Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)- The Great Debate, Part 2

You thought you'd never have to see this again, didn't you? You were wrong. Now feel my pain.

Now that I've explained some of the specifics, I'd really like to explain why Brotherhood bothers me so much. If it were just a bad show, it would be immaterial. But by borrowing so heavily from the original series, Irie and co. took art and made it pornography. That I cannot abide by.

The Internal Logic

Throughout the series, Brotherhood basically does away with any and all rules of science. I’m not saying the original series was realistic, but you at least got the sense that Sho Aikawa actually cared about making it consistent, and making it seem more like a science and less like magic. Like it had some relation to chemistry and biology, and Edward and Alfonse seemed like really smart people who knew what they were doing. And even though at the end it kind of defied all that by having alchemy basically be a way of exchanging pretty much anything through this cosmic being they call Truth, that was only at the very end, and it made Ed question everything. I liked how in the original series there was actually an emphasis on transmutation circles, and alchemy seemed kind of like a science that had a set of rules.

In Brotherhood, we have none of that. Ed and Al kind of come off as idiots half the time, because they don’t know what they’re doing and can’t... shoot red lightning out of their crotches... I’ll get to that in a second. But really, in Brotherhood I really lost the sense that anyone cared about the internal logic of how alchemy worked, and instead wanted to see lots of big shiny things and explosions. This is evident in the first episode: so Isaac McDougal is an ice alchemist, but... ok, you see Mustang’s alchemy works because he changes the density of oxygen molecules. It’s a transmutation of sorts... that can happen. There’s a lot of oxygen in the air. But there’s not that much hydrogen in the air. How is he making ice out of air? It might make sense if it was dry ice, but then how is he altering the temperature THAT dramatically without there being any physical effects on the environment around him? And how is Ed not getting horrible frostbite from touching it? No wait, they specifically say that it’s water-based! Oh- maybe it’s alkahestry. So then we can just ignore the logic entirely. 

Feel it, damn you!

This leads me to my next gripe: alkahestry. This entire so-called science and why it is in the show is completely baffling. Like, I understand that there were Chinese alchemists as well as western alchemists, but alkahestry has no clear rules. It seems simultaneously unlimited in its scope and useless in resolving any conflicts. This idea could work, in trying to integrate how all forms of alchemy work in this parallel universe, but first of all the parallel universe angle is never really explored. And second of all, like I said, I have no clue how alkahestry works or what the rules are. So I cease to care and conclude it’s kind of crappy magic.

And at the end: I get that there are transmutation circles in play (which I still don’t fully understand), but what exactly is being exchanged, or sacrificed, or chemically altered? Souls? But what does this so-called transmutation do?! It’s just a bunch of magic pentagrams, there’s nothing scientific about it. Also, Father... has a bunch of shields protecting him at the end... that isn't alchemy! What is that, like life force? Why would he use that? Like, there are a limited number of lives he can just throw away, right? Why not just create an invincible shield around him using alchemy? Like adamantium or something? Wait, he transmuted a tiny sun? From what? How?! Is there anything in this scene that isn’t just a giant ripoff of Final Fantasy 7? And I appreciate that Ed defeats him at the end, because apparently someone told Onogi that the protagonist is supposed to beat the bad guy at the end, and they also reminded him who the protagonist was; but seriously, why is Ed able to defeat him by punching him when bombs don’t work?! There is no explanation given at any time. Hell, I guess since Greed jumped into Father’s mouth and then exploded inside him or something, we can just throw logic out the window. Because I don’t fucking care anymore, and neither do they.

I'd rather take the body-swapping old lady. Seriously. Fuck this guy.

In a show that's almost entirely about alchemists and alchemy, I lose a sense of characterization of both. I thought alchemists had a scientific outlook on everything. They understand the materials that they’re working with, and transmute them based on that knowledge. At least, that’s what they told me alchemy was. But in Brotherhood, we have Father and Hohenheim shooting red lightning from nowhere. I think this guy Irie is just some idiot savant who likes to see multi-colored lightning. And besides this, I would be really willing and able to suspend my disbelief in order to see some kind of emotionally engaging resolution to a conflict, but it never happens in Brotherhood. The enormous preponderance of philosopher’s stones throughout the show throws any claim to science out the window, but it happens way too early. It really doesn’t work when Kimblee has two philosopher’s stones in episode 30. And hell, even Kimblee’s alchemy makes some sense. But what the hell is Father even doing half the time? This can work in a limited capacity, like when Alfonse is going to bring his dead brother back to life at the climax of the entire show. But character moments like this are when you can push the laws of the universe for the sake of the story. The villain swallowing God at the end is just dumb shlock, and it has absolutely nothing to do with alchemy or science.

The Production and Writing

Look, a big part of the problem here is that FMA is not Naruto. Naruto is a vast and expansive story spanning many, many seasons, detailing a huge world, not just the Konoha village, but reaching further into the sand village and beyond. There’s an enormous cast of characters; some of them memorable, some of them not. But even Naruto never lost sight of the heart of the show the way Brotherhood did. Even if Naruto Uzumaki wasn’t at the height of importance at that moment, you’d never have a whole episode without him. Plus, Naruto never held its focus so tightly on the main three characters as FMA did on the Elric brothers, anyway. FMA is a linear story, told in five seasons. It is not a 12-season epic spanning five years (in-world). 

This character is supposed to be 16. The pornography comparison was more literal than you thought, huh?

Why am I comparing Brotherhood to Naruto, you ask? Because I think the producers wanted it to be Naruto. Naruto is the most successful manga and anime franchise in human history. The enormity and expansiveness of its media empire in Japan is incredible. I bet the FMA producers greenlit the awful scripts for the second half of the series thinking: “The huge cast of characters could be used to sell tons of toys!” Like I said, Brotherhood was a weird reboot thing coming right off the heels of the original series, but I heard really positive things about it. But rather than a dynamic re-imagining of the series that delivered a satisfying climax like I was promised, halfway through the series it turned into a weird combination of a cynical cash grab, a horribly convoluted and self-indulgent plot, and an awful cavalcade of painfully bad dialogue and editing. Brotherhood’s implosion was caused by a weird attempt to make the series something it’s not, and by the sheer incompetence of its staff, facts which are absolutely shocking considering that it is one of the most well-funded and highly-produced anime series in history.

The Philosophy

So why is Brotherhood so dumb? I think that Hiroshi Onogi and the series’ producers completely forgot what the series was about. This is solidified by the idiotic action movie that they dared to call Fullmetal Alchemist which they released a year later. Apparently Brotherhood was created to be a more faithful adaptation of the manga, but if that’s the case then I get the sense that Hiromu Arakawa’s writing kind of broke down, since the original series came out halfway through and ended before the manga did. I think she kind of let the spirit of the series get away from her because she was just trying to do something different from the show, rather than telling an effective story. It’s just appalling that the very person who created these characters- specifically Van Hohenheim, Scar, Mustang and the Homunculi- would ultimately make them less logical and effective than Sho Aikawa, who was just coming up with stuff and extrapolating because he was out of material to adapt. But while I haven’t read the manga, I have to imagine the ending isn’t as awful as the five episode screaming-and-explosion fest that closes Brotherhood, and turns FMA into a stupid action show.

What.

This is especially offensive because the original FMA is one of the smartest animes ever written. It has very powerful portrayals and insights into ethical science, the existence of the soul, the existence of God or a life force over the universe, and it even kind of introduced a philosophy in itself: equivalent exchange, the irony of God, an arm and a leg. It was a dark show, filled with sacrifice, loss and death. But at the same time it was very tender. It showed a real relationship between two brothers. The love they shared, and the loss they bore. Two extraordinary boys pushed to the very brink of their abilities and will by the situations they got themselves into. But it was never for power or ambition, just for each other. Ed wanted Al to experience the physical world again: good food, the softness of his bed, a warm embrace. And Al wanted Ed to be able to feel like a normal person, to walk and swim normally again. Brotherhood barely manages to evoke this feeling at all, because it shifts the focus squarely away from the protagonists for huge parts of the show. At many points in the show I was left wondering what was going on, or why I should care. Hey, I thought this was a show about Ed and Al getting into adventures in the search of getting their bodies back! 

But then at the end, Ed’s sacrifice to save Al was so profound and touching... that it was completely undermined by their friends taking philosophers’ stones and using philosophers’ stones. Ultimately, I don’t even know what these people are trying to say or if they even know what they’re doing. I even had a friend tell me this: “Ed and Al’s refusal to use the Philosopher’s Stone is just stubbornness. Their bull-headedness is what lost them their limbs in the first place. They apparently didn't learn the lesson.”  Maybe he’s right; maybe it’s just me who doesn’t get Fullmetal Alchemist. But it makes me a little sad that Edward Elric and I are the only people in the universe who think that using a product of mass genocide is wrong in every circumstance. And maybe it’s just me who thinks that a show called “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” should be about the Fullmetal Alchemist. And brotherhood. And I guess the original series will be relegated to history as a poor first attempt to adapt a manga, rather than the brilliant, emotionally compelling, and well-written series it is.

FMA and Brotherhood in one image: The well-developed, interesting, thematically challenging guy is swallowed by a big, dumb, lumbering, CGI-enhanced asshole.

But I for one still contend that Brotherhood underwent such a profound self-destruction in its second half, that even the underwhelming villain and awkward climax of the original series is far superior in every way. So if you’re the kind of person who’s going to tell me that the original series sucked, and Brotherhood was way better, I can only assume that you just like shiny things and explosions, rather than logical, compelling, and emotional storytelling. To me that’s like saying that Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie. Look: just because it’s longer and bigger, and has more characters and CGI, and unending, tensionless fight scenes, that doesn’t make it good! It makes it exhausting! Look, Brotherhood is by no means the worst anime I’ve ever seen. It actually still has a lot of good moments, and some compelling characters. But when you take what is perhaps the greatest anime of all time, and you mess with the characters, and you add a lot of bad characters, and then you make it defy its own internal logic and philosophy... well, to me that’s even more offensive than just sucking in the first place.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)- The Great Debate, Part 1

The Elric brothers appear about as upset at the prospect of this show as I am.

I don't know anyone who really agrees with me on this subject. There are people whom I've scared away from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, but not those who saw the show independently and then came to a similar conclusion. I think that's part of what makes me so passionate about this subject, the other being that I truly do love Fullmetal Alchemist, for all of its admitted faults. This is also the project which made me start this blog in the first place, so here goes. This is why I think that Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood, while being half of a good show, is only ever good because of its predecessor, and utterly fails when it deviates from that template.

The Minds Behind the Series

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a strange concept as a show: it’s a reboot that bears a strong relationship and resemblance to the original series that came out six years before it. They were made by the same production team, and based on the same manga, obviously the difference being that Brotherhood follows the plot of the manga more or less to a T. Despite the series' obvious similarities, there are some really big differences. These two series were made by completely different writers and directors. The original series was written by Sho Aikawa; but he was actually a bit of a risky choice, because his work on Genocyber and Neo Ranga was really graphic, violent and intense. He seemed like an adults-only writer, and didn’t really seem like the kind of guy who could write a show with a demographic as broad as Fullmetal Alchemist. But I thought he managed to integrate his really dark edge into the later part of the series while making the show funny and adventurous for most of it. His style gave the series a certain grit and weight, while the violence in Brotherhood, while brutal, often seems cartoony and unimportant. 

An example of Aikawa and Mizushima's weird, creepy style which I loved. 

Brotherhood, meanwhile, was written by Hiroshi Onogi. Onogi is a really old studio hand, who’s been associated with countless projects, most notably Mobile Suit Gundam. I haven’t seen much of his work, so I can’t say much (other than that I don’t like Gundam), but I don’t think he has the same kind of creative passion that Aikawa does, and I don’t think he’s as deeply entrenched in the universe. Further, I know for a fact that Hiromu Arakawa (the original writer of the manga) sat in on writing sessions for the original series to better explain the characters and universe that Fullmetal Alchemist was set in. I don’t know about her involvement with Brotherhood, but what I do know is that the characterization and logical gaps in Onogi’s writing here are weird and wrong.

The original series was directed by Seiji Mizushima. I think he was seen as a safe bet to counterbalance Aikawa, because he was coming off of an extremely successful all-ages anime with Shaman King. But before this, Mizushima directed episode 9 of Neon Genesis Evangelion, while episode 9 is one of my least favorites on the show, Eva is basically undisputed as one of the greatest anime series of all time, and I think he learned things from Hidekai Anno and co. Mizushima really seems to know how to direct deep material without getting too bogged down in the details, and really hits you hard with these key emotional character moments. 

Yasuhiro Irie directed Brotherhood, and Irie has his own claims to fame. He also worked on the original series as an animation director, and he did key animation on Cowboy Bebop. So we’ve got two heavyweights directing each series, right? No. Irie is an animator. He does animation direction, key animation, character design, and occasionally storyboards. He is NOT a director like Mizushima. His specialty is action scenes. Everything else kind of pales in comparison to the original series; but speaking of the action scenes, I think Irie’s brains got scrambled by the fact that he got one of the biggest budgets of any anime series ever. He just draws out fights interminably, and makes them really punishingly dull after a while, all because he can have bigger and better animation if he keeps the fight going for longer. Ultimately, even the action in Brotherhood isn’t nearly as good, because it hardly ever bears any emotional weight. 

You see, Irie is the kind of director who can guarantee that the lightning effects will be at least 20% shinier.

Relationship to the Original

So now that we know that the key factors in making this series are definitely worse, we can talk about how Brotherhood was a really strange show that was something of a cash grab from the start. It was a bizarre reboot considering the original anime was so successful, and only made sense because the original series had an alternate ending that was different from that of the manga. I had heard really positive things about Brotherhood, though, and I was really happy to be able to see Ed, Al, and the gang in a kind of new series. However, I knew something was wrong from the first episode. It was a really good idea to give the existing audience something new: an action-packed introduction to the characters. But it was really strange, didn’t introduce the characters that well, and gave away Bradley’s identity way too early.

Ed pines for the days that the Barry the Chopper scene was actually scary and emotional.

The first half of the show was also bogged down by the fact that many of the main events weren't earned, either because character development from the previous series provided all the emotional weight, or because the moments in Brotherhood simply evoke the memory of the superior past experience, rather than creating a legitimately good scene. Now, I did see the original anime series beforehand, so I may not be seeing this objectively, but I feel like this point is reinforced when supposedly important or emotional moments later on in the series bear no substantive emotional weight. Many characters were also underwritten, either because of laziness, or because such development has happened before (or both). This is a stand-alone work; it cannot rely on other media to do the heavy lifting of character motivation and development.

However, for its first half, Brotherhood is a competent show which uses its excellent source material to its advantage. Hughes’ death sequence really pulled at my heartstrings once again, and I was really hopeful after seeing this that the second half of the season and the new ending would really deliver in a brand new adventure that fixed the awkwardness of the Dante plotline and the parallel universe stuff that never really made any sense. Instead, Brotherhood turned from an inferior retelling of Fullmetal Alchemist with slightly better animation (other than Ed’s hair) into an absolute train wreck which, coupled with the idiotic action movie that came after it, really ruined Fullmetal Alchemist for me for a while.

Ed, perfectly imitating my expression while watching most of Brotherhood.

Now, most Brotherhood supporters rely on two contradictory arguments to defend the series: that it’s a stand-alone work only, or that it is intentionally playing off of the manga and previous series. The first is used to rebuff criticisms that early moments in Brotherhood do not bear the same emotional weight as the moments in the original series. The second is used to defend Brotherhood’s sloppy characterization and logical gaps in portraying the universe. Ultimately, I would say that it’s a stand-alone work, but I understand that it does have a huge burden of having a lot of repeat viewers, and that may have affected its writing and development. Early on, it was said that the plot would be the same up until the halfway point, but the character actions and motivations may be adjusted, making it interesting. The problem is that the characters in Brotherhood were simply not well portrayed. My issue is not so much that they are different per se, but that they don’t make sense, and make me pine for their former characterizations and development.

The Characters

I've written a great deal on this over time, but I'll try to pare it down to the essentials. Other than Edward and Riza Hawkeye, most of the characters in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are significantly different from their 2003 versions, either because they're given more backstory and attention due to the expanded run time (64 as opposed to 51 episodes), or the new characters change them in significant ways. I would, however, like to say my full piece on Alfonse, as he is the second most important character in the entire show.

Alfonse is a great character: a patient intellectual, not as quick-thinking as his brother but more strategically minded. He has enormous issues going through puberty without a body, at times lashing out at his brother for the problems he has to go through. In Brotherhood, rather than having an identity crisis and one of the first real conflicts with his brother, Alfonse is put into a forced, awkward, pseudo-relationship with a girl who both looks and acts half his age. This story is even more baffling because this love story is the main reason why the characters from Xing are even in the show. Alfonse is also undermined by having an obviously female voice actor. His voice in the original series was a perfect portrayal of a hesitant, awkward, but kind and patient pubescent boy. Like his brother, Alfonse matured far beyond his years, not by becoming hardened and cynical, but by becoming more patient and empathic. In Brotherhood, his sexuality is weirdly stressed where it absolutely should not be, especially because he now seems very effete and nothing like a 14-year-old boy with raging hormones. This could be explained away by the fact that he doesn’t actually have hormones. But then I have to ask, why is his sexuality so important? 

This never needed to happen. But it did. Now it can never un-happen.

Scar, meanwhile, was one of the most important characters in the original series. He retains a certain amount of plot relevance here, but to confusing effect. Like in the original series, he is initially seen as a murderer and villain, but he simply fails to be scary in Brotherhood. Further, later on it is revealed that he, not Mustang, killed Winry’s parents, giving us a real reason not to like him. And then Winry instantly forgives him and trusts him with her life for no reason. Evidently killing Winry’s parents just gets you into the good guy club. Scar is also totally emasculated by having Mae and Yoki follow him around, he also goes against his own strictly-held principles for no clear reason, and he is once again a very important part of the ending, but with a plot point that has not been well established and is generally confusing as hell. Scar is expected to be a hero by the end, and yet I fail to see how he is at all vindicated for the murders he committed, or why anyone in the show likes or trusts him.

Similarly, Mustang is simply handled incorrectly as a character. Mustang was never supposed to be a totally sympathetic character, largely due to him killing Winry's parents. He was always kind of a creepy asshole, anyway. Even if he wanted to improve Amestris, he still sought to control an overtly militant, dictatorial nation run exclusively by him. That’s what being a Fuhrer means. He never hinted that he wanted to institute a democratic system or human rights, he basically just sounded like he wanted to wage less war. Ultimately, the only thing that really betrayed his humanity was the fact that he saw a young, uncorrupted version of himself in Edward, and wanted him to succeed. In Brotherhood, he is apparently some be-all end-all ubermensch who singe-handedly kills two homunculi, and is now completely justified in using the philosopher’s stone (which completely undermines Edward’s sacrifice, but I’ll get to that later). Look: Mustang was created such that you could never truly like him. His lust for power, objectification of women, mistreatment of Edward, and the fact that he was an instrumental part in committing genocide of the Ishvalans will always prevent him from becoming a hero, and yet Brotherhood insists that we think of him as one. In fact, he is apparently so important that he is morally justified in using a product of mass genocide to heal his eyes. You know, when Al used the Philosopher’s Stone that was in his body anyway at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist, it was to save his brother’s life. Excuse me, both to increase the chances of stopping a very powerful and insane alchemist, and to save his brother’s life. In Brotherhood, they use it because poor Roy is blind. In a show where sacrifice and consequence are supposedly pillars of its rules and ethos.

But Irie can promise Roy's snaps are at least 30% brighter.

One character I'd really like to discuss in-depth, but can't, is Van Hohenheim. So Van Hohenheim is a bit of a weird character that never really worked for me in either series. Some things about his character are appealing, but in the original series he was shoved into the end awkwardly, and never really made much difference in the plot. In Brotherhood, however, he is incredibly overemphasized. It’s as if Onogi wrote a series in which Hohenheim was the protagonist and scrapped it, but then they used the ending to that series as a base for the ending to Brotherhood, and then just kept on piling on extraneous details and characters to try and make it feel more like Fullmetal Alchemist. The sad fact of the matter is that while the ending to the series is a convoluted disaster because there are way too many plotlines and characters, Van Hohenheim represents so much of why even the main story’s ending is bad, and also something of an illogical mess.  First off, there’s an entire episode about Hohenheim’s origin story because the writers realized that they needed to do a shit-ton of exposition to make the ending not come completely out of the blue. This episode is weird, forced, and obnoxious. All Van Hohenheim is supposed to be is a kind of freak show, and while the idea of Ed and Al’s father coming back into their lives, and Ed expressing all of his pent-up anger and Al trying to reconnect because he yearns for his parents so much makes sense and can work, both series simply miss the opportunity horribly. 

And once again I must stress that the ending completely undermines the internal philosophy of the show. So Hohenheim offers to use his remaining life force to bring back Al. Edward calls him an idiot, then he comes up with a brilliant plan to bring Al back. I had thought this scene represented Hohenheim as a fundamentally broken man: he is wracked with guilt for abandoning his sons, and is trying to win Ed’s heart by making a broad, sweeping gesture. He is so time-worn that he no longer understands Ed’s ethical opposition to his plan, and Ed proves himself better than his father.

But then... a bunch of other people use philosopher’s stones. For things that are much more trivial than bringing back their dead brother. So what does this scene even mean? I don’t know anymore. Further, when Van Hohenheim dies, what is the emotion there? Am I supposed to be sad? Or... happy? I can’t feel anything for this character because while he’s insanely important to the plot, he essentially has no personality and I have no reason to care about him. 

Say, does this remind anyone else of a time when a franchise completely imploded?

You see, I’m not sure that the people who like Brotherhood understand this, but stories like this don't really work when the protagonist changes halfway through. This is exactly what happens in Brotherhood halfway through: it becomes about Van Hohenheim and the utterly forgettable Father. Look: a good villain is more than just a generic bad guy. He’s supposed to reflect something in the hero. A character trait, a specific relationship, or just something they really hate on a personal level. A great example is the character of Darth Vader. In the first movie, he was a representative of the empire, something Luke and Leia despised. Later on, we learned that Vader represented Luke’s future gone wrong. He was a perfect villain because he represented everything Luke feared in himself, and everything he hated. Another great example would be Cloud Strife and Sephiroth. In both cases, there was more going on between these characters than HE’S A BAD GUY and HE’S A GOOD GUY. But with Father, unlike Envy in the original series, he has no relationship to Edward, and there's no emotional connection between these characters. His history with Van Hohenheim makes them connected, but the problem is that I don't care about Van Hohenheim, and also that's not what this show is about. 

Father's death scene is also bizarre and illogical, and his physical appearance at the end is just a dead giveaway that he is no more than a ripoff of Sephiroth, although none of his actions or relationships with the characters feel earned like they were in Final Fantasy 7, probably because none of his actions or relationships are earned. So really, he’s nothing more than a pale imitation.

But what’s truly offensive about Father is the fact that he was supposed to be the real deciding factor in why Brotherhood was made. This was the whole reason why Brotherhood was put into production: “The central villain is better!” they said. “The ending is much better!” they said. Neither was true. The ending had more explosions, fight scenes and CGI. That doesn’t make it better, that makes it bigger and louder. But apparently reducing Fullmetal Alchemist to a dumb, schlocky, CGI-packed action movie is what people want. See: Sacred Star of Milos.

Ed again imitating my expression, whilst watching this exact scene.

The Homunculi, now apparently aspects of Father's personality, are also rendered pointless and ineffective by the show: let's go over them, shall we? Lust, formerly an interesting and complex character, dies halfway through. Gluttony is the same but is used in less interesting ways. Everything that made Envy interesting in the original is gone. Wrath is basically the same character as Pride from the last one, except that it made perfect sense for a political leader to be Pride, and a bratty kid to be Wrath. And the other way around makes no sense at all. And Sloth's treatment is essentially the central metaphor for the show. In Brotherhood: an expensive-to-animate, drooling idiot who smashes things in unbearably long action scenes. In Fullmetal Alchemist: a thematically complex, emotionally devastating character who reflects on the two central characters in profound ways, who is given resolution in a dazzling display of inventive thinking (Ed chemically altering her body into ethanol). 

The same can be said for Greed's handling, specifically his death. Let's look at them side by side, shall we? Fullmetal Alchemist: An epic showdown. Ed uses his tremendous knowledge of chemistry to defeat Greed, but then is devastated at killing someone for the first time, and for the fact that it was all a setup. Brotherhood: This awful schlocky action scene which never ends involves Greed jumping out of Ling’s body, and into Father’s mouth... and dying. What?

The cast, presumably ecstatic the series is over. This is about a third of the named characters in the show.

And then there's everyone else. The biggest problem with the entire second half of the series was the fact that there were way too many characters and plot lines happening simultaneously. This was a product of bad and overindulgent writing of the plot, sloppy editing, and poor direction. But more than that, just the very fact that so many characters exist makes no sense. Who is that woman who’s friends with Riza, who’s apparently a really important part of the plot, whom we know nothing about, other than that she’s annoying? Why am I supposed to care about King Bradley’s wife? Who are these random Ishvalan leaders? Aren’t they supposed to hate Scar? Maria Ross and what’s-his-name?! I forgot they were even in this show! Why are they here? Who is Miles? Why is he in so much of this show? Who are these chimera people?  You know, I’m pretty sure that either a writer was really angry at the Hiroshi Onogi because he knew that he was taking the series in the completely wrong direction, or someone legitimately figured out that there was no way to make these characters memorable. Either way, the fact that Mr. Gorilla is the only memorable chimera character is sad. The reason why he is memorable is because Ed calls him Mr. Gorilla, because even the characters within the show itself cannot possibly keep up with all of the other characters or their names.

I think a really obvious example of this character overload is the Armstrong-Sloth fight. This was once a good idea, but I’m sure that the Onogi completely derailed it and turned it into boring shlock. Let’s see what the idea for the scene is: Major Armstrong fights Sloth. It's a tough fight, but using his mastery of alchemy and toughness, he defeats him, destroying another homunculus. That's a good scene! Instead, we have his sister, Izumi, her husband, zombies, and a bunch of nameless, faceless soldiers clogging up the frame and slowing down the action. This fight goes on for three episodes! Any tension and excitement I might have gotten out of this scene is destroyed by the fact that the editing draws it out interminably, and the fact that they keep on shoving more and more characters into the sequence, thus stacking the odds against Sloth rather than against Armstrong.

So often, characters I know nothing about are given weirdly major roles. Like the time that one chimera told Al to go against his principles and use a weapon of mass destruction created by genocide. I don’t know who this character is or what his motivations are, so I kind of have to take the show’s word for it that what he’s doing and saying makes sense.

What the smartest shonen in anime history was reduced to.

Speaking of this scene, the original reveal that the philosopher’s stone was made from human souls was actually a big deal. It was a really powerful, enchanted object. It was, well, the philosopher’s stone. Now, much like Star Wars’ lightsabers, everyone has one. Why? And the fact that so many people use these stones, including people that Ed and Al like and trust, undermines their moral dilemma about using such a horrible device. And beyond this, Al then uses the stone because this chimera tells him to. Like I said, Al did use the stone in the original series, both to increase the chances of stopping a very powerful and insane alchemist, and to save his brother’s life. In this, he uses it to... fight two people. And not even really to win. This scene renders the Elric brothers’ moral convictions and Ed’s ultimate sacrifice null and void.  So does this fucking show wind up destroying everything beautiful about the show, but only when you step back to think about it. More on that next time.