nice rant… very informitive. I still like the anime… but i like the manga too. like with most movies that were books first, i keep the two seperate. The manga is amazing as a manga (and one could prolly whine all day about it not being turned properly into an anime) but the anime is its own entity… and i was entertained enough not to completely write it off. I read the manga too… but i try not to get pissed when something isnt carried to movie form properly. Ill just reread the book if im disappointed Does that make sence?

Yea… I thought, when I saw an episode of FMA on tv and then power watched downloaded episodes that it was like, THE BEST THING EVAR.
I liked the idea of the alchemy thing enough to ignore (kinda) that they go to germany (or something).

Then someone showed me the manga and I read the first 41 volumes. And I was like, damnit…

Also Ling Yao should’ve been in it.

And really, Nazis? And gypsies. Why.

I totally agree. I started watching the anime when it came on Adult Swim, and after the first episode or two I couldn’t wait for episodes a whole week so I decided to read the anime. You forgot to mention how the beginning timeline in the manga makes SOOO much more sense than the anime’s timeline. Anyways, I still wait with bated breath for each new manga chapter and can hardly bring myself to watch the anime any mroe. My friend is a lover of the anime and has never read the manga, and I’ve told her over and over how much better it is but she’s still to stubborn to read it.

Ling is definitely one of my favorite characters, and Scar has a lot better role in the manga. And Al. Much better.

*claps*

A fine rant and one I’ll stand behind completely…!

I’ll admit, first time through, I loved the anime. Then again, I hadn’t read the manga at the time. I watched the anime through completely once again after reading the first 10 volumes of the manga and I was like “How stupid was I again?!”

By the way, one point I wish to agree tremendously with: Evny’s true form. Amen, sister! That manga owns with that. That thing was a beast and the fight with it was awesome, as was its location.

@Ayries noooo. I will not subject myself to the film. Also it seems like they made Ed even GAYER looking for that. Argh.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard as I did while reading this. I must admit I’m a -HUEG- fan of Fullmetal Alchemist in general, and somewhat enjoyed the anime when I first saw it. After that, though, I actually realised how stupid the whole plot was.
I totally agree with everything you’ve said here. Especially the “Avatar State” bit. xD

Also, I agree – Major General Armstrong is quite hot. ;D

Bah. I wrote this whole “OMGYESTHANKYOU” flail-rant, and the interwebs ate it. Darn.

You know my stance on this, more or less anyway. And yeah, watching through it a second time makes me realise how thoroughly distorted the anime is. Poor, poor Arakawa. On the plus side, I hardly ever see terrifying fanfiction based on the manga. It’s always the anime.

I completely agree that they fucked up the anime, but they did a really good job with the voices in the English version. I adored Al’s voice, and the voice-actor commentaries on some of the dvd’s were awesome. ha ha ha, bowl…

@Joobles yeah the dub was really well cast, I liked Ed’s voice actor too, for one he was actually a pretty good actor, especially for an anime dub, for two he fit the character much more than the Japanese voice actor did, I think (it’s bad enough anime!ED LOOKS like a little girl, now he has to SOUND like one too? And yes, I am used to hearing women play young men in anime, but this instance was bad), even if he sounded a little too old in flashbacks and stuff.

And to add. Am I the only one who noticed the corrolation between how the Anime had a good beginning with a shit-ass confusing ending and how Final Fantasy 8 had the same deal going on?

You have encouraged me to find the manga!!

And… I don’t even remember the ending. I think I just stopped paying attention after a while. Also… my mom
s a HUGE anime fan, and she thought it was confusing, too.

And on the note of Viz fucking up speech bubbles, I saw it in one of the OLDER volumes of Ranma 1/2 I recently acquired. This has been going on for a while, I think.

“Provided, of course, you get a copy where Viz hasn’t fucked up the text balloons…”

Should I be worried about the versions they sell at Borders/Barnes and Noble? Would it be better if I just read them at readmanga.com? I usually prefer to buy books that I read but if the standard paperback versions are badly edited/censored, I’ll just read it online.

I think that the worst thing of all is when you pop one of the DVDs into a player, and you are FORCED to watch an excruciatingly long trailer for some dumb dragonball crap. No skipping with chapter button, menu button, fast forward, or knocking yourself unconscious.

Suffice to say, I only own two discs and they haven’t seen light for a year or two.

The show was definitely too long. I have a general policy of not caring for a show more than a season long, a rule that applies mostly to anime.

Was Maes Hughes any more awesome in the manga, because that’d be a swing factor for me.

@Betalogan AGH! YES! I completely forgot about that. GodDAMNIT FUNimation, yes, we know, you’ve made DBZ a staple, and maybe someone cared 8 years ago.

I’m considering selling the FMA DVDs I have. I’m reluctant only because the animation is good and the first few episodes aren’t that bad.

And yeah, more Hughes in the manga, though he still.. dies in the same manner although you really see it haunt Roy more throughout the manga. He does -not- let it go.

I shall quote Ed: “THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!1!”

The anime, I mean.

You’re right, after reading the manga and comparing it to the anime I realized just how much it didn’t. Fucking. Make. Sense.

Quit making me longing to go manga shopping again, damn you!

Wait, whaddya mean a version Viz hasn’t screwed up? Did they make a 2nd edition of their FMA manga or something?

The site is pretty informative, and while I was looking for a reason to buy the manga… well, I suppose I have.

As a former hardcore FMA fan, I both agree and disagree with you. I totally agree the anime was lame compared to the manga. However, there weer something in the anime I liked. You don’t have to agree with them, I’m just expressing a different viewpoint.

I prefer anime!Ed in some aspects. He’s a more vulnerable person, instead of the cliche invincible shonen hero. This made him a more interesting character to me, because he was a bit more human in some regards (though Ed’s social awkwardness was equally as human). I do agree that anime!Ed was too whiny at times, but I did like seeing a shonen hero that differed from Naruto Uzumaki and Ichigo Kurosaki (I do like Bleach though, since it is weird and silly. Naruto is just annoying). I think a combination of the two would be the prefect version of Ed- the vulnerability of the anime and the awkwardness of the manga.

I preferred anime!Lust as well. Her back story was interesting, and she quickly became my favorite homunculi (with Gluttony as second and the manga’s second Greed as third). I agree with you on hte rest of the homunculi though.

And I know these are minor complaints, but I preferred anime!Winry’s design, and I liked that the anime had more Schiezka. I liked that anime!Winry was a lot taller than Ed-I thought that was cute and that Arakawa would have fun with that. And as a Ed/Schiezka fan, I would’ve loved to see more interaction between them in the manga. Also, I hate EdWin, and the manga has a lot of that. I love Ed (though not in a fangirlish way- I prefer more masculine men. I just think he’s an interesting character), and can tolerate Winry, but I don’t think Ed and Winry make a good couple. Though the manga has more Royai, which makes me happy.

Otherwise, word. I spent all night after watching anime finale (about two months before [as] aired it) trying to figure out what the hell happened. I was able to download a fansub of the move, hoping this would help me understand what happened, but the movie was even worse. I think that the finale was an interesting concept, but was terribly executed and ended up looking really sloppy.

I’m so behind on the manga…I’m only on chapter sixty. I can’t wait to see this Major General Armstrong character!

Okay. This time I’m going t copy this comment, so if the interweb decides to snack on it, I’ll just paste it in again.

You covered like… everything. Definitely the two things that irk me most in the anime are the floppity plot and Anime!Al. They squash around with the order of events (let’s do the time warp agaaaaaain~!)for some reason that has yet to become clear. It did not make the characters stronger, nor did it clear up any confusion for me when I first started watching the series. And Majahal. What? Rofl, soul dollies. That part made me think I had missed a whole DVD volume (as I was watching it on my friend’s DVDs), and wonder what the heck was going on. “Hey… aren’t soul transmutations hard to do?”

Then there’s the whole deal with “What is a soul?”. The writing for the series would have been a lot more solid as a whole if they had given some kind of philosophical guess or something. Instead, they make the question seem important, and then leave us hanging without addressing the thought ever again. A soul is… something to do with Germany, clearly. So says the mighty anime. :B

And Al. What. In the anime, he’s mopey, childish and sometimes even selfish. Okay, to be fair, perhaps we can blame Anime!Ed for rubbing all that off on him. In the manga, he’s serious, he’s blunt and he’s not going to stand there and take Ed’s chilishness. Nope! He’s going to yell at him and prove he’s a force to be reckoned with. Can we get some brotherly respect here, please? In the manga, we sure did. In the anime? I still don’t think so.

The ending just shows what a selfish emo little blob of… emo he was being. “Onoes@ I won’t defend myself and the freaking Philosophers’ Stone. I’ll angst here and get stolen and wait until Indiana Ed saves me!” The real irony there is that if he had defended himself in the first place, Gluttony wouldn’t have eaten some of the stone, he wouldn’t have had to transmute to get off the Spiderman circle he was web-glued to, and there might have been enough stone to make himself human AND bring Ed back. Oh, but wait. If he hadn’t gotten stolen in the first place, Ed wouldn’t have died at all. Way to go, Al.

Really.

I’m suspecting that’s why Adult Swim puts FMA on way late at night, so that they can trick the sleep-deluded minds into thinking the fucked up anime is better than any other shit ‘likeomgwhoot11!1′ yeah…

I was a victim to the delusion till my friend bought the manga and I read chapter 1

seriously, that ending in the anime is screwed five times over in the ass

~Wits

You don’t know how much I love you for this. I totally agree that there’s a lot of twisted plots found in the anime itself. And always it has to be about the ending point. God save these STUDIOS! There’s always weird conversations like “What are you going to do next” that gave out how much I’m wasting my time over a filler epic. =.=

The manga is indeed awesome! AnimeEd is too emo and often weeps. And they DESTROYED IZUMI! GOD DAMN IT! What happen to the lady who manage to kill a bear with her own bare hands! *________* While as Al looks extremely pathetic everytime. =__= So much for cooperation amongst siblings.

Oh the ending…I remember once saying WTF?! And my brother went like “OMG SO COOL” I didn’t have the heart to hurt his feelings but I did say it was “plain nice”. Yes very nice indeed, now explain to me how much of this “Alternative Universe” has become a fanatic amongst the mediua world? O.o I’m seriously fed up with it. It doesn’t even differ the true FMA from the rest. =.= Damn ANIMES! THEY RUIN EVERYTHING.

And the hell, Winry sneaking into military through a uniform and tapped into the lines only to be found by AnimeEd’s mother. She stay there and says…”They’re mother?” and she goes like “…” got caught off-guard. WTH? Is she even suppose to react like that to a mere girl when she actually pimp slap Ed. Wrath…ANNOYING!!! WHY DID HE EXIST DAMN IT! ALL VOTE FOR MANGAPRIDE!!!

Riza Hawakeye, indeed a woman to be respected…and the key link as to why Taisa here is close to her . It was all so cool, the role as the daughter of Mustang’s teacher who’ve research over what became Mustang strength today. And the important role Riza plays in all of it.

Dante…nightmares resurrect =____= I should have avoided it but now that I read these comments my irkness for her returns from the dead. And here I thought I finally manage to destroy it. Goes to show how effective she used the stone to come back from the dead. Is Bones really that cheap as to say Homonculus our 7 sins ofcourse save Sloth are being played in the hands of lovers who can’t love each other anymore. nd for some odd reason, she knows alchemy, made love with a thousand man and claims to have an intention of raping Ed as her’s lover son?

Ewww…all the girls around AnimeEd makes him look like a pimp. ;____: I’m quite a fan of Ed and Winry…I love the manga~! How he saved her from attaining revenge on Scar and the part in his absurb imagination, Riza and her dog goes “Ohoho…” MODE the minute he recalled about her straightforward question “Do you love Winry?”

Wars and wars they even made the city dissapear in one night, just to keep the secret and suddenly, reveal and foiled the whole plan to mere humans about the way to make the stone. =.= IT’S SUPPOSE TO BE A SECRET DAMN IT! A SECRET! :3 I love the manga anyway. It’s not that I’m critising that the anime sucks which might partially be the point as how they ruined FMA from the true FMA, however I’m plainly stating that there too much plot holes that don’t come together. Children can be fascinated with the blow up effects, vigrous movements, animtation to the maximun but it won’t fool those who’re passionate about the plot. The anime has a lot of good points just that the manga alone manage to kill off every effective points these animes hold.

LONG STORY SHORT: I love your rant! FMA IS GOOD! FMA MANGA IS ICHIBAN AND THE BEST!

manga*

Well, I agree more or less fully with that rant. I’m somewhat terribly new to anime/manga stuff, having watched / read just a handful of them – but never in my dreams I’ve witnessed monumental plot rape of this proportions.

It’s not that manga differs from anime, it’s completely different. Even at the beginning the core of the story is different, despite being based on blocks of scenes known from manga. But since 30ish-40ish, they have nothing in common.

Even if you don’t like reading mangas, it’s worth to checking out this one.

I agree fullheartedly. My friends got me hooked on the manga just a few weeks ago (I read a volume a day right now, it’s not difficult thanks to Hiromu’s talent) and so I decided to watch the anime to see if it was any good and after the episode with laboratory 5 I began thinking to myself “you know, f this, why am I even bothering? I know the manga’s 10 times better and this crap doesn’t follow the plot at all…” I think I’m just going to quit watching it now that I know how bad then ending is. I made it to episode 31, I don’t know how I suffered through all that…

Hell yes, THANK YOU!

I started watching FMA anime over Christmas break, (Saw the episode about the mines on Adultswim and thought it sounded pretty good. I was suffering Naruto deprivation, so I needed something.) and I was immediately impressed with the complex characters and ideas. So I watched the entire thing. I loved the entire thing until I hit the last episode. So much seemed WAY off. Then I watched the movie, and I remember my response being “WHAT THE F–K?!” I actually stomped away from my computer. I had never been so disappointed with an ending.

Fortunately, in my grief, I obsessively searched fansites and, low and behold, apparently the manga is quite different from the anime and it’s still being written.

I had only read like, 10 issues, (maybe more)before I decided that the anime was basically crap compared to the amazingness that defined the manga. I was reading from the start of the manga, so there were moments I was like, “Boy I don’t want to read the ‘Barry the chopper arch’ or the ‘Izumi’s kid Wrath’ arch” and guess what? All the parts of the story I didn’t care for, weren’t in the manga.

Other bits:
-Yes, Ed cries too much in the anime.
-Ed and Al make up WAY better in the manga.
-Major General Armstrong is just damn awesome. I remember reading that and just being so impressed with her.
-Izumi is awesome in the manga too.
-The “Al’s body” scenario in the manga makes more sense.
-The homunculi in the manga are cooler and more believable as baddies than in the anime. Plus I have more ‘respect’ for them, I guess. (No melodrama!)(Yes, Envy is badass.)
-The Ishbal rebellion was better covered in the manga. And though you didn’t mention it: Mustang kills Winry’s parents? (Please, I mean come on, the military would be more subtle than that if they were gonna do it.)Makes more sense in the manga.
-I HATED WRATH OF THE ANIME. DAMN WHINY KID. ALMOST AS BAD AS ENVY=ED’s HALF BROTHER.

There’s more I’d love to commiserate with, but I’ve ranted enough, and I basically agree with you anyway. I really wish they’d reanimate the series exactly like the manga, though. Seeing Envy’s true form WOULD be pretty cool.

I totally agree with everything written here. All the way through I was nodding my head and gaining strange looks from my parents.

Warning: Long reply headed your way

About two years ago I had FMA recommended to me, and so I downloaded the whole damn thing in one go. (I seriously hate watching one at a time, and then having to wait.) It started off awesome.

In no time at all I knew all the lyrics to the first opening and ending songs. Yes, I am a sad obsessor.

They just couldn’t make it last, could they? Around episode 24-ish (The one where Al goes all *boohoo* about his ‘fake’ memories) I started to question whether this really was the all singing, all dancing ‘best anime ever’ it was heralded to be.

A few episodes on and I was wondering why I bothered. The script writing was utter garbage and the plot was going absolutely nowhere. But I plodded on, and wrapped it up in about two weeks.

I will shamefully step forward and admit that my heartstrings are tugged at very easily. I did cry in the second to last episode. ‘Death.’ What an original title by the way, doesn’t give anything away at all.. *cough*

My favourite episode by far, was probably number 13. ‘Flame vs. Full metal’. Only because of the hilarity involving Hughes. And the famous mini-skirt line.

I was content with knowing that, if I ever felt the need for more FMA I could turn to the manga. And after a while I did start craving more. I am stupid, however, and thought the only way to attain it was through buying the damn things, and I had no guarantee it was any better.

As soon as I found out there was going to be a movie, I cried ‘Yes! A chance for them to redeem themselves’ (Or something along those lines..)

And I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more.

And I really shouldn’t've waited, should I? It. Was. TERRIBLE.

What the fuck was with the fucking NAZIS?! I mean, WHY?! I have to say, that woman who was obsessed with what she called ‘Shambala’ (Why…?) is my least favourite character. Ever. In anything. I actually LIKE most villains, but she was just.. And what was with the weird-ass face tats?

But yeah, anyway. I was hoping that there would be some great touching brotherly reminiscent scenes between Ed and Al. Where I could squee and go all fangirl-ish with my big bowl of popcorn (which ended up all over the TV screen). But nope. Nothing. ZILCH.

I mean, there really was hardly any interaction between the brothers considering how LONG the damn thing was! It was all this weird ‘Noa’ business. What. The. Hell? I hated Roze in the series, I didn’t want another one!

I (Being the sad, sad, Edward x Winry fangirl I am) was also hoping for at least more than thirty seconds of Winry on screen! But no. They can’t even manage THAT. ¬¬

And then I logged on to onemanga.com, and all my worries were relieved. I had no idea the manga was ongoing until I found a comparison essay-ish thing (Rather like this one, except nowhere near as funny. Kudos for that by the way, loved the captions!) wondering how the manga would end.

It is truly awesome. Arawaka-sensei, I praise thee!

Once again, well done for picking up on a few (I say a few, because there are more than three-hundred, I’m guessing?) of the points that have pissed me off SO bad for the past two years.

I agree with you all the way!!!!
The anime SUCKS (it deserves all caps) compared to the manga!
Manga > anime
That was aesome…I thank you for being awsomely nerdy and writing that.

Also, another thing I would’ve mentioned (but I’m not sure how long ago this was posted) would be Hawkeye. Everything about her! I mean…I want to know what voice they would’ve given Daddy Hawkeye D: I’m too curious for my own good DX AND RANFAN D: I love her xD She’s so cute…and, like, the arm thing! D: That could’ve been animated so well DD:

Oh, you. I like the manga much more than the anime, and am quite disappointed that the rest of the manga won’t be put into anime form (as the design of the anime, and the animation, and the soundtrack….just wonderful)…but your argument is incredibly flawed. You seem to be missing a lot of the key points. What the heck are Nazi’s doing there? I mean, the Nazi’s were all about the extermination of everything but the “master race”, starting with the Jews. Which parallels the whole Ishbalan/homonculus thing, see? The whole zomg, humans can be just as bad. Ah well.

I first read watched the anime and i was like all in love with it and was like should i read the manga because i did notice that some stuff was off so then i googled anime vs. manga and then your rant popped up i read the intro cuz i didnt want any spoilers and now here i am after reading the manga up to current ch. 84 MANGA IS MUCH BETTER AND COOLER!! yet i still like the anime because it is what got me into FMA lol Im suprissed you didnt mention anything about how in the anime they left Winry by herself and there was no Romantic development while in the manga while their isnt much their is some. or how they dyed Ed’s hair brown for fan service etc. I think that their is much more to rant about. =) Thank You!

It probably was her intention. Arakawa does LOADS of research into history and whatnot to develop her story well, and with deep significance and symbolism. So you might very well be right! It makes more sense than my minitheory about Amestris = America, Ishbalans = Either black people, or possibly Indians, or maybe some other historically significant race. I’m a bit of a history dunce, so don’t mind me. Though I still hold fairly tight to my Amestris=America theory… It ties in pretty well. The fact we’re constantly at war, our military is corrupt (though definitely not as bad as some countries,) the fact that both Amestris and America are English-speaking countries… the list kinda goes on.

Huh. Maybe my brain was just imploding too much at that point to notice XD

But yeah that’s painful. Why have that sort of drama when you could have NAZIS!

XD You do well to question my memory of anime, seeing as I only saw most episodes once and was foaming at the mouth for the last 15 or so.

-Dogs: Well, even in the anime Hohenheim wasn’t a normal human being, I think a dog would still have reacted poorly to him. Besides that whole detail is a subtle way to communicate to the audience that there’s something wrong about him without even using words.

-Philostone: Weeell.. when I wrote this that part of the story hadn’t been revealed yet XD; It did make me cringe a little but its at least less hamfisted than what happened in the anime.

-Pride/Wrath: I don’t know about that really. Envy never strikes me as particularly “wrathful”, he’s usually calm or even sometimes humorous in battle. In fact he doesn’t even LIKE bothering with fights. Well, so he claims.

-Ending: No. Noooo. That alchemy is powered by the souls or whatamajig of people in an ALTERNATE DIMENSION is just… retarded! There’s no other word for it. The equal exchange is that the materials you transmute must be equal to the thing you’re creating, nothing is being used up besides the materials themselves and they’re really just turning into something different. The Philosopher’s Stone grants one the ability to break this rule by using people’s SOULS. Which is what’s horrendous about it. And if you’re using souls to begin with.. every time well.. that just stops being horrendous and then what’s so special or different about the Philosopher’s Stone anyway?

Well the manga has no real explanation as of yet, but there’s also the Xing version that it comes from the chi of the Earth. Which seeing as the Earth is surrounded by electromagneticity that could work fine.

Eh, when I do “rants” I always pretend to be angrier than I am, I think that makes it more amusing, but maybe everyone doesn’t see it that way. If I took this seriously I might have actually made an effort to go back and watch the episodes of which my memory is patchy, lol.

I also love discussing things, anything, it’s like an addiction. D:

I agree. I left off at the 8th manga and went to the anime. I was wondering why the fake sloth and wrath hadnt showed up in the anime! Know I understand, and realize the anime is crap.(I do like how homunculi are created tho(Wrath and sloth are ok too(Ps have you heard about this pride in the manga?There is one its wraths sun)))

That being said, I find anime is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than pictures and reading. Advertising learned long ago, the brain reacts more quickly to images given rather than leaving things to your imagination. Obviously anime has more imagery and therefore can prove more enticing for the average person (especially in action sequences).

The story holes you presented, however illogical they may be, are no more ridiculous than the mangas version that presents outrageously powerful and unreal characters and situations. It is fiction, thats the point. Yes the anime is fiction, and yes the manga is fiction. The manga has more content and therefore contains more fiction. None of its real kiddo!

The reader/viewer decides the level of entertainment garnered from said fiction. Your attempts to insult the enjoyment that others may get from the anime that you do not share in is just a very ill conceived example of how sickly obsessive some people can get over mere entertainment venues. Or is it just nerd rage?

I never read the manga because I watched the anime which I thought was based on the manga so all this is news to me but now that I am thinking back I do see your point because when I was watching it there were many things I didn’t understand and many things weren’t entirely explained but now that i found out it wasn’t written by the actually full metal creator it makes a lot more sense. however I do disagree with you on some things like the whole idea of how the gate was actually a link between our universe and the alchemy universe. I found that to be very cool but the way it was implemented in the story didn’t really make sense like how come when Ed died he ended up in his alternate universe body but his father ended up in his own body and not in the body of the Hohenheim of our universe. by the way that’s why Ed ended up in Germany because his alternate self was there but it still doesn’t make any sense that he would end up in that body. anyway another idea that I found cool was the whole thing about the Nazi’s trying to get to the alchemy world so that they could learn how to do alchemy and rule there universe, I could believe the Nazi’s trying something like that because during there regime they did all sorts of fucked up things. anyways i really hope they decide to make the manga into an anime which follows it frame for frame because I thought the anime version of FMA was amazing so since you consider it shit compared to the manga then I really can’t wait to see it.

I love the Anime and I read the Manga too (this month chapter was fucking awesome), however, the idea of Alchemy itself using Human souls from an alternate dimension is absolutely great, and it gives sense to the PS.

While in the Manga, it’s made from Human Souls and it serves to alchemy… because the author says so, also, the different ideas of “where does Alchemy power come from” on the manga are completely ridiculous.

However, I do agree in most of this rant, and I think the Manga is better than the anime. Specially Mustang, who is a total badass in the manga (using Alchemy on water so he can use the Oxygen and Hydrogen as fuel is plain awesomeness).

“Either way, the 1st episode of new FMA series doesn?t resemble manga either. Hopefully these are only fillers to not repeat (very) early material from the 1st series”

It was announced on the manga saying it will, so it will. Actually, if you pay attention this new “ice alchemist” (who was awesome too) is trying to fight against the big conspiracy of the Manga. They just don’t want to start with the same they did in the last anime.

FMA manga all the way, at least the new 2009 series is sticking closer to it

I think I’m one of the few FMA fans that really don’t like the manga but love the anime. o_O Huh. I mean, the manga’s certainly more intelligent and thought out I suppose, but it’s…it’s really boring. >..< Don’t get me started on Lin.

Bleh. I agree with some of your arguments but all in all I’m unconvinced.

Dude…. the fukin fma movie was so fukin bad

it was all dark and all with steam, anyway dont knnow if u see what i mean

they could have fukin stayed in the alchemy world, but in fucking stead,they went to the other fucking world with hitler and all,how fukin gay,mno fukin joke man

Oh yeah and another thing which I forgot. Why the hell can’t they still use alchemy on Earth? I mean it’s supposed to be exactly the same place with the same elements and laws and such; the only difference is that the HUMANS developed their knowledge on physics rather than alchemy which means alchemy should still work for the people who know how to use it. It would be the same for say a human mechanic or something to go into the alchemy world and still be able to make the same devises that is in the ‘physics’ world.

Also Ed (even though he goes into someone else’s body, but because this is forgotten about I will let it slide for the sake of this bit of my point) should be able to keep his automail arm when he goes back for the last time otherwise the rocket things that go through the gate to Ed’s world are contradicting the fact Ed can’t have automail. That’s an in the film contradiction.

Oh and also I’ve just got to say OMG IT’S MA BIRTHDAY TOMOZ! (w00t) I’m gonna be 17… only one more year of childhood for me… D:

The series just doesn’t make any sense lol. Glad they’ve done brotherhood now though.

Bitching about FMA is a damn sight better than not doing anything… all my friends are away on holiday and I’m stuck at home bored… -_-’
My sister got me series one of Dexter though so I’ll probs start watching that lol.

It seems like Bones just thought that FMA was about Nazism. They must have, er, overreacted to Ishval annihilation events – you know, I recall Kimbley saying something about ‘killing everyone with different colour of eyes and skin’ in the first anime. Huh? Also, Nazi Hughes? WTF?

Anyway, the first anime looks as if the characters keep forgetting what they need to do, and then they suddenly remember which results in more or less manga accurate scenes which look so out of place and stuff. Ha!

Anime Wrath is totally emo, why didn’t they just call him Despair or Acedia? (I refer to Wikipedia’s article about the Seven Sins) I also hate Archer, he’s so faggy and annoying! TUCKER!!! WTF??? Actually, it kinda amused me every time I saw him standing somewhere where he doesn’t belong totally clueless. Oh yeah, he’s so supposed to be dead! Kimbley, too – they obviously didn’t know what to do to him. I like him in the manga much better. He’s a real bad guy there with his own ideals, reasons and goals and not just a mad bomber. Also the way he uses his alchemy in the anime is uber stupid (like everything else there).

P.S. OMG the cliffhanger in chapter 99!!!

P.P.S. Olivier and Izumi are awesome. May and Ling are awesome. And Brotherhood is awesome, too.

I get like this when it comes to the Fruits Basket anime and manga. I get so like this in fact that I don’t have any engery left to rant about the FMA manga and anime. But I do agree that the manga is 100000 times better than the anime and brotherhood is a blessing. I only regret that it isn’t as good as it could have been just because the first FMA came…first.
Grrrr, Fruits Basket anime…burn.

I think I am one of the few on this website who finds the anime emotionally evocative. Don’t have time now but will come back later to explain…

The manga has…ended? To my knowledge, it is only up to chapter 103, as that is the newest one that I just read today. Supposedly it will end before 110, but from the way events are going now I don’t see how Arakawa will wrap things up that quickly. Don’t blame you for wanting to read it all in paperback, though. I dislike reading manga online by principle, but once I finished Volume 20 and had nothing left to read, I resorted to online scanlations.

But yeah, watch ep 26 at least. ;3 Even though Envy’s true form debuts in 25, there’s more action in 26 and it is one of my favorite eps so far in the series.

There should only be a few more chapters left, but now we’re starting to wonder how the manga can possibly be finished in time for the anime to adapt it all in time!

Okay, if we’re going by volumes, then wasn’t the first part of volume 8 in episode 14, while the rest was in episode 15? And I thought it was volume 15 that everyone was so mad about being crammed into a single episode…

Still though, there’s only so much the early pacing can help with when the anime’s got a limited number of episodes and a set schedule. If it reaches the finale too early, it’ll be less likely to have the manga done as reference; if it reaches the finale too late, the story will end up rushed. We’re all hoping they don’t have to make up their own ending or turn the true final episodes into a “movie”…

and the other thing was.. they could have stayed in their side of the gate. they could have just destroyed their portal thing right and that would have been the end of it. gah. there where two doors right? close one and that would be enough?.. of course not “they have to be absolutly sure”

Yeah, Manga is on 103 and I think will wrap up around 110 chapters. It’s getting there. You’ll piss your pants when you read 100-103. Holy shat. You will piss your pants. I’m not a dick and won’t spoil it for you, but I will warn you. Be careful of sights you go too. I’ve seen certain MAJOR things spoiled and people getting really upset about it. (manga readers, i’m talking about 102) I really don’t want you to be spoiled.

What was the last Brotherhood episode you watched??
42 aired just 2 days ago.

Btw, i’m totally posting a link to your site from my blog. You’re awesome for doing this rant!

100-103? What about 104? Heh heh…

Ruby’s post above me has made me even more proud to be a manga fan.
Thank you Ruby.

Why would watching episodes based on earlier chapters spoil what’s going to happen in the ending?

Oh, uh, I don’t know why you would want to watch a show without your full attention on it, and I don’t get how you could “accidentally” watch too far if you remember where you stopped reading, but maybe you can watch the English dub as it comes out!

So… Stop watching a little before the point you read just in case? And if it’s the English dub, it’s gonna take it like ten months to catch up, so you should be good that way.

But then I’m so lazy, just sitting down and watching a show feels like “doing something” to me.

You know, while all your complaints about the first anime are valid to some extent, the fact remains that it was ARAKAWA HERSELF who told the anime people to tell a different story from the manga(and she liked the result!). When the first anime caught up with the manga, the creators could have taken the usual approach of putting in filler or giving it an inconclusive ‘and so everything goes on as usual’ ending, but they did the less common thing and created its own story. That took guts, and judging by the reactions from people who’d never read the manga it was a pretty good story too.

In short, the first anime was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the manga and should be judged on its own merits. Sure, it’ll always be inferior to Arakawa’s writing, but she doesn’t invalidate it for that and neither should you.

There wasn’t much choice but to rush things, considering they have to adapt 3-4 times as many chapters with only 24% more episodes.

(Though I guess if you exclude anime-only story, it may be more like two or three times as many episodes, but it’s still not a great ratio when going from having 30-some chapters to portray to 108.)

Wow. You completely ignored legitimate, falsifiable criticisms–and, even as a huge fan of the first anime, I have my share–and instead focused on arguments that essentially amount to “I don’t like it, therefore it’s bad”. I can get nerd rage, and you’re entitled to express it, but the tone of this article strikes me as very put-downish and mean-spirited, and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

I’m not even going to bother addressing most of your criticisms, since you haven’t really presented anything solid enough to address. There’s not really much I can say to something that amounts to “It’s bad because of EMO and other things I don’t like” except for “I disagree.” So…I disagree with you on 99% of your points. And not because I think the first anime is better than the manga (even though I enjoyed it much more), but because I don’t think that it’s worse. There are plenty of things I could nitpick from the manga which could result in an article of comparable length to this, but I won’t. Because all that would prove is that I don’t like certain elements of the manga, not that they’re objectively bad.

I will say that many of the things you insist are bad are the very reasons why I prefer the first anime over the manga. For example, I find the humor in the manga to be…unfunny at the best of times, and thought that the decision to get rid of most of it was a good thing. Also, many of those manga-only characters are two-dimensional at best, and could have been handled much more effectively than they were. They wouldn’t have added anything to the story of the first anime, so it’s really not a tragedy that they didn’t show up.

The only point that I can really address is the anime ending; I can give you a real reason why it made pretty good sense. Not perfect sense–it’s fantasy, after all–but good sense. The Gate was foreshadowed as early as as episode 29, when Edward is shown a whole bunch of images from “our would” when he’s sucked into the gate. I can’t remember all of them, but they included an American Flag, Nazis marching, and Mao Tze Tung. Aside from that, they threw in a few little hints that the geography of their world was parallel to that of the “our world”. I believe that it could have been foreshadowed better, but it was in no way something they just pulled out of their asses. Furthermore, The Gate tied into the theme of the series–that is, that nothing can be gained without sacrificing something, and that equivalent exchange doesn’t really exist. No, it’s not completely explained, but complaining about that would be quite hypocritical, considering how many of the supernatural elements in the manga lack an explanation. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but it was not inconsistent with the plot, and it was not pulled out of nowhere.

And complaining about “nobody else figuring out” the whole baby thing is a moot point, because the plot doesn’t hinge on other people knowing or not knowing about it. So what if some guy had figured out that babies can open the Gate? What relevance would he have had to the story, like, at all? It would have struck me as incredibly odd if they had shoehorned something like that in. (It’s not like the manga, where the plot actually did hinge on people not knowing about Father’s plan, and yet it was only discovered by one alchemist who was apparently smarter than all the other alchemists ever or was just improbably lucky. But whatever.)

So yeah, I disagree with you. I understand that you just made this to get stuff off your chest, but the tone rubbed me the wrong way. One question: why did you watch the first anime in its entirety if you hated it so much?

I was referring to Scarbro discovering Father’s transmutation circle, actually. It makes very little sense to me that this plan has been stewing for centuries and that literally nobody before Scarbro got even the tiniest bit suspicious.

At least the Big Conspiracy in the first anime had only been going on for a few decades at most. But with a conspiracy as old and as large as that of the manga? It completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. This is made even worse by the fact that–as you pointed out–the bad guys don’t actually seem that competent when it comes to hiding things.

My points about the 1st Anime’s gate mechanics still stands: if it leads to an alternate dimension where the hell was Wrath all this time? Why did he have Ed’s arms and legs? Why is a sacrifice needed to open the gates at all if the baby was unscathed by it? WHY THE HELL DOES IT LEAD TO NAZI GERMANY?

1). Is it really so hard to grasp the fact that it is both an existence unto itself AND that leads to another universe. This is a common element in fantasy. There are number of times I’ve encountered this kind of element in fantastical fiction: Narnia comes to mind. It too has an extra-dimensional realm that also serves as a “gate”/”gates” to other dimensions. You can exist within the realm, or move through it to other realms. That’s where Wrath was.

2) He has Ed’s arms and legs because he does. Why does Truth take people’s limbs? No, it’s not sufficiently explained, but complaining about one and not the other is hypocritical.

3) You’re confounding two separate elements into one: that is, accessing the Gate and attempting Human Transmutation. A sacrifice isn’t needed to open the Gate–simply an attempt to “access” a soul, whether in a person’s body (preferably one who has recently received their soul from the Gate) or within the Gate itself. A sacrifice is needed to create a homunculus, and this is why all the people who attempted human transmutation lost their body parts or died. You need to access the Gate in order to create a homunculus, but accessing the Gate does not require one be made. So there’s no inconsistency that I can see.

4) Why shouldn’t it lead to Germany? (Nitpick: It lead to post WWI Germany. The Nazis wouldn’t take over for another decade or so.) Complaining about it is the equivalent of asking, “BUT WHY THE HELL CAN EVERYBODY COMMAND ENERGY TO CHANGE THINGS FROM ONE FORM TO ANOTHER? HOW DO THEY HARNESS THE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY?!” Because alchemy itself is just as arbitrary, as is the source of its power. How is the Gate leading to Germany any less arbitrary than it leading to, say, an evil Deity? I think you’re confusing the fact that you like the concept of the Gate more in the manga with the idea that it’s somehow more believable–but both Gates are equally unbelievable. They’re both purely fantastical elements, outside the realm of anything resembling normality. All magic is, inevitably, stuff that the writers decide to throw in. All that matters is that it’s consistent with other magical elements in the work, and I can see nothing about the destination of the Gate that is inconsistent with previously established, but equally arbitrary, magical rules.

I’m sorry, but shifting focus to our world when FMA has its own robust universe is just stupid. You can’t suspend your disbelief for a centuries old conspiracy, but you can for superfluous alternate dimensions?

Yep. As I explained above, one is fantastical while the other is not. The alternate universe isn’t so much superfluous (it does, after all, have a role in the plot–it would only be superfluous if they mentioned it was there but never actually did anything with it) so much as it’s arbitrary. And since all fantastical elements are arbitrary, I can rationalize it. But I have trouble believing in conspiracies that last for so long without a single person getting suspicious, because conspiracies DO happen IRL, and they inevitably crumble once they become too large. Because human beings are flawed, and the arrogance of the people in charge leads them to folly. Surely another alchemist would have noticed something wrong before Scarbro. If not, why not? This is the kind of Fridge Logic that can stand to be addressed in the actual story.

And what about the other plotholes I pointed out? Scar knowing how to make a philosopher’s stone. Mummy Sloth’s entire existence. Etc.

Scar knew about the stone because of his brother. This is not outright stated, but it’s very, very heavily implied. As for Sloth being found by Dante: this is certainly a Contrived Coincidence, but that doesn’t quite qualify it for Plot Hole status. It’s been established that Dante tends to find Homunculus and nurse them, so I presume the writers thought that she had some way of tracking them down before they died. It could have stood some explaining, but it’s Fridge Logic at most. I should point out that there are a number of such contrived coincidences in the manga, as well, like the fact that fetus!Envy ran into Mei. If you look at any work of fiction with a limited number of characters, you’ll probably find plenty of them.

Anyway, while I agree that this particular element was handled a little sloppily, I don’t think that it detracted from the interactions between Sloth, Alphonse and Edward. And on that score, I have absolutely nothing to say that can convince you that it wasn’t LOL EMO, because that’s just too subjective.

Oh yeah a few things I don’t think are accurate about amarielah’s comments.
Firstly, is her(?) use of the word “fantasy” and how parallel universes are deemed fantastical as well. For starters, chances are multiverses exist, I’m a believer in them, meaning that anything that is possible, from worlds with zero life to worlds with something resembling alchemy could exist. Therefore, the word “fantasy” might not be appropriate, unless you don’t believe in multiverses like I do. However, sciences would work differently, so a universe where a FMA type alchemy worked, the structure of things and humans would most likely be different. So it wouldn’t be a compatible parallel universe with ours as the general structure of science would be different, even if it’s just through the way energy flows. Another reason why, the gate of their truth would also not lead to the gate of our truth. Our truths would be different!

Actually, after having had some pizza, I remembered my disappointment when they got rid of Alchemy for our world, in favour of “giving” some sort of “moral message”.

I was looking forward to 1) Ed seeing weird modern things only to remember that all their other sciences are up to speed with ours, accept for zeppelins and bombs apparently.

2) Other people’s faces when Ed kicked Hitler’s butt with Alchemy.

You know, Japanese people go with the flow. The don’t like to go against it either meaning, she may have encouraged a separate storyline for the first anime, but the fact she liked it or not we will never actually no unless someone manages to enter her brain. By going with the flow I mean, not telling the truth when someone doesn’t like something. They like to keep negative opinions to themselves in general – or at least so I’ve heard. This laid back nature does make sense though.

That’s it, no more comments for me today… ^-^’

My first comment did not attack the blogger at all–it attacked the blog post only. I never resort to ad hominems, and if you reread it I think you’ll find that I didn’t imply anything about Sai’s character.

Now, to address some of your points:

I know quite a bit about science, and the things you’re proposing are incredibly improbable. Alchemy doesn’t work IRL because the amount of energy needed to transmute one substance to another is rather large. The only documented cases of “transmutation” have all occurred during nuclear fission and in the cores of stars, so you can imagine the sheer amount of energy present during such a process. This is why I really don’t see where the logic falls flat in the first anime with regards to our world not having alchemy. Our world serves as the power source to the Alchemical world, so if “we” started using that power ourselves, the other world’s alchemy would cease to work. So, even if alchemy would (hypothetically) work in “our world”, there would be nothing to power it. If the writers had decided to make alchemy work in our world, then our world really would have become superfluous. From a thematic and metaphysical POV, I completely understand why the writers chose to have the Gate lead to our world–and that is, if a concentration of souls allows one to bend the rules of alchemy, it’s really quite logical that souls are the general power source of alchemy. If the regular flow of energy from the Gate is like coal, then the Stone is like plutonium. Obviously, the energy demands of alchemy are so great that they require billions of souls (cumulatively, since the Gate seems to be out of time) to meet them. And another world seems like a logical choice to serve as a supply.

And I have no idea where you’re getting this notion that they went towards a more scifi bent, because they plainly did not. The way they handled the “alternate universe” concept was purely fantastical. And, as I mentioned in my original post, it’s a fairly common theme in fantasy: Narnia, His Dark Materials, and The Wheel of Time all come to mind, and all of them are purely fantasy.

Now, I’m not entirely sure you understand what a “plot hole” is, but the things you’re talking about absolutely are not. A “plot hole” is a problem with continuity that cannot be resolved with logic, for example: A man is shown to be atop a mountain, but is shown a moment later to walk into a lodge at the base of the mountain. He has no magical powers, so it makes absolutely no sense that he could get there so fast. This is a very obvious example, of course, but subtler ones include things like characters knowing things that they’ve never been told, or have been shown not to know in the past, or suddenly forgetting things that they’ve known for a long time. If an issue doesn’t create any problems within the plot’s continuity, then it isn’t a plot hole. And, even if your reasoning was 100% solid, this issue would not interfere with continuity.

Now, what you’re describing with Hoenheim is what’s called an “unreliable narrator”–that is, he is a character within the story, so his words are not supposed to be taken as the absolute truth. He may be of the opinion that “our world” is more advanced–whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean–than the world of alchemy. But that’s just his opinion. From simple observation we can see that the Alchemical World is more advanced in some ways, while “our world” is more advanced in others. So what if one of the characters said otherwise? His opinion is not authoritative, because he’s just another character. In other words, it’s not a flaw in the writing–it’s a flaw in Hoenheim’s opinion. So, not only is it not a plot hole by virtue of having nothing to do with the continuity of the plot; it doesn’t create any logical holes, either. If your observations are in contradiction with a character, then the character is wrong. Now, if the writers said the same thing in an official booklet of some kind, then it would create some logical problems.

Onto your second reply: Alternate universes are not fact–they are part of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. They’re theoretically possible, and may explain some of the behavior of electrons within an atom, but they are far from being proven to exist. Furthermore, “alternate universes” would probably be just as unmagical as ours, since magic by definition defies some laws of physics. And, if these parallel universes exist, then they will have the same exact physical constants as our universe.
And Alchemy is magic, plain and simple. Rune magic with very consistent rules, but magic nonetheless.
Getting back to your “it’s not fantasy” assertion: Including an element that may exist in the real world does not automatically mean that this element is not fantastical. For example, cars exist, but talking cars are fantastical. Likewise, parallel universes may exist, but there’s practically a zero percent probability that it’s possible to access them through mystical gates. Therefore, the parallel universes in FMA are fantastical.
If you want someone to view your point as valid, you don’t attack a persons conclusion, you attack their premises for getting to that conclusion, which you glazed over. Then attacked Sai’s conclusion some more.
If they don’t give you a solid “premise” to attack, then all you can attack is their conclusion. Most of the points in this article are too subjective to argue with. There were a total of about four or five assertions that could actually be contested on factual or logical grounds, and the rest was essentially saying, “I don’t like it,” in rigorous detail.

“I should point out that there are a number of such contrived coincidences in the manga, as well, like the fact that fetus!Envy ran into Mei.”

Pardon me, but could you explain what that coincidence was? I thought the deal was that May’s group was purposefully leading Envy into a trap, so they could isolate and destroy a common enemy, and so that what remained of Envy would give May something to show for her trip to Amestris. Sure, it may have been pretty stupid for May to suddenly decide that wasn’t good enough and take Envy’s advice to go back to Father, but I still don’t see how it’s a coincidence.

“If you look at any work of fiction with a limited number of characters, you’ll probably find plenty of them.”

Heh, I was about to say that all the characters going to Briggs was such a coincidence, but looking back I think it makes sense: Kimblee & company were after Scar, Scar was after the hiding place of his brother’s research, Winry was after Ed to winterize his automail, the Elric brothers were after May, and May was in cahoots with Scar after all, taking separate trips to keep Dr. Marcoh out of harm’s way. Then Falman was there, but since Mustang had just had his staff scattered to the four corners of the nation, one of them had to end up in the North, you know? So, maybe I’ll think of a better example later.

“See, Hoenheim explains that our world is that of physics and, what engineering/mechanics? Other than that our worlds are identical, meaning that science and the way things are, the way the world is should be exactly the same, aside from there being different inventions on ours, since we were supposed to be more advanced machine wise right? Which brings me onto automail, and our cruddy prosthetics then, if we were more advanced, they wouldn’t have automail, we would!”

Yeah that was kinda dumb for Hohenheim to distinguish the worlds in terms of which had more science and technology when you have automail staring you in the face. You could try to say “But our world’s science is based on REAL physics!” but that’s just it, the premise of the series is that magical physics would be just as “real” to people in the magical world as our physics are to real scientists. The way I understood it, the two worlds were distinguished by the fact that one world could siphon energy from the other world via the willpower of certain people, but not vice versa, thereby unbalancing the laws of thermodynamics for each world. Travel between worlds was two-way, but the energy siphon was one-way. And the fact that alchemy was possible made different technologies develop, like the way that having to alchemically analyze a body for something like medical treatment or chimerization made it easier to figure out how to attach a bundle of nerves to robotic prostheses.

(And drat, A. Marie Lah explained most of this while I was still composing this comment. This blog post has gotten busy again all of a sudden!)

“Regardless on which version FMA we are talking about, the dog would have stayed away from Hoenheim.”

Meh, I was never all that keen on the “Sensing an abundance of souls” concept from the manga anyway. So apparently it’s innate to all animals and Xingese people? Or did they have to work to develop it? Or is it like something you have to try not to forget at an early age? I suppose I could work it out as relating to the two variations of alchemy: Considering the number of main characters with photographic memories, maybe memory talents are also expressed to an extraordinary degree in Amestris, as while alkahestrists are all about figuring out the flow of energy, alchemists could be more concerned with visually memorizing the “structural matrices” of the objects they manipulate, or something like that. But all animals being psychic somehow, bleh, I never cared for that trope.

“I see rose as 2-d since she is always upset/frightened/naive and that’s all there is too her, but she is relentlessly used over and over again. Manga!Rose is better than her, since it shows that she actually learnt stuff from Ed and actually moved forward. instead anime!Rose pretty much got dragged into occultism again, with Dante. So much for having progressed and learnt her lesson, ey?”

I think the anime may have been making the point that tearing apart someone’s religion with force isn’t a good way to convince them, and the sort of trauma Rose went through can make someone even more zealous about the religion. But I liked seeing both outcomes.

“I remembered my disappointment when they got rid of Alchemy for our world, in favour of ‘giving’ some sort of ‘moral message’.”

Yeah, I understand that a Japanese story would be Anvilicious about wars fought with atomic weapons, but some of the Elric brothers’ actions were so reactionary about the subject that they seemed… anti-progress. I recall their reasoning for having to destroy the gateway between worlds on both sides was that more people would wage war against the other world. Really? That’s enough of a justification? You’re going to throw away everything humanity could have gained from this, the exchange of knowledge and goods, the expanded understanding of our universe(s) from seeing how parallel Earths are connected, all because you’re worried that one more psycho will come through and start something that you can’t thwart? Considering you need some kind of aircraft to pass through safely, I would think the gateway would end up pretty well regulated once it became public knowledge. But no, better just destroy it and pretend it all didn’t happen.

It’s just frustrating, like back when the Elrics failed to investigate how the quasi-Philosopher’s Stones were produced. There was the Father Cornello incident, but worse was the story of the fake Elric brothers added to the first anime. When that wrapped up, the Tringhams were willing to tell the Elrics how they made their red stones, but Ed was like “Nah, we’ll find our own way.” …The crap?? Now those stones may not have been the real thing, but aren’t you supposed to be, like, a scientist, FullMetal? And doesn’t that mean you have a responsibility to document both the failures and successes of your research for it to gain any credence? Now I see what’s going on from a plot standpoint, they can’t learn that PHILOSOPHER’S STONE IS PEOPLE! until they figure out Marcoh’s notes, but it’s just clumsy writing for that to happen that way. Having the main characters repeat their dumb mistakes when they should know better does NOT endear them to the audience.

And honestly, the move to set so much of Conqueror of Shamballa in the “real world” dragged it down for me on repeat viewings. Once you get over “Lol doppelgangers” and “Lol early Nazis” and “OMG, are Ed and Al ever gonna make it back??” you realize there’s just not much excitement to be had. For example,

“I was looking forward to 1) Ed seeing weird modern things only to remember that all their other sciences are up to speed with ours, accept for zeppelins and bombs apparently.

2) Other people’s faces when Ed kicked Hitler’s butt with Alchemy.”

“Why are some homunculus based off of humans while others are not? Just how were the non-human homunculus created?”

That was never explained in detail, was it? Well, the fan conjecture I’ve read sounds pretty good. Basically it’s assumed that the standard practice until recently was to make pure non-human homunculi, “from scratch”, either with Father constructing the “container” body with MAD SCIENCE!, or with the personality aspect drawn from Father determining the kind of body that the stone produces, I’m not sure on that part. But there came a time when Father decided a homunculus was needed that could blend in more effectively with real humans, so he put the homunculus powers of Wrath into a human body for the best of both worlds. As for putting Greed into Ling’s body instead of just making Greed a new body, it could be the case that making a whole new homunculus is a slow process, as seen with the baby Gluttony emerging from Father’s robe that could have been taking weeks or even months to grow full size before he was seen again, but a human who can survive a Philosopher’s Stone’s power gives Father a new minion immediately.

“Why are the homunculus based off of the seven deadly sins when there is no Christianity, or apparently anything like it, in the FMA world?”

Now that, that I think actually is a contrived coincidence, but I just accept it.

“Was Truth really Father all along, or did Father emulate the form of Truth?”

The final chapter really ought to explain this… My pet theory for a while was that Homunculus was a piece of Truth’s form ripped from the Gate into Xerxes, and his entire plan is to become whole again. I’m starting to think this isn’t the case now, but it seemed like a good idea at the time…

Re: The Envy and Mei incident.

Now, my memory of this may be fuzzy, so feel free to correct me. I recall that the first time fetus!Envy met May, it was by pure chance. I certainly don’t recall them explaining if Mei knew where Envy was, or how. Once they figured out who he was, then they lead him into a trap. But the first meeting, where Envy tried to manipulate Mei, was a complete coincidence. And a very convenient one.

Again, I haven’t read that chapter in, oh, a year, so I may have the details wrong.

Re: The fact that CoS took place in the “real world”.

I won’t deny the fact that I LOVE it when people who have had power are suddenly stripped of it. It’s one of my favorite plot twists. I also adore fish-out-of-water scenarios, whether they involve time travel or being swept into an alternate dimension. Another one of my favorite plot twists is finding out that a fantasy world or futuristic colony is connected to “our” earth in some way. Basically what I’m saying is…the FMA anime took all of my favorite kinds of plot twists and blended them together. I’m not saying that people have to feel the same way, but it does bother me when they can’t wrap their head around somebody who doesn’t dislike it. They call it stupid? I was on the edge of my seat with excitement. Those last few episodes had me crying and squeeing at the same time.

The manga, on the other hand, has taken some of my least favorite plot twists. I’m inclined to dislike any plot that makes use of a massive, ancient conspiracy, because I just can’t bring myself to believe that people–even fictional ones–are organized and disciplined enough to keep something that large and important under wraps for so long. I was also very disappointed with Pride’s eventual identity–I can’t criticize it, because it made sense, but I was still let down. I used to like the manga and the anime equally, but when Pride’s identity was revealed and the scope of Father’s conspiracy became apparent, I simply lost interest. I still read it out of a vague curiosity, but now it’s just an exercise in observation, completely lacking the enthusiasm I had back when the chapters were still in the 60’s.

I was suggesting, that since they managed to open the truth door in “our world” that means it’s two way, which means we could have used their souls to power any alchemy we would have used (I don’t see why their souls couldn’t have been used in our world to power alchemy, especially when it was only Ed’s soul that got to that world the first time around, no body or anything, just soul).

But I think it works better the other way, for a number of reasons. First of all, it gives the two worlds distinctive differences that extend into physical laws. Here’s a fact: Alchemy did exist in our world, but it failed. This is a historical fact. Alchemy working on “our” side of the Gate would have completely shattered my suspension of disbelief, because it hasn’t worked in the past. Secondly, it was consistent thematically. What sort of price would Edward have had to pay if Alchemy had still worked in our world? Do you really think that it’s alright to undermine one of the main themes of the series for the sake of having Edward be able to beat up Nazis with alchemy? I certainly don’t think so. The whole point of him being trapped in our world was so that he couldn’t use alchemy.

What I meant by sci-fi was, that’s where they were going with it, what with explaining Alchemy down to almost every detail, but then changing it completely so it was a purely “fantasy” film, when it shouldn’t have been

Sorry, but how exactly did they explain everything down to “almost every detail”? And how does that make it in any way Science Fiction. Plenty of fantasy novels really do explain their magic systems in enormous detail, but they’re still fantasy. I’m not even sure what you’re trying to argue here.

The FMA manga’s laws are not explained down to every last detail but we understand them, basically though the manga Homunculi or the sins because they hold father’s emotions, (basically farther turned himself into a darlek (darleks don’t have emotions, it’s a doctor who reference)

That doesn’t explain why they embody the seven deadly sins of Christianity specifically. In fact, that’s pure circular reasoning. I’m well aware of why father created the homunculi, but it has never been explained why his emotions conform to those particular archetypes. Saying that vaguely similar notions exist in other religions is a huge cop out.
Anything else you mentioned questioning the manga has either been explained (due to amount of souls within them/how they were made etc) or will probably be explained in the end.
More detail, please. I’m not even sure what question this is supposed to be answering. As for “being explained in the end”: I’m not convinced of that. But I suppose I’ll have to see.

This is my second attempt to actually reword what I meant in my head from the start.
Firstly, Amarielah, I did say that you attacked the blogger – which was a bit of an over statement, you didn’t judge Sai’s character or anything. However, Sai had already said that the blog was nerd rage, meaning that the blog was primarily to get her nerd rage of her chest, mainly about the things she was annoyed at primarily. If however Sai was debating in an actual discussion with other people to bounce off of, then her argument would have formed better as the others would have given her some input for her to “chew” on rather than just trying to remember absolutely everything she disliked about the anime on her own. So people need to bear this in mind when making a comment on someone else’s one-person blog. If it was a discussion between Sai and someone else who liked the first anime and Sai was obviously ignoring good points that the other was presenting, then that would have been considered more unfairly biased and put-downish. In all fairness though, I was right about you being fairly hypocritical in your first comment, by pretty much doing the same thing Sai did but in reverse (saying that the character’s in the manga were 2-d without any reason in your first comment etc.) however, since it was your first comment, that’s fine because you didn’t have much to mentally chew until someone replied to you, since Sai’s thought’s weren’t enough. Though, you did defend the first anime which is good, because that gives someone like me a good place to start “chewing” for my comment, which means that I wouldn’t be purely attacking with no thought out reason; since I’d needed someone opposing my view that the manga is superior.

Now to go back to what you were saying about how the anime!gate makes sense:
Yes, they did show images of “our worlds” truths. After thinking about this though, Ed and Izumi both call the place the gate of truth, which actually doesn’t make all that much sense: it wouldn’t be truth to them, since all the things they saw only happened in “our world” which at that point they didn’t know existed, so really, it shouldn’t have been called – at that point – the truth of anything for them, it would have just been other worldly and alien to them. If this gate was to have been shared by us and them, it would have been a combination of our truth and their truth – their truth being the only thing Ed would have been able to see because that amount of science would have been to massive to move passed to get to ours with only his leg as payment; besides that, it also wouldn’t explain his clapping. If he hadn’t seen any truth about alchemy, then technically he wouldn’t have been allowed to clap his hands to perform it, he needs more alchemic knowledge to be able to use that technique. But this clapping technique again was not actually dealt with much, it was seen as a natural occurrence for someone who is good at alchemy, but again, if it’s souls powering alchemy, Ed wouldn’t unthinkably be able to use it automatically like he did when he heated the water in that episode (with Elicia being born), that and no one can practice that kind of thought out science without actually thinking about it. Is it possible to use alchemy in such a clumsy matter? If so, then that would mean the souls would be wasted, and maybe quite frequently.

If you ask me, it is kind of a key point that we should know at least one of the character’s theories about babies opening the truth gate; if anyone finding out about babies being able to open it then it would have either been Izumi, Hoenheim, or Dante who happened to find out, so it’s not like they’d have to make up an extra character to fit that small detail in. What’s also important about this is that Dante could have had it planned the Rose get raped, that way more character development would have been at hand for rose, and Dante would have looked like even more of a bad guy.

It really wrecks when if you watch/read something and decide you don’t like it, especially when it comes to Twilight – you cannot win with those fans – people ask “why did you bother?” There are a good few points to bother and Ryan pretty much nailed the main one on the head: So people couldn’t argue “You can’t call it bad if you haven’t even seen all that happens in it!”
Another reason could be that because she started watching it, she didn’t want to not see the end because that would have just wasted her time, watching a good portion of the series just to drop it at the last second. Then there’s also discussion purposes, but then that’s pretty much covered. Also, some people get a kick out of picking stories apart; I mean if they didn’t there wouldn’t be paid critics in the world. Come to think of it, the fact that you even had to ask that question, and assuming that the tone of the blog was harsh, is kind of a judge on Sai’s character too – not that you made any assumption about Sai, but nonetheless, some might see that as you being judging. That and the fact you mentioned tone at all and asked the question might make your comment on par when it comes to a person’s comment/blog tone – another hypocritical thing?

More to come!

Sorry, Ryan that I haven’t really replied to you much, but you seem very much on the fence, which is nice. I’ll probably end up talking about your wall of text later though.

Now onto Amarielah’s second comment about scar’s brother. It actually does make sense that he should know, since he was really into alchemy in general. The rest of the people however believed in religion and so would have know knowledge of alchemy meaning that they wouldn’t be able to work out any of father’s plans. Secondly, for all we know, he could have met Hoenheim at some point in which case he may have questioned him about alchemy along with other things.
About the first anime’s conspiracies, however, that might as well have been just as long as the manga’s – anime!Hoenheim is said to be roughly 433 years old and in the manga, probably about 733, if that. So really, considering both are a fairly good chunk of time you could say that both are ridiculous that no one found out sooner. Of course you could say that father’s plains have been going on longer than Dante’s but still, if your gonna say it’s far fetched that no one finds out about father’s plan when Dante’s is still at least a few hundred years old as well, then that’s just as far fetched, especially since Dante actually leaves quite a bit of evidence around the place, like the pseudo-philosopher stones and all the Homunculi who look like people who already died (which is suspicious enough in itself), that and how can no one notice the rotting smell coming off Dante and Hoenheim, God only knows. Rotting corpses really, really do stink! Like I say, why didn’t Winry’s dog take a bite out of Hoenheim to chew on?

Still third comment: I’ve already covered scar’s brother, everyone around him was blinded by religion and so knew nothing of alchemy. The people in Amestris were to busy to know anything, besides that, they all trusted their Fuhrer just as the Germans trusted and followed theirs, it’s not like they were going to go out deliberately looking for conspiracy.
Scar was at this point helping Dante and Rose escape originally, which wasn’t explained; so he may have gotten the information from his brother but we have no clue why he wanted to make a stone, so badly he wanted to risk his life. This in itself was a run round in a circle: The fuhrer working for Dante sends troops to this place (well not him personally, more like Cornell Archer but same difference), Dante takes the people out of the town in order for the stone to be made using Archer’s troops (when she could have just used them towns people, since both scenario’s look just as suspicious anyway), Dante goes back to hideout, probably expecting the Fuhrer – but he died (which she never questioned?) Admittedly, storyline wise (for a fantasy) this would work okay, it’s just I don’t think they had enough padding for us as viewers.
Sloth’s body was dead, it got buried in the Elric’s house and then the house burned down: Dante said that Sloth came to her in Dublith, miles away from Risembool; I remember that part really well, that was one of the major parts I questioned myself. In this instance, Dante did not go looking for her, heck, she didn’t even know about Sloth until it found it’s way to Dublith (again only god knows how). See the fact that a buried, (possibly burnt) corpse managed to walk it’s way for miles to Dublith seems very much like a plot hole to me. It’s almost as bad as your scenario of a man on top of a cliff – on second thought, it’s worse since something buried and dead cannot move anywhere. Then my problem with anime!wrath arises again (you know, him not actually being a monster and what not). Really speaking thought, the relationship with sloth and the brothers was ridiculous; that and Dante didn’t want to slap the face of her herself? Being Hoenheim’s new wifey and all; also why did it just have to be the boys that suffered an “emotional guilt trip” why didn’t Hoenheim have a chance to have her shoved in his face too. It seems to me that they definitely centred around the brothers far to much, forgetting about the other character’s relations (potential or otherwise) with Trisha. To me, that’s not a plot hole, that’s just bad use of characters.

So you allowed do make assumptions of the both the manga and anime, but when I “do”. It means what I say doesn’t make sense? Ed couldn’t clap straight after he saw the truth meaning that it couldn’t have had anything to do with seeing the truth – this makes what I said fact about the anime not assumptions. That and not once was did they make the comparison about Izumi’s clapping capability and Ed’s, meaning they didn’t really address it at all, leaving people who haven’t made the link between Ed and Izumi think that that skill is purely based on level of Alchemy.

I hadn’t quite finish, so I’ll deal with the rest of this comment when I do, only my computer wouldn’t let me switch windows, so I had to restart it.

When a story is told (this goes for everything not just FMA), the language is always that of the audience’s; it doesn’t mean that the character’s dialect is in that language. It has even been speculated that the written language in the show doesn’t match up to any real life language (admittedly, it’s not like they magnified onto any writing properly for us to have a look, so it could have just been scribbles out of laziness) – which is pretty awesome. Anyway, so language wise, the show is set up specifically so that we can understand it, it would be no good if the writer (writers, depending on which version of FMA we are talking about) made up a new language to fit the show itself, well, because no one would understand it therefore wouldn’t be able to relate (that and making up a new language for a show would be complicated and, well, a waste of time and money).
But just like the language needs to be something we are familiar with, so do the visuals: for all we know, if – hypothetically – this fictional world did exists, then who’s to say they’d resemble humans at all or have any of the same emotions for that matter (what could be bad to them could be the opposite it is to us but was changed, almost like a translation for us to be able to understand it). They only look the way they do for two reasons: 1) If they looked like nothing we have ever seen before, a good few people would probably have trouble relating to the characters, the way they feel and the situation itself. 2) Having studied philosophy for a year now, and trying to decide between Rationalist views and Empiricist views, we learnt that we can’t imagine something that is outside of our experience. If you imagined an alien of sorts, it will always be tied into something you have seen somewhere else. A perfect example of this is them blue aliens in Avatar, they have cat eyes and ears, a tail like many other animals we have here, but then a general humanistic skeleton. Heck, you can try and picture a green blob alien but then, you’ve experienced the colour green, and you’ve experienced things like jelly, you also know about varying sizes form seeing them (people of different sizes, animals of different sizes etc.) – there is no possible way to imagine something completely detached from our experience. They say that there are other properties in the universe other than solids, liquids and gasses… can you image what they would look/feel like?
This point brings up some problems for those stories that like to use alternate realities, especially FMA first anime (only because it does this backwards, “our world” being the other foreign dimension is a lot harder to pull of than us venturing into an unknown world – the unknown world having the advantage of working however way the writers want it to (to some degree) whereas the other worlds people coming to ours there are a number of problems… which I will be coming back too later.)
The 2) point from earlier is why manga!gate works, it could be a representation of consciousness and/or all possible knowledge in one place and the way to any knowledge comes at some price or another (one is being a persons time) hinting that there is no short-cuts without really great (and dangerous); but really pointless, sacrifice (e.g. body parts etc.). This has yet to be answered, since the manga is still on going (therefore cannot be held as a plot hole yet; on saying that, it doesn’t cause any problems continuity wise so I guess it wouldn’t be a plot hole regardless. >.>). This concept of all is one and one is all, is actually another concept taken from Buddhism, when a person becomes a Buddha (enlightened) they know the truth, they are free from the root delusions and instead of being reborn into Samsara (wheel of life), they go back into the truth – Similar or what? Actually speaking of Buddhism, it is more popular in Japan than Christianity, so it’s not that weird that more of the in depth story lines have some similarities to that religion. (Sorry I wrote this part before the others and so referred to it in another comment…)

Now that I’ve said everything I’d thought of, back to your comment!

“Remember what I said about “unreliable narrators”? This applies as well. They are characters, making observations about their own world. You don’t have to agree with them, because their observation are not authoritative. Understand?” – Patronising much? In Film studies, one of the things we are taught is how “dull” the audience is, they will latch onto whatever theory escapes a character, especially if they haven’t the foggiest of what is going on. meaning that of course they are going to listen to a 433 year old man who’s seen the truth God knows how many times. Of course they would listen to a character’s theory on why a baby opens the gate, because that’s what we have been doing for the whole entire show! Listening to other peoples theories, with no choice but to believe them as, we, the audience aren’t going to get any fact from any documents from the show or anything. So if all we have to go on is a character’s opinion and that opinions faulty then we have nothing else to go on, since we can’t trust anyone’s opinions on the matter, meaning that none of it would make any sense therefore we couldn’t relate to the story whatsoever.

everyone around him was blinded by religion and so knew nothing of alchemy.
You’re referring to the Ishbalans, yes? They’re not relevant to my point at all.
The people in Amestris were to busy to know anything, besides that, they all trusted their Fuhrer just as the Germans trusted and followed theirs,
Um, no. Not all Germans trusted Hitler, and there were a number of assassination attempts made against him. Furthermore, the Fuhrer only came to power during the final stages of The Plan. That still leaves several centuries beforehand for people to figure things out, even if I didn’t think the idea that everybody was content under the Fuhrer was silly.
(when she could have just used them towns people, since both scenario’s look just as suspicious anyway)
Not so. She needed Scar in order to make the Stone, and Scar wouldn’t have done it if the town’s people were still there. Simple.
she didn’t even know about Sloth until it found it’s way to Dublith
From what I recall, Dante found Sloth in Risembul and fed her the Stones there. This would make enough sense, because Dante keeps tabs on Izumi, and Izumi was training the brothers. Dante also had homunculi to act as spies. Also remember that Edward and Alphonse were sending out letters to all the people who their father used to know, so that may have been another thing that tipped her off.
It seems to me that they definitely centred around the brothers far to much, forgetting about the other character’s relations (potential or otherwise) with Trisha
That’s just solid writing. Ed and Al were the main characters, so it only made sense that it would focus on their relationship with Sloth. I’m not going to address the other points in your post, because they’re entirely subjective.
I would know this, because I took film studies!
…Seriously?
Typically set in a big universe with multiple planets or dimensions.
No, not even close. You’re confusing common occurrences in a genre with the definition of a genre. The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy are simple, and have nothing to do with the kinds of worlds involved. It has everything to do with the existence or absence of MAGIC. If a story has magic, it is not science fiction. Period. It could have flying cars and space ships, but it there’s magic, it’s fantasy. FMA has magic, therefore it is fantasy. If you were to go to hardcore SciFi fan and try to convince them that FMA is SciFi, they would probably laugh at you.
See basically, if you compared Howl’s Moving Castle to FMA, you can see that FMA is more structured, it makes sense and could perhaps be possible somewhere else away from us,
So you’re trying to argue that, because the magic system of FMA has structure, it’s not really a fantasy? By that definition, very few fantasy novels are actually fantasy novels. Whatever. Magic means fantasy, regardless of whether or not that magic is “anything goes” or has its own sets of rules. I invite you to read this article, because it explains why some magical systems are so rigidly structured. However, magic is magic, and science fiction cannot have magic.
Your actually either wrong, or your basing this solely on Rose’s baby. Al’s soul was called back, and Ed sacrificed his right arm, there was a sacrifice for that.
Nope. Ed sacrificed his arm in order to fuse Al’s soul to the armor, not in order to open the Gate. He could have opened the Gate had he had a baby on hand (not that he would have known that), but it wouldn’t have gotten him Al’s soul. This is further illustrated by the final episode, where Alphonse has to sacrifice himself in order to get Ed’s soul back from the Gate. The Gate being “open” didn’t make a lick of difference in that regard. So, my point still stands. Human transmutation requires a sacrifice, opening the Gate itself does not. Just because an element is introduced later does not mean that it’s somehow less valid; it just sets down clearer rules for how the Gate operates.
Unless it had something to do with his stay with the goo babies… I guess this one is pretty unanswerable.
Unlike the other homunculus, Wrath was–if you’ll recall–a stillborn baby. That means that he had all of his organs in place, and that his body completely in tact. He obviously grew up “normally” in the Gate because of this. So, not unanswerable. Also remember that Izumi consciously gave him to the Gate, which had not been done with other homunculi.
Actually the other dimension thing was superfluous, since it did not help the story within the series in any shape or form.
I disagree. I’ve already explained why it was important and consistent from the POV of the magical system in place, but there’s more.
Ed could have simply stayed captive in the goo entrance where anime!wrath was until Al got him back some how.
Wrong. His soul would have moved after not too long. Also, wrath was not human; Edward was. He needs essentials like, you know, food. Having him sent to an alternate universe makes him pay the price of separation from his brother, and allows him the opportunity to, you know, be alive. Not to mention, how utterly boring it would have been to watch Edward to sit around in nothingness.

Besides that, if they needed Nazi Germany, they could have changed history, seeing as how the story to you is purely fantasy in any case, meaning that anything goes right?
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Why would “they” have “needed” Nazi Germany? And where do you get this idea that Fantasy = anything goes? A world without rules does not lend itself to good storytelling.

So you allowed do make assumptions of the both the manga and anime, but when I “do”. It means what I say doesn’t make sense?
What assumptions have I made?

Ed couldn’t clap straight after he saw the truth meaning that it couldn’t have had anything to do with seeing the truth – this makes what I said fact about the anime not assumptions.
It’s made quite clear that Edward could do clap-alchemy after he saw the Gate, but that he just didn’t realize it. That’s why he was surprised when the water heated up. So yes, it was an assumption. You’re assuming that because Edward didn’t use clap alchemy that he couldn’t use it, but there’s no evidence to suggest that was the case.
So if all we have to go on is a character’s opinion and that opinions faulty then we have nothing else to go on,
But we do have other things to go on: our own observations. Your point only holds water if we assume that characters exist in a vacuum. But…they don’t. They live in a world where rules can be deduced by observation. If a character says that, “This spell will definitely work,” but the spell doesn’t work, it becomes clear that the character is wrong. A character’s opinion tells us something about that character, but it doesn’t mean that the character is to be trusted, even if they are a 400-year-old-man.
since we can’t trust anyone’s opinions on the matter, meaning that none of it would make any sense therefore we couldn’t relate to the story whatsoever.
Again, this would only be true if characters existed in a vacuum.
You didn’t answer what I said about our truth not being their truth, therefore, they couldn’t possibly identify it as their own truth.
I can’t answer it because I’m not sure what you mean by it.
Their title for the gate may not be authoritative, however, it does mean that their use of “truth” doesn’t add up; in this instance it’s more a case of the writers hoping to God that viewers wouldn’t notice if it’s not their truth and that viewers wouldn’t think it odd that it is completely different to the actual truth of their world – yet the characters can still identify to what should have been foreign truths to them, which doesn’t make sense.
And this is equally confusing. If it’s saying what I think it might be saying, then I think it’s fairly illogical. Izumi and Edward can’t call something “truth” because they don’t…recognize the images in the Gate? How do you figure that?

I like how you pick and choose which of my points to revise, and even then go on to say something but don’t always explain it (the baby thing for example).
I wouldn’t be able to respond at all if I didn’t pick and choose what to respond to, because your posts are incredibly long. If you want me to clarify something, quote it and I’ll try.
this was because a paradox would have been made if two Ed’s were in the same universe (I think it may have even been mentioned).
There was no explanation given for this, actually.
Hoenheim knew father’s plan – which BTW, I said and you ignored.
Because it wasn’t relevant. It’s still improbable that somebody other than him didn’t figure it out.
That and we didn’t know what they were going to do for the film at that point so it’s not like we would have thought much of it then, there is a big space between this episode and when Ed takes a trip to the UK. Like they say viewers are dull and forget things easily.

“Foreshadowing” is what it’s called, and it’s generally agreed to be a good thing.

Anyway, I’m probably missing some of your points, but I just don’t energy to read through all of them right now.

Am I talking to a twilight fan here or what? AKA a brick wall.
If you make another ad hominem attack, I will cease to debate with you. You make many grammatical errors, and your thoughts aren’t always very well organized: it isn’t fair to pin all the blame on me for missing some of your points.
How do you know Dante didn’t somehow know Rose as a friend of Ed’s? Now who’s the one making assumptions about the anime?
I don’t, but it’s very unlikely. Edward met many people over the course of the anime, and it would have been odd for Dante to target Rose specifically. Furthermore, how would she have known that Rose was going to help those children? How would she have gone about instructing one of her grunts to go there? It raises far too many logical problems.
If people can use Alchemy (“which takes a load to power it”) there not even half heartily as that, then what the hell is stopping him from summoning souls from the gate when he’s in our world?
Because it’s already been established that messing with souls and human bodies requires an additional sacrifice, while normal alchemy does not. How half-heartedly they perform alchemy has nothing to do with the nature of that alchemy, and I’m not sure why you think it does–if they performed human transmutation half-heartedly, they would still require a sacrifice.
which by the looks of things, you don’t think much about my theories otherwise you’d address them more thoroughly.
I’ve already explained why that’s the case.

The images in the gate was the truth about our world. You said so yourself! At the point Izumi and Ed saw what was inside the gate, they had no clue there was another reality beyond the truth they saw. However, the truth they saw inside the gate was about our world, not theirs. It wouldn’t be truth to them because Nazis, bombs, ect. never happened in their world. So why in the hell would they identify images they have never seen before as being the truth. A little example.
Mini story time:
Ed just explained that he saw the truth to Al and described some of the things he saw.
Al: Wait so what does that weird cross have to do with us Ed? How and when did those explosions you saw in the gate happen Ed?
Ed: hell should I know, it all didn’t make sense to me, I’ve never seen a flag like that before, or an explosion that big for that matter.
Al: why are you calling it the truth then?
Ed: God knows Al, God knows… all I can say is, it has nothing to do with us or alchemy.
Al:Wow, what a let down.
Ed: I know, Al, I know…

Do you get it now? They would have had no clue what they were looking at in the gate, unless they found out about the alternate reality that early on in the series – but then I’m pretty sure Ed and Izumi would have said something (oh noes I blasphemed, making an assumption about Ed’s character >.>). They wouldn’t be calling the gate “the gate of truth” because it doesn’t hold any of their worlds truths. Duh. Last time I’m spelling it out for you.

Sai, Ryan, anyone, come mediate me and this politician please. This person’s just twisting everything around to suit themselves. it’s an unfair advantage since when I “do” it (which I honestly don’t think I have yet) my theory becomes null and void, when their theory only becomes “stronger” by their logic.

That and you can’t judge what exactly a person means because people see different emphasis on different points, therefore, making the commenter look harsh or maybe make the comment itself not look as thought out as the composer originally thought etc.

I’ve just read your most recent comment, now. May I suggest proof-reading your posts? I have to read mine several times over before I’m willing to post them, and I still miss mistakes.

It takes a bit more time, but it generally makes discussions go more smoothly.

Wow, you really hate the anime

I don’t think Sai should come read this discussion. If I remember correctly Sai follows the manga as it’s released in America. We’re discussing stuff up to the chapters as they’re released in Japan.

Re: The Envy and Mei incident.
Now, my memory of this may be fuzzy, so feel free to correct me. I recall that the first time fetus!Envy met May, it was by pure chance. I certainly don’t recall them explaining if Mei knew where Envy was, or how. Once they figured out who he was, then they lead him into a trap. But the first meeting, where Envy tried to manipulate Mei, was a complete coincidence. And a very convenient one.
Again, I haven’t read that chapter in, oh, a year, so I may have the details wrong.

Your memory is indeed very fuzzy. Which may explain why you don’t understand some things in the manga that have been explained or are easily figured out if you sit to think about it for a while.
The first time fetus!Envy met May was right after Scar, Marcoh, Al, other company, lured him into their trap and got him down to that fetus form. She was with them, they’d captured him, they gave fetus!Envy to May to take back to her country. While she was doing that Envy manipulated her. I don’t know what timeline is running in your head but it’s a little screwy.

How exactly do souls manage to block the effectiveness of Alchemy?

Souls are energy. In FMAverse when a person dies their soul just disperses and becomes energy in the world. A PS is a concentrated amount of “soul-energy” and what Father was effectively doing was blocking the energy of the Earth by putting out the PS energy first. Alchemy is meant to harness the energy flowing in the Earth but Father was between the alchemist and that energy using his PS to provide a new, and weaker, energy. It’s like in the first anime where they were using people’s souls to power alchemy. But powering alchemy with the concentrated souls of many people is a lot weaker than harnessing the energy that in flowing in the Earth.

How is geothermal energy harnessed into a usable form, and why with random geometrical designs?

Because that’s what alchemy is, which is a part of the way the world works in this fantasy story.

Why are some homunculus based off of humans while others are not?

One homunculi has a human base before Greedling came along. Bradley. Why? Because they needed a homunculus who could blend more into society and be the “King” of the nation to better help pull the strings.

Just how were the non-human homunculus created?

Father extracts a portion of the PS he has within him and inserts it into the bloodstream of a human. In the FMA manga-verse the soul is in the blood. So once the PS, which is compiled of a bunch of souls, is in the human’s blood stream a small war wages between that human’s soul and the souls in the stone for control of the body. Most of the time it ends up killing the human host. In Bradley’s case all but one soul in the PS ended up “dying” and so only Bradley’s original soul and one PS soul was left. In Greedling’s case the same thing went down except that Ling, his being, his soul, accepted the PS instead of fighting it like most would do.

Why are the homunculus based off of the seven deadly sins when there is no Christianity, or apparently anything like it, in the FMA world?

This is kinda a stupid question. Christianity doesn’t have to exist in the fictional world in order for its concepts to be used. That’s not a requirement of any story that bases some of its premises off of myths, religions, legends, or folktales that exist in the real world. And the seven deadly sins are such a common archetype to be used.

How were transmutation circles first discovered, considering the sheer number of permutations possible?

Transmutation circles were probably designed (not discovered) based on knowledge already known in Rentanjutsu. Since the practices of Rentanjutsu were the original form of alchemy. The way alchemy works the transmutation circle harnesses the energy in the ground (the circle represents the flow of energy), and the runes written around the circle constructs how the elements will be manipulated. All you need is some designs made to represent the elements, whatever you’re transmuting. That means that part of alchemy is pretty magical. Having symbols be enough to manipulate an element, along with harness the flow of the earth with the symbol of a circle, and just the knowledge of each element. Rentanjutsu is based on the idea that you can manipulate the world just by the sheer harnessing of its energy, no construction symbols needed. Same basic thing happens when you pass through the Gate. Now, this energy you’re harnessing is, in essence, the Truth. Truth is the energy of the world. Truth is everything.

Why is the Kabbalistic Tree of Life on the Gate, and what significance does it have with respect to the Truth?

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is only on Ed’s Gate. Everyone has a different design on their Gate. Just as everyone has a different Truth. The design on the Gate probably reflects something in relation to the person who’s Gate it is, the knowledge they will come by or something of that sort. Roy’s Gate has a flame alchemy design on it. Al’s Gate is from 15th century alchemist George Ripley’s text “The Marrow of Alchemy”. If you read up on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life I think it becomes pretty obvious what relation it has to FMA’s story and the concept of the Gate of Truth that exists in it.

Was Truth really Father all along, or did Father emulate the form of Truth?

You know what Truth is? Truth is based of concepts of pantheism. And the Truth that sits at the gate, the white dude, is simply a shadow of the person who sees them. Ed’s Truth was wearing his limbs; Al’s truth was wearing Al’s body. Truth is everything. Truth is like Brahma (from Hinduism).

Where Father came from at the very start may or may not be answered in the last chapter. We’ll have to wait and see. But what I do know is that Father was trying to become the “ultimate being” that Truth is. So he’d been copying Truth’s form.

How does Rentanjutsu work in spite of the sheer complexity of human cells?

Fantasy story.

How did the transmutation circle Father was constructing go completely unnoticed for centuries, only to be discovered conveniently when the final battle is nearing?

These kinds of things make fictional worlds go round.

I could probably think of more, but you get the idea. No, not everything is explained. Only the things that are relevant to the plot are explained, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Speculative fiction stories, especially visual ones, just don’t have the time to waste explaining every little aspect of their magical/technological elements. We’re not there to get hit over the head with exposition–we’re there to be told a story.

Yes. I agree. Though I do think the first anime hits you over the head where the manga doesn’t. In a different sense though.

But complaining that things go unexplained in the anime only tells me that you just don’t turn the same kind of critical eye to the manga.

Let’s use Mei-chan, Olivier and Ran-fan as examples: they have virtually no backstory to speak of, and we do not get flashbacks for them like we do with the characters from earlier in the story, they have not changed over the course of the manga, and they display at most one or two emotional states. They’re not bad characters, but they are in no way well fleshed-out or three dimensional. Angst has nothing to do with it: we’ve been given nothing about them but the very surface, with teeny tiny glimpses beneath it.

Back story and flashbacks don’t equal character development. They really don’t. But neither does a dynamic character versus a static character equal that character being 3-diminsional. You can have a completely static character with no back story and they still be well fleshed-out and three dimensional. I think Mei-chan, Olivier and Ran-fan are very fleshed-out, well developed, finely designed characters. You have to read a little more closely than what you immediately see on the surface to understand all the crevices of their characters. You have to take time to analyze them as you do the story but that’s a major difference between the first anime and the manga. The first anime threw everything at you in terms of character and emotional development. It gave you heavy flashbacks, big emotional scenes, a lot of character exposition. The manga works very differently from that. But I feel it works just as effectively. I’m not saying one isn’t as good as the other, just that they’re just extremely different ways of telling a story and developing characters.

From what I understand, she had a lot of input into the way things would go, and even got to double check whether or not the ending was alright with her. No source for this, so I could be wrong, but she certainly hasn’t come out hating the anime like some mangaka have.

Eh, I’m sure Hiromu does love the anime from everything I’ve seen. That first part was mostly in jest but also because I’ve seen in a lot of places people going “She copied the anime!” or “Well, this isn’t interesting since it already happened basically,” Both comments that make me want to pull my hair out. I don’t have much a problem with the first anime in general and I agree with you that it’s a good story standing on its own, doesn’t have as many flaws as manga-fans like to say there are (and the manga has its minor flaws too), and it’s really not that bad. Though I still have some issues with the story it’s the anime’s fans that I mostly have a problem with. Just because they regard the anime as the “real” story and either don’t know the manga exists, don’t think of it as the original, or won’t even give it a chance. Apparently you’ve read the manga so I don’t have this problem with you but I do carry a bit of hostility towards avid anime fans because I feel like the manga doesn’t get it’s due because such a well-made and extremely popular anime adaptation came into it’s conclusion first.

@ Hagarenxneko

I stand corrected on the Mei/Envy incident being a coincidence, then.
Souls are energy. In FMAverse when a person dies their soul just disperses and becomes energy in the world. A PS is a concentrated amount of “soul-energy” and what Father was effectively doing was blocking the energy of the Earth by putting out the PS energy first. Alchemy is meant to harness the energy flowing in the Earth but Father was between the alchemist and that energy using his PS to provide a new, and weaker, energy. It’s like in the first anime where they were using people’s souls to power alchemy. But powering alchemy with the concentrated souls of many people is a lot weaker than harnessing the energy that in flowing in the Earth.
Thank you, that does explain it quite nicely.
Father extracts a portion of the PS he has within him and inserts it into the bloodstream of a human. In the FMA manga-verse the soul is in the blood. So once the PS, which is compiled of a bunch of souls, is in the human’s blood stream a small war wages between that human’s soul and the souls in the stone for control of the body. Most of the time it ends up killing the human host. In Bradley’s case all but one soul in the PS ended up “dying” and so only Bradley’s original soul and one PS soul was left. In Greedling’s case the same thing went down except that Ling, his being, his soul, accepted the PS instead of fighting it like most would do.

That answers how human homunculus are made, but not why. I know that he made Bradley one so that he’d still age, but Greeling is a mystery. This is the only one of my questions that honestly bothered me while I was reading the manga.
Yes. I agree. Though I do think the first anime hits you over the head where the manga doesn’t. In a different sense though.
A lot of your answers just raise more questions, but I won’t bother asking them because you already get the point that I was trying to make. People are only inclined to complain about unexplained fantastical elements because those elements break their suspension of disbelief. However, all fantastical elements are inexplicable past a certain point, precisely because they act in defiance of what we understand to be natural laws. Not only is it ill-advised to try and explain magical elements too much, it’s usually impossible. That’s the reason why it’s fantasy and not Science Fiction.
For the record: I don’t think any of the unanswered questions in the manga are flaws. The same goes for the first anime. My issues with the manga are mostly to do with its narrative style and characterization (and some of its plot twists), and my issues with the first anime have to do with some (very) clumsy writing and bad pacing.
You can have a completely static character with no back story and they still be well fleshed-out and three dimensional.
I disagree. If a character is static, then backstory is needed to flesh them out. I say this because backstory is the only way of really showing why the character is static. If a character is not static, then the backstory is a nice bonus, but not necessary. For an example of this, I always use One Piece. All of the Straw Hats are well-developed characters, even though they remain largely static, and that is because so much detail is given about what lead them to the point where they are.
I think Mei-chan, Olivier and Ran-fan are very fleshed-out, well developed, finely designed characters. You have to read a little more closely than what you immediately see on the surface to understand all the crevices of their characters.
Don’t get me wrong: I too think that they’re finely-designed characters. Two-dimensional =/= bad. But you haven’t given me any evidence to support your assertion that they are three-dimensional.

Eh, you’re right. Not everything can be explained. That doesn’t make them “flaws”. But I still maintain the opinion that the manga is a “tighter” story so to speak. I like it’s narrative style, characterization, and plot twists. So I’d say those are largely things that have to do with your preference in types of story-telling. Though that’s not to say there aren’t some major things about it I dislike but that goes the same for the anime.

I think the only reason I jumped in this discussion was…to find out what similar problems you found in the manga and see if I could diffuse any of them. I generally think the manga has less of those “fantastical holes” than the first anime. Like I said I think the story all around is tighter.

From what I’ve learned (and I may be wrong) a 2-D character is one that is in the story and does things for the story but you don’t get to know the character as an individual. I think we get to know what kind of people May, Olivier and Ran-fan are. If you can analyze the character as a person then they are not 2-D. I’ve been able to, and seen other people be able to analyze those 3 girls as people with personalities, feelings, motivations, flaws, actions influenced by those above elements…..and to me that makes a character 3-Dimensional.

Now it’s not like they’re extremely developed characters like the main characters are. But they’re not 2-D characters either.

But I still maintain the opinion that the manga is a “tighter” story so to speak.
And honestly? I pretty much agree with you. But I think there’s a good reason for that. The plot of the first anime is less important than the plot of the manga, because it’s a character-driven story, while the manga is a plot-driven story. I can’t help but feel like there could have been so much more done with the characters in the manga, but that the needs of the plot kept some really interesting interpersonal and internal conflicts from happening. It’s definitely a personal preference, though.

And, even if it’s better planned, I still prefer the plot of the first anime, although for subjective reasons that I explained to Ryan.

I will say that I’ve found certain events in the manga to be very sloppy, and most of them have to do with characterization, like the whole Envy/Roy incident. Aside from the fact that it came off as contrived, given how Envy very well could have (and arguable should have) died already, I just thought that the way Envy’s character acted was odd, and that it didn’t ring true. That didn’t have any effect on the plot, though.

I think trying to argue that one is superior to the other is silly, however. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.

Ha, actually one of the only problems I have with the manga, and it’s a pretty big problem too, is with the whole Envy/Roy thing. It wouldn’t have been so bad (the initial battle, the development it led to for Roy) if Envy hadn’t already been dealt with by Marcoh and co. And I’m still not sure how I feel about Envy committing suicide. In principle the reasons make sense, but it didn’t feel like enough attention was given to that before hand to justify it being brought out in the end.

I’ve always said that the first anime was a story “made up of emotion” and the manga is a story not necessarily emotional, but draws emotion from it. In the end it depends which kind of story you like better. I actually like both but I think the latter works better for FMA, which could be an opinion completely formed in bias since I read the manga first.

I also prefer the character development over that of the first anime. I like the characters places in the story, their motivations, and the way they act overall and in certain situations better than what they were for the first anime. But that’s just my preference.

Comparing the two would be like apples and oranges. I think a problem may be that they’re such different stories but they came from the same outline. They’re not just different in plot but different in characterization too. So when one is looking at the two stories they sort of impress what they know of the characters from one onto the other and since they don’t match they feel that one of them must be wrong. It’s so weird to find two stories with the same basic idea and the same characters and then they turn out so wildly different in pretty much every aspect that defines the story beyond premise and names. No one likes to see something they loved twisted into something so insanely out of line with what they first saw. I think it would tend to make people hostile and defensive.

I’m pretty much stating the obvious though ^^;

I wasn’t fussed with the Roy/Envy story, it could have been pulled off in a slightly different way to make it flow better – maybe if they could have changed the Marco bit to include Roy, or something, it would have been smoother. Not that I’d be able to come up with a better idea.

I don’t think Sai should come read this discussion. If I remember correctly Sai follows the manga as it’s released in America. We’re discussing stuff up to the chapters as they’re released in Japan.

Good point. By not relying on bootlegs, and not wanting to see the animated version first, Sai won’t get to comment on any of this until sometime in 2011! That’s a real shame.

“Technically, in the 2003 anime, Ed and Al aren’t really even Hohenheim’s children at all, but rather the kids of the man from whom he stole that body from. This raises questions about how his son Envy’s true form (who’s at least over a century old) bares any kind of resemblance to the Elric Family at all.” – Just thought I should quote this. It’s off the FMA wiki site, on Hoho’s page.

PART 2

Next on the list is the transmutation circles. Ok, so the question is “how do they harness the energy of the world?” They use the transmutation circles, and the transmutation circles provides a path for the energy, making it harnesable, thus causing the transmutation. it’s similar to a circuit board. As for how they discovered the correct shapes for alchemy, its quite simple (not really :p). How did we discover geometry? How did we come up with the concept of language, the concept of infinity, or even the concept of zero? Through trail and error, philosophy, logic, etc. Ok, so we can’t do alchemy in our world, so we can’t grasp it. But absence of proof does not equate to proof of absence. In the manga, though, if you want your damned answer, father’s true name is homunculus. That’s right, the father, who is a “twin” of hohenheim, his true name is homunculus. Homunculus is in actuality, a part of truth. He is simply a ball of darkness in a flask, and he has the knowledge of truth. He then teaches hohenheim how to use alchemy. eventually, homunculus tells hohenheim that he knows the secret to imortality, and can provide immortality for the emporor, who is dying of a disease. All of this takes place in those ruins in between amestris and Xing, the one where everyone died in a single night. He tricks them into making a transmutation circle the size of the city. they lie to the people and tell them that they are digging a new water system. They activate the circle, and homunculus gives half of the new stone to hohenheim as an act of good faith for having helped him escape the flask. Also, to show more appreciation, he takes to form of hohenheim. Hohenheim then travels to both xing and amestris, and teaches both of them alchemy. He is often refered to in the manga by both mei and ling, and also others who talk of the origin of alchemy, as a man with golden hair who came from the east/south (depending on the country) who taught them alchemy. If you payed some fucking attention, they’ve been saying this shit since the beginning of the fucking series, and you should have figured out that ed’s father is fucking unnatural. Because truth’s knowledge is in homunculus, and homunculus taught hohenheim alchemy, and the correct circles, he then taught both xing and pre-amestris alchemy now that he’s immortal. there’s your fucking origin for you.

Next up: “why does truth take your limbs?” Very simple, and it is explained. But first, who/what is Truth? Truth is god, truth is all, all is truth, and truth is you. In english, this means that truth is the collected entity of all sentient beings. Everyone has their own “truth” if you will. This is because since truth is a collective consciousness, he has a truth for everyone. Now, why is it that truth took ed’s leg? Al’s body? Izumi’s organs, specifically those that aid in child-birth? Simple, all these characters attempted human transmutation. Because truth is collective, when one performs human transmutation, he takes away that which is most valuable to you. Edward wanted to hold his family up, with his own two legs. So Truth took away a leg to stand on, making him unable to have what he desired most. When he brought back al, who took away an arm that he would use to hold himself up. Al wanted to feel the warmth of a family and friends, so truth took away his body. Izumi wanted more than anything to have a child, so to punish her, truth took away all the organs necessary for child birth. Mustang is forced to perform a human transmutation, so truth took away his sight, as he wanted more than anything to be able to see the world he would command when he became fhurer. making any sense? Truth takes away that which you hold the most dear as punishment for trying to play god. “But why did mustang get punished if he was forced into it?” Simple… truth isn’t fair, he’s not just. It’s his punishment, and for using the Gate, there has to be a toll.

CONTINUED IN PART 3

Part 1:
Oy vey. You really should have read a bit further. Oh well, here it goes.

The other universe, which is seperated from time, and has a large amount of souls as a source of fuel, has thousands of years worth of death, practically billions upon billions of souls worth as a burnable energy source, and a philosophers stone, which has maybe 10 lives, generally, in some cases more, is the larger source of energy?
Half of these are your own assumptions, and have never been mentioned in the anime canon. No really, go back and see for yourself where any of these so-called “facts” come from. Separated from time? Supposition. All we know is that Edward jumped forward a few years the second time that he went through the gate, and that is not enough to say that it is separated from time. All of your other points rely on that supposition being correct, but I see no reason why it is. As for the Philosopher’s Stone: It’s a fantasy story. The rules are always arbitrary in fantasy stories. It’s not “inconsistent” that the PS is more powerful than the souls from “our world”–no more than it’s inconsistent for people in RPGs to get a powerup only in certain terrain. You’re confusing your own personal sense of logic with some kind of universal standard, but I’m afraid that it’s just not the case. It’s a fantasy, and the rule goes: “Souls from the gate power alchemy, souls from Edward’s world can create Philosopher’s Stones. The souls from Edward’s world are therefore more powerful than the souls from our world, even if an explanation for why is never provided.”
If that were the case, one wouldn’t need to abide by the rule of equivalent exchange, as they would have a huge source of energy and could just do as they friggin please without any fucking goddamned limits. makes no sense, and isn’t a logical part of the plot.
You’re applying scientific logic to magic. That is silly. You’re perfectly entitled to be bugged by it, but that doesn’t make your opinion some kind of objective fact. Furthermore, you’re confusing the “plot” with the “world”. Elements of the world can appear inconsistent, but that does not mean that it has any affect on the plot’s cohesiveness. All that matters is that the so-called “inconsistencies” (which can only be called as such if you’ve made certain assumptions about the magical system in place) are consistent in the way the play out. Example: I create a magic system that uses blood as its power source. However, I decide to make the blood of babies more powerful. Is this inconsistent? After all, there is no real logical reason why babies should have more powerful blood than adults: it has the same chemical composition. But no, this is magic, so it doesn’t have to fall in line with our own assumptions about how the world should work. As long as I make sure that normal people’s blood can power magic, and that the blood of babies is always going to be more powerful, I have established a consistent magical rule. See: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA for a more in-depth discussion of what I’m talking about.
you said there wasn’t a plot hole there, because there wasn’t any continuity errors, but the premises is in and of itself an enormous plot hole.
No, it isn’t. Plot means continuity. As long as the continuity is consistent, you don’t have plot holes. What you’re talking about is often called Fridge Logic, and, while sometimes related, it is not the same thing. Fridge Logic is something that happens in the narrative that defies an individual’s sense of logic. But, since it doesn’t always have something to do with continuity, it does not always result in a plot hole. Fridge Logic is furthermore entirely subjective, as is evidenced by the fact that I still disagree with you.
In both cases, the alchemists use the earth as a source of energy and are limited by the amount of energy in the vicinity of their circles. what makes more powerful alchemists more powerful is the range of space that they can take energy from, while if the power of alchemy is just a pool of energy in a different universe, they are unlimited to the amount of energy that they can use. They have no limits.
So then where do the Philosopher’s Stones come in? At the end of the manga, souls are being used to weaken alchemy, and yet the Stones are canonically used to make it more powerful, and are canonically composed of souls. This should cause the same logical problems for you as the ones you have with the anime, but it doesn’t. Now, this causes no logical problems for me for the same reason why a similar “inconsistency” causes no problems for me in the anime: clearly, souls can have different effects on alchemy given different circumstances. As long as these effects are consistent given the circumstances, there is no “hole”.
Next, envy and mei.
No need to go into that; I’ve already conceded that my memory was fuzzy on that score. However, there are plenty of other coincidences. Like the fact that Ling just happened to run into the Elric brothers in the first place, given that both he and the rentanjutsu from his country would prove important later in the plot. Amestris is a big country: what exactly are the odds that such a meeting would happen?
But I’m not saying that such coincidences are bad. Think of any series that isn’t slice-of-life, and it will be rife with such coincidences. That’s just one of the ways that fiction has to go in order to be interesting. Do you think that Slumdog Millionaire is a bad movie just because it’s entire premise was that a poor boy happened to experience a series of coincidences that lead to his becoming rich?

Part 3:
Re: The Homunculi.
I have no idea which of my points you’re responding to here. So I’d appreciate some clarification.
Re: The Conspiracy.
See, none of those rationalizations (and that is what they are) make it any more palatable for me. Especially this part: Then, there is the humans who are higher-ups. they are corrupted and want immortality, so they decide to go along with it, simple as that.
Yes, that’s the explanation verbatim from the narrative, and it doesn’t sit any more comfortably with me when you paraphrase it. The entire military elite was in on it, and, with every individual you add to a conspiracy, the more likely it is to be revealed.
I’m not saying that you have to find the same problems with this as I do; as I mentioned earlier, Fridge Logic is entirely subjective. However, there is nothing you can say that will make this particular plot contrivance any easier for me to accept. I simply don’t believe that any plan involving that many humans over that long a period of time could remain a secret. For me, this is sort of like the “humans souls act differently depending on which side of the Gate you’re on” issue that you have with the anime. It just doesn’t work for me.
Now as for “unimportant” characters.
I never said they were unimportant, just that they wouldn’t have added anything to the plot of the original anime. Most of them are quite important with respect to the manga, but that doesn’t mean that I find them engaging as characters.
What is the gate? The gate is a persons ability to access the energy of the earth, bridging the person with truth. Edward sacrifices his gate, or his ability to use alchemy in order to bring Al back, after all sacrifices his soul to return ed’s arm after father destroys his automail.
That answers what the Gate does, not what the Gate is. I am a human being: I can walk upright. That is what I can do. But walking upright is not enough to define me as a human, because other species have existed that could also walk upright.
In other words, we don’t know enough about the Gate to give it any kind of real classification. We can only observe what it does. You cannot say, “The gate is a persons ability to access the energy of the earth, bridging the person with truth,” based on the evidence we have. You can say, however, that, “The gate gives a person the ability to access the energy of the earth, presumably by bridging the person with the Truth. However, its exact nature remains a mystery.”
And it’s not a bad thing that it’s a mystery.
If there are any more “Oh, but no, ur wrongzez, this is the casez, rawrz” i will be happy to rip you a new one
You seem to misunderstand me. While I do think that some of the assertions made in both the article and by people in comments are factually wrong (like the assertion that Alchemy is a science), many of my points essentially boil down to, “You’re entitled to you opinion, but you shouldn’t expect anybody else to agree with you. Many of your points are too subjective to really be addressed in any meaningful way beyond observing that they’re subjective, and it’s mistaken to believe that your own personal taste is indicative of objective quality.”

PART 2
In the end of the series, souls aren’t used to weaken alchemy. You have misunderstood. Homonculus uses the power of the philosophers stone to surpress the energy generated from the movement of the earths crust. He is using souls, but not in the way you’re suggesting.
Agreed on Envy and Mei; their story is done with.
When I addressed the origin of alchemy, the first part with the geometry and concepts was just an example of how these things have happened. And besides, the concepts of infinity and zero are easily understood by us, but could you imagine how amazingly hard it is to comprehend this if you’ve never known anything about the concept of nothing. But that is besides the point. My point was that hohenheim taught alchemy, because homonculus is a part of truth. And besides, you say trying to find the proper shape configuration for alchemy is like trying to hit a fish in the sea, but the formulas for geometry are no different. nor is Pi. These things seem easy to grasp to you, but then again formulas and Pi were studied for decades upon decades before being perfected. Alchemy is no different. And once they stumble upon only a few of the circles, they are then able to make predictions on other alchemy circles based on the working ones that they have discovered. This has happened before, in real life, and it’s not far fetched that it could happen in their universe. both of us are making assumptions, so stfu, lol, jk jk.
CONTINUED IN PART 3

sorry about the last post. It’s saying that my responses are spam. I can’t seem to load in the rest of my arguments basicly it ended in a “lets agree to disagree because this would otherwise be a tug-of-war. but, look at these links. I’m sure you will figure out what goes where.

http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/108/047/
Can someone fix this spam thing? it’s making me post in a way that i really don’t like…

Whoops, sorry about the italics fail. My first response is:
Alright, let’s assume for a moment that I don’t think you’re probably taking a previous statement of mine out of context. Even if this other universe has more souls at any given time, there are several, very logical explanations as to why they may not be potent enough to make a philosopher’s stone.
1) The Gate has a soul “quota”, and only lets the soul energy through in consistent bursts. Sort of like a siphon. It may very well have access to all the souls ever, but, for some reason, only lets a few of them through.
2) The actual, metaphysical qualities of the souls are different in that other universe. We aren’t told whether or not people in that other universe have “gates” for example, while we know that people in the FMA world do. These differences in properties act almost like the differences between two elements, meaning that the souls from the two worlds are not actually the same, and cannot be used to do the same things.
3) In order to make a Philosopher’s Stone, one needs a “solid” soul. What if the souls going through the gate, who have lost their bodies, are “transmuted”, if you will, to a kind of soul-like energy. That energy has different properties from a solid soul, and is therefore not able to create the PS.
I could probably think of more, but I think I’ve gotten the idea across. You are looking at this metaphysical element with a very narrow scope, and there is not enough evidence from canon to support it. Likewise, my postulations have no canonical support. However, that just means that mine are no less correct than yours, and that the problems you have are with world-building.

wheres your rss feed? probably hidden in plain sight knowing me lol

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None of that is going to happen, therefore the two sides are never going to stop fighting unless and until one of them is forced to do so. Period, end of sentence, end of paragraph, end of story. They have, as we say in the law, “irreconcilable differences.” Unfortunately, they cannot divorce nor divest, which is usually the remedy for same. So this will go on. Forever. It’s not going to stop. Ever.new weight loss

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