#yes him killing winrys parents was an interesting twist but ultimately i think the vengeance plot was way more interesting

[lilac-melody]

Instead of arguing over which fma is better- 03 or Brotherhood, why don't we combine the best of both to make it one big beautiful work of art

In my personal opinion, I think 03 expands on the characters more- which is due to it having more filler episodes, and episodes that are from the manga as well (the train situation, the Youswell mining situation) (though I actually really love the ghost episodes- from ep 4 "A Forger's Love" and ep 37 "The Flame Alchemist, The Bachelor Lieutenant & The Mystery of Warehouse 13") and that's what Brotherhood lacks.

Oh sure, Brotherhood is fantastic. However, I really wish instead of spoiling the surprise about Central being a transmutation circle with Isaac McDougle and making the Elrics meet Lt Colonel Hughes in ep 1 (he's Mustang's best friend, somehow I doubt they hadn't met before...), they should have started like 03 and the manga.

And give us the Youswell and train eps. See, the manga served purpose for them. Yes, we get Yoki's minute montage about it later on, but for new fans who started Brotherhood first (me 10 years ago), it's confusing.

And with the train incident, it sprung out of nowhere and Ed had to deal with it, with Mustang seeing Ed was on board already and let him handle it, which is why Mustang introduced Ed to Tucker.

But in Brotherhood, Mustang says "I'm trying to repay you for your help on the Liore case"...like, wasn't that his literal job? His mission? It doesn't make much sense.

However, 03 isn't innocent with the train situation either. Mustang made Ed, an 11 year old, go on a train he knew would be held hostage, to test him. He had no reason to believe Ed could fight or defend himself. Sure, if Ed's going to be a State Alchemist, he'll need to know how to fight and such, but it still felt a little out of character.

Another complaint I have is the first Barry the Chopper episode (ep 8, "The Philosopher's Stone"). Oh it was a fantastic ep and it truly does show Ed's age! My only issue is why did they need to use Barry the Chopper? Because unless I'm misremembering, the incident wasn't brought up in Lab 5...so what was the point in it? Especially because it wouldn't drive the point to Al that he could have possibly been a puppet created by Ed like it did in the manga/brotherhood. In 03, he'd know Barry was a lying killer.

Anyway both 03 and Brotherhood have rather rocky starts.

And 03's plot gets to be...um...yeah.

But if we combine the amazing filler eps and characterization + manga chapters with Brotherhood, we'd have one big masterpiece...in my opinion.