Transcription
It’s rare that an anime is able to stand the test of time. With the amount of new shows flooding the medium every year, there’s simply too much for one person to watch. Older shows, even popular ones, naturally fade out of public consciousness, fated to either obscurity or being occasionally paraded around as old underrated hits. But a select few, whether due to overwhelming quality, a fervent fanbase, or something else entirely, live on as classics. Shows that need to be watched in order to truly understand the medium.
Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa is one of the greatest stories ever told. A thrilling adventure of intrigue and action where every detail matters and rich, fully fleshed-out characters populate every scene. It truly shows the pinnacle of storytelling that the Shonen demographic is able to reach and is a must-watch for any self-proclaimed anime fan. A classic’s classic if there ever was one. Why are you all looking at me like that?
Yes, the elephant in the video title here is that there are TWO Fullmetal Alchemist anime. The manga-faithful HD Brotherhood and the semi-original 2003 version. It’s one of the more bewildering scenarios, especially for a modern fandom that’s become so obsessed with how close adaptations are to their source. Bones decided to adapt FMA just two years and roughly 25 chapters after it had begun its run. With limited source material and a mandate from Arakawa herself to have a different ending than what she was planning, the production team got to work spinning their own tale. What resulted was a story that loosely follows and pads the manga for its first half before completely doing its own thing throughout the final 26 episodes. It’s a product of an era where many shows just ran until they hit an anime-original ending, or got bogged down in filler, instead of adapting in chunks with multi-year-long waits in between. When ‘03 ended, there were still SIX YEARS and roughly 70 chapters of manga to go.
However, just four years later, Arakawa announced in volume 20 that there would be a second anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, and this time it would faithfully follow the story of the manga. That adaptation would go on to be called Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Funnily enough, it too would catch up to the manga and would have to increase its production from 52 to 64 episodes, but ultimately it landed the conclusion perfectly just a month after Arakawa’s masterpiece itself had finished. And normally that would be the end of our story. A wrong righted, a narrative finally adapted correctly, the purity of anime restored, and 2003 left as a quirky footnote when people discuss FMA.
In fact, for many, this is exactly what happened. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood has instilled itself in anime jargon as redoing an anime adaptation to get it right, to fix the mistakes of the first attempt. The problem with that is that people liked Fullmetal Alchemist 2003; in fact, they really liked Fullmetal Alchemist 2003. It’s a show that many people will point to as THE show that got them into anime. Here in the US, it had a dub and was on Adult Swim in 2004, just a month after it had finished airing in Japan. It’s hard to describe how massive that was for any series in this era. Thanks to that reach, FMA ‘03 quickly became a touchstone show for a small but burgeoning community. A lot of people had it as their favorite anime of all time. It was the first in a long line of stories that showed a new generation what anime could really be, that it wasn’t just Saturday Morning cartoons. I mean, come on, IGN called it “more than a mere animated show”! In all seriousness, for a lot of teens in the early 2000s, they had simply never seen a show that looked like this and deal with such dark and serious themes. In a lot of ways, it mirrors Attack on Titan’s meteoric rise to prominence a decade later. It landed in the perfect time and place and easily captured a new generation of anime fans.
But the fact remains that Brotherhood does exist. Which begs the question, is a classic anime still a classic if it’s been usurped by a different classic? I’m sure a number of viewers are perplexed at the idea that Brotherhood could even be considered a classic anime—didn’t it just come out? You will be horrified to know, as I was, that for any 15-year-olds just getting into anime for the first time in 2024, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood came out the YEAR THEY WERE BORN. Brotherhood was still fairly new when I was getting into anime in 2015, and so it still kind of had that modern classic vibe to it. Five years is still within the statute of limitations, especially back then when the community moved a bit slower. Everyone knew that FMA was an all-time story, but ‘03 was the classic and Brotherhood was the new hotness. With the canon ending still fresh, there was an honest ongoing debate about which adaptation many people preferred more. You couldn’t discuss FMA without someone bringing up ‘03; half of the community was raised on it, after all, and for a while it really seemed like both would exist together, different versions of the same core story.
But time is undefeated, and as the anime community ballooned in size in the late-2010s, a huge influx of new fans were being told they had to watch the classic anime Fullmetal Alchemist. To which they asked, well, which one? What had once been a debate first turned into, “Watch Brotherhood, it actually follows the manga, then watch ‘03 if you want,” and then quickly turned into “just watch Brotherhood.” It makes sense, right? Few people enjoy watching similar versions of a story, so of course, new fans are going to want to know which is the RIGHT one so they don’t waste their time. Hard to argue that the right one isn’t the one that follows the author’s actual intent. Add in that FMA’s ending is one of the best, most satisfying conclusions in fiction, and you’re not likely to be desperate for more content after you’re done. I mean, I watched Brotherhood in 2018; it was my 100th anime. I finally watched ‘03 in 2024; it was my 300th anime.
What this has created, though, is a self-replicating loop of people who never watched ‘03 telling new people not to watch ‘03. It’s gotten so buried that nowadays when someone says Fullmetal Alchemist, I just assume they’re talking about Brotherhood. The diehards, who stand by it as the better version, are still around; every couple of weeks, I’ll see an ‘03 clip or some surprisingly heated debate about it on my timeline, but that’s really all. ‘03 lost the culture war, supplanted by its newer, manga-faithful, younger brother.
And then things got much worse. Funimation, whose dub was a huge reason the show was as popular here as it was, lost the rights to all FMA anything in 2016 as it got transferred to Aniplex of America. Aniplex has proceeded to release very expensive Brotherhood Blu-rays and I guess forgotten ‘03 exists. Then, in 2022, basically the final nail in the coffin was struck against ‘03, as it was removed from Netflix and has not been licensed on streaming anywhere in the US since. So you cannot legally stream this touchstone anime, and there is no new physical media being created for it. Extremely fun! Part of me wonders if ‘03 is just destined to wind up like Hunter x Hunter ‘99. A secondary adaptation of a beloved manga that some people swear by, but you can’t legally watch anywhere anymore. A relic of the past, that’s a novelty for a few fans, but ejected from the classics, cannibalized by its own flesh and blood. As a piece of art, as a thing that real people created, this is inexcusable, a failure of the highest order. An important cultural touchstone just disregarded for very little concrete reason. It’s happened before, and it will happen again, and every time it just kind of sucks.
We’ve spent a lot of time so far on the impact and life of FMA ‘03, and as we move on toward the actual contents of this anime, the stuff that gets many of us very angry online, I think it’s important to say that ‘03 deserves to exist. It deserves to be readily available on streaming just like Brotherhood is; it deserves to get brought up in online discussion; it deserves the chance to convert another unassuming person into an anime fan, and the fact that it no longer has that opportunity—it’s not right.
Okay, but is the show any good? I discussed earlier the hotly contested debate on which FMA adaptation is better, a war that is no more than smolders now but still always has the chance to ignite some of the craziest vitriol you have ever seen. It’s a debate that is seemingly inescapable whenever ‘03 is discussed, shackling it to only ever being analyzed in comparison instead of totality. This is probably why ‘03 fans are just so entrenched in their positions at this point. They have to play defense to even discuss their favorite show in public.
I mention all of this because I am firmly on team Brotherhood, and while I have objectively never been wrong once in my life, this grand debate is not the point of this video. I don’t want to spend the rest of the runtime lamenting the changes ‘03 makes to Arakawa’s story because 1. I will go insane; 2. I’d like to touch on it in a different video; and 3. At this point, it’s not really productive. There is a difference between how something fares as an adaptation and how good something is. As an adaptation of the manga and story titled Fullmetal Alchemist in 2024, charitably ‘03 is rough, and I say that while acknowledging the fact that it was never going to be a complete adaptation given what they had to work with. I also say this as someone who thinks one-to-one adaptations are bad; you have to change certain things when you switch mediums. Cut content or original additions are not only fine but welcome. Panel-for-panel recreations of manga are boring and usually do not create great anime. However, there is a line between directorial freedom and just completely changing the core plot, characterization, and message of a story. That last part is a lot of the reason why I take personal issue with some of ‘03’s changes. It’s obviously a unique case in that many of the changes were just simply required to tell the story they wanted, and the fact that they don’t line up with a manga that did not exist yet is really not the show’s fault. For the time it came out, it’s a fine adaptation; knowing what we know now, I do think there’s a reason its influence has faded a bit.
Which is why, for the majority of this video, I want to examine Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 as its own thing. As a show that stands on its own. As a story that exists outside of the manga. I think that’s only fair for a classic anime, and also the more pedantic I get about comparisons, the more we’re all just gonna be kind of in a bad mood. I am not here to willfully antagonize ‘03 fans (yet); I am here to try and make sense of what exactly this creation is.
Full spoilers for any and all versions of FMA ahead, and even if you know Brotherhood and have never seen ‘03, I do implore you to watch it and form your own opinion, as that is important.
Starting at the top, the intro is great. Is this because it is quite literally one-to-one to the manga’s first chapter? Yes, but Liore is just such a good beginning to the story. I do wish they spent less time revealing the transmutation at the start, but that’s me getting pedantic with the manga, and I promised not to be too annoying. That whole first episode is such an incredible hook with so many fun reveals that you kind of take for granted when you already know these characters back to front. Al being an empty suit of armor, Ed’s automail—it’s easy to see how the show immediately grabbed so many new fans when it aired. It’s honestly even more fitting as an opening given how important Liore winds up being to this story being told here.
What follows, though, is a lot more hit or miss. After the obligatory human transmutation and house-burning backstory, ‘03 already begins its semi-original yoink and twist. It sets up the following string of episodes as one continuous flashback, reformatting stories and creating its own where needed to build out a narrative of Ed and Al’s journey from Resembool to becoming state alchemists in the city. This section, as well as the episodes that revert back to present day from episodes 10 to 13, do their best to capture the wild adventure aspect of the series to differing levels of success. The train attack and the trip to the mining town are great, per usual, and twisting the Rush Valley delivery into helping Gracia while she goes into labor is a really fun addition. But the episodes with the puppeteer, the phantom thief, and the fake Elric brothers are a lot more meandering than I would have liked. I can excuse the Majhal episode a bit here because it’s still just episode 4, and it also really sets the darker tone ‘03 wants to focus on. A tone enhanced by extended cut Sho Tucker. Tucker almost becomes a parental figure to the brothers here, and Nina is fully a surrogate sister, dragging out both of their involvement in the story to multiple episodes. This makes the slow realization of what’s happening all the more sinister. A prime example of something that I imagine hit really hard on first watch and also before it was meme’d to hell for no reason. I do think it’s a little goofy that Scar is just aimlessly wandering around the capital, and killing a chimera suddenly gives his life meaning, but whatever, his entire character arc here is INSANE, so sure.
Because of all this serious, alchemists-can-be-evil introspection, one of the fandom’s favorite early episodes, “Fullmetal vs. Flame,” does kinda come out of nowhere at 13. It’s really fun, though, and adding TINY MINISKIRTS fully into canon here is hilarious, so if anything, it resuscitates you after learning about red water for two full episodes. All in all, the opening quarter of ‘03 is solid; with the exception of episode 10 (we have Persona 5 at home), I wouldn’t say there’s a bad episode in this stretch. The narrative building blocks are there, and we’ve introduced most of our major players, albeit slowly. This is the biggest instance of the somewhat odd pacing ‘03 has for its first half. Given the nature of how the overarching story is stretched out here, there’s not a ton of forward momentum until the boys finally learn about Marcoh. I imagine this is why half of it was reformatted as a flashback because it operates a lot smoother in this story as characterization instead of what would come off as a lot of mindless wandering that doesn’t involve the philosopher’s stone. Luckily, this is not a problem in the rest of the loosely adapted material. As the next 12 episodes jam in a large number of important plot threads that the story has avoided up til now: Marcoh, Scar, the fifth laboratory, Al’s existential crisis, Hughes’ death, and more! The story really makes up for lost time by introducing Marcoh as a key figure in the search for the philosopher’s stone, having him dump as much exposition as possible and then die. Feels like a waste of such a knowledgeable and potentially pivotal character, but whatever, his role here is to tell Ed and Al about the Ishvalan massacre and reveal to the audience that…Mustang killed Winry’s parents. A bombshell reveal that will surely have a satisfying conclusion later!
Speaking of Mustang, what the hell was the plan, my guy? You hide the location of Marcoh for years, begrudgingly tell Ed where he is to help with his search, and then just let him immediately get captured and die in military custody?? I would be so mad if I was Marcoh; like, the cops are there immediately after Ed shows up, they didn’t even try to visit him incognito. This version of Mustang already being bumbling kind of twists the rain scene with Scar from funny to more incompetent, a bit of a theme with the colonel throughout this specific series in my opinion. Anyway, Scar shows up, kills Basque Grand (which honestly kinda hits here; that man has essentially been a minor antagonist up to this point), almost kills Ed, and then absorbs a fake philosopher’s stone into his arm. Ominous! What follows is the real solidification of something I can only describe as ‘03’s vibes-based storytelling: episodes that have interesting themes wrapped around pretty unimportant events. If I tell you the episode following Scar and Ed’s big fight is introspective about the human cost of war, the foolishness of the quest for power, and the punishment of survivors’ guilt—that sounds really interesting! But it’s also me charitably doing literary analysis on Al getting left at a train station, a young boy stealing him to wear to a gang fight, and Ed storming off in search of his brother only to get his leg stolen by a girl trying to give it to a war vet. It’s tackling interesting themes in support of the story but not by using the overarching story itself, similar to the one-off episodes earlier in the show. As we’ll see a bit later, ‘03 is very good at saying something, just in a kind of bizarre way sometimes.
The climax of this section is the fifth laboratory, and it’s probably the best display of the good side of ‘03’s distinct brand of sauce. Big story reveals about how stones are made and who the homunculi are, a great fight for Ed, a rumination on what it actually means to be human, all mixed in with Sho Tucker—he’s back, and he’s a little freaky now. This all comes to a head with Ed almost getting tricked into creating a philosopher’s stone using live humans because he thought he was just using red water created from humans, and why let perfectly good product go to waste, I guess. Kimblee, who, surprise, is here now, spoils this by blowing up the ceiling and revealing that Ed was, in fact, about to murder a bunch of real guys. The mysterious figures we’ve been seeing throughout the story are finally revealed to be homunculi—another great twist in a story that has repeatedly beaten it over our heads that creating artificial life is impossible. Al is taken hostage for not the first time and certainly not the last time, and Ed loses a fight for not the first time and certainly not the last time, to Envy, who has basically been nonexistent in the story up to this point. The homunculi reveal they want a stone to turn themselves into real humans, but since they can’t use Alchemy, they need humans to create one. They try to use Al as a hostage to threaten Ed into going through with the aforementioned murder, but he can’t bring himself to do it even under the risk of losing his brother. He then tweaks out on red water, and everybody leaves. I really do like Ed being so stubborn, so hellbent on the one way he can save his brother that he almost accidentally commits a mass murder. Sometimes the flames of ambition are blinding, and he’s been flirting with that for a while now. I then like it even more that once all the cards are on the table, he refuses to do the transmutation even at the risk of losing Al. Incredibly interesting clash of his morals, his desire to protect his brother, and just the overwhelming weight of holding so many lives in the palm of your hand. And you know this is all good stuff; in this world we’re living in where I am experiencing Fullmetal Alchemist for the first time, I gotta say, I’m very interested to see where this goes.
After this, Al has his existential crisis, which again is some vibes-based episodes where you’re contemplating what it means to be human while Scar and Al chill with some kids. And then finally, we reach the midpoint of FMA ‘03, Episode 25, “Words of Farewell.” That’s right; it’s finally time for Hughes to die. It’s done well here; I have no complaints; him fighting off two homunculi at once is indeed pretty cool. However, it’s honestly almost comical how long it takes for Ed and Al to learn about Hughes; he dies in episode 25; they learn about it in EPISODE 44. At that point, so much is going on it barely even matters. Look, the Mustang funeral scene is all the send-off Hughes really needs; it’s a perfect scene, but to not really have the boys grieve him just kind of feels weird.
Now that Hughes is gone, though, we have officially reached the Twilight Zone, where ‘03 just goes absolutely insane. The second half of the story is not wholly original despite the common conception, but it’s pretty close, with Beasts of Dublith and Izumi the only remaining parts. Either way, the entire half can kind of be separated into five distinct sections: Wrath, Greed, Liore, Prep, and endgame. The Wrath section is where the story finally starts playing its hand. It consists of Ed and Al not going back to see Izumi but getting caught by her and dragged to Dublith. They’re sent to the training island, and there they meet a mysterious young boy with a miscolored arm and leg who can use alchemy. HMMMMM. He has no memory, but after being captured by the military and fed Philosopher’s stone shards by Envy, it turns out that he’s the seventh homunculus, Wrath. First, yes, those are Ed’s actual arm and leg; he grabbed them when Ed passed through the Gate of Truth, and he can use alchemy because he technically possesses humanity through them. More importantly, though, he’s the empty husk created when Izumi tried to transmute her son. Homunculi are the result of human transmutation; they are literal proof of humanity’s sins. This is the coolest thing that ‘03 does; I unabashedly love it. It adds so much more weight to the taboo of human transmutation and gives the villains direct relationships with our heroes. If someone tells you that they like the homunculi in ‘03 better, this is almost certainly the reason why. There’s a whole unique way you have to kill a homunculus; you can bind them using the remains of the person they were based on. It’s like they’re vampires; it’s a really great story choice. Wrath is a little bit of an exception because after he was created, Izumi shoved him back into the gate. Which is why he was able to grab Ed’s limbs and also why he operates a bit differently than the older homunculi. His ultimate goal is to steal the rest of Ed’s body and, in theory, become human. He’s an interesting foil to Ed and can do crazy alchemy on his artificial body; unfortunately, after he runs away during a fight with Ed in episode 32, we will not really see him again until episode 41. He is criminally underused, sadly a theme with a lot of the homunculi.
Speaking of, Greed’s part in all of this is actually quite funny. After escaping the fifth laboratory where he was chained up, he kinda just hangs out, recruits his team, gets betrayed by Kimblee, and dies. See, I labeled Greed as one of the significant parts of this half because he does matter, quite a bit actually, but he also gets two episodes, and then he is gone. After Wrath disappears, the brothers are sent to meet Izumi’s alchemy teacher, Dante. We will get to Dante a bit later. Greed and his team show up, and Al, for not the last time, gets kidnapped. Ed goes after him, but before he can fight, the military shows up. Greed escapes and goes to find Dante who, surprise, was the one who did the original human transmutation that created Greed. Dante is already dead for an undisclosed reason, but her assistant Lyra, who in my opinion is acting a little weird, leads Greed into a trap using the remains of his human body. While he’s locked in place, she forcibly ejects the philosopher’s stones in his body, making him mortal again. Yes, that was most of the unique way you have to kill a homunculus I was just referring to. Ed shows up and fights Greed in maybe the show’s best fight. Honestly, it’s one of the only ones where Ed does something smart using alchemy and doesn’t just use his arm sword, so yeah, I feel comfortable saying this is ‘03’s best fight. And then it ends with Ed killing Greed. A lot to unpack here. It’s a bit unfortunate that the story seems hesitant to add another group into the fray here, especially given the intrigue of a stray homunculus not working together with the others. I get that there’s already four, arguably five factions at this point if we count Mustang and friends as their own thing, but I would have loved to see Greed and Ed work together if only for a few episodes. Regardless, Ed and Greed’s fight is a worthy climax, and the show does a pretty good job working in Ed’s shock at killing for the first time. Honestly, given the overall tone ‘03 aims for, I’m surprised they didn’t dedicate more time to this thematically. There’s a genuine shock and horror on his face as he realizes he has killed someone, even someone he perceived as an enemy. I wouldn’t say this is a huge tonal shift; it’s been gently set up for most of the story, but given what comes after, it does feel like a demarcation line.
What follows Greed is a stretch of episodes that are not bad, but let’s just say they occasionally left me in a fever dream-like stupor. First, we get an episode that really focuses on
Lust. If someone tells you that they like the homunculi in ‘03 better, and it’s not for the earlier reason, it’s for Lust. She gets a whole backstory about how she helped save a town and ruined a man’s marriage on a whim because he reminded her of a man from her faint human memories. It’s desperately needed characterization for a villain, and while it does end with her killing this guy and dooming the entire town to die, it’s our first glimpse that she might not be completely unredeemable.
The overarching plot at this point is Ed, Al, and Winry on their way to Liore, while the military also sends troops in the interest of quote-unquote stopping the uprising. So we do that for a bit; we learn more about how to make a philosopher’s stone, and Hawkeye catches the gang and sends Winry back to Central. We then get the most stupifying anime episode I have seen in quite a while.
Episode 37, following up Ed killing for the first time, an entire town getting wiped out by disease, and an in-depth look at Ishvalan suffering, is a comedy special. It’s a comedy special about Team Mustang—WE HAVENT EVEN SEEN MUSTANG IN 10 EPISODES. We haven’t seen Mustang to such an extent that they literally do a bit about it in the show. And his grand return is him stealing dates from Lt. Havoc, Havoc being so sad about it that they set him up with Armstrong’s Sister, WHO LOOKS LIKE THIS AND IS ALSO A BROCON, and then they go on an unrelated ghost hunt. I am not lying when I say that I was worried I had started an OVA by mistake or watched something out of order. The episode is indeed funny, but my god, it’s like 180 whiplash.
Anyway, back at the plot, Winry and Sheska go on a fun, oddly extremely important side mission to finish Hughes’ investigation. Before he died, he was investigating Bradley’s secretary, Juliet Douglas, and it turns out that the real Juliet Douglas died years before. So they go and they wiretap her phone conveniently right when she’s talking to Envy, revealing that she is also a homunculus, Sloth. She tries to kill the girls; they escape and ship off to Resembool for the rest of the story. This is maybe the best side character plotline in the show; Winry and Sheska accomplish a pretty massive reveal by themselves, without help, and that’s really cool. ‘03 Winry is a bit hit or miss for me, a lot of which comes from her just kinda being stuck with Ed and Al for a while but not really accomplishing anything. So this is easily her biggest highlight in the series, right alongside being about as angry as I am that MUSTANG KILLED HER PARENTS.
This brings us to episode 39; we have the identity of 6 of the 7 homunculi, and we’ve got all the major players in Liore. IT IS NOW TIME TO COMMIT SOME WAR CRIMES. Up to this point, we haven’t really talked about Scar all that much, so I want to do so now. Throughout the show, he’s kind of used as an alt pov character at times. We initially see him as a villain, but also the first time he’s introduced he’s just a confused guy wandering on the street. We see him by himself at the Ishvalan camp; he hangs out with Al multiple times. By the midpoint of the story, he’s no longer a pure villain and instead just becomes another faction maneuvering in his own interest. Maneuvering, as we quickly learn, a giant rock around Liore to turn it into a city-wide transmutation circle. That’s right, Scar disappears for the Wrath and Greed portions of the story because he was off installing Operation Geneva Convention.
Years prior, his brother figured out how to create a philosopher’s stone, and that’s how Scar has his powerful tattoo arm. In fact, his brother even created a stone to try and bring back his dead fiancée. But not before failing to transmute her and creating Lust in the process. I think it’s quite nice that the two semi-helpful villain characters have a connection like this and explains why they each seem so familiar to the other. Once Scar heads back to Liore, he steels himself to use his brother’s work to create a new philosopher’s stone, but instead of using the citizens of the town, he’s going to use thousands of military soldiers. Part of me wants to say this is out of character for Scar, but I think that’s the part of me that’s hanging onto a different version of him. It’s not like 03 Scar is more evil or extra murderous, but he just never meaningfully moves past his initial motivations. He wants to exact revenge on the military, and that’s kind of it. He softens up a little around the Elrics but not substantially; for everything we’ve learned about Scar, this decision is kind of in line with the way he’s acted the entire time. It leaves him a little more one-note than I would like, but at least his final act to complete his plan does add a little color.
Ed briefly confronts Scar in Liore, but after getting interrupted by Lust, decides to at the very least help all the civilians escape. Before doing so, though, he sends a letter to Mustang telling him not to let the army march into the city, which is the sole reason I’m not that mad at him for letting this happen. For the time being, the army waits outside, and Al is sent in to retrieve his brother. Also, this is where we finally learn that Bradley is the seventh homunculus. He orders Kimblee to kill Ed and is overheard by snake woman Marta, who is here in an extended role but still somehow dies in exactly the same way. If I’m not mistaken, that is technically the last manga thing they adapt.
Once Al reaches the city, he helps Scar finally get revenge on Kimblee, but in the process has his armor turned into a bomb. It is here where Scar makes a very interesting decision. I’ve been softly making fun of all the Scar and Al hangouts that have happened up to this point, but it was going somewhere. Al is about to die; if his armor blows up, his blood seal will be gone, and with Ed down in the sewers fighting baby genius and hydro mom, the only person who can save him is Scar. And whether out of genuine affection for him garnered over the story or perhaps his memories of his own brother saving his life, he hatches an absolute crackpot scheme to save Al. See, Scar can’t change and reconstruct things using his alchemy; he only knows how to destroy, so the only way he can change the composition of Al’s armor is to turn it into the philosopher’s stone itself. This rules; it’s so ridiculously insane of a conception that I’m 100% on board.
Scar baits the army to finally march into the city by showing them Kimblee’s corpse, which is all Colonel Archer was waiting for since he really wanted to do some state-sponsored war crimes. I haven’t really discussed Archer at all because he is essentially just the personification of the evil humans in the military. He’s needed to keep the plot moving, but he’s also so comically evil that he’s not really interesting. Which makes it extra funny that he gets turned into a literal terminator for the final stretch of the show. Honestly, the same can be said for 03 Kimblee as well; he’s pretty much just a crazy guy who likes blowing people up, no nuance, he’s just a villain.
After securing the ingredients, Scar, who already lost an arm in the fight with Kimblee, fuses his tattooed arm with Al’s armor, losing it in the process. With all the preparation done, he does something that is admittedly very metal and completes the transmutation circle with his body, dying as thousands of lives are turned into glowing red light. This is where the narrative of ‘03 is at its best; you’re naturally rooting for the protagonist in this situation, you don’t want Al to die, but you’re forced to grapple with what that means. What the cost of that is. Not only do we lose a prominent side character, but also thousands of mostly innocent lives were just lost in order to keep one character alive. These are the themes and the issues that ‘03 wants to explore, and if you do the work to dig, it’s very compelling. Unfortunately, again, a lot of that comes through in analysis and subtext as the story itself is now moving at such a breakneck pace it only has so much time to dedicate to Al now literally being made of human lives. Because as soon as this happens, he and Ed are forced to run, now being wanted men because the homunculi want the philosopher’s stone. Lust, for her part, helps the boys escape and is punished for it. Punished by Dante.
Dante, god Dante, I do not like Dante. I think the story sets up the homunculi as not only villains in a proper sense but also the direct counterparts to our heroes. They are literally the manifestation of their sins. Ed and Al created Sloth; Wrath has Ed’s limbs; Envy is the husk of the Elrics’ dead half-brother. There is so much that could have been done with the different relationships they have with the main characters. That fact about Envy isn’t even revealed until the penultimate episode and is basically just there as flavor text to explain why he hates Hohenheim. The writers honestly had some great ideas here, as has been the case throughout, and were just not able to make the most of them. Ed and Wrath, and Ed and Envy, are two relationships that should have been slam-dunk rivalries from the word go, and I really think Sloth should have been the boys’ final boss. Because once they’ve faced the husk of their mother, once they’ve faced the creation that started this story, I just don’t have much energy for a battle against their Dad’s ex-wife.
I remember while I was in the middle of watching ‘03 I was discussing this with a friend, and I mentioned that it makes sense for the homunculi to have a deeper character here since they’re the main villains vs. in Brotherhood where they’re more of the servants of the main villain. That felt really clever until the story decided that no, they’re still serving a master, and in this case, not even one that created them. Dante’s motivations are so shallow and comically evil that it takes away any chance of a nebulous final conflict. Where the question of letting the homunculi try to become human could have had interesting ramifications, it boils down to our heroes vs. a woman trying to use thousands of lives to do plastic surgery on herself because she really wants to sleep with her ex’s son. Dante’s involvement here just feels like a misstep, and I really wish all the time she spends monologuing over the final few episodes was spent giving more satisfying character conclusions to the homunculi.
Back outside, Ed and Al decide to flee to Resembool, the first place anyone would look, and are caught by Team Mustang, who have Winry and Sheshka hostage. If you were wondering if this is where we finally get that payoff to Mustang killing Winry’s parents, she confronts him about it, and he says nothing. Then later he tells Ed and Al that he did it because he was just following orders, but that taught him that sometimes, you shouldn’t follow bad orders. Anyway, the actual emotional moment here is Mustang yelling at the boys for recklessly doing things on their own and not relying on his protection more. A genuinely touching moment if it wasn’t preceded by 30 episodes of Mustang not doing anything. Regardless, our beloved colonel is finally back in the story and a major player. Everyone heads to the Rockbells to hide the still nationally wanted man and suit of armor and gameplan their next move. In a surprise twist, Hohenheim, the Elrics’ father, is there waiting for them. I really thought he just wasn’t going to show up in this version. As it turns out, he still kinda doesn’t. Ed beats him up; he has a nice moment with Al, drops a little homunculus lore to Mustang, and then leaves, alone to confront Dante. They lore dump at each other for a bit to explain why Dante is now in Lyra’s body, that Hohenheim willingly created a philosopher’s stone that started this whole mess, and that the two of them have been swapping bodies to stay alive for centuries. Look, ‘03 Hohenheim is barely a character as it is, but I gotta say this does not paint him in a flattering light. He regrets his actions now hundreds of years later, but that’s after going on an alchemy murder rampage with his first wife, failing to transmute his dead son, and then leaving because he was sad. It doesn’t make him particularly sympathetic. The crown jewel of his short-lived appearance is that he swiftly loses to Dante by simply being too much of a wife guy. Just seeing Sloth’s Trisha appearance freezes him long enough for her to incapacitate him, and Dante sends him through the Gate of Truth using a baby. He doesn’t even fight Envy; I swear they missed some of the easiest layups in this final stretch.
With that out of the way, we are finally in the endgame, where we get our final few big reveals, one cool fight, and everyone’s IQs drop significantly for no reason. Starting with Al, who, in a desperate attempt to figure out how to utilize his new philosopher’s stone body, decides it would be a good idea to go hang out with Shou Tucker. Who is still around, by the way. Tucker promises to teach Al how to use the stone in exchange for letting him use it to transmute a complete copy of Nina, something that he’s been trying to do as a trauma response ever since he killed her. Al agrees and learns that when the stone is used he loses a part of his body with it. We learn that even with a philosopher’s stone to transmute a complete human body, if there is no soul to fill it, it’s essentially pointless. A human in name but surely not in reality. A fairly daunting realization and cap on a power that previously was seen as endless. A realization in line with the darker form of alchemy this story seems to employ. It’s a cruel but fitting fate for Tucker, who retreats to his cave not to be seen again. Unfortunately, Al’s little excursion attracts the attention of the homunculi. Lust makes a deal with Ed in exchange for him making her human afterward, while Sloth and Wrath show up to take Al to Dante. This is the best thematic fight in the show, and as I said earlier, I really wish this was the final battle. But there’s a reason I just said “thematic fight” because, as is the case with a lot of the material in the climax, how things actually get done are, well, everyone is kinda dumb. A lot of fights in the series sort of get decided by luck or convenience, not necessarily a plan working or someone being stronger, and nowhere is that felt more than at the end.
Ed and Lust’s plan to trap Sloth works perfectly; Ed digs up his actual mother’s grave to get a bone to immobilize her, and Lust draws the sealing circle with her nails. They spring it on her; they weaken her, and then a couple of just insane things happen. First, Ed tries to give Lust the locket with her original version’s hair in it; I don’t know why he does this; she cannot carry it; if she interacts with it in any way, it will freeze her in place; why does he throw it at her? Just keep it, at LEAST until you’ve finished off Sloth. Then Al, entranced by the form of his mother, decides he’s going to take the only thing stopping her from attacking them and throw it out the window. I can understand that he may be upset that his brother dug up their mother’s grave, but I feel like this is an issue that can be resolved after defeating the villain. Al takes a real bad IQ hit overall in this section. Then, Wrath happens to arrive right as the mom box was yeeted out of the window. He has begun to completely unravel mentally, believing that Sloth is his mother. An incredible example of look how cool this shot is, in service of something extremely confusing. I want to give a little bit of credit here; “I want to take everything of yours away from you” is a great line for the foil villain, probably his best line. So Wrath sticks the box inside of his body and goes to have a genuinely good fight with Lust where he just gets his ass beat. Just complete domination; she even hits him with the “I will kill you enough times until you die,” an immortal classic. Unfortunately, remember that locket Ed carelessly tossed away earlier? Well, Wrath happens to fall right onto it while also conveniently Lust is standing inside the sealing circle! He removes her immortality and kills her. It’s better to be lucky than good.
Let’s pause for a moment then to discuss Lust, universally agreed to be the best homunculus in this version, not that the competition is very tough. She is, undoubtedly, the best-written homunculus; her former memories affect her more than the others, and she seems to have a genuine moral quandary at times about what she is actually trying to achieve. She’s the only homunculus that really sees through what Dante is doing and realizes the only way to become human is to betray her. She’s the most interesting villain, and it is a shame that she gets taken out by the baby genius in such a hamfisted way, but at least she gets some resolution. She realizes at the end that the reason she wanted to become human in the first place was so that she could die. At least it’s something. To me, it strikes a little hollow that that’s the answer when just an episode ago she was admonishing Ed for even asking why she’d want to become human as it’s obvious that a soulless man-made creation would want to achieve humanity. In her answer then, it’s clear that there was no point; she simply just wanted to be human. Which to me is a little more satisfying than, immortal being wants to die, when they’re not truly immortal. Regardless, that’s the end for her character, killed due to bad luck and seemingly thematically undercut to boot. I still like her and wish she had an even bigger role, but we’re only halfway done with THIS episode, so we have other fish to fry.
Lust’s death sends Wrath deeper into his existential spiral as he asks, “If I become human, does that just mean death? What does it mean to be completely human?” a question the show never truly answers, which for once is alright. It’s a question that’s the core of this story, and I think letting you chew on it is kind of the point. No one, even the human characters, even the human audience, really has a way to answer this. It’s crucial that you’re contemplating this while watching the show or else things do fall a bit flat at times. If you’re viewing this part of the ending as a black and white soulless villains fight human protagonists, it really starts to struggle, which again is why I don’t like Dante. Anyway, it’s time to briefly have a fun fight again. Al’s armor gets controlled by the water form of Sloth, and Ed uses alchemy in a genuinely cool way, more of a rarity than I’d like in ‘03, to freeze Al and Sloth at the same time. She then escapes by vibrating really fast and while doing so unlocks her human memories of the boys. She then decides that in order to stop the pain those memories bring her, as she’s not human, and not actually their mother, she needs to kill Ed. Thematically appropriate, just a very fast 180. The whole fight is kind of in that vein; this is such an important moment, something we’ve been building to ever since we learned how homunculi are created, arguably ever since episode 1. A moment that, in my mind, is the proper climax of the story, and it feels a bit rushed. Probably because it’s not the actual climax, and with only four episodes left, we are moving at breakneck speed to get to it.
Ed does yet another cool alchemy trick; this fight is a real highlight reel for him, turning his arm into sodium so that Sloth explodes. This doesn’t kill her, but it does set off Wrath, who’s so worried about his mama that he fuses himself to her. Astute readers will remember that Wrath absorbed Trisha’s bones about 10 minutes ago. Sloth is frozen in place, and Ed transmutes her body into ethanol, which evaporates at room temperature. The hands that brought her into existence are the ones that snuff her out. I complained a lot about that whole sequence, but that’s really good thematic stuff. Ed is forced to reckon with his sins, lose his mother for a second time, and this time make the choice to do so. I was clowning on Al, but the allure of seeing someone who was exactly like the person you tried to bring back has got to be heartbreaking. Maybe even to the extent that you convince yourself that maybe it really is her. I think we see that effect in Wrath, Al, and Ed to differing degrees. Something that even Ed notices. He doesn’t cry when Sloth dies, but Wrath does, so who’s really the human at this point? What does that even mean? In many ways, episode 47 really is the thematic high point of the series. And sorry for really getting in the weeds on that episode; it’s just the most insane television I’ve watched this year, and I needed to make that known.
But before Sloth’s body is even cold or dry? Envy shows up as Winry, tricks Al for just long enough to capture him, and then takes him to Dante. Wheeeeeeeee! Look, there’s a lot you can say about the final act of FMA ‘03; you can’t say it’s boring. Izumi and Ed rush to Central in order to attack Bradley, but in doing so, Ed learns the actual location of where Envy took Al, from the fake Elric brothers from episode 12, sure. At this point in the story, there is still one exceptionally odd thing that it’s doing, which is that Ed thinks that his father, not Dante, is the leader of the homunculi. Which is very intriguing if we didn’t already know that that wasn’t the case. So Ed just keeps asking characters about it to no real effect for the audience. This is more of a minor thing, and him knowing about Dante wouldn’t have made me like her more, but just an odd decision.
The last introspective moment before the final battle comes with a wonderful car ride between Ed, on his way to save Al, and Mustang, on his way to kill Bradley. This is the scene that is a glimmer of the potential this story has. When the themes match the characters, and it slows down to let them embrace them. There’s so much great dialogue in this scene that it very well might be my favorite scene in the entire show. “Both of us are trying like little children to be faithful in living out our dreams. I thought that wars were something that somebody somewhere started and ended in someplace unknown to us. The inclination to wage war is within all of us. The homunculi are nothing more than what our human hearts and wits made them to be.” So so so many good lines that finally unearth the inner conflict within Ed and expose the bigger questions the story tries to get at. For every scene that motions towards these things without weaving it into what is actually on screen, this is finally the opposite. It shows us how far Ed has come, how much more serious he’s gotten, and the toll all of this has taken on him. While he doesn’t think all of this is his fault, he does now believe it’s his duty to stop it. It is seemingly at this moment that he realizes that he will do whatever it takes to save his brother and stop this cycle of violence. He doesn’t care about the dream he had at the beginning of this story; all that matters is the pragmatic solution. And because of that, this ends with a harrowing conclusion. “There’s something more important than your dreams; there always is.” A line that reveals the true ethos of this ending.
Al is now trapped in the underground city and finally has his moment of despair once Envy reminds him that his body is made up of tens of thousands of human lives. I may not have loved how we got here, but the story is indeed cashing some of these checks it wrote. We get another bombshell immediately after with the reveal that the underground city was originally Central and all of its citizens were sacrificed by Hohenheim and Dante to create a philosopher’s stone. A straightforward reveal that adds a real chilling effect to the entire area. Ed confronts Dante during a very fun sequence where the production decided to forgo a shot-reverse shot and instead spin the camera 360 degrees, increasing the speed alongside the intensity of the conversation. Then they follow it with these fish-eye lens shots too. A lot of fun stuff in these last few episodes. Dante then breaks the entire conceit of the story in half, revealing that equivalent exchange is a lie. Not in alchemy but more broadly, societally, that it’s a lie the weak use to comfort themselves. That just the payment of effort or trying to achieve something does not guarantee you will, meaning the theory of equivalent exchange, is wrong. I think this is what the story genuinely believes.
Time and time again, we see characters killed or punished despite trying their best, doing what they were supposed to do. I think twisting the most popular facet of the story in this way is extraordinarily interesting, a great way to try and shatter the protagonist's way of thinking at the finish line. However, she then sends Ed to London. Not Fullmetal Alchemist London, not a facsimile of London, actual World War 1 London.
It is now time for the final reveal of this story: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GATE OF TRUTH IS THE REAL WORLD. So this got me, this melted my brain; it’s such an insane crackpot reveal I almost have a deep level of respect for it. I do think this being the other side of the gate is a cool idea, an idea that gets a bit confusing if you think about it too long, but that’s okay. The part of this that actually sent me through the roof is that the energy required to use alchemy is the lives of people in the real world. The basis for alchemy itself is human lives. The process of alchemy, the core of the very story of Fullmetal ALCHEMIST, is inherently evil. Every time a character has done anything throughout the story, they’ve been using the supply of energy created by a science-based society waging war.
In terms of shock and endgame twists, this can’t be beat, but in doing so it undercuts what made the philosopher’s stone so horrifying. It casts into doubt the intentions of anyone who uses alchemy and makes the entire endeavor take on a sinister tone. This really is the final stop for this story’s dark view of alchemy. It’s been working towards this the entire time, and it’s finally shown its hand. Proven doubly so by the way Ed forces his way back to his world, by using the life of his other self to propel himself back through the gate. If you don’t have the energy created when a human dies, then you are unable to use alchemy, and I feel like a crazy person that this isn’t fully grappled with in the story. Alchemy is Soylent Green, and Ed keeps using it; Al wants to learn it after he gets back. The story uses this to create a horrifying reveal and then moves on. It simply does not have the time to implement what this actually means for a world centered around alchemy. Again, we get interesting themes, not actions.
Back in hell, Ed interrupts the stone ritual and fights Envy in a beautifully animated fight before gaining the upper hand. Envy then reveals that he is actually the husk of Hohenheim and Dante’s son, created by Hohenheim after their son died. The feeling of being deserted by his father when he left to create a new family is why Envy hates him and Ed and is so vindictive towards humans. Then Ed dies. He’s so shocked by Envy’s real face that he freezes, and Envy just kills him in cold blood. The protagonist of the series loses his final fight in the series. RIP 03 Ed, you sure were dark and brooding and admittedly lost a lot of fights. As Dante so elegantly gloats about it in the final episode, I think this is the story’s proof that equivalent exchange does not exist. Ed did so much, he paid so much in effort and suffering, and then just dies like a dog.
Except he’s not dead for long. Al sacrifices himself, while Dante just uh stands around and tells him not to, to complete a successful human transmutation using the philosopher’s stone. Ed’s soul had not yet passed through the gate, which is why he was able to be brought back. But at the cost of his brother. Equivalent exchange might not exist in society, but it does indeed still exist in alchemy, somewhat confusingly. What this all means though is that Dante doesn’t even get beaten; she just loses to her hubris. There’s no grand fight, no big win; she just runs away and gets eaten in an elevator. God, she sucks.
It is now finally time for THE most controversial part of FMA 03, the actual ending. Ed is alive again, but Al is now gone, so his answer to bring back his brother is to sacrifice himself to transmute Al’s soul and body back from the gate. What actually winds up happening is he flings himself through the gate, and the price paid to save Al is the four years they spent together traveling. I do not love the ending, and a good portion of that is surely bias, but for a story focused on two brothers, who outwardly say their goal is to fix themselves not at the cost of each other, it sure does feel like an unnecessarily cruel way for things to end. And yes, Ed is still alive over in Germany trying to find a way back.
I purposely did not watch Shamballa before writing this video because I wanted to judge the ending on its own merits, not in conjunction with a movie that did not come out till later. It’ll get its own video as long as it substantially changes my thoughts. For now, the story ends on a hopeful enough note that I don’t want to totally lambast the way it goes about it, and while my preferred version of Ed wouldn’t do this, I do firmly believe that 03 Ed would do this. 03 Al too, as he had pretty much already decided his life was forfeit while he was trapped by Envy. If Ed had simply sacrificed himself to save Al, then I would be much, much harsher on this ending. To be honest, I’m surprised that isn’t what they went with given how dark all the other reveals wind up being. They committed to this much darker version of alchemy and then give it a little bit of hope right at the end. It doesn’t reconcile the energy reveal, but at least the show doesn’t end in complete and utter sadness.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t mention the Mustang Bradley fight, it’s because it shares one brain cell with the fights I’ve complained about. Mustang’s wine cellar plan immediately fails; he gets the floor wiped with him, and he only wins because Selim decides to go get Pride’s skull and bring it down into the cellar. Then Mustang kills him until he dies, thank you for your service, Roy. Mustang then gets shot by goddamn Mecha Archer as the story attempts to cause the viewer as much pain as possible. I am, at this point, very numb. He somehow survives the gunshot though and gets this fun eyepatch! The ending of the series really does feel fairly open-ended; guess they were just ahead of their time making the finale of their story a feature film. The ending that we have is sufficient, but I’ll be honest, I’m expecting Shamballa to wrap all of this up a bit better given the remaining plot threads.
So, after all of that, is Fullmetal Alchemist 03 any good? Maybe? I think it depends on what you want out of it and how you like interacting with your stories. I think it presents its themes very well and is extremely clear to the viewer what those themes are. It benefits the series in that moment-to-moment things can sometimes be borderline nonsensical, especially towards the end, but when you’re done and think back, you can kind of ignore the fluff and see the point. I know this for a fact because this is what happened to me in the couple of months since I finished watching. The thematic work is quite good at times. All the minute stupidity kind of washes away, and you’re left with the meaningful things that ‘03 is trying to say. If you want to chew on the questions of humanity, altruism, power, and war while being mildly entertained by an adventure romp with a dark streak? Then I think you’d be pretty happy with what you get. If you’re a bit pickier with how you want your themes conveyed, your mileage may vary.
It’s sort of why I wanted to go into so much detail with the story because I think it benefits almost too much from painting with broad strokes. It cracks a lot more when under scrutiny. Most of the characters outside of Ed and Al don’t substantially change over the course of the story; there’s not a lot of growth. That’s probably because a lot of the characters don’t do much; Mustang in particular feels extremely underused, only brought in for his duty to kill one of the final villains. It is a very turbulent story with mostly static, one-note characters, and that is often to its detriment. I can tell you about the strong themes, explain the important emotions that the story wants you to feel, but it is far more difficult to provide examples of the characters actually meaningfully interacting or experiencing these deeper moments. There’s plenty to dig for and analyze, but so rarely does the show do enough to deserve that effort. And remember, we’re judging 03 on its own here; if we consider it in the full context of all that come before and after, I would have many harsher things to say about it. To me, FMA 03 on its own, is somewhere in the 6 to 7 out of 10 range. You could even talk me into an 8 if you really want to commit to doing all the hardcore literary analysis it requires to get the most out of the series. But personally, I just think it has one too many flaws that even a bombastic memorable ending sequence can’t wash away.
Now, basically all of my complaints about ‘03 have to do with the characters and their story; I want to be clear that the production here is great, it rules. When it’s not hamstrung by some of the plot decisions, it goes absolutely wild, and sometimes does so even when it is. One of the biggest boons ‘03 has in staying remotely culturally relevant is there are so many different cuts that you can post as clips that, without needing the context of how we got there, are awesome. I also stay hating Dante, but her theme is incredible, the best piece of music in the show. Up there with the German insert song they use at emotional moments. The openings bang too. Melissa and Ready Steady Go are iconic, Undo is fine, and ReWrite is in contention for best Fullmetal opening, hard stop, both series. It’s also in contention for the best clip to convince people 03 is cool, using fights that never happen and would have greatly improved the climax if they did. They made these awesome backdrops and then barely used them, guys, come on, look at this. Why didn’t you do this? Do you hate me, hate me specifically?
You know now that I’ve finally watched ‘03, I can reveal the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I am a huge Asian Kung-Fu Generation fan; they’re one of my favorite bands of all time, Sol-fa is one of my favorite albums of all time, Re:Re has been in my Spotify Wrapped top 5 four years running. I had, up until watching ‘03, never listened to Rewrite. I made this decision ON PURPOSE. For whatever reason, back in like 2018, I decided I wanted to experience it for the first time as an opening. At the time, I didn’t know it would take me SIX YEARS to see it. It is the only song I’ve ever done this for; I am a psychopath; I have listened to it about 300 times since finishing the show.
ANYWAY, after everything I’ve said, the state of this anime in 2024 is kind of odd. Because it deserves to exist, it deserves to be officially licensed, and it’s a shame that it’s not anymore. But if someone new asked me about watching Fullmetal Alchemist, even in a world where ‘03 is readily available, I’m pointing them towards Brotherhood first every time. I can only imagine that the impetus behind this not getting picked up by one of the streaming services is that same thought. Well, if we have the true version of FMA, why would anyone watch this older one? It’s a very philosophical question: does a remake always make the original obsolete? Sadly, for a lot of people, I think that answer is yes. And that’s under more pristine conditions than we’re dealing with here. Unless you’re interested in the history of the medium or want to see how ‘03 twists and changes the Fullmetal story, it is kind of a weird recommend.
Look at it this way: the only reason any number of new anime fans even know about Brotherhood at this point is because of the constant MAL drama about it and because Brotherhood has become shorthand for remake. Even the Nina jokes have died down the last few years. When it’s this hard to maintain relevancy in an ever-growing audience, it’s hard to see ‘03 being anything more than a quirky footnote alongside Brotherhood’s existence. A constant fun fact: did you know there was an earlier FMA anime that didn’t have all the manga to adapt, so it was original? Is that fair, is it fair that thousands of hours of work from talented artists and animators gets boiled down to a trivia question? No, it’s not; ‘03 deserves better than that. But to use the anime’s own logic here, there is no such thing as equivalent exchange; the work that went in does not guarantee relevance forever. Honestly, it’s a miracle people still even talk about it this fervently at all 20 years later. That in of itself is a blessing and a testament that it really did connect with people back when it aired. I imagine for a lot of the old heads who argue with me about ‘03 vs Brotherhood, this was the anime that got them into anime. There’s a reason it’s so beloved. I can complain all I want about how this anime handles characters I love and tells a story that I don’t particularly enjoy, but at the very least it deserves to be remembered. As a quirky, original version of a better story, yes, but also a touchstone anime for the Western community and a gateway into the medium for many. So to answer the question at hand: Does anyone remember Fullmetal Alchemist? Yeah, I think they do.