I`m gonna be honest here ever since brotherhood came along this anime has been flagged and forgotten almost as a relic of the past and even though FMA Brotherhood has Is high points I just think its not that great in comparison. But enough talk lets start the review
Story
Edward and Alphose Elric are two brothers who are gifted In alchemy the power witch one creates anything at will by giving something of equal value in return, after there father left their house when they were very young they were left alone with there mother in the town of Resembool.
Every thing was going great until sure enough their mother succumbs to a disease and their left alone. They then decide to to use alchemy to resurrect their mother however human transmutation is a tabu and after breaking it they discover they made a huge mistake... They failed to resurrect their mother , Edward lost a arm and a leg and Alphose loses his entire body and his soul becomes bounded to a suit of armor.
After that traumatic experience they find out something called the philosopher stone an item that can bend all the laws of alchemy to its will and resurrect the dead and dicide to travel the land to find it it and get back what they lost.
However they rapidly discover that their not the only ones looking for it and that the path to the stone its a bloody scary an dark path to walk.
The hole story of the anime starts some what friendly but after a while it becomes dark really fast witch btw was something that for a lot of people was a turn over in comparison to brotherhood. The story of brotherhood is some what light hearted how ever the story in this one is especially dark and some times depressing and much more dramatic witch btw I see this as a positive. I was able to feel the pain and desperation of the characters because of this I saw much more development out of them and by far this is the best story Ive seen in anime so far.
This was also one of the very few animes that made me sheed a tear.
Characters
Every single character Is just fantastic and i mean every one of them!!!!!
This was the only anime that I was able to identify with every one both hero and villain and their all very well acted and very well written.
How ever their were a few charterers that didn't stand out that much like commander Archer who is just there to be a plot device and the main antagonist who inst bad but could have been much better
Sound
Again fantastic every song in the anime is fantastic and memorable the only thing that I have to say is that the openings much like the story go to light harted to a more darker tone but they are pretty enjoyable
Art
Much like older anime (this one came in 2003) the art looks a bit dated especialy compared to brotherhood (witch came in 2009) but still there are sens that still make my jaw drop to this day
This is a must see if your a anime fan and i could easily recommend to almost every type of fan their is .
But like I said this is my favorite anime of all time and this is what made me become a otaku in the first place. Sooo yeah for me this is a near perfect anime and I advise every one to watch it
