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| Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood; An ongoing review | |
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| Topic Started: May 25 2009, 11:04 PM (61 Views) | |
| NeuralClone | May 25 2009, 11:04 PM Post #1 |
Resident Tachikoma
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So, has anyone else been watching this? I know that Niko has due to our discussion over on Ex Isle but it'd be nice if we could expand the discussion to more than just two people!  You can stream it free and legally on Funimation's website: http://www4.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=280 New episodes are put up on Funimation's website on Thursdays, just 4 days after the episodes air in Japan. Pretty nifty! The fansub groups doing this series mostly suck horribly. However, there is one group that is incredibly fast and does a simply outstanding job. If you're interested and just can't wait the extra 4 days to watch the show legally in the US, just drop me a PM and I'll give you a link to the fansub group's website. The official translations are pretty decent though and the 4 day wait is nothing compared to the several YEAR wait that most series get. First things first, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a new version of the classic anime series that just started airing in Japan about 8 weeks ago. So it isn't a complete series yet. Therefore, I will be posting an ongoing review. This new series is being done by Bones, the company that did Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door. So the art style is much darker, gritter, and more detailed than it was in the original series. Plus it's being done in widescreen this time around and has an HD master. As you can imagine, this new series looks amazing.  The new seiyu are generally quite good. At the moment, it's only available in Japanese with subtitles (as I prefer watching anime anyway ;)). You may be wondering why they would want to create a remake when the original was so well done. Well, the goal of this new series is to follow the story of the manga more closely than the other one did. Ironically, the first episode tells a story that isn't in the manga, although it ties into the manga story quite nicely. And the second episode tells most of the complete backstory of the Elrics while they're on their way to Lior. It should be noted that this backstory is more or less exactly as it is in the manga, they just placed it earlier in the story and in slightly different context. Starting in episode 3, the series gets on track with the manga storyline. So much so that they're mostly cramming one chapter of the manga into 10 minutes per episode. Each episode seems to be covering about two chapters of the manga. While this may seem like it's going at an unnaturally fast speed, that's more or less the speed that the manga goes. There are little scenes here and there that are altered slightly for the anime series or there are scenes that are cut and placed in later/earlier episodes, but for the most part, it's being relatively faithful to the manga. But it isn't being nearly as faithful as say Naruto, which literally translates each panel from the manga into the series. I think this is a good thing. Overall, I'm really loving this new take on one of my favorite anime/manga universes. It'll never replace the classic anime series but I think it's well on its well to being able to be its equal. I'll be posting my thoughts on individual episodes over the next few days. |
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| RommieSG | May 26 2009, 02:53 AM Post #2 |
Brigade Leader
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Seeing as I haven't watched from beginning to end FMA, no unfortunately I haven't been watching this. 
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| NeuralClone | May 26 2009, 04:07 AM Post #3 |
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Resident Tachikoma
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What's nice about the new FMA series is that you don't need prior knowledge of the other anime series or the manga to follow it. Having knowledge of the other anime and the manga is a plus if you want to compare and contrast them, but they stand alone. So even if you haven't finished the other series yet, this new series won't spoil your enjoyment of the other one or vice versa. The stories are similar up to a certain point, but the original anime goes off and does its own thing rather quickly since Hiromu Arakawa didn't want the anime and manga to tell the same story in both mediums. I don't know how they convinced her to let them follow the manga so closely this time around... It looks like Funimation is going to be keeping up all of the episodes on their site too. With the manga up to Chapter 95 (as of this month) and still going strong (albeit nearing a conclusion), we're looking at an anime series that will probably be in the 50-60 episode range, assuming they continue putting 2 chapters per episode. If they start adding some of their own twists/padding, it could easily end up longer. Anyway, to make a long story short, you should have plenty of time to get caught up without having to worry about paying a cent to see the series since it's going to be running for quite a while. And Funimation seems to be pretty consistent with keeping shows online.
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| NeuralClone | May 26 2009, 06:19 AM Post #4 |
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Resident Tachikoma
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Oops. I'm a dork. I didn't realize that Bones did the first FMA series as well... 
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12:14 AM Sep 9
