Fullmetal Alchemist

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A great tale about revenge, redemption, forgiviness, love and brotherhood.

Story:
Fullmetal Alchemist has the reputation of being indisputably the best animanga work of all time. Revered to by many as "flawless" and "perfect" and after concluding such masterwork I've come to the conclusion that such claims are not lies, they're the undeniable truth. FMA has a great story-line, fantastic art, a great ensemble cast, historical villains and an epic and a masterful and well-done conclusion. Unlike many works before it that tried to show deep themes for the sake of it and expectjng to sell well, it does it to teach us many life-lessons and change ... our worldviews with its eloquent philosphy. It is really great and it is not afraid to show it.

Characters:

Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric and Winry Rockbell make up the main cast and they're nothing short of fantastic. Edward is smart, cool, headstrong, layer'd, deep, funny and one of the best protagonists of all time (#1 Ed; #2 Zack Fair #3 Sousuke Sagara). Alphonse is kjnd, helpful, useful and has a personality. Winry is supportive, cute, likeable and a great female lead to speak of. Roy Mustang is a fierce leader and his partner Riza Hawkeye is no slouch too. There are many memorable supporting characters such as Maes, Trisha, Hoeheim and Alex Luis Armstrong, whom along with his sister, Olivier make a badass team. They all have distinct personalities and meaningfully tragic backstories and gripping devlopments. In short they're all great in their own ways.

The antagonists/villains deserve their own paragraph. Lust is one of the best villainess of all time with her majestic design and seductive personality she always steals every scene she's in. Her companions Envy and Glutyony have solid characterizations. Greed, Wraith, Sloth, Pride and Father all make an fearsome group to be reckoned with. They're not evil for the sake oc being evil like the guys from Laughing Coffin from SAO (for the Evulz as one may say it.). They're evil for a reason and this reason os laid out to you as the chapter progresses. My personal suggestion is to not get attached to them since their fate is sealed and they're fated to perish as this is not a grey morality work. It has good vs. evil disposed clearly. And that's why Hiromi Arakawa is my favorite author/mangaka of all time (save for the prophets who wrote the bible, obviously).

Art:
The artwork is phenomenal. Every drawing has emotion carried over it. The fights are engaging and the romantic scenes are heartwhelming (note: romance is just a subgenre of this manga, don't expect a lot of it). Every cover is a work of art, the character designs are unique and eye-catching. Everyone looks distinct from one another. There's a wide variety of races, colors and ethinicities on this manta and they're represented respectully and in a way that feels organic. Amazing to say the least. I'm glad that Arawaka-sa is such a proeminent name in the anime industry due to her writting and art because she's trully the best.

Enjoyment/Overall:

Despite some blasphemies and anti-Christian messages Fullmetal Alchemist takes the cake as the most well-written manga of all time. Better than the Big Three, Berserk and Shinseiki Evangelion. Everything works organically. The characters are fleshed out. The illustrations are phenomental. In short:
Fullmetal Alchemist is an groud-breaking, life-changing masterpiece.

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.