nightmare that Ed has at some point in the manga where he sees his mom saying "why didn't you make me right" etc but this is it, this is this scene, and it's worse because he's hearing it for real, he is very much awake, he has the real voice of his mom in his ears and she's saying this to him and I'm-- *clenches fist harder*

Rose's story, I'm still so mad, she deserves all the happiness in the world

Speaking of Rose, it's so funny how the moment Al is like "I wonder how Rose is doing" the show just full on goes "Ed/Rose shipper" mode lmao, with Ed blushing while pretending not to remember her, him being so awkward when he speaks to her just before they go on their separate ways and her son just smiling and giggling when he speaks (first time we see the baby laugh, he had only been crying up until then) :') To be honest it feels a bit out of the blue to me but idk

Dante sporting Lyra's white ass in the town of brown people and speaking as if she was part of them just because she's following Rose around to manipulate her is incredibly cringe, but then again, it's Dante, she's the villain and we're already supposed to know something is up with "Lyra". But still.

Very random but Al pulling objects from or putting objects inside his armor from behind the cloth always looks very awkward lol

I used to never really care about Scar but I have learned the errors of my way as I now realize he is actually one of the best characters in this goddamn series, even with the orb of knowledge and the three arm losses, and Mangahood!Scar being much more villainized and ending up working with the military will never come even CLOSE to 03!Scar using his last bit of strength to save Alphonse to honor his love for his lost brother and take his ultimate revenge on those who murdered his people in the goal of protecting oppressed people, all of this while an epic music is playing (honestly it even feels like Ed is made to be seen as an obstacle as he tries to prevent the soldiers from entering Liore lol)

Sorry but Wrath is annoying as hell, I know that I'll probably have a different opinion if I rewatch CoS after that, but for now I hate him

We're finally entering the "Rewrite" era of the show and I had forgotten how much it rocks (Ed's hair animation at the beginning fhjkfhkdhjk)

I only have 9 episodes left but between Lust and Sloth in the upcoming episodes I'm not even sure I'll be able to watch it all in one go lol. Still excited to see more of Winry and Scziezka and remembering how much Hohenheim is absolutely useless in this x)

[norellenilia]

OH NO I had never realized that the last thing Nina says to Ed and Al is “Don’t forget me” this show is going to KILL ME

[norellenilia]

So in mangahood there’s the Several-Months-Time-Gap where Ed stays with Greed and the chimeras and everybody likes to have funny headcanons and stuff about what could have happened during that time gap, but what about 03′s Several-Months-Time-Gap? When Ed and Al stay at Tucker’s home?

I’ve been thinking about this today and here are some of my stupid headcanons:

- Al walking Nina to/from kindergarten and Nina being so proud of showing Big Little Brother Al to her friends (the parents are probably more worried than the kids lol)

- Nina desperately wanting to braid Ed’s hair and it just becomes a tangled mess, he spends hours brushing it out but it made Nina happy so when she asks if she can braid his hair again he says yes

- Ed trying to walk Alexander but obviously it’s more Alexander walking him since he’s like 10 times heavier than Ed

- Al reading a story to Nina at her request before she goes to sleep and then walking as slowly as he can out of the room so that he wouldn’t wake her up with the sounds of his metal armor

[norellenilia]

I didn’t remember there was so much to unpack in episode 8 omg

First there’s obviously the way Ed flinches when Mustang finds him near Nina’s remains. This has bothered me for years, the way he flinches as if he feared Mustang was gonna hit him. I’ve read a lot of very interesting discussions about this, and I’m kind of relieved that I was not the only person obsessing over this tiny little detail lol

Then there’s the fact that Ed is given the task to study Tucker’s work and chimeras, how awful is it to make him look at the chimeras after what he just went through with Nina?! I guess that was Mustang giving him access to Tucker’s work about the Philosopher’s Stone, but damn that was still quite insensitive in my opinion.

Also when Ed is feeding the chimeras Al just talks about Tucker like nothing happened wtf

Speaking of Mustang, I can definitely see how in this episode he’s trying to help Ed in his own way, but he’s just so bad at it lmao. No wonder the boys don’t trust him at all. 

And then there’s the whole Barry the Chopper thing. A man killing women because he feels like it, starting with his own wife just because she pissed him off, feels uncomfortably realistic. I don’t know what to do with the fact that after attacking mostly adult women he went for 12-year-old Winry.

The whole scene with Ed trying to escape from Barry is so heartbreaking. He’s so afraid, he’s crying the whole time, he’s panicking, he can’t even clap his hands properly... That’s so unusual in a shounen anime, to have the 12-year-old male protagonist look so vulnerable when being so close to death. And I didn’t remember this, but he has a flashback at the beginning of the scene, he sees his mum, and then Nina, the two people whose deaths have traumatized him, and then he knows that it might be his turn to die by the hands of Barry. Terrifying. It also leads back to what Riza was saying at the beginning of the episode: Ed and Al are just children. Children who have already seen too much death, and now one of them almost gets killed, just after losing Nina. No wonder he’s so afraid when fighting Barry.

(Let’s just not forget about Winry too: she lost both her parents, she saw her childhood friend almost bleed to death, and now she got kidnapped by a serial killer, all the Resembool babies need a hug)

Idk I’m sure I’m not saying anything new but anyway, maybe that’s why I’m much more attached to 03 Ed than to Mangahood Ed, and to FMA 03 than to FMAB/the manga in general (even though I love the manga, don’t get me wrong), it feels less shounen-esque and more focused on the characters and their emotions as humans.

(And also I discovered FMA with this anime so nostalgia probably also plays a part in my preferences lol)

[norellenilia]

Scar be like, “wow 5 State Alchemists in a row what a productive day for me” and then only manages to kill one

[norellenilia]

So I’m finally rewatching FMA03 again because I want to appreciate it again with some awesome analyses I have read on this website in mind.

But for now I’m just salty about the fact that in the french version, they redubbed some lines for whatever reasons. Probably to make less harsh or violent, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. Like in episode 13, they cut off some of Ed’s swearing, but not everything, and they ADDED the miniskirt line by Mustang: originally, he says “and when I’m charge of the military, I’ll bring back its glory and dignity!” (it does rhyme in french) and now it’s “all uniforms will have miniskirts!”, and at the same time, some of Ed’s swearing has been changed (and that’s very minor swearing, like he still says some very bad words in the episode lol).

(Though now that I’m writing this, making Mustang talk about miniskirts out loud actually makes more sense if the goal is to make any eavesdropper believe he’s just talking nonsense. But I still like the original line better because it rhymes lol)

And now that I rewatched the first two episodes yesterday, the first thing I noticed was in the first episode, when they arrive in Lior and Ed hears the water/wine fountain, he says the onomatopoeia for when you drink a lot at once (don’t know what it is in english) and a reference to a drinking song, now it’s just “Water! Water! Water!” Like, what? Were they afraid a teen character making a vague reference to a drinking song before drinking what he was sure was water was too harsh or something? (Too bad we see Ed having drunk himself to sleep in CoS when he was still technically underage by Japanese law, if I’m not mistaken)

Also in the beginning of episode 3, when Ed and Al are in the library and can’t find anymore info on the Philosopher’s Stone, Ed says in a fake desperate tone: “Wait for me, I’m just gonna hang myself” and now it’s “Can someone just finish me off?” I get it can sound like a very dark joke for a child character to say, but I don’t think the new version is that much better. And also, we see another character literally commit suicide (though it’s “only” an armor) and just before dying, Lust says that maybe that’s why she wanted to become human: to die. So... Yeah.

And also, the opening scene of this show is a child losing his leg and getting traumatised for life, at this point I don’t think Ed’s joke is any darker.

Anyway I still have the entire anime in the first dub so that’s what I’m gonna rewatch.

And also, look, I tried to make an Edward crochet doll.

[norellenilia]

I’m not even that big of a fan of the Nullmetal Alchemist parody but the part where Mustang sings “Be prepared” to Scar cracks me up everytime and we just watched episode 15 and all I could hear was Mustang doing his Disney musical