fullmetal alchemist 2009 1



You guys should probably already know my spiel about remakes by now from Kanon. At no point during my watching of Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 did I think to myself, “Hey, this needs to be remade!” On the contrary, what it originally lacked, was an ending. So I hope it doesn’t come down to slogging through 40 episodes of stuff I’ve already seen to find out that there’s still no ending. (Since the manga is still on-going and the studio is still Bones, I wouldn’t wait with baited breath for an ending.) Or, worse yet, another nonsensical ending that makes Mai Otome seem like a work of art.

(I hope this lays out a blueprint for an Ouran remake in 2012. That manga is still going strong, and I need more Orenge-sama in my life.)

He’s going to become one of the most beloved characters. Too bad he’ll die before the season’s over. And don’t get too attached to his daughter either.

(Needless to say, I’m going to assume you watched the 2003 series already. Oh, you haven’t? You’re in my playground now, rookie.)

(The sad part is that I probably do have readers who haven’t watched the original series. Sigh. Kids today just don’t learn the classics. I wonder how many of my readers have watched Gundam Wing or Tenchi Muyo…)

The OP, Again by Yui, doesn’t do it for me. I don’t like chanting at the beginning, and I know Bones can do better than that. I’m just going to mentally substitute it with Ready Steady Go from now on the same way I mentally substitute Fuko with a big black censored box.

What’s with the voice used for the eyecatch? Kill it! Kill it with fire!

(Back in 2003, I didn’t have a meta-opinion of Al. In 2009, I have one! Yippee! I like to thank Shana, Louise, Nagi, and Taiga for allowing me to make the “Is there a wrathful DFC tsundere trapped in that armor?” joke. Needless to say, I can’t wait for the Japanese art community to start pumping out doujinshi where Ed succeeds in summoning Louise from Al’s armor.)

Jyuunana-sai desu! I like some of the new casting decisions. I just hope Lust’s powers now include baking bread.

The animation is much improved, but I expect as much after six years. I’m probably more excited at the thought of another boom of Roy x Hawkeye doujinshis.

You know he’s the evil bad guy, right? No one with a black eyepatch, that mustache, and called “Furher” could be anything other than evil right? Though based on this episode, we could save a lot of time if Al and Ed helped the icy dude in killing Bradley.

I like the return of the super deformed ahoge look for Al and Ed. That was sorely missing from the original series.

The first 26 episodes episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 were really enjoyable. It had the right combination of plot, pacing, and humorous Ed moments. Plus, it had a great OP/ED combo in Ready Steady Go and Motherland. However, after that, the wheels came off, and I started retroactively disliking the series because of it. It wasn’t even done in a Code Geass R2 train wreck of a way where at least I could poke fun of it. The movie, Shambala, infuriated me further. I mean… Germany? WTF?

So what I’m hoping for:

1. Stick with the manga’s storyline. Please.

2. Nail Hughes’ death. It should be a bit less emotional than Ushio’s, but a lot more emotional than Nemu’s.

3. Balacing plot, pacing, and humor.

4. Megami Magazine foldouts for Winry!

Here’s what I don’t want to see:

1. Winry’s bust size to shrink (I’m expecting the worst now based on the Newtype spreads).

2. Germany.

3. Bromance.

4. Megami Magazine foldouts for Armstrong…

FMA, I’ll check back on you a month from now, and we’ll see how you’re doing then.

37 Responses to “fullmetal alchemist 2009 1”

  1. Broken Jason is broken, asking for Armstrong posters in his Megami. At least look at the trap and three girls in issue 105, guy. ;)

  2. @Haesslich: He said he DOESN’T want to see that.

    Seconding the request for Winry foldouts.

  3. The eyecatch voice jolted me right out of the episode, honestly. It sounds a bit like Vic Mangina. I don’t care who it is, it’s completely out of place, jarring, and vaguely disturbing. A bit like what happens when you watch this, then Hajime no Ippo. Bizzaro-world Armstrong apparently teaches young Japanese men to box.

  4. I would kill for Armstrong fold-outs in Megami.

    Tasty.

  5. “You guys should probably already know my spiel about remakes by now from Kanon.”

    You really don’t seem like the same blogger as you were back then… your taste has suddenly become unusual since your hiatus and you’re hating on shows you would have loved. Suddenly your readers have turned into a bunch of random guys that consider Queen’s Blade best of ’09. QB is no Maid Guy, Kanokon, Gundam SEED Destiny, Mai Otome, etc.

    “The sad part is that I probably do have readers who haven’t watched the original series. Sigh. Kids today just don’t learn the classics. I wonder how many of my readers have watched Gundam Wing or Tenchi Muyo…”

    I started anime because of these shows. If your current readers have never heard of them, you have a problem… anyone that didn’t even bother watching the original FMA has to be pretty young/anime-naive. It’s one of the few shows even my friends who very rarely watch anime have seen.

  6. “The first 26 episodes episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 were really enjoyable……. However, after that, the wheels came off, and I started retroactively disliking the series because of it.”

    I have the exact same feeling! Same goes for Soul Eater and Eureka Seven. It seems like Bones shouldn’t make series that are more than 26 episodes long. Here’s hoping this one will not disappoint.

  7. I’d consider myself something of an old hand in the anime game, but FMA was one of those shows I never got around to seeing despite telling myself to do so many times. So I’m looking forward to my first ride on this one.

    And it was kind of jarring listening to Roy. All I could think of was Lockon.

  8. I want to know what kind of bizzare boardroom politics were going on when they decided to flush practically the entire supporting cast and replace all their VAs with different ones. Mustang sounds especially wrong (especially when his old VA was so good) but it’s going to be a pretty difficult adjustment for a lot of them based off the cast list.

  9. Well, I watched the original dubbed back when I was just gettin’ into anime (its one of the few good dubs that I remember), so I’m not gonna have a problem with the replacement of VAs :P.

    Wait, if FMA is getting remade, does that mean we’ll get some more Light-o in a few years? I’m giddy over the prospect.

  10. Bleagh…FMA? Again? Next thing we know is that Love Hina will be getting a remake including NGE.

    What I wanted right now is a third season of Rozen Maiden or at least Suzumiya Haruhi. Anime is getting thin this days it seems.

    ciao…^^

  11. (I wonder how many of my readers have watched Gundam Wing or Tenchi Muyo…)
    Never heard of Tenchi Muyo and never got to watch Gundam Wing. I didn’t have cable back when everyone else in the US got hooked on Gundam Wing, and I still had Dial Up, so couldn’t use the internet alot.

    Not really planning on watching FMA. Might watch it in chunks eventually, but idk.

  12. Hey, I’d buy Megami *just* for Olivia Armstrong centrefolds. Or one where her brother has to salute her while all white with fear.

  13. Gundam WING and Tenchi Muyo? Tsk, tsk… What about the original Gundam RX-78 and Urusei Yatsura?
    Those are what I call “the classics”.

  14. I dare you young kids today to take your time machines, and go back to the 90’s and try to collect the original Tenchi Muyo OVA on VHS. *makes his John McCain talking to young people face* You can’t do it my friend. You won’t pay 20 to 30$ to watch a half hour on anime on a vastly inferior format.

  15. Almost nothing in the new series could ever top “When I become Fuhrer, all female officers will be REQUIRED TO WEAR /TINY MINISKIRTS/”.

    Maybe maid outfits. Or frogs. Or nurses. Or bunny girls. Or… did I just rifle off all of Mikuru’s outfits?

  16. You remember how in the first series they ran out of characters that had this angle of awesome to them after Greed’s arc, and instead went with a whiny kid who somehow had Ed’s arm?

    Not gonna happen this time. Arakawa does not make whiny kid characters, only characters that exude manliness and badassery. Case in point, Ling, Olivia, All those Chimera soldiers, Lan Fan, etc. I can only expect good things if Bones is following the manga.

  17. @Kaze

    I only managed to get one subbed vhs of Tenchi back then, but I do have 5 vhs tapes of Card Captor Sakura at $29.99 a tape. Of course, I have some other random shows thrown into the mix. Blockbuster and the library were good friends back in the day before fansubs could be downloaded.

  18. Also, It’s a sad day if I am considered an oldfag just for watching Tenchi and Gundam Wing… don’t know how to handle that prospect.

  19. Tell it to those that watched Space Battleship Yamato and Captain Harlock but never got into Gundam and skipped stuff until recently.

  20. A Love Hina remake is perfectly plausible, given the spate of Negima remakes. Plus, it would be an opportunity to deploy a brand new set of haremette archetypes. I want to see this sooner rather than later.

  21. I remember trying to buy the Tenchi Muyo OVA VHS tapes…

    I remember trying to split the cost with a friend of mine…

    Those were the days…

  22. Hey now…. as an elderly anime fan who’s seen, among other things, the entire Tenchi franchise, even the annoying bits. But I never watched the original series of Fullmetal Alchemist. Why? Certainly not out of ignorance; the online otaku community went well and truly apeshit for it. But I watched the beginning, and it simply didn’t do it for me. I wanted something less epic, shorter, and more sinen, less shounen. Just FYI.

  23. *seinen. Typo. Sorry.

  24. Great, now everyone is talking about their definition of “classic” to make their e-penis look bigger. Let’s face it; most of us are the Toonami crowd.

    I wasn’t a big fan of the OP at first, but then I remembered 2003’s first OP – that God-awful Spanish-guitar thing. The US just did us a favor and cut out the first and third OP’s so the American viewers only had to watch good OP’s. …God that thing was awful. So I’ll give it a couple more episodes and see if it grows on me.

  25. I wonder how many of my readers have watched Gundam Wing or Tenchi Muyo…)

    How many of your readers didn’t watch Cable TV back in 2000? I’m guessing few.

    @Laizane
    NGE is what halfway done being remade?

    Speaking of remakes I’m hoping the Nanoha movie will wipe the bad taste StrikerS left behind.

  26. Major Armstrong is love!

  27. “Speaking of remakes I’m hoping the Nanoha movie will wipe the bad taste StrikerS left behind.”

    I don’t know Shiro, I liked the near-explicit lesbian relationship between Nanoha and Fate. :P

    Scary thoughts: You’ll also be considered an oldfag for watching Clannad, Code Geass, Gundam 00, etc. in ten years. *Wonders if the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzimiya will have aired by then*.

  28. Love the manga, looking forward to this.

    Tenchi Muyo is something I developed an affection for only after I had watched it. Not late enough to call it nostalgia though, just a bit after the fact… it was really weird, now that I think about it.

  29. “God-awful Spanish-guitar thing”

    There can be NO awful Spanish Guitar of any kind. If it’s truly Iberian, it’s friggin sweet on the guitar.
    That being said, some of us watched Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo and never bothered to stay up late.

  30. Well good thing for you Jason, because I am one the of the fans who watched Tenchi Muyo and 03’s FMA. Man I feel so old :(

  31. The first thought I had at the end when Armstrong visits their room: “OMG, the Economic Downturn has struck FMA too! Armstrong can’t afford to rip his clothes off anymore! He has to actually take them off and save them!”

  32. Don’t get me wrong Hak, the implied Yuri between the two sets of protagonist is the saving grace of the show. The terrible pacing, gigantic underdeveloped cast, and mostly forgettable villains made it seriously underwhelming for me.

    Also, while I’ll miss Ready Steady Go!, and Rewrite I don’t think new music is necessarily a bad thing. It’d just be nice for it to be as catchy and fitting as the originals. Hmm, I think I’ll try your Fuko replacement method on Nagi and give Hayate another try.

  33. Watched Gundam Wing or Tenchi Muyo? I wonder how many of the readers had to play the VHS fansub trading game.

  34. Very good introduction, i understand why they made the first episode like this. I know i watched the first one, but the ending was to strange and felt to rushed in the first one. Though i do hate the whole lets 13 eps, see how it goes, goes 13 eps, ect… were are the days of 24 episodes, 54 episodes… Ah, i miss those days…

    By the way, I watched Gundam Wing, I own Gundam wing, and I have watched nearly every Gundam since ;)

    Didn’t catch much of Tenchi though, sorry to say, but did see some of it.

  35. Maybe I’ll check this out when it’s finished. I saw the original, was told it was one of the best anime ever, but it didn’t really strike me that way. For my money, NGE, Elfen Lied, Bebop, Haruhi, GitS-SAC, etc. are far more interesting and worthy of repeated viewings.
    I saw most of Gundam Wing on VHS, but the guy I borrowed it from was still collecting it. Missed Tenchi Muyo, though. But I was watching Speed Racer and Star Blazers in the late 70’s and Battle of the Planets in the early 80’s. Then Robotech, of course. Yeah, those were the classics. (Even if they were hacked-up American repackages.) Wasn’t until NGE and LAIN that I got reintroduced to anime in full. Does that make me the oldest guy here? or just the saddest?

  36. The first 26 episodes of the original FMA are what put the series into the top tier of anime for a lot of people. However, since the 2nd half wasn’t based on the manga(and to be fair, there WASN’T any manga chapters after the first 26 episodes at the time), it slipped a bit. I think it’s mostly because there was a severe lack of Mustang for about 15 episodes.

    Mustang is reminding me of Kurtz Weber a lot more than Lockon. But that’s fine. It fits the character perfectly, here.

  37. At the risk of sounding like a Bleach fanboy, is anyone else thrown off by the voice of Toshirou voicing Ed, and Urahara voicing Roy? And then Al’s voice… ugh. I got used to it by the end of the second episode though.

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