Anime Title: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood
Reviewer Name: Cool Beans
Anime/manga Rating: 5/5
Creator/Artist:Hiromu Arakawa
Short Summary: In a world where the practice of alchemy has overtaken science, two brothers attempt to revive their recently deceased mother through the forbidden art of human transmutation. In the process Edward loses his arm and leg, and Al loses his entire body, with only his soul remaining which Edward manages to graft onto a hollow suit of armor. The brothers set out on a quest to find the legendary philosphers stone which they believe will allow them to be able to restore their bodys back to the way they were before. During their travels they learn just how badly the powerful art of alchemy has been abused throughout the world and find themselves pawns in several mysterious figures plans.
Anime Status: Ongoing/weekly
An opening statement that may be considered blasphemy by many, but i have to say even though we are only 15 episodes into this series at this point of writing; I am loving this series even more than the first one. So far only in japanese however heres hoping that the original dub team come back to do this one as they did a fantastic job with the first series.
Brotherhood is the second remake of Full Metal Alchemist which promises to follow the manga more closley than the first one (ironically enough it started off on a filler episode), and it seems by episode 15 it is finally in its own territory and out of the shadow of the first series. Taking a more comical and action packed route than its predecessor however maintaining the dark gritty underlying themes of the series overall. The action is on a par with the soul eater anime, clear, consice, smoothly drawn and simply really good fun, each and every battle is a delight to watch and leaves you begging for more.
The story has obviously progressed a lot faster than the original series, some events completly skimmed over; (the gold mining town scam chapter in the manga and episode in the first series is only briefly mentioned strangley enough, even though the villian in that makes an appearance later on in the series.) Character development and backstory does not take as much precedent in this series as it did the first one choosing to go straight into story instead, maybe it helps to be familiar with the characters since they seem to be just chucked into the story at times with little more than a "hello my name is Hughes and this is a picture of my daughter" for instance, however in a strange way it works as well.
Amazingly this series is even bloodier and violent than the last one, and all the while the animation is of very high quality however with a new cartoonier look it seems that the comedy elements are rife in this series as well, so much so you wonder whether sometimes they were poorly placed, making quite a serious ailment of an old aqquinatance into a joke was pretty questionable in my opinion, but maybe its for the better as the series doesnt become as mopey and depressing as the first one with Ed and Al bursting into tears every other episode.
Brotherhood is in its own league now and even though you may have a strong feeling of deja vu throughout the begining of the series or you may not appreciate the more cartoony art style do not let that put you off. It will be interesting to see how it develops now it is out of the shadow of its older brother as it were, whether the series maintains its high quality output on most fronts so far has yet to be seen however this reviewer remains optimistic judging on what he's seen so far.
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