Fullmetal Review

I’ve just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist, an anime which was recommended to me in my search for a varied experience with things steampunk. While I didn’t find what I was looking for (while technology is vaguely Industrial Revolution, that’s not the thrust of science), I did come to appreciate FMA as an exploration of abuse of technology, and the importance of human connection.

In brief, FMA is the story of two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who seek the Philosopher’s Stone, an all-powerful alchemical substance that will allow them to circumvent the Law of Equivalent Exchange and restore their bodies, irreperably damaged when they tried to alchemically resurrect their dead mother.

What follows is an odyssey as they discover that they tread in the footsteps of many others that seek the Philosophers stone, only to be killed before they achieve their objective.

While Ed and Al are great main characters, who would sacrifice anything for each other, what makes FMA really work for me is the supporting cast. They are all deep and interconnected, and there is a strong sense that they must work together to achieve great things.

These supporting characters (they are far from “minor”) also serve as instructors to the Elric brothers. They teach them about the horror of war, the joy of new life, that some ambition is a good thing, that revenge doesn’t fix anything, and that the science of alchemy is not as important as being able to rely on your friends and family.

P is not a big fan of anime (partly because the aesthetics of animation don’t really appeal to her, and partly because her introduction to anime involved Urotski Doji), and yet she didn’t seem to FMA. That always gets my curiosity. But thinking about it, FMA doesn’t have any fan service, and the women are feminine without being disproportionate Barbie dolls, and it teaches some very good values without being preachy.

And then I found out that the series creator is a woman. The Wikipedia article on FMA discusses how Hiromu Arakawa went out of her way to incorporate social problems by writing in experiences from refugees, war veterans and so on. Even when not directly referenced in the series, I suspect that this influence differenciates FMA from your regular tentacle-waving, body part-wiggling anime on a level that appeals more to P.

Anyway, I enjoyed it on both levels, and I recommend it to everyone who wants either a good action-packed fighting anime, a good social-commentary anime, or both.