The story is about two brothers (Edward and Alphonse Elric) that know alchemy (to manipulate objects and transform one object into another. They are bounded by the basic law of alchemy: in order to gain something you have to sacrifice something of the same value). But they have made one horrible mistake in the past. They have done the taboo of alchemy, they have done alchemy with human lives. Trying to resurrect someone who is very precious to them. Alphonse (the younger brother) lost his entire body while Edward only lost his leg. Edward was able to replace the soul of his brother to an armor in the neighbourhood. But needed to sacrifice one of his arms for that. Then the two brothers joined the army in order to get their bodies back. From here the real story begins.
This anime is unbelievable if you think about what they all handle. The main question of the story is “what is the value of life?”. This is the question where the protagonist had problems with during the whole series. Actually the main reason why that I find this is a very serious shonen is because the way they let you see politics. It is unbelievable how good and detailed it is. You see things like corruption, racism, religion, terrorism, people with a god complex, … . The way you see everybodys thoughts and however you can completely disagree with them you understand what they think and why. The way everybody from different sectors thinks about the value of life is probably one of the most interesting things about the serie since it is combined with all the other thoughs of them. What does people do to get power/succes?, how do people change once they get it? are some other interesting questions that will be answered as well. You can really make endless compares to history. Par example the way the regime attacks a certain religion is comparable with hitler’s regime that attacked the jewish, the one from that religion that wanted revenge and became a terrorist is comparable with al qaida, ... . Thats why I think this serie explains politics even better than Code Geass.
Then I haven’t even talked about the homunculi yet. There even more interesting than politics. It are creatures that thinks they are the evolution of mankind since they are kinda superior to humans. But the most interesting part is that they all have one emotion. Such as lust, envy, greedy, pride, … .It basically shows what these are and what people do if they're obsessed with that emotion.
The openings/endings are very good however the rest of the OST isn’t that good or special. The art isn’t anything special either. The characters are very good not that they are such special themselve but there just plenty of original and interesting ones. The amusement was okay but I wasn’t that exciting while watching it in the first 40 episodes. The other 24 where good of excitement but again nothing special. The fights are very original with all that alchemy shit so these where very exciting to watch. In my opinion that serie had to do it with the story and didn’t had anything too special for the rest however the story makes up for everything and makes it a absolutely a need to watch anime for every shounen lover. So don’t think it is or I find this not worthful to watch just cause I gave it only a eight. Eight is considered as very good and I don’t like to give all good shows tens cause then my favorites won’t come out my list anymore.
