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Portus was given to me by a friend who bought it on a whim because the front looked like something I'd enjoy. Upon unwrapping it and reading it I found out that judging a book by it's cover is a bad bad thing.

While the art was interesting and the story was fairly complex, it just did not hook me into it. I ended up abandoning it several times and picking it back up after forgetting why I stopped reading it.

The ending was somewhat expected on my part, while I wont give away any spoilers. Let's just say about mid way into the story you could ... guess the ending.

Though one thing I did not like about the art was that often times it felt overly detailed and too busy to focus on. I'd say if you want to read it for the story I'd borrow it rather than purchasing it.

I thought about picking this up and watching it due to my recent kick to finish Brotherhood and thought it'd be nice to kick off with the film I've not seen.

I must say I was sorely disappointed, the art was bland and unappealing. The sound and music were meh, nothing special really. The story was hideous, there is no other word to describe the story.

The problem I ran into is it tried so hard to catch the magic from the first 10 episodes of the original FMA series. I got through the entire movie and felt let down at the end, there was some pretty ... impressive usage of alchemy toward the end but other than that I could have gone my whole life without seeing it and felt like I wouldn't have missed out.

The one thing I did like was the fluidity of the animation which was easily noticeable in the first quarter of the movie, but after I got over that the little things like lack of detail in the art and backgrounds started to seep in. The general colour pallet felt washed out or dingy and also felt lazy. I saw so many flat colours through out the film that by the end I was looking up fan art and found better shading and colouring skills from amateurs.

Overall I'd say avoid this. Even if you are a fan of the series, avoid it. It's not worth the time or effort.