The publicly acclaimed ‘best anime ever made’. Does it live up to the hype surrounding it? Distancing myself from bias as much as I could, I embarked on a critical rewatch to find out.
Story: 9.15 / 10
As far as action-adventure stories go, it is great. I would throw some criticism in the way of the pacing; specifically throughout the first 30 episodes where everything is buildup and things often feel rather slow when compared to the last 20-or-so episodes – where everything that was built up culminates in one intense section that is executed well. The issues with the pacing aren’t major here, since it more so affected my enjoyment than me being able to call it bad. I would call the story over the first 30 episodes decent, the next 14 episodes good and the final 20 episodes great. The only instance worthy of complaint within the final section is a specific scene very close to the conclusion that makes overuse of action protagonist tropes and nonsensical strength that is purely there to satisfy the audience rather than to uphold the integrity of storytelling. Other than that and the slower-paced first third, the story is great.
Art: 8.78 / 10
The general animation style is good and above all, consistent. Many of the action scenes looked great and none of the scenes ever looked terrible. There is however a separate gag-style for comedic use, and this, to me, was very unfunny, poorly placed and felt like it was aimed at a young audience – which is clearly not the target market since children would not exactly appreciate seeing God, war or human mutilation on a regular basis (or if they do appreciate it, they could not fully understand it). My interpretation of the comedic style had more influence on my enjoyment, however, since as far as gag-art styles go, it was fine. All in all, the art style was unique and the animation varying between good and great.
Sound: 8.73 / 10
The soundtrack is recognizable and was used very well to uphold tension and attach weight to events – especially in the final third of the series. More impressive, though, was the music choice for a number of OP’s and ED’s that fit the progression of the story well and was outright catchy. As far as the sound effects and characters go; the effects were good and the characters sounded good overall. There are a few characters whose voices sound rather annoying in both the subbed and dubbed versions, but some of those may have been as designed to change the viewer’s perception of said characters.
Character: 7.45 / 10
The biggest complaint I have about Brotherhood is concerning the characters. Very few of them are likeable to me at all. I actively dislike 4 characters, the main character, Edward, being one of them. He is a cocky, condescending child who is never brought down to earth since he is always right and can always make up conditions that allow him to make the best out of any situation. He talks down to everyone for no reason and even in times of apparent peril, he can just solve it seemingly purely because he is the protagonist (which also leads into the dislikeable scene near the end). Of course Ed is built to fit the badass justice enforcer stereotype, but he just comes off to me as a dislikeable person as well as the singular cause of many contrivances. Because of that, I think his positive popularity is undeserved. The other dislikeable characters are either equally condescending or are just ridiculously powerful without explanation. There are those on the opposite end of the spectrum; Roy Mustang being a very good character, a respectable person and also fun to watch. In general, then, the characters are decent; a couple of annoyingly bad ones, a couple of great ones and the rest being just fine.
Enjoyment: 7.75 / 10
I didn’t enjoy Brotherhood as much as I should have. Some of the reasons have already been brought up in this review: the gag-comedy style, the in-your-face dislikeable characters and the somewhat dragged-out pacing in the first half. Other things that I didn’t enjoy are more minor things spread throughout; like some inconsistencies with the use of alchemy – specifically characters choosing not to use alchemy for situations that could clearly be made much easier by using it, rather inconsistent power scaling throughout and the abundance of time spent focusing on the dislikeable protagonist. I did however enjoy the final 10 episodes quite a lot.
Overall: 8.37/ 10
I wouldn’t argue against anyone calling Brotherhood the best action-adventure anime out there. It does many things very well and caters to a pretty wide audience. My enjoyment aside, I don’t think it is flawless. In fact, it has more narrative issues than a couple of other anime I have seen. But I can also see why so many people would be able to overlook those issues and have such a high opinion of Brotherhood. In the end, I don’t think it is the best anime ever made, but with the right mindset, it could certainly become a favorite within its genre.
