#FMA episode 15
Text
okay everybody, listen up, because I need to talk about Edward Elric. I've started watching fmab and I am losing my mind over this boy. There's so many incredible things about this kid; he's such an incredible protagonist.
the realism of Ed is so painfully wonderful- this is a fifteen year old child. Remember what you were like when you were fifteen? Yeah? Fifteen is so young. This is a child who's had to grow up WAY too fast and has been through so many unspeakable things, but he's still a kid and he actually ACTS like it. He gets irritable over small things and acts "childish" when he's excited and has that touch of arrogance a teen gets when they know they're important.
Ed gets scared. He's not like a lot of your "unshakable" shounen protagonists, who, when faced with something shocking in a fight, eyes only widen and mouth only frowns and they only worry a little and maybe ask for an explanation. No, Ed is a kid and he gets scared. Sometimes he handles fights well, but sometimes he freezes. When Scar found him and Al, when he hurt Al and tore out Ed's arm and pursued relentlessly in the rain, standing over Ed as Ed writhed on the ground, Ed screamed for his brother and froze in his fear and thought he was about to die then.
He's so fifteen in everything- in his anger and his arrogance, in his fear, in his trauma, in his reverence of life. Ed is at the age when your eyes truly start to open to reality and society, though given his past he probably started earlier. But he holds life so preciously, so closely, cradles it in his arms and declares over and over again that it is one thing he will not trample, will not hurt. That fifteen-year-old conviction and the leftover naivety from childhood, paired with the newer discovery of just how sacred, how beautiful and important life is.
He's fifteen in his love. You ever been around teenagers, especially today's teenagers, and you know they do everything fiercely, most things boldly, and Ed screams it in his love. In his protection of Al, his absolute dedication and protection to the one person he has left, can hold close. He's a teenager in their banter but such an eldest sibling in every way- in his drive to protect Al from anything, everything he can, in his leadership, in his fear of losing his sibling.
Ed is such a real person, such a real kid. He's incredibly mortal, unlike a lot of op shounen protagonists. He hits his head and it bleeds. He gets impaled and struggles to stand at all. Every time he's injured we see him recovering in the hospital after. He has nightmares from his fear of failure, about Al and his mother and Nina. He's smart but not indestructible. He's incredibly earnest about his convictions, earnest about the beauty of life, just like a teen.
Edward Elric is probably the most realistic anime teen I've ever seen, and I love him SO much
#forgive me if there's anything in here that later episodes might contradict#I'm only on episode 15#i just have a whole lot of feelings about this kid and i needed to get them out#fullmetal alchemist#fullmetal alchimist brotherhood#fma#fmab#edward elric#fma brotherhood#fma edward#character analysis
2K notes
·
View notes
Text
Seething at one of the tags on that poll saying FMA is a military + genocide apologist anime have you even WATCHED it
#It’s literally the exact OPPOSITE of that lmao#Looks at the two characters’ whose motives are to dismantle the military from the inside in order to change the country#And turn it back into a democracy and stop making Amestris a military state#LITERALLY the upper ranks of the military are corrupt as fuck and Roy sees that and he’s like. Oh HELL no. I HAVE to do smth about this#And all the OTHER military folk who are ready to be tried for their crimes in Ishval bc they KNOW it was wrong.#And they’re trying to make up for it and are ready to accept the punishment for the slaughter of so many people#AND. The last fucking 15 EPISODES of FMAB are ALL ABOUT preventing another mass genocide#Literally the culmination of the entire anime is them stopping Father from wiping out an entire country just to gain the powers of ‘god’#SORRY LMAO trying not to make waves. But FMA has got some DEEP messages and character motivations#And I hate to see takes like this. Smh#What’s that one meme where it’s like. The point of the series flies over people’s heads. That’s what this is#(If the person who wrote those tags sees this I’m sorry I prommy I’m not actually mad)#(Just trying to make a point lol)#Anyway. Coughs#FMAB sweep.#Shima speaks#FMA
118 notes
·
View notes
Text
everyone always talks about the dog girl but no one ever remembers ed getting impaled or anything else so my theory is that most people who talk about fma on the internet never made it past episode 15
#the fact that ppl talk about fma as some edgy adult anime#when its a hopeful shonen made especifically to cater to edgy teens who need softness in their life#is also evidence. i think#sounds like some of you never got to the ants island episode#im pretentious about this one okay#i think the only correct way to watch fma is being younger than 15#and i think im right#not a serious post#the actual reason is that the manga really slows after the first third#and it all gets a bit muddled
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
on account of watching the fully metalled alchemists (because @lunellum is exposing me to anime)
Roy and Riza have Pal and Cam vibes. it’s the Magic Man with Plans and Competent Normal Woman, and also i think if Roy were to blow himself up Riza would find the piece of his skull he attached himself to
#tlt#fma#fmab#there’s like 15 episodes left of fmab to watch#and imma be real ive really been enjoying it?#im surprised at the amount of capable female characters?
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
List of Small Things™ I enjoy about Fullmetal Alchemist in no particular order
Everyone in FMAB/manga is just Some Guy™ and very human and I love that so here goes:
Falman getting stuck with a serial-killing suit of armor in his appartment for days and his reaction to it. It may have been weeks. He's been on sick leave the entire time. He's a guy in his early thirties with a flock of early-greying hair because being in a dead-end-role in the military is stressfull, ok. He gets stuck at home with a funny little serial killer (and eventually some foreign body guards, and a foreign prince?? lighting signal fires in his backyard?? like man what a week)
The whole military ambush against the Devil's Nest was yes, kind of kickstarted by the gang kidnapping Al for Greed, but it was mostly kickstarted because Ed was down south to do his yearly official report and Bradley and Armstrong just happened to be present when he was informed Al had gone missing. Greed's entire operation was done in by a teen doing his paperwork
on that note, Greed really decided to spend his immortality wisely by pursuing absolutely none of his supposed ambitions and just decided to settle down with a bunch of buddies. An offshot of the buddies he was initially made to guard, too. I don't think Greed is aware of this either
everyone on that radio building. The radio host 100% down to get some coup-shenanigans into his station to drive engagement. The guys sympathising with Mrs Bradley and taking care of her. Breda taking control of the narrative with a perpetual frown by the skin of his teeth.
I know the story of how the Bradleys met is technically not canon(?) but Mrs Bradley slapping her future husband upon their first meeting because he got his flirting tips from his siblings will never not be funny. Idiots. All of them.
EVERYTHING about Darius and Heinkel. They lost their jobs and became wanted criminals upon helping out some scrawny 15 year old. They have families they miss dearly. They haven't looked back since. "You guys don't HAVE to help me save the world" - "It's not like we have anything better to do"
i was going to say the Ice Cream Truck, because it's iconic, but actually, when told to disguise a vehicle, 15-year-old pinacle of edgelord fashion Edward Elric turned it into a colourful nightmare of spikes that barely resembled a car but might be closely related to the worlds deadliest parade float. None of this was necessary. Ed is just like that.
Hawkeye growing her hair out after meeting Winry, and Winry getting piercings after seeing Hawkeye's
Denny Brosh bursting into tears when he sees Maria Ross is still alive. Dude managed to not quit his job despite working in the same city (department?) where his best friend's killer was his supervisor. They were also very real for showing us that this is a guy who oversleeps and is older brother to at least three younger siblings. There was no need to give us more on Denny Brosh but every little detail hit so hard when they reunited.
okay so remember that time Ed and Ling ate Ed's shoe. Remember that Ed spend some time on a "deserted island" as a kid. Gluttony's stomach had nothing on him. Izumi raised some anime-ass boy-scouts. 100% Farm boy behaviour. These kids are so 15 it makes me want to bite things
immortal, soul-spliced dwarf in a flask got rid of his Sloth and still managed to procrastinate on his world domination plan until the last minute. Most Human disaster.
the entire half-episode they spend on Dr. Knox and his regrets and family. FMA is so good about humanising everyone.
everyone bullied Yoki because he was a small town fraud exploiting workers for his own benefit. Simply a jerk. He also hit Pride with a car in an epic rescue, and cried and screamed the whole way through
that one shot of a kid curiously poking a soldier they found bound on the ground with a stick
(I know it's technically not canon, but-) "I'm trying to save your life, asshole!"
Edward Elric
#fmab#fullmetal alchemist brotherhood#fma#fmab meta#of course there are more#'it's not like they have a tank or something- fuck'
782 notes
·
View notes
Text
I've mentioned this a couple of times but I think another reason the live action One Piece is working so well for me is that it's bringing in a lot of comparative unknowns.
Like, you can tell that they actually took the time to actually cast the best people for the roles. Rather than doing the usual thing of going "oh we hired the best people for the roles" after the fact to try and downplay how they actually hired the person with the most recognizable face and biggest box office numbers who'd also return their calls.
Jacob Gibson had a handful of television guest star roles and did 15 episodes of a drama series that aired on the Oprah Winfrey network.
I actually thought Emily Rudd was a bigger name going in but no, that's mostly because she was in all three Fear Street movies in 2021 and a now-deleted HBO film from 2022 on top of some scattered TV guest star roles.
Taz Skylar has mostly done short films that don't have Wikipedia pages and I think this is his first main television role ever.
Inaki Godoy is more well established with television roles going back to 2015. They have seem to have been largely been Spanish-speaking roles on Mexican and Latin American networks, however, and so in terms of reporting and coverage of the show it still seems like he's being treated as a relative unknown.
Out of all of them, Mackenyu seems to be the most established name, with film and TV appearances going back to 2015 (notably as the live action Kenshin Himura and Scar from a couple of FMA movies) but y'know, you kind of want the guy who's going to be swinging swords around to have been around the block a few times.
#one piece#one piece netflix#one piece live action#inaki godoy#emily rudd#taz skylar#jacob romero gibson#mackenyu
159 notes
·
View notes
Text
Things I find are handled so interestingly well in the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist compared to Brotherhood:
Ishval! The true horror and terror of Ishval is handled so much better: it is the centre of the show’s thesis about the violence done against other people in the name of scientific progress and the empire’s violence
Speaking of: racism is handled better in this show too! The way that Ed and Al are so callous and dismissive about Ishval through most of the show, despite Marcoh’s warnings, and it really doesn’t hit them until they go there in person and realize that Rick and Rio have suffered just like them: in fact, Rick and Rio have suffered even more than them. Ed and Al can always go back to Resembool. Rick and Rio can’t. The casual racism of our main characters is really good! It’s very realistic that Ed and Al believe the racist lies about Ishval for SO LONG, despite rationally understanding the military is bad
Liore! Because Liore gets to have this back-and-forth with Ishval, you get this really strong empathy and solidarity between Rose and Scar, as this representation of Ishval and Liore: religious brown people versus the Empire coming to genocide them out of existence...the solidarity and love between Scar and Rose and the peoples of Ishval and Liore is really good!
Ed and Al really get to be kids and get to be wrong a lot? They get to be such unreliable narrators in a way that is so interesting! When they say something about alchemy or make comments on other characters, they’re often wrong and misguided! Ed’s petulance and anger and stubborn defiance and Al’s naivete and inability to question other people’s lies gets them in trouble way more often than it does in Brotherhood and it really emphasizes just how much he and Al are children out of their depth in a horrible system, in a way that Brotherhood often doesn’t.
The metaphor of alchemy: Alchemy IS science. For all its goods, it is all the evils and fallouts of unethical science: science that is done at the expense of people, science that is done in the name of greed, science that is done only in the name of violence, and with this strong metaphor, the Philosopher’s Stone as this pinnacle of progress that is built on the blood of common people is just a less complicated metaphor. Because Alchemy is science and FMA 2003 is a commentary on imperialistic, colonial science that is so directly commenting on the Gulf War, it gets to say things much more angrily than I think Brotherhood ever gets to?? You feel the anger about the lies of the Gulf War in FMA 2003 and how it parallels to WW2 better. The animators seem more angry and I enjoy that more!
(More about pacing, characterization and the overall tone of the show under the cut!)
Although the show ultimately whiffs it, the homunculi being the leftover remnants of human transmutation allows for so many climatic, interesting conflicts between both the homunculi and humans, but also between different humans! Ed and Izumi and their relationship in this show is defined by their fundamental disagreements regarding the role of alchemy and what to do with the homunculi: and it is SO good!
I love that the homunculi are resentful of humans for living and want the philosopher’s stone to be human again! I could do without them all being controlled by a mysterious entity who is so much more boring than all of the other homunculi, but hey. That happened in Brotherhood too, Father’s very boring.
Speaking of the homunculi: they are so much scarier and intimidating!! When they show up to a fight, pretty much everybody loses! It’s great! It’s not until the last 10-15 episodes of the show that Ed is able to actually put up a fight against them, so you really feel the stakes everytime they show up on screen. They kill Hughes masterfully, they beat the shit out of Scar, they beat the shit out of Ed and Al, they beat the shit out of Izumi--they’re genuinely scary and I love it! In Brotherhood, they are able to evenly fight them SO MUCH MORE QUICKLY and I think it makes them less of a threat than in 2003.
The main women in Ed and Al’s lives get so much more to do! Maria, Sheska, Izumi and Winry all have a HUGE amount of screentime compared to Brotherhood, where Winry is mostly just running around and has very little initiative to investigate the main plot! Here, she and Sheska investigate homunculi, participate in fights and really are emotionally impacted by events. Izumi barely shows up in Brotherhood ever, and she is a fundamental player in the game in 2003! And Lieutenant Maria Ross gets to really actually play the role of ‘first adult to be like CHILDREN SHOULDN’T BE IN THE ARMY’ which gives her genuine depth and emotionality.
Oh, Martel’s a real character too! She and Al are fun, I enjoy their banter and I enjoy that she gets to really emphasize to Ed and Al that Ishval was entirely a false-flag operation
Rose too! I love that Rose comes back as a real character and not cameo! I love that Rose’s rape too, is not just this moment where Ed truly and really realizes that the military does interpersonal violence, but also is something that motviates Rose herself! I love that moment where she screams at Ed to keep walking, just as he shouted at her at the beginning of the show. I love that her continuing on as a character means that Ed’s shitty speech at the beginning of the show gets to be recontextualized as a thing of strength again. I love her resilience, and I love her.
On the villain-side, at the expense of Greed being a character, Lust gets to be a very sympathetic character! I love her contemplations on why she wants to be human, I love her slow realization that she’s tired of the fight, I love her immediate betrayal of Dante once she realizes that Dante is just using her, I adore her and Envy’s petty bickering. She gets so much depth by being formerly human and being linked to Ishval.
Speaking of Winry: Roy killing Winry’s parents is just. So much better. I love how it immediately breaks Winry’s faith in the government entirely, I love how much it really and truly shows how the Amestrian military is evil. I love how it really creates this moment of weakness and vulnerability in Roy, which he doesn’t get nearly as much in the other show! Roy’s too cool in Brotherhood! I love how young, sad and pathetic he is when he kills the Rockbells, it really sells the horrors of war much better.
I really like getting to see Ed and El’s counterparts across all of the side characters: the characters that only show up for one or two episodes: everybody is brothers. Everybody is consumed by this burning posessive love. But nobody goes as far as Ed and Al are willing to. I love how they are confronted with their mistakes and failures everywhere they go! It really sets the tone of horror. It really sells Ed and Al as the protagonists of a dramatic tragedy. They made the mistake, and they will make it again, in the name of love!
A small thing: but I love that Izumi and Ed disagree with what the Gate is? I love that Ed thinks of the Gate as Truth. And Izumi doesn’t! Izumi simply thinks it is a horror. Izumi thinks that what insight the gate gave her was not truth but something else, and I agree with her. I love the idea that Ed’s conception of reality is based on him being Mr. Edgy Angsty Atheist! I love that the gate is silent in 2003, I like that there are very little answers. And I agree with Izumi! The answer to the question: what lies behind the ultimate taboo of science is NOT truth!! It doesn’t quite make sense!
Relatedly, I love that Ed learns all of his horrible communication skills and bottling everything up coping mechanisms from Izumi. They make all the same mistakes all the time! Izumi always takes everything on her shoulders even though she has help, as does Ed. Izumi never communicates her love and appreciation for the people around her, letting her actions do the speaking, as does Ed. They are terrible mirrors of each other, and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
I like that Armstrong is not comic relief? He puts on ‘Mr Muscle Man’ as a facade about three times in 2003, and every single time, it’s a distraction, it’s supposed to make people look elsewhere. Most of the time in 2003, he’s incredibly solemn and serious, as he tries to endure doing the wrong thing in the name of duty. I love that he’s still suffering the consequences of being too kind in Ishval.
I like that Mustang, Hawkeye and all our favourite main characters put Ishvalans in trains and take them off to concentration camps. It’s not very subtle with its metaphor, but it shouldn’t be. If anything, Brotherhood deeply de-emphasizes the horrendous nature of the genocidal play of the army and the constant violence they partake in. Roy and his people are so heroic in Brotherhood, and I really like how much they are complicit. How much they are ultimately soldiers who are ‘just following orders’ in a genocidal regime.
I like that they don’t turn to act for the side of good until the very end of the show. I think it highlights the stakes a bit more. I like that the show makes us doubt Roy for a lot longer before finally giving Ed hope! It’s far more cathartic!
I like that Paninya ISN’T ACTUALLY A THIEF???? I like that Paninya is just a gal who wants to make her adoptive dad proud and she steals Ed’s pocketwatch not for Winry to teach her a lesson about how ‘stealing is bad’ but that Ed gets the lesson that he’s not the only one that makes automail work for him! I love that Ed loses actually in 2003!
I really enjoy Fletcher and Russell. Fletcher especially is my good boy. He and Al should hang out more :)
I really like that Kimblee starts out as a fugitive in 2003! There is something so slimey in Brotherhood where the army just immediately takes him out of jail to track the Elric brothers: it definitely shows just how evil the Amestrian army is, but I think I prefer him being a traitor to Greed’s gang! I love how much more personal Martel makes her fury with him! I like how it takes a while for the military to take him back in here, mostly because it allows for Archer to be a character instead.
I think Archer being a character makes Kimblee more effective: Kimblee is not Ed’s enemy. He’s Scar’s enemy. And I LOVE that in 2003.
Archer’s initial attempt to do the right thing instantly being overtaken by craven greed is also a really fun arc! I just enjoy more military characters getting to be pieces of shit.
Scar gets to interact with more Ishvalan characters because he’s not tied down by far too large an entourage cast, and as a result, he is just. SO much better. I love that he and his mentor fight and talk and he ties himself to the refugees of Ishval in a way he doesn’t quite get to in Brotherhood. I LOVE his determination to make a Philosopher’s Stone out of the military’s lives. I love that he has no hesitation about it either. This is praxis!
I love that Ishvalan people’s legacy is alchemy too! I like that alchemy is the lost art, the old art, and not something that missed Ishvalans by entirely! Although I do like that Scar’s brother in Brotherhood is trying to combine alchemy and alkahestry, I LOVE that 2003 is simply him going back to Ishval’s ancient history. It makes the science metaphor more interesting, especially when you see that apparently the ancient Ishavalsn found out how to make a Philosopher’s Stone and then rejected it and alchemy entirely as a result. I think it’s really interesting worldbuilding!
I love that whole sequence where Ed kind of makes Wrath’s hatred of him worse? I love how mean and obsessive Ed can be in the show sometimes, I love how flawed and interesting he is. He really feels like a teenager lashing out against the cruel world, and it emphasizes the tragedy of it all.
I love that Hohenheim’s immortality is NOT an accident. I like that he actively did evil things to gain immortality and I like that now his is a story of regret! I think it makes Hohenheim so much more compelling when he is a man seeking repetence for an actual sin instead of being tricked? I think it’s more compelling that he has the same sins as his sons. I like that he was the first to do human transmutation and the first to make a Philosopher’s stone, and that these are Ed and Al’s legacy?? It’s so interesting and fun!
The slow pacing really allows for the tragedy to actually build! I love how slow yet purposeful all the episodes are! The only truly filler episodes are the weird episode about the sexy female thief that keeps tricking Al because Al is too horny/naive, and the Mustang Team’s side adventures. Every other filler episode is doing important work for building the themes of the show! And even the two filler episodes are doing importent things re: characterization!
Shou Tucker is such a CREEPY minor villain that is used to perfection in 2003. I love how he keeps showing up, I love how awful he is, and I love how much more significant he and Nina are to 2003, because Ed and Al spend four episodes with them instead of their story being wham-blam-ka-blam like it is in Brotherhood, where everything with them happens in 1 episode.
Laboratory Five is SO MUCH MORE DEVASTATING as a dramatic tension point for Ed! I love how much more evil it is! I love how much more hopeless the situation is. I LOVE the dramatic irony of Ed almost killing hundreds of people because he believed Shou Tucker, despite everything. It’s so good. It makes Brotherhood’s Lab Five Arc pale in comparison.
Hot Take: I kind of love that Ed goes to Nazi Germany by going through the Gate xD They don’t spend nearly enough time on it, but I kind of adore it anyway. FMA 2003 said subtlety is for cowards, and they were CORRECT!
Things I think weren’t as good but still interesting
Brotherhood really went off with making the homunculus the root of the nation-state of Amestris. I love that in Brotherhood, the state was founded for the explicit purpose of genocidal violence, and the homunuculus as simply the underside of the genocidal turn, the secret police that make the state violence seem legitimate. The hazy relationship between the military/state and the homunuculus muddies the otherwise clear message that 2003 is going for re: state violence and the role of science in perpetrating/continuing violence.
Dante’s bad. Not that Father is GOOD, not in any way, but Dante’s plan is very stupid and is very underexplained. Why do Trisha and Bradley still follow Dante when she clearly reveals she’s just using them to prolong her own life and has no intention of making them human? Why do they not immediately just turn traitor like Lust does--the show never builds any real loyalty between Dante and the other homunculi, which makes for a rushed climax, alas. (I do LOVE her and Hohenheim’s bodies physically rotting, that’s some really fun body horror! And I can’t help it, I love exes who were evil scientists and one continued to be evil, and one repented. It’s a fun trope and it was DEEPLY underutilized, alas)
I’m sad Scar died! 2003 obviously has an incredibly high body count and I defend all of them, but Scar dying is just kinda sad! I like that he has to live with himself in Brotherhood and make Ishval again.
Greed doesn’t get to do much at all, and his weird acceptance of his own death is VERY strange compared to his own acceptance of being a man so greedy that he wants everything. Although I ended up liking his role as Ed’s first murder, I think Greedling is SUCH a highlight of Brotherhood, that its absence felt jarring.
May Chang and Ling are such good characters, and I miss Xing! I think I really end up liking 2003′s laser focus on Ishval more, in the end, I think it does a better job of focusing on genocide and racial violence as the catalyst for the state’s and science’s expansion. But May and Ling are such lovely characters and I missed them.
Al’s angst about maybe not being a real person goes on for SO LONG. I forgot it’s like a full four episodes! It’s the one emotional stake that doesn’t quite feel as impactful as the rest of the show.
Sloth-Trisha had so much potential that was squandered, I loved when she finally became a fighting antagonist, but I wish they’d spent more time on Ed and Al arguing about her and what to do with her/what she means. I mean, it tracks with them both: that Al instantly goes ‘oh, homunculi are remnants of human transormati--OMIGOD MOM’S OUT THERE’ and Ed’s like ‘i refuse to think about this until the last possible minute’ it’s very in character, but it means they never get to really fight about killing Sloth-Trisha, which is a shame!
#fullmetal alchemist#fma#i have way too many opinions#haha#these are all deeply personal and subjective of course#if you like brotherhood more still YOU ARE SO VALID#there's a lot to love about brotherhood!#but i have such ADORATION in my heart for 2003 and what 2003 angrily says#i think ultimately 2003 is just a genre i enjoy more#2003 is a dramatic tragedy and a horror anime while also following some shonen tropes#while brotherhood is just full on shonen#and brotherhood is good shonen!! but i just enjoy horror and tragedy so so much more#which is why i have such deep love in my heart for 2003
129 notes
·
View notes
Text
what the fuck how did KND do the Fullmetal Alchemist plot before it was even finished.
Warning: spoilers below if you've never read/watched Fullmetal Alchemist. (and you should, it's very good)
I thought it was a reference, but I looked it up, at the time of the episode's airing, the manga wasn't even at the correct point in the story in order to be a reference.
Heinrick is literally taking their strengths and turning them into extra delicious caramels, which I thought was a tamer reference to the philosopher's stones.
Heinrick then plans to connect several treehouses in a circle on the map in order to make a larger area to get even more caramels from the people inside it, which I also thought was a reference to the big reveal at the end of FMA, that the whole city was an alchemy circle that would kill everyone inside for more PS's.
Heinrick even says at the beginning that they can't get something from nothing, but is the first law of alchemy stated in the very beginning of FMA.
But this operation aired on Nov 16, 2007, and at this time, the FMA manga was somewhere in volume 15, so it was nowhere near this big reveal, and therefore cannot be a reference.
KND literally predicted FMA without even knowing it somehow lmao.
#torra rambles#codename kids next door#knd#I thought for sure it was a reference#they've done other pop culture references before#even anime ones... looking at DBZ numbuh 4#this is blowing my mind rn lmao
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
it's 5 am so I might as well start huffing copium in public
what is going through my head is the difficulty of doing a reboot. for all that fma: brotherhood is praised, the first batch of episodes that tread pretty much identical water to the first anime are actually paced more poorly, comparatively. shou tucker and nina don't hit the same, striking pages from the manga that were recreated in anime form aren't recreated again. not to mention the first episode was anime original and made to foreshadow the different direction the plot is about to go. and i remember at the time being mildly bummed about it (however excited i was to get a manga accurate anime at all - of course i was one of the glasses pushing 'the manga was better' weebs who wanted to see the xingese characters and fort briggs).
but like, i get it. in the grand scheme of the anime, it's a drop in the bucket before episode 15 hits and you realize the plot is going somewhere very different.
when i think of the trigun anime, i have a lot of fond memories of it. it was one of my formative shows growing up, that we shared among our friends group on burned DVDs. but when i think about the story... i don't think about the first half of the series that much. the high stakes of legato and the gung ho guns are that much more striking in my memory compared to the tone-setting shenanigans of random bandits.
and you can't put that back in the bottle. i don't think modern anime can afford to spend 11 episodes without so much as a hint of the bigger bad that the whole series is about, in the same way that we don't have the patience to watch goku charge up for a whole episode. a reboot needs to get to the 'here is the thing that is going to make me different' right from the get go - and trigun stampede does that in the first first shot. it's not a twist, we know this is a sci-fi. they lean into it.
hell the entire art direction of stampede would not be able to hold up the facade of being purely a western until a mid-series pivot reveal of SPACE. even looking at the colour palette of dusty gunsmoke to no man's land, you can tell they're not going for the same thing. it is an investment in where the story is going to go, not a recreation of what exists.
and it's on that train of thought where i pin my hopes on meryl, and the changes that were made that make up the majority of the gripes with stampede. ('all 3d anime is ugly' holdouts have no rights here, they don't count.) meryl has always started in the story from a position of naiveté - but she's an earnest go getter who will throw herself into situations for the sake of her job (reducing damage to mitigate insurance payouts). what i find interesting about the change from her to a journalist, AND her as a junior instead of the senior in a dynamic, is that the room for upward growth has been opened up. having someone to tell her no, don't put yourself at risk, and then she chooses to do it anyway, is a different kind of agency. in a way it mirrors vash where the world tells him no, pacifism is stupid and unrealistic, but he lives by it anyway, to great cost. and there is going to be a breaking of meryl's naiveté, as there always is in this kind of story, but she's going to power on through.
i can only hope that her character trajectory involves derringers. is2g don't let me down, Orange
(all that and i'm still convinced milly will appear eventually as a supporting character. i mean if for no other reason than to give wolfwood a no homo love interest, right.)
#trigun stampede#meryl stryfe#i do wish she looked older though#visually looks like a teenager when she's a college grad c'mon there's not enough adults in anime
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
Squinting at the blorbos like rats in a lab
Tags are minimal unfortunately, this is a personal blog so it’s a barrage of all sorts! I DO tag critical role spoilers with #critical role spoilers and #cr spoilers, given I often liveblog, and will tag until the episode is on YouTube.
I also do fanfic! You can find me on AO3 at umwelt!
My main ongoing project is my 'Age of Arcanum Perc'ahlia AU', where Vax is the Warden of Ravens, Vex'ahlia his (lonely) Champion, and Percival is the creator of aeormatons. I tag posts about the au #age of arcanum AU if interested!
Prologue ... CH 3
Cat's Cradle is currently a WIP on hiatus, under #cat’s cradle AU, a lil modern Perc’ahlia AU with foster kittens. Compiling chapters on AO3, but tumblr stays a few chapters ahead:
CH 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15
My big completed project is my 'Raven Queen’s champion instead ' AU. You can find posts about it under #vex is the raven queen’s champion AU.
Some writing, sneak peaks and ask games happen here on tumblr, too. More than some. oops.
You can [hopefully, assuming Tumblr behaves] find my writing under the tag #my writing, and ask under #ask game usually!
Like what I do? Consider buying me a coffee so I can stay sane enough to finish these WIPs! And my thesis!
I do not take requests. Prompts are only when I’ve RB’d a relevant prompt game - I’m in gradschool, assume I’m busy by default lol
Projects:
Architect of our demise [onwards to Vasselheim!]
Cat's cradle / Kitten AU [on hiatus for Uni]
Daughters or Dolls [plotting, title is a wip]
Second chapter to My heart’s a vessel for ill intent? [not started]
Perc’ahlia travel troubles comfort fic [half-done?]
Recoil chapter 2 [dusty wip, like a quarter done?]
And so will I chapter 3, Jester [dusty wip]
Nursery rhymes as told by briarpatches chapter 4, Greypool [dusty wip, half done?]
Vex’s menial duties as Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt [got one thing done?]
Kyssandra hide and seek fic [birthday gift for Burr <3]
Vex and Vax in the Slayer's Take in TLOVM [Vexahra for Nova <33]
AUs:
Vex is the Raven Queen’s Champion AU [One for sorrow / Two for joy]
Modern AU bottlefeeding kittens [Cat’s Cradle]
Age of Arcanum AU [Architect of our demise]
Delilah controls Laudna’s heartbeat [My heart’s a vessel]
Filles du roi Perc'ahlia AU [historical Québec au, plottin]
Ruidusborn!Percy AU [just ideas]
Leona runs off to the Cobalt Soul AU [maybe a quarter done?]
MILF and DILF Perc'ahlia marriage of convenience [posted part 1!]
Percy is the pact weapon AU [Get your hands dirty]
2/3 Vampires Bashter AU [got that one snippet to work off of]
Tiefling!Percy AU [brainchild with Essay <333]
FMA AU [A whole mess, one ficlet posted]
Fox woman dreaming AU [1/2 posted]
Just tons of random Gilmore/Vax’ildan/Keyleth shit bc i lov the thems
Perc’ahlia Atlantis AU [just in my brain and that One Screencap Redraw]
Accurate Jurassic Park AU [just vague mushing my two special interests together thots]
'The tale of Merciful and Lex' [Jester reads a smut novel 100% inspired by the de Rolos]
Ships:
OTPs are currently Perc’ahlia, Imodna and Laudmoore in that order. I usually only read fics of these ships bar rare exceptions.* NOTPs that are common enough to be worth mentioning are Widobrave, Widojest, Riprolo, anything remotely incesty or toeing the grooming line. I don’t want to interact with this content don’t fuckin make me.
Ships that aren’t my absolute feral loves, buuut that I’d be happy to write for are man. All canon CR ships, plus Beaujester, Bashter, Kiki/Vax/Gil, Callowmoore, Dorym, Chetney/Fearne, Widomauk, Kiki/Vex/Percy [with a huge *], onesided Tary/Percy, all fun! Also getting into the rarepair of Cassandra/Laudna for Reasons, and any Ace!Cass x NPCs her age.
Beyond that, just, y’know. Use basic critical thinking. Do I really need to write ‘hey! Don’t send me, a stranger, things you wouldn’t talk to a stranger about’? I have faith in y’all not to, for now ktrgnkrtnkgn
Have fun foraging through my blog - hope you find a few things of interest, writing or otherwise! <3
41 notes
·
View notes
Text
when i was 14/15 streaming wasn't a thing yet and i didn't have a personal computer of my own yet nor the guts or knowhow pirate things over the internet so my sister and i used to watch anime by checking out the HUGE dvd binders of inuyasha and fma they had at the library (bc sometimes there would be a LOT of dvds per season), buffing out the scratches, and then staying up late in our room watching as much as we could in one sitting on the shitty family laptop.
Anyway, Funimation used to bundle a few episodes of Mr. Stain on Junk Alley onto dvd releases of other anime, as an extra, to drum up interest, and I think about that a lot because I really remember encountering it completely unexpectedly for the first time and being both kind of disturbed but also utterly fascinated by finding a weird piece of art in an unexpected place. It's a precious feeling to have that sort of experience, in retrospect.
23 notes
·
View notes
Note
Nick r u an anime guy? Can I recommend fma or aot?
I actually watched the first 15 or 16 episodes of fmab in one sitting and then got overwhelmed and took a break and then never went back to finish it. But I need to watch all of it, it’s so good
#asks#enduring problem is that I prefer subs but social media has destroyed my attention span#so I have to be in a specific mood to sit down and pay attention
23 notes
·
View notes
Photo
@snowflakechallenge sent us on a scavenger hunt again!
Challenge #6 In your own space, post the results of your fandom scavenger hunt. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture or description of something that is or represents:
1. A favorite character: Howard McKenzie
2. Something that makes you laugh: my Peepoodo plushie
3. A bookshelf: have three shelves out of my several bookcases
4. A game or hobby you enjoy: knitting
5. Something you find comforting: look at my bed it has curtains and an unicorn bolster pillow
6. A TV show or movie you hope more people will watch: LastMan again
7. A piece of clothing you love: my Mars Express hoodie
8. A thing from an old fandom: I don't want to consider FMA an ~old~ fandom but... this CD case holding fansubbed episodes from... 15 years ago??
9. A thing from a new fandom: my e-reader opened on my Arcane fic collection, I've downloaded already over 500
#snowflakechallenge2023#lastman#peepoodo#howard mckenzie#mars express#oh no i'm too afraid to tag the other featured fandoms
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
The best way to experience FMA is actually watching the first 25 episodes of the 2003 anime and then skipping straight to episode 15 or 16 in Brotherhood because those first 25 eps cover a lot of stuff that Brotherhood outright skipped because it assumes you’ve seen 2003 and so know everything about the boys’ backstory, Nina, Rose and the Hughes death. Believe me I love and adore Brotherhood but those events all hit harder in 2003
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
got tagged by @roycogaystar to do the TV Questionnaire
List 5 favourite shows (in no particular order) and answer questions accordingly
Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood) SPOILERS!!!!!!!
Mob Psycho 100
Hannibal
One Piece
Saiki K
1. Who is your favourite character in 2?
Shigeo or Reigen, but Ritsu in s1 is so fucking relatable just ughhghghgh
2. Who is your least favourite character in 1?
I WAS ABOUT TO SAY NOONE BUT I FORGOT THAT ONE GUY EXISTS
SPOILERS!!! Shou Tucker
3. What's your favourite episode of 4?
im gonna go with arcs and then its probably that one filler arc, G-8 (other than that dressrosa, marineford alabasta or water 7)
4. What is your favourite season of 5?
the first because its the only one with a dub
5. What's your favourite relationship in 3?
uh uhm lesbians? not sure tbh
6. Who is your anti relationship in 2?
uuhmm ,,, theres litterally none??
7. How long have you watched 1?
first watched fma in 2013 and since ive watched brotherhood ive been rewatching it at least once a year
8. How did you become interested in 3?
i dont remember its so long ago
9. Who is your favourite actor in 4?
-
10. Which show do you prefer 1, 2 or 5?
1, forever 1
11. Which show have you seen more episodes of 1 or 3?
1
12. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?
random civilian on a far off island away from all the chaos, im not dealing with all that
13. How would you kill off your favourite character in 5?
accident, but like a stupid avoidable one (i also have the most angsty way but lets not entertain that idea, also im not telling who)
14. Would a 3/4 crossover work?
im?? not sure how???
15. Pair two characters in 1 that would make an unlikely, but strangely okay couple.
Sheska and Fokker? (they talked once) or Paninya and Winry? (but idk cause ed and winry are one of THE couples)
16. Overall, which show has the better cast, 3 or 5?
sweating nervously (3?)
not tagging anyone, but do it if u want to :)
#finding 5 rlly is so difficult hhh#randomized it so noone will know which i thought of first hehe#didnt know how to answer half these questions tbh#but ig???#also added saiki k because of the amount that ive watched it like this is my go to when i need sth on in the background#my watch during breakfast show
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fullmetal Alchemist is Overrated
*Spoilers*
After absorbing FMA through cultural osmosis for like 15 years I finally watched Brotherhood and I'm not really getting the hype. It's a good show, but I'm having a hard time seeing it as more than that.
My first issue is that I don't find the Elrics very interesting as protagonists. Their origin story is iconic and interesting, but beyond that Ed is bland, shonen kid and Alphonse is passive for most of the story. To be fair it's an ensemble cast and some other characters make up for Ed and Al, but they're the main focus. I'd like to be invested in them, but I was mostly uninterested.
None of the humor landed for me at all, which is bad because it pops up a lot to 'lighten the mood.' Is anyone laughing at short jokes or people mistaking Al for the Fullmetal Alchemist more than once? It was tired by episode one and I'm just forced to roll my eyes for the rest of the series when it shows up. The only thing that reliably made me chuckle was Alex showing up and being demonstrative as hell.
I'll say it, I find alchemy boring as used in the story. I was expecting a Nen (Hunter x Hunter) system where every alchemist has really unique, cool powers that have to be carefully counteracted, but most fights just amount to launching the alchemist's element at the bad guy. I laughed out loud a few times when Ed would get into a big fight and whip out his... dinky little arm blade. Like you can control matter and that's what you're bringing to the table? I wanted more imaginative alchemy, is all.
Finally, I found my suspension of disbelief failing a lot in regard to the writing. For example Alphose sitting with Pride in the dome and just letting him tap rhythmically, repetitively on his helmet for half a day. Boi have you never heard of morse code, and beyond that why wouldn't you just take your helmet back anyway?! Ridiculous.
Also the gang not letting Roy kill Envy. That made me mad. I get it, he who hunts monsters, but Roy hasn't been shown to be psychopathic at all for the whole series. He's been remarkably level-headed and stable given the situation. And if anyone deserves to be burned to a crisp it's the monster gleefully absorbing people and starting civil wars and who also killed Roy's best friend. I never bought that Roy would start down a path of madness after killing Envy, it felt contrived to serve the no-killing theme (which was done much better in Trigun BTW) There were enough additional examples that it hurt my enjoyment of the show overall (Like Envy tricking what's-her-name into bringing him back to Central. I know she's a kid, but really? You're going to believe this guy after everything he's done?)
I can't fault the look and character design, that's for sure. The characters are very recognizable and appealing. I think my favorites overall are the Armstrong siblings and Roy. The animation is at minimum good for the whole run and when they splurge for the big fight scenes it's excellent. I didn't like the backgrounds, but that's not much of a knock.
So yeah it's a light 7/10 for me. I can see the appeal, but I feel like almost everything here has been done better elsewhere. Like in HxH ~
5 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
tucarrofavoritointernacional
@Tucarrofavorito Internacional
malleusarcanum
Malleusarcañum
sonic-oc-central
Sonic OC Central
m0on-boys
Then why'd he put the devil in me?