Fullmetal Alchemist

A surprisingly awful show with a cast of ridiculously unlikable characters. I am frankly stunned that this is considered a Battle-Shonen masterpiece and one of the best anime of its era. The Elric brothers are remarkably off-putting egoists outdone only by the terrible military drones that work alongside them and their awful childhood friend Winry, who is frankly unbearable and makes every episode she's in worse.

The entire series is bloated with unenjoyable filler which amounts to a different adventure every episode involving a villain of the week sponsored by the actual arch villain Lust. The conspiracy at the centre of the plot seems fairly ... uninteresting and it doesn't seem credible that this could have happened under the nose of a military dictatorship with an omnipresent leader IN THEIR CAPITAL CITY without anybody noticing. I don't even want to hear what nonsensical excuse will be provided for this by the end of the series.

Furthermore the central mechanic at the heart of the show and repeated during the intro of every episode equivalent exchange is never actually adhered to. In combat alchemists of all stripes just blast each other with alchemical energy without providing any ammo or sacrifice which is in clear contradiction to other scenes where physical matter has to be transmuted to achieve any alchemical reaction. If you cannot observe the fundamental rule of alchemy you start the show with then what is the point of introducing it as a central conceit and key mechanic? Why do they repeatedly assert the fundamental rule of equivalent exchange if they are going to ignore it? Genuinely bizarre decision.

The animation of this show was bad when it aired and has not aged gracefully. The sound design seems passable although I didn't like the VAs for the Elric brothers in the English dub and the voice actor for Nina Tucker actually made my skin crawl, so I was glad when she disappeared from proceedings.

I dropped this show more than halfway through because I couldn't stomach spending anymore time with sociopath Edward Elric or his special needs brother, Alphonse. I wasn't sure why I was supposed to be rooting for a guy that has joined a military junta, which committed numerous documented crimes against humanity and attempted to genocide the Ishbalan people, for little to no apparent reason. Why would I be cheering for people that voluntarily sign up to a genocidal military dictatorship that is prepared to sacrifice and kill its own personnel while inflicting heinous acts of violence and death against its own population with clinical disregard? This is actually quite strange given that neither brother ever offers any explanation or nuance in regards to this decision.

By the end of it all I was rooting for the villains to kill or maim the main cast.

To start off, I watched this after I finished the manga and before I watched brotherhood. I’m not going to ramble on the differences between this and brotherhood but instead how much it varies from the original and various other aspects.

1) Story
The story not only varied way to much from the original but is also kinda bad. Granted, the manga wasn’t even 3 volumes in when they created the 03’ anime, in fact Hiromu said to just come up with their own story. I don’t know if the ending is the same as the manga but I doubt it is.

2) The Art
The art on this ... was atrocious, the colors hurt to look at. The only good thing I can say is that I like how they designed Rose and made her a POC. I absolutely hate the color of Ed’s hair though, what is he supposed to be? Tinkerbell?

3) VA
The voice acting for both the English and Japanese versions were below average, in fact the English one was terrible! The voice they gave Ed was insanely annoying to listen to. The only good thing I can say is that Al’s VA was precious.

4) music
The one good thing I can give this adaptation credit for is the music. READY STEADY GO is such a banger fr. Best part of the show.

5) they massacred my favorite evil NB villain; Envy.
I won’t spoil it but they made them male.
*angry enby noises*

Final thoughts
Read the manga or watch brotherhood but you should read the manga because Hiromu is an amazing artist ilhsm <3

I love the concept of this universe, there are many great episodes, some episodes that I liked more than in FMAB, even.
But watching or remembering this makes me mad. Well, it was so bad that they had to remake it, so at least the creators know what's up.
After watching FMAB I can't just say that this one is good. The ending is a complete disaster. You can't cut half of the stuff, suddenly end things like someone's rushing you and expect to get a 10 or a 9 just because of nepotism. It's not how it works.
If FMAB didn't exist or I didn't watch ... it, I'd rate it higher, buuuuut... unfortunately for you, I've seen the grass on the other side and I never wanna step on you again.
Rated Brotherhood 10/10, this didn't need to exist.