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Mostly spoiler-free review!

I know there's a fair amount of debate as to what the "correct" way to watch Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is. Some insist you have to watch the original series, while others say you don't. Since there was a lot of contradictory information floating around the internet regarding this, I decided to take my brother's advice and just watch Brotherhood as is. That is to say, this is a review coming from someone who has only seen Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

First off, I enjoyed it. But while I will concede that it may have been the cream of the crop for its time, I don't ... think it holds up by modern standards (in regards to both storytelling and animation quality). As is the case with other cult classics such as Death Note, I think Brotherhood suffers from its own success. A lot of people, myself included, come in with high expectations when a series such as this receives recognition to this degree, and are subsequently let down when the series doesn't turn out to be the life-changing experience that everyone has been hyping it up to be.

Now, with that little preamble out of the way, let's get into the nitty-gritty.

As far as the story goes, the overarching plot and the motivation of the main characters were interesting enough to get me hooked right from the beginning. I was rooting for Ed and Al to get their bodies back the whole way through and I was genuinely interested to see how they would achieve it when it's clearly established that any kind of human transmutation should be impossible. It goes against the laws of nature.

However, while a good story is fine and all, slow pacing or a plot that meanders around can seriously damage it. And I felt like that was exactly the case with Brotherhood. The main plot frequently takes a backseat to bore the audience with politics or history lessons from secondary characters that seem to have very little to do with the situation at hand. Exposition is also handled poorly at times, usually in the form of flashbacks that are placed in the middle of the story with no connection to the present. Meanwhile, most of the main bad guys are playing 4D chess off-screen somewhere.

So if you were expecting an "action-packed shonen" with lots of spectacular fights and intense moments, temper your expectations a little. A good chunk of the show is spent dabbling in politics (I have no idea why the author thought this was a good idea) and things don't really start happening until you're 40-50 episodes in. It's a shame, but I think the ending more than makes up for it, even if some of the plot developments didn't really make a whole lot of sense.

The cast was a mix of both bland characters and interesting characters, and there's quite a number of them so don't feel bad if you can't keep track of all of them. Some of them (four characters in particular) also seem to come into the story out of nowhere with not much of an introduction, but I just learned to accept it. These days most series tend to give secondary characters a little more backstory, but in Brotherhood most of the focus was on the main characters so you're left with a supporting cast that doesn't feel fully fleshed out. That said, some of them can be very likable and I did find a few favorites personally.

Overall, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was an entertaining ride with slow pacing and a finale that brings closure to just about everything you were wondering about while watching. Is it worthy of the number one spot? I wouldn't say so, I have watched plenty of shows that are far more deserving of it. Top ten, however? Yeah, definitely. Which is why I'm giving it an 8/10.

After binging through the anime, I couldn't stop myself from doing the same with the manga. Just a day or two later, I've gone through all 175 chapters that were available at the time of writing this review, and I can't wait for more. Only two other series have made me this excited about waiting for the next chapter, and those two series were Naruto and Bleach. I'm sure you've heard of them. It feels like I've traveled back to my adolescent years and it's making me feel a strange kind of nostalgia.

This series just seems to hit all the beats that make a great ... story. From a riveting story to an astonishing art style, to three-dimensional interesting characters and vivid, suspenseful battle scenes. The author has achieved a perfect balance between tragedy and the typical "cool moments" that you'd come to expect from a shonen, and the story is very focused and well-paced (albeit with very little downtime between fights). It doesn't meander around pointlessly.

I'm going to reserve my 10 until I see how the story ends, but for now it's getting a solid 9 or 9.5 from me.

[Story – 7/10]: The story had enough interesting twists and turns to keep me invested throughout the whole ride. That said, there were a few plot points that felt like they had been shoehorned in simply for the sake of foreshadowing future events.

[Art – 5/10]: I wasn't a big fan of most of the character designs. I think, given the setting, the world looked a bit too colorful. That said, I did like some of them, such as Dreyfus and Gilthunder.

[Sound – 8/10]: The soundtrack was pretty good. Nothing exceptional, but at times the music was applied just perfectly for the evocative effect.

[Character – 7/10]: ... I hated the main character of Meliodas. He's an overpowered character without a single major flaw that gets away with harassing women (something that is played for laughs). I found myself often rooting for his opponents because of how powerful he was. There was no satisfaction in any of his victories because it was a given.

The supporting characters were much more interesting (Gilthunder, Dreyfus, Ban, Harlequin) and is probably the sole reason why I decided to stick with this show from start to finish. Meliodas' character needs some serious polish.

[Enjoyment – 8/10]: All its flaws aside, the show was still enjoyable enough to binge watch in just a couple of days. An all-around enjoyable experience, even though I was extremely irritated by the character of Meliodas.

[Overall – 7/10]: I've watched better shows and a lot of the tropes seen here have already been seen time and time again, but it wasn't a bad show. A bit overrated by the current generation of watchers that haven't seen or read many of the classics such as Naruto or Berserk, which were no doubt a big source of inspiration for Nakaba Suzuki.

[This review is for the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Kai.]

DISCLAIMER: This is a review from the perspective of a "first time watcher" of the show. I read the manga when I was extremely young and, while watching the show, had very little memory of it save for the first two arcs. In short, I don't feel nostalgic about this show in the slightest.

[Story – 6/10]: The storytelling of the show lacks some of the depth that I've come to expect from other series that I've watched. A villain that's stronger than the previous villain shows up, both the good guys and the villain power ... up several times, good guy eventually beats the villain, rinse and repeat. It's still enjoyable to a degree but leaves very little room for further analyzation. Everything is, more or less, exactly how it appears on the screen.

[Art – 10/10]: Toriyama's character designs, as well as the style of animation, are something I enjoyed a lot. Everyone had a unique and interesting look about them. The older style of animation is also a breath of fresh air from modern animation which looks almost a little too artificial to me sometimes.

[Sound – 3/10]: Sadly, this show suffers from Kenji Yamamoto and his plagiarism scandal. Not to mention that really none of the plagiarised soundtracks even stuck out to me that much in the first place.

[Character – 7/10]: While not every character gets the same amount of care and attention, everyone is still interesting in their own way and I never found myself getting bored of the main cast. My only criticism is that the villains of the show are all essentially the same: powerful and evil. I've come to expect more depth from villains based on previous experiences and was sad to find it relatively lacking in this show.

[Enjoyment – 8/10]: I binged half the show over the course of a few days and found myself often speculating on what was going to happen next. The show, despite its flaws with storytelling, is still a very enjoyable experience.

[Overall – 7/10]: In conclusion, the flaws and strengths of this show balance each other out to create a decent, enjoyable viewing experience, even if much of the hype behind the show is propelled purely by the nostalgia of older viewers that grew up watching this.

After planning on watching this show for years, I can finally say that I've seen it from start to end. Whew.


STORY: 7/10

I was going to give STORY an 8, but the fact that everyone over-hyped this as the "best show ever" and told me repeatedly that I had to see it, I couldn't help but feel a bit let down by some of the directions the story took. I was always expecting to be more surprised, or taken by some sudden twist, but except for a couple highlights the show's storyline was quite predictable (especially towards the end.)


ART: 6/10

I didn't notice anything too special with ... the artstyle or the animation, but there were a couple things here and there that are unique to this series, which I really liked.


SOUND: 5/10

Nothing about the soundtrack really stood out to me, and I actually disliked both of the openings and endings. The only music I liked is the one they play at the end of 37.


CHARACTER: 9/10

With the exception of a few of the characters they introduced later on, they did a great job with creating interesting characters that were fun to root for/against.


ENJOYMENT: 10/10

"Pure entertainment" is probably how I would describe this show. It's not as crazy good as everyone makes it out to be, but I actually found myself looking forward to watching the next episode tomorrow when I went to bed. Only a few shows have actually gotten me hooked like that.


OVERALL: 6/10

As stated above: over-hyped. It's a very entertaining show, but the fact that it was over-hyped made me expect more... which I didn't get. And I disagree with some of the directions the story took towards the end... it almost felt like the author didn't know how to end it, and just adding in a bunch of new characters... it felt very odd considering all the good things I've heard about this show.

Still, I'm giving it a 6/10 so it's definitely not trash. It was a really good, enjoyable anime, and I'm glad I watched it. But at this point in time I would say I probably enjoyed Ajin or Steins;Gate more.

I have watched this movie already 4 TIMES and just recently got around to reading the novelization. To me, this movie is perfect. A MASTERPIECE. 11/10.

Story 10/10
Art 10/10
Sound 10/10
Character 10/10
Enjoyment 10/10
Overall 10/10

Naruto came into my life when I was around 9 or 10 years old. I'm 20 now. So it goes without saying that I have a huge emotional connection to this series and everything that relates to it.
...
I wish I knew how to write objective reviews but for this movie I couldn't do that even if I could. So let me tell you this instead: if you're like me and you've literally grown up with Naruto and know the characters like they're your best friends, you will enjoy the shit out of this movie. Pardon my language.

Words alone aren't even enough to describe how happy I am that this movie even exists in the first place. This is the perfect final chapter to the Naruto saga and the beginning to the story of Boruto. It's just incredible. 12/10.

I laughed, I cried, I jumped in my seat and did a series of awkward fist-pumps (while looking over my shoulder to make sure no one saw) and I did that 4 TIMES. You know, there aren't very many movies out there that I've watched this many times! And definitely not in such a short span of time. I feel like I could keep watching this movie everyday and not get tired of it. It's perfection all the way from animation to the soundtrack.

11/10. MASTERPIECE. If you love Naruto, you will love this movie. It is incredible.