Weeb Weekly: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Welcome back to Week #2 of Weeb Weekly with Carly Busfield. Last week, I decided to talk about what I was currently into. Yet, for this week’s panel, I want to talk about the Anime that got me started only a couple years ago. That masterpiece is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.
I won’t lie. I thought anime was weird and I really did have my misconceptions. Yet, some friends of mine decided to put me on this particular show during my high school senior week. I was hooked instantly. This show changed it all for me.
Brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric are stuck in a terrible new reality after a horrifying alchemy experiment fails at their home. The brothers tried to revive their recently deceased mother against the alchemical principle prohibiting human transmutation. Instead, they experienced terrible personal loss: Alphonse’s body crumbled, and Edward lost a leg before giving up an arm to maintain Alphonse’s soul bound to a massive set of armor, which allowed him to remain in the physical world.
Their next-door neighbor Pinako Rockbell and her granddaughter Winry come to the brothers’ aid. Winry, a bio-mechanical engineering prodigy, uses “automail,” a durable, adaptable metal used in robots and battle armor, to produce prosthetic limbs for Edward.
The Elric brothers embark on a mission to heal their bodies after years of study in search of the Philosopher’s Stone, a potent diamond that enables an alchemist to subvert the laws of Equivalent Exchange. The boys’ trip involves them in an expanding plot that imperils the future of the globe as Edward grows to be a notorious alchemist and acquires the title “Fullmetal.”
What is alchemy? In this series and manga, manipulating and transforming matter with the help of natural energy is called alchemy.
My favorite character from this anime is a character that I hold near and dear to my heart, Roy Mustang. Mustang is a flame alchemist. His hand-made gloves enable Mustang’s distinct brand alchemy. When Roy rubs his fingers together, the ignition cloth gloves, which are embroidered with special flame alchemy Transmutation Circles, spark, causing Roy to control the oxygen concentration in the air around his target, increasing its density until it becomes flammable oxidizer, and forming narrow pathways of oxygen through which he can direct the flames, as shown in image.
I have not gotten around to reading the manga, but I absolutely plan to. This series as originally released in a smaller series of Fullmetal Alchemist, but I only watched Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. The difference between these two is how these series picked up the anime. Six volumes of the manga were published by the time the first Fullmetal Alchemist television series premiered in October 2003. Exact one year later, it came to a conclusion with the release of eight volumes. As a result, the Fullmetal Alchemist animation team at Bones only got a portion of the manga’s final 27 volumes to work with.
I chose to watch Brotherhood due to the fact it was longer. This series was the first plot that I didn’t get tired of. I would love to dive into the manga, but some day I will.
