Hey folks, there's a pause on the scans. I caught up to myself ^^; cleaning up the scan and stitching them so they look seamless (and colour balanced between pages) takes a bit of time when the art gets busy (I'm specifically looking at all the Lab 5 illustrations >> ). So, give me a bit to get through them and that'll be a wrap for Artbook 1!
For the second time in 3 months, for Fullmetal Alchemist's popularity brings it back as the cover feature on Newtype Magazine for March 2004 with 10 full pages of info. Let's look inside!
Looking ahead at the upcoming story elements, we get our first look at the Laboratory 5 story line with four pages.
We have a two page spread covering the ladies of the show, then another two page spread featuring interviews with Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya, Tōru Ōkawa, and Keiji Fujiwara. The last two pages are dedicated to the secondary characters we've been introduced to over the last few weeks, plus a bit of information on the new OP/ED everyone's been enjoying!
Monthly rankings!
FMA lands at #2 most popular show going into March after sitting in #1 entering February (Flame vs Fullmetal did great things for the popularity!).
Ed occupies #2 most popular male character (down from #1 in Feb), Roy holds steady at #5. Riza sits at #3 most popular female character (down from #2), and Winry is at #5 (down from #3). FMA DVD 1 ranks #3 best selling anime DVD behind Gundam Seed Vol 10 and Nausica Valley of the Wind's first DVD release (previously VHS only).
And still crushing it 3 months later, Melissa comes in as the 2nd best selling anime single, just behind the new Astroboy theme song.
Finally, the Furoku purchase bonus this month is an FMA sticker book, with 10 pages of stickers from the illustrations featured in Newtype the prior few months!
For the April preview, Gundam returns to the cover, but don't worry there's going to be a whole lot more FMA too!