New Fullmetal Alchemist anime tv series to premiere in April

[blkmage]

It is slowing down a bit, but it's still moving at a fairly brisk pace I think, although the pacing feels much more natural than a few of the previous episodes. I am inclined to wonder if blkmage is correct however, and they do have a certain amount of episodes in mind, despite claims to the contrary.

Anyway, I did enjoy the Xing characters introduction. Also, am I the only one sort of surprised at the amount of violence they are getting away with despite the timeslot it airs in? In episode 14, that one guy was clearly cut in half...

Not really, considering the two shows before this season in the same timeslot were Gundam 00 and Geass R2.

[MasterDias]

The amount of blood in FMA Episode 14 actually seemed more than either of those to me. Code Geass toned blood/fanservice down a bit when they switched to an earlier timeslot...
At any rate, I don't remember anyone being beheaded/cut in half onscreen in either Gundam 00 or Geass R2...

[blkmage]

Personally, I'd put civilians getting shot in the same intensity of violence, which I'm not sure if Geass had, but Gundam 00 S2 definitely did. Either way, I'd say that the violence was appropriate for the target audience of a Gundam show.

[Fantasy Dreamer]

Let's get back on topic, shall we? ^_^

For the seemingly few of us that are still keeping up with the series...Episode 15:

[spoiler] This is probably my favorite episode so far, there were so many great parts in it.
May and her panda making their entrance. Every time the panda made a cute little noise, I laughed. XDD
I had forgotten about the part with Riza and Barry the Chopper. That was brilliant to see.
And Lin(g) is exactly how he should be, I think.

All in all, things look like they are slowing down quite a bit from when the series first started.

Oh, and I'd just like to point out that there was a small flash of Briggs (or just the North, but it looked like Briggs XD) in this episode. XD]

[spoiler] Yeah, next episode looks sad, but I loved this episode too!

Ling's voice is perfect, and he's just like in the manga! I've wanted to see him animated for a while now, and I remember why I love him so much!

And yeah, that was Briggs! XD[/spoiler]

[the_wolfs_howl]

If you ask me, the anime's still going too fast. For the most part, it works fairly well (the main fight in Episode 15 felt good in terms of pacing and excitement and everything), but they're leaving out quite a few scenes and little moments that I've loved for a long time and was looking forward to seeing in action. For example:

[spoiler]When Hawkeye gets ambushed by Barry the Chopper, and she calls Mustang on the phone, and when Mustang gets there and sees how Barry's all lovey-dovey, he says, "The fire will be hot tonight, Lieutenant." They totally skipped that part and just went to the interrogation.[/spoiler]

But I'm really pleased with the new voices. Ling, Ran Fan, and Fuu were exactly the way I've always imagined their voices (so much so it was almost scary). And Mei is pretty much the way I've heard her in my head as well; her voice is just a tad higher than I've imagined it. And Xiao Mei is awesomely cute <3

Overall, I think this anime really should only be seen as a supplement to the manga. By itself, it just moves too fast and doesn't dwell on the emotions long enough most of the time. But if you're already as familiar with the story as I am, it's just nice to see your favorite scenes and characters fully colored and voiced.

[Fantasy Dreamer]

[spoiler]When Hawkeye gets ambushed by Barry the Chopper, and she calls Mustang on the phone, and when Mustang gets there and sees how Barry's all lovey-dovey, he says, "The fire will be hot tonight, Lieutenant." They totally skipped that part and just went to the interrogation.[/spoiler]

Yeah, I was disappointed about that, too! That and they left out the whole episode with the Mining town and Yoki. D8 [spoiler] It made it a little harder to understand when he reappeared in the story. All they did was mention him and show his picture in the military file. 8/[/spoiler]

But other than that, I'm loving seeing the characters that didn't make it to the first anime appear in Brotherhood! And yeah, the pace is still a little fast, but its gradually slowing down.

[Wyntre Rose]

Yay! I'm so excited. This episode was great.

Of course, after my previous fangirling, you all know how much I was looking forward to Ling, and he was perfect! *sighs contentedly* Not that I expected anything less. It was fun to hear Miyano Mamoru play a goofy character again. He's been pretty moody/angsty/sinister in everything I've heard him in lately. Of course, Ling has a bit of that in him, too, which is probably why I love him so much. He's such a rich character.

I also loved the Mei/Scar scene, and Mei going googly over her misconception of Ed made me howl! I'd forgotten about that part in the manga.

I'm wondering if maybe once Ed meets up with Scar and co. they'll do a little flashback of Yoki and the mine, just to explain where he fits? It would seem rather awkward to not say something about that...unless the creators are just assuming that we all watched the first series or read the manga and therefore we know where he comes from? For the most part, they are probably right. I haven't heard/read any comments from anyone to whom Brotherhood is their introduction to the FMA universe...of course, once it's been dubbed and released here that will probably change, methinks.

Speaking of the dub, has anyone heard anything about if they are going to reunite the initial FMA cast? I'm guessing Aaron at least won't be able to play Al again, since his voice has totally changed now, which makes me sad. As for the rest, though, I'm hoping they bring back everyone from the original series. It was such an amazing dub.

[blkmage]

At first, I thought it was weird that Mamoru Miyano would be playing Ling, but that's because I'd been associating him with his more recent serious roles. Once I heard him and remembered he played Tamaki, it worked out pretty nicely in my head. But, what made me incredibly happy was when I found out Nana Mizuki was playing Ran Fan.

[Fish and Chips]

If Mamory Miyano played Tamaki, things should be perfectly fine in the land of Ling.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Speaking of the dub, has anyone heard anything about if they are going to reunite the initial FMA cast? I'm guessing Aaron at least won't be able to play Al again, since his voice has totally changed now, which makes me sad. As for the rest, though, I'm hoping they bring back everyone from the original series. It was such an amazing dub.

I haven't seen any information about the dub, but I agree wholeheartedly! In every episode, it seems, there's some part that makes me wonder how Vic Mignogna would deliver that line, or what Wendy Powell would sound like in that scene. (For some reason, Envy gets me imagining the dub more than anyone else )

[blkmage]

Reviving what I believe is the FMA thread, but the start of a new season means a new OP for longer running shows, which FMA is! Here you go: 「ゴールデンタイムラバー」 by スキマスイッチ. The most exciting part is BRIGGS YES AMGAMGAMG. Other than that, seems like a recap episode this week.

[the_wolfs_howl]

For a recap episode, I thought they did a pretty good job. At least it kind of had a point, with Hohenheim and everything.

As for the new theme songs, I'm not so hot on the songs (yet; that might change), but I looooove the videos! <3 Can't wait to hear Olivier!

[Sheenar]

Funimation has released a cast list for the dub version of Brotherhood.

From the email newsletter:
Edward Elric - Vic Mignogna
Alphonse Elric - Maxey Whitehead
Roy Mustang - Travis Willingham
Winry Rockbell - Caitlin Glass
Lust - Laura Bailey
Gluttony - Chris Cason
Maes Hughes - Sonny Strait
Scar - J Michael Tatum
Fuhrer King Bradley - Ed Blaylock
Riza Hawkeye - Colleen Clinkenbeard
Louis Armstrong - Christopher Sabat
Isaac McDougal - Bryan Massey
Envy - Wendy Powell
Jean Havoc / ADR Director - Mike McFarland


Also, the eps will be out on DVD in mid-2010.

[Garjzla]

i am watching the new series at funimation.com and it is really good, and it follows the manga perfectly! yay!

[Davidizer13]

i am watching the new series at funimation.com and it is really good, and it follows the manga perfectly! yay!

Strangely enough, I think that's it's one of it's problems, besides the heavy animation shortcuts. The manga, unconstrained by animation budget limitations, was able to tell the same story, better than the series has. If you're going to have a new series, then do something new with it, or make it better than what you're rehashing. Brotherhood just hasn't done that for me.

[goldenspines]

Strangely enough, I think that's it's one of it's problems, besides the heavy animation shortcuts. The manga, unconstrained by animation budget limitations, was able to tell the same story, better than the series has. If you're going to have a new series, then do something new with it, or make it better than what you're rehashing. Brotherhood just hasn't done that for me.

That's because you haven't seen the Briggs crew yet.

No actually, in all honesty, I think the animation is better in Brotherhood than it was in the original FMA series. Granted, this new series is moving right along without stopping to breathe much in the story, but that's its only "flaw" as far as I can tell. While I did enjoy the fillers in the orginal series, they often weighed the series down in terms of moving the story along.
The new series did slow up once they got to non-original series and only manga covered story material (like with Lin, for example).

I hear rumors that the series is going to be around 50 or 60 something episodes; knowing that and somewhat estimating when Arakawa is going to end the manga, I think the pace of Brotherhood is fine. If it went any longer, I don't think anyone would want to watch it. XD

[Cloud500]

I may start watching this again when the dubbed DVDs are released. The first series is still probably my favorite anime(I don't care what anyone says about the ending. It was fine. It was apparent after a few episodes that it wasn't going to be a happily ever after ending and Arakawa asked Bones to make an ending different to what she planned to do with the manga) but Brotherhood doesn't seem to have the same appeal to me. It's basically page-by-page of the manga so I'd rather just read the manga honestly. But like I said, I may start to enjoy it again after buying the dubbed releases.

[Davidizer13]

That's because you haven't seen the Briggs crew yet.

No actually, in all honesty, I think the animation is better in Brotherhood than it was in the original FMA series. Granted, this new series is moving right along without stopping to breathe much in the story, but that's its only "flaw" as far as I can tell. While I did enjoy the fillers in the orginal series, they often weighed the series down in terms of moving the story along.
The new series did slow up once they got to non-original series and only manga covered story material (like with Lin, for example).

Really? The animation in Brotherhood is some of the worst I've seen; worse than a lot of Western series, even. Granted, I don't watch a whole lot of anime, but still. The first two or three episodes were good-looking, but as you got further away from those, the quality dropped off. Not that this series is horrible; I love the story and writing, and the Japanese voices are well-done (for the most part, they match what voices I had in my head when I was reading, and even when they didn't, the actors did well), but again, I've seen it all before, done a lot better.

Something else I've noticed: In animation, it seems like it's not about if you take cuts to save money, because that's inevitable. What really matters is how you hide them, and Brotherhood does a really bad job of it.

[Roy Mustang]

[quote="Davidizer13"]Really? The animation in Brotherhood is some of the worst I've seen]

I take it that you haven't seen older mecha series, they were very uneasy animation in them or go and watch Reign or Super Milk Chan.

Some times not all series has the best art, but if it has a good story, then is that all that you need. The older mecha series was no award winning art style to them, but they had a good story to them. The older Gundam and Macross seires were like this as the art wasn't the best, but they were good for their story telling. IMO, most of the mecha series now have good art style, but they don't have a good story to them and the same goes for some other series as well now a days. I will take my older mecha series any day of the week over the nothing buy art style of mecha series that are out there and non mecha series.

There are some series out today that yes have a good story and art and Brotherhood is one of them as well as Macross F and a few others that I can't name right now.

Reign is the one of the worst anime ever and even worst animation.


If you watch Reign and come back to Brotherhood, you will think that the art is so pretty that you will be vomit rainbows after that.

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]
Col. Roy Mustang
[/color][/font]

[goldenspines]

[quote="Davidizer13 (post: 1351306)"]Really? The animation in Brotherhood is some of the worst I've seen]

I will simply disagree and encourage you to see more anime and more styles of animation. Because I think your viewing range in anime is missing out a lot.

All I know is from what that I've seen from the series (up to episode 28), it flows beautifully. It's not choppy at all, the fight scenes are fluid as they should be, and the colors are not overly bright.

[MasterDias]

I haven't noticed a significant drop in animation quality. Studio Bones is one of the top studios in Japan for smooth, consistent animation.

My major complaint about the anime (cuts aside) was that the chibi/comedy bits felt completely jarring/out-of-place and messed up any feeling of tension I was getting from the serious scenes. Thankfully, they toned this down after the first cour.

[blkmage]

Yeah, I can't see any particular instances in FMA where it was noticeably terrible. In fact, I feel like it's one of the shows with the most consistent level of quality. Do you have any specific scenes you can point to as being bad?

You don't even need to go back very far in order to find shows with poor animation. Just watch anything by smaller studios like Studio Deen, Seven Arcs, or Xebec. And as for budget-saving directorial styles, the prime example is Shaft and Akiyuki Shinbo.

Bones is definitely in the high tier of animation studios when it comes to actual animation.

[Davidizer13]

Maybe I should clarify. It's not the quality of the drawings that's the problem for me; it's just the low amount of things moving in each scene. Compared to the manga, the parts with low motion feel understated, almost like filler. I know that there's a lot of character development in those scenes, but it makes it feel quite a bit different from the manga.

[Garjzla]

[quote="goldenspines (post: 1351279)"]That's because you haven't seen the Briggs crew yet.

No actually, in all honesty, I think the animation is better in Brotherhood than it was in the original FMA series. Granted, this new series is moving right along without stopping to breathe much in the story, but that's its only "flaw" as far as I can tell. While I did enjoy the fillers in the orginal series, they often weighed the series down in terms of moving the story along.
The new series did slow up once they got to non-original series and only manga covered story material (like with Lin, for example).

I hear rumors that the series is going to be around 50 or 60 something episodes]


agreed, i feel that the animation is a lot better, i love how they showed the scenes when [spoiler]scar killed the rockbells[/spoiler] and how the eyes of the ishvalins glowed red and the amestrians glowed blue. That was just so cool. Also keeping it true to the manga is great becasue the manga story is so cool, and sure the last part of the first series was ok, but the last part of the real series is so much better.

Yeah and i agree the originall pace was a bit fast, but i actually liked it becasue i kinda wanted to see the "new" stuff and i could see how a non FMA know it all would get a bit lost.

[blkmage]

[quote="Davidizer13 (post: 1351336)"]Maybe I should clarify. It's not the quality of the drawings that's the problem for me]

In that case, that's not really a problem with the quality of the animation. It sounds like your problem has more to do with the direction of those scenes, in which case, your argument makes a lot more sense. I'm still not sure if I'm completely comfortable with the cuts and pacing, actually. It's not exactly ruining it for me quite yet, but it does feel a bit jarring at times.

[the_wolfs_howl]

You know, I've come upon an odd realization, now that Brotherhood has established itself sufficiently so we can see what it's probably going to be like for the rest of the show. I mean...FMA has been my favorite anime (and manga) from my earliest anime-loving days. I really like the way the first series flows, the way it looks, the attention that's given to character interaction (and I never felt that the "filler" episodes made the story drag along; I loved them all except for maybe the Psiren one). But the ending is devastating. And no, I never expected it to be all fluffy and happily-ever-after, but [spoiler]they broke the implicit promise they'd been making, that Ed and Al would get their bodies back.[/spoiler] There are ways they could have done that but still make it different from the manga - without making it so depressing I moped around for a week.

And while I love the manga version of the story, since it seems much more likely to have a completely satisfying ending (though most likely not a happy fluffy one, either), Brotherhood just somehow doesn't have that same appeal, that same magic, that the first series did. I have absolutely no problem with doing nothing but bringing the manga to life with color, animation, and voices - I mean, come on! Just think of all the animes you've seen that have been adapted from mangas, that were perfectly fine even though they stuck exactly to the story! But somehow Brotherhood doesn't seem to tap into that deep emotion as well as the first series did. A large part of it, I think, is the music. They really should've gotten Michiru Oshima back to do the music, because this new guy doesn't quite cut it. And there aren't as many of those soft, simple scenes between the brothers.

So, overall, I find Brotherhood very satisfying and fun, but you really have to take both animes and the manga to grasp the full scope of the story.