Fullmetal Alchemist

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Full Metal Alchemist, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, FMA, HagaRen, Fullmetal Alchemist Gaiden

Japanese: 鋼の錬金術師

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 27

Chapters: 116

Status: Finished

Published: Jul 12, 2001 to Sep 11, 2010

Genres: Action, Adventure, Award Winning, Drama, Fantasy

Theme: Military

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Gangan

Authors: Arakawa, Hiromu (Story & Art)

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Score: 9.04¹ (scored by 151,748 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #7²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #19

Members: 281,076

Favorites: 29,465

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9.04

Ranked #7Popularity #19Members 281,076

MangaShounen GanganArakawa, Hiromu (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /27

Chapters: /116

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Synopsis

Alchemists are knowledgeable and naturally talented individuals who can manipulate and modify matter due to their art. Yet despite the wide range of possibilities, alchemy is not as all-powerful as most would believe. Human transmutation is strictly forbidden, and whoever attempts it risks severe consequences. Even so, siblings Edward and Alphonse Elric decide to ignore this great taboo and bring their mother back to life. Unfortunately, not only do they fail in resurrecting her, they also pay an extremely high price for their arrogance: Edward loses his left leg and Alphonse his entire body. Furthermore, Edward also gives up his right arm in order to seal his brother's soul into a suit of armor.

Years later, the young alchemists travel across the country looking for the Philosopher's Stone, in the hopes of recovering their old bodies with its power. However, their quest for the fated stone also leads them to unravel far darker secrets than they could ever imagine.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Hagane no Renkinjutsushi won the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shounen demographic in 2004. Hiromu Arakawa also won the 15th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in the New Artist Prize category for the series in 2011. As of 2015, over 64 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide, making it one of Square Enix's most successful publications, according to Nielsen Bookscan. A live-action film is in development by Warner Bros. Japan and is scheduled for release in Winter 2017.

The series was published in English as Fullmetal Alchemist by VIZ Media from May 3, 2005 to December 20, 2011, and in eBook format by Yen Press on April 15, 2014. A 3-in-1 omnibus edition was released by VIZ from June 7, 2011 to November 11, 2014 as well as a complete box set in November 1, 2011 (which included the novel Fullmetal Alchemist: The Ties That Bind). The manga was also published in Italian by Panini Comics under the Planet Manga imprint from July 13, 2006 to September 3, 2011, in Polish by J.P. Fantastica from January 2006 to to April 2012, in Brazilian Portuguese by Jbc from February 2007 to April 2011 and in Spanish by Ivrea Argentina starting December 12, 2016.

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More reviewsReviews

Jun 13, 2010

Archaeon

Recommended

One of the problems with something being truly good is that every so often it becomes a victim of its own success, and in a sense that's what happened with the fans of Full Metal Alchemist.

Arakawa Hiromu's tale of two brothers and their adventures in alchemy is one of the most well known stories in anime and manga to date, and has spawned a horde of games, a movie (with a second one planned), numerous doujins and fanfics, piles of merchandise ranging from tatoos to chibi plushies, and two very different anime series. The story itself is very typically shounen at times, however there is ...

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Mar 7, 2015

Polyphemus

Recommended

Fullmetal Alchemist is not spectacular. What I mean is that nothing about the art or the plot immediately strikes the audience as impressive or unique. The art is not flashy or detailed. It gets the job done, but only just. The action is easy to follow from panel to panel, and it is just dynamic enough to be interesting. The characters are all pretty much distinguishable from each other, despite their simple designs, and some of them look kinda cool. More than anything, the art is solid. It never gets in the way of the audience's enjoyment. And sometimes that's enough. The only times I ... ever took issue with the style were when the characters were morphed into chibis in a weak attempt at comedy.

And that brings me to my next point: The comedy. It's not comedic. Early on, there are many repetitive running gags and the only thing they accomplish is kicking me out of the story. Such a blatant attempt to appeal to the audience can backfire if delivered poorly, and so it felt like a slap in the face delivered through the 4th wall. I don't want to deal with that. But I think that the mangaka realized this direction wasn't working early on, and the manga generally gets more serious as time passes.

Although the presentation of the plot changes over time, the plot itself rarely deviates from a single unified arc, and this becomes more apparent towards the middle of the series. It's clear that the overarching plot was plotted out from inception to conclusion from the beginning. The major villains and major allies are essentially the same throughout the manga, and this helps with the sense of unity and harmony that I get from it. (A unity that reinforces the main themes of the manga, which might otherwise seem to be poorly applied pseudo-philosophy.) There are no major power-ups or ridiculous ass-pulls. All of the plot developments are logical and well-paced.

The action, unfortunately, can be a bit of a weak point. There are several characters who use special alchemy techniques to interesting effect, but Ed's (the main character) fighting style is rather pedestrian in comparison. Still, the idea of equivalent exchange helps the fights maintain an appealing sense of reason and rationality that I appreciate quite a bit. It makes them feel less contrived, something that this genre tends to suffer from severely. Also, nothing was ever dragged out unnecessarily and mid-fight dialogue/flashbacks were never taken too far. Fullmetal Alchemist avoids the major pitfalls of battle shounen and brings in a sense of logic that is very rare to see.

The characters are mostly static, and there is no unexpected development. Sometimes they can feel like cardboard cut-outs. But other times I find myself thinking "wow, a couple of these cardboard cut-outs actually look pretty good in context." Rather than linear development, the characters are developed via increased insight into them and information about them. They are developed from the perspective of the audience. This is a very sensible approach given the relatively short time frame that the series covers; there is some linear development, but it is subtle. Not subtle as in hard to spot, because it is pretty clear when you see it, but it is slight. The characters don't suffer from any about-faces or drastic personality transplants. The most apparent changes that the characters undergo are simply a result of us learning more about them. This makes the manga somewhat reminiscent of a well-structured canvas painting. It is all one unified and unmoving image, but as you look at it, you notice more about it and it seems to tell a story. There are also some irritating imperfections, it looks better from a distance than it does up-close, but these flaws fail to ruin the whole.

The issue with the above picture is that the foreground is probably weaker than the background, and isn't that where our eyes are drawn? Ed's character is mostly defined by basic traits, habits, and general goals; all nuance is absent. This is certainly intentional, to avoid alienating any of the audience from him, but this lack of ambition is irritating for me. Al's character is kind of empty. (Pun retrospectively intended.) His most significant developmental event was his contrived existential crisis that was quickly resolved and never really dwelled on again. These criticisms apply to many of the characters, in varying degrees. Even as we get more in depth into them, they don't ever feel real. That said, they are often entertaining and they get the job done. Ed is not always the focus and even minor characters are established early on and given essential roles. Rather than any individual characters being well-written, what is well-written is their interactions and relationships with one another, and where they are placed and what they do. Every character has purpose and motivation and defining character traits, even if they don't quite feel organic. If you pulled one character out of the plot, everything could collapse. No character is superfluous and no character is forgotten. This says more about the plot than the actual characterization, but it's a positive nevertheless.

More than anything, Fullmetal Alchemist is solid. Most of its imperfections are minor and don't reach the series' core. Nothing about the series is all that exceptional or original in itself, but it adds up into a very well-structured and cohesive work that manages to avoid making a lot of mistakes that are not often avoided. (And, despite its popularity, it never overstayed its welcome and was relatively concise for what it was.) Still, it doesn't really accomplish all that much that I haven't seen done as well or better. It is simply less flawed than most similar works. This makes it feel unique holistically, but not on a more critical examination. It is unique in that you'd be hard-pressed to find a more perfect battle shounen, but this quality is negatively defined: Fullmetal Alchemist is most praise worthy for the things it does not do; what it does do is not nearly as impressive or difficult.

The lack of originality or risk-taking factors against Fullmetal Alchemist, but the form and presentation of it warrants a solid 7. It's quite good, but not quite great.

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Jul 19, 2015

ConstantReader

Recommended

Full Metal Alchemist is the Harry Potter of the manga world. And when I say that I don’t mean that their plots are remotely the same (although both have a main villain who splits himself seven ways… that’s actually cool) or that they're such big names in their respective mediums and genre (while it's true FMA has nowhere near the same amount of fame internationally as Dragonball or Naruto, it's almost always one of the first anime recommended to new-comers and frequently put on top anime lists); just in the way that absolutely everything about FMA has set itself apart from other shounen manga - ... heck manga in general - as something special that can't be replicated; near-perfection. The plot is well-rounded, exciting, original, and clever, the world is fun and comprehensible, and its laws obeyed consistently, the characters are all likable, whether friend or foe, and each has a role to play, there are equal amounts of drama, humor, and action, and well… just everything. The ending; absolutely perfect, and it ties up all loose ends. It’s one of those stories that you wish you could erase your memories of just so you could experience the whole thing again for the first time.

The best aspect about FMA is that it is never boring; it has you gripped right from the first. Just reading the basic plot is enough to get a person piqued. Brothers Alphonse and Edward Elric try to bring their mother back from the dead using alchemy, which, as a science, is based on the law that mass can neither be created nor destroyed; equivalent trade. Failing to do so, older brother Edward loses his leg in the process, and Alphonse his entire body. Edward then sacrifices his arm in order to transmute Alphonse’s soul onto a suit of armor. Now the brothers, in an effort to fix their mistake, set off on their journey in trying to recover their original bodies.

Like any good story, this main plot develops into something bigger and heavier as the series progresses, and to carry you along are the main characters of the Elric brothers, and the strong bond they share with each other. They are great protagonists, and they are so filled with emotion (even Alphonse, whose armored face can’t convey much in the way of emotion), and you really do feel for them and want them to accomplish their goals. The characters they encounter, the people that support them, hinder them, or go outright against them – all of them are more complex than simple black-and-white good-v-evil characters. I don’t think there’s a single character in here you could hate (except perhaps the villain, and not because he’s a lame villain but because he’s flipping insane - not even intentionally evil – which is a good thing. Him, and the gold-toothed doctor.)

What’s also nice about FullMetal is that it can’t be easily divided into arcs – the story runs on a one-way track with no sidestops, and it was all very well thought out, with no inconsistencies or any use of deus ex machina. There are several villains, but it’s not a case of defeating a baddy a week and then meeting up with the next. There are no chapters that feel like filler, no stalling for time – every panel is worth something, each page dedicated to forwarding the story or developing a character in some way.

Now I don’t think I can talk about the manga without mentioning the anime – both versions. There are two adaptations, the first loosely based on the manga in the beginning and then deviating entirely a third of the way in, and the reboot that is pretty much exactly the same as the manga, with only a few differences in details. There’s been an endless debate on which is better, although the general consensus is that Brotherhood (the reboot) is hands-on more epic.

I started the manga and the original FMA series at the same time. Although the anime is supposed to be the same as the manga in the beginning, even as early as that I started getting into the manga more than the anime. Near the middle I just gave up the anime entirely in favor of the manga, because the manga was just that gripping. I only continued the anime after I’d finished reading, since I was curious to see how that version would end; the manga hadn’t been finished at the time of its making and the creators had to complete the story themselves.

In my opinion, the manga is easily the best medium through which to tell the story, better even than the reboot anime. Hiromu-sensei’s artwork is so alive and fun; when characters are distressed or scared, you can genuinely see that in their faces; they can be serious one minute and then switch to goofy and hilarious the next with ease. The original FMA anime takes itself a bit too seriously and goes overboard on the drama and dark aspects, and while that actually paid off really well with two important deaths that occur in the beginning that made them more devastating and gut-wrenching than they were in either the manga or the reboot, it had the unfortunate effect of making the character of Edward more gloomy and serious than he was supposed to be. The Edward in the manga is always full of confidence and determination, and although he too doesn’t like to treat human lives lightly, he doesn’t dwell on his regrets as much as his anime counterpart does. The manga, while being light-hearted and cheerful, combines that light-heartedness with drama and action seamlessly. It does a better job of presenting the story than either anime and it gives you more time to spend with the characters and get in touch with their individual personalities. Even if you’ve watched Brotherhood, you’d still be missing out on a lot by skipping the manga. Reading it, you’ll feel like you’re hearing the story for the first time. I’ve read through it three times already and am still not bored.

A word about the English omnibus releases, though - I've bought the first four so far, and I couldn't help but notice how many typos there are. Also, even though the rating is for teens and above and words like 'crap' are used, there are a few instances where swear words are replaced with stuff like '@#&$!' which is only fine when used in comedic purposes. There was also a serious case of mistranslation in volume 4 that I feel like someone in the editing department should've realized, as the translation they put in doesn't make sense in context. Other pet peeves include writing Ling's name as 'Lin' (c'mon, they are obviously saying Ling in the anime!) and writing Xerxes in a way that looks even more unpronounceable, but otherwise it's great to have a hard copy of my favorite manga. All the little sidestories and author biographies are included as well.

Story: 10/10
Art: 8/10
Character: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall: 10/10

My favorite story of all time.

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Why has Fullmetal alchemist go so good reviews, I don't understand it. Rufsetufs - May 13	6 replies	by Phloup »» May 13, 5:08 PM
Poll: Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 6 Discussion Heneshi - Jul 3, 2012	10 replies	by joe2552 »» May 4, 4:45 PM
Poll: Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 83 Discussion kurotsuki - May 13, 2008	18 replies	by krejola »» Feb 19, 4:54 AM
Poll: Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 82 Discussion kurotsuki - Apr 14, 2008	18 replies	by krejola »» Feb 19, 4:40 AM
Poll: Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 81 Discussion AriSky - Mar 14, 2008	14 replies	by krejola »» Feb 18, 12:46 PM

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