Fullmetal Alchemist

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By FAR the best way to experience this series, neither anime holds a candle to it. People say that this and Brotherhood are basically the same, but I just have to completely disagree. The pacing in the manga is downright perfect, never going too fast or too slow, spending just enough time on each point to give it punch, before seamlessly moving on to the next. It builds up each character slowly, and by the end, the cast seems impossibly large, while still having every character feel developed and like they had just enough screentime without being overused. Every character is written excellently and the ... various mysteries of the series are revealed in ways that make sense, and manage to be surprising twists that dont feel like they come out of no where. The first time I finished this series, my first thought was that I wanted to do it again. Read this, then after you're finished, if you really liked it, watch 03 and Brotherhood.

Fullmetal Alchemist is a weird one.

FMA is regarded as one of the best anime/manga and receives constant praise. I truly wonder why. FMA has one of the strongest thematic frameworks ive ever seen however this doesnt really matter because its world and characters dont reflect the same quality.
FMA's structuring is decently weird, it banks everything on its ending but its ending isnt good??? Some work like aot or haikyu dont need their endings to be good. If FMA has a bad ending it rips apart the "quality" and expectation that was set. Im comparing the endings of these other shonen to say that ... FMA's structure works against itself.

Look at the characters in FMA, theyre all pretty bad. Every antagonist follows the same formula of: get hyped and excited for them, they do something in the main plot, they get X'd out in the most unsatisfying way ever, then the story treats it like it was something good. Pride, kimblee, father, envy, all of these character fall into this exact formula of consistently undermining the integrity of the antagonistic force. Do we remember zuko or obito where theyre "broken heros" with good in them that just got corrupted? We see zuko grow into a mature person and redeem himself and give himself his honor back. We see obito sacrifice himself and do the right thing in life of doing wrong. Our antagonist who do wrong are able to redeem themselves and have a satisfying arc but scar is the exact opposite. Scar straight up murders people on screen and after talking for a little bit for like 5 minutes he's treated like a good guy. What type of antagonist like that doesnt have a redemption arc AND gets a happy ending? You see that? FMA sacrifices satisfying moments and good character writing for themes and thematic portrayal.

I dont think FMA is bad and I also think the isbal war is genuinely genius. I just hate to see FMA fall so ass backwards flat. Such an interesting premise with good art and fight scenes absolutely ruined by poor execution. I dont recommend FMA to those with something else on their watch list. Read aot, pandora hearts, alice in borderland, tokyo ghoul, just anything else tbh.

I bought a box set of Fullmetal Alchemist, after reading so many good reviews about this series. After reading the whole thing within two weeks. I was really disappointed, maybe because I had a high expectation. The story starts very slow, it got a little bit more interesting about half way through. There are a lot of unnecessary side plots. One example is the story related to the library bookworm girl. It took almost one volume, but she never become of any importance or show up in the later volumes. It is just a filler.

I feel the characters especially the villains are really underdeveloped. ... I couldn't care for any of the characters. I wouldn't consider this series as an action manga, the action is the weakest part of the series. There is no proper description of the power system. The author made a rule about how alchemy should work, to conjure something, you have to consume something. But this rule never comes to play other than setting up the initial character (the brother without body). In the end, the entire read felt like a drag. In my opinion, it is overrated.