Reviews

The greatest strength of the 2003 adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist was that it essentially takes the earlier chapters of Hiromu Arakawa's series and expands upon them to create their own continuity, as well as providing greater character depth to the major characters of the series. While the manga goes for a more "safe" approach by having a conventional story and faster pacing, the first FMA series chose to go for a mature style of storytelling that depicts grey morality for its characters and slower pacing. This results in the series creating flawed heroes and villains with tragic upbringings which the series takes its time at exploring and allowing the viewer enough time to connect with. This style of storytelling hugely effects the Elrics and the Homunculus in this series. The Elrics are forced to confront moral dilemmas in regards to events that they directly or indirectly influenced from earlier episodes of the series while the majority of the Homunculus are given background and motivation for their actions where they aren't simply henchmen for their ringleader and are seeking some sort of purpose for themselves. The series also retains a consistent mood as it knows when to stay serious during dramatic and tense scenes while adding in comedic moments during breather episodes to lighten the mood, a major flaw of the earlier manga chapters as they had a habit of throwing in slapstick and super-deformed moments at the most inopportune times.

The series isn't without its flaws. Some characters closely connected to the major plot of the series are quite underdeveloped compared to how they turn out later in the manga and don't appear as regularly in the anime. This flaw seems to come from the anime catching up to the manga source material in later episodes and not having enough time to properly fit these characters into larger roles for the anime's continuity. In addition, the later episodes tend to get quite shoddy in their plot developments as a revelation concerning the source of alchemy and what happens to two major characters got quite ridiculous compared to how cohesive the plot was building up in earlier episodes. In a way, the finale to the first series seemed like a big excuse just to get fans to watch the Conquerer of Shambala movie.

In terms of visuals, I found the FMA anime to sport brighter color and more defined details than Brotherhood. While not as visually impressive as 2003 titles like Last Exile and Planetes, scenery within FMA is vast with a good amount of detail and character designs are just as good in quality. While the series usually resorts to shortcuts with animation, it does have its moments of fluid movements and solid action sequences. The soundtrack for the anime is quite elaborate featuring a wide range of instruments used for insert music such as piano, brass and stringed instruments that do very well at enhancing the show's many dramatic scenes. The OP and ED musical choices consist of differing J-Rock and alternative songs with the OPs being upbeat to get one hooked onto the show and the EDs mostly be mellow songs meant to be a breather following each episode of the series.

Overall, I found the 2003 adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist to be the better adaptation of the series than its manga and 2009 anime counterparts due to not being afraid to take risks with its storyline. While the two latter sources go for a more conventional shounen story, the 2003 take on the series takes the manga's plot and characters and expands upon them to create better characterization and smoother story flow from the title's earlier chapters. While the title's attempt to create its own continuity does have some bumps in its later episodes, I still found it to be a more worthwhile adaptation than what the manga and Brotherhood intended with it. Those wanting a better portrayal of the manga's earlier events and better character development should give this adaptation of FMA a shot if they've already sampled the manga and/or Brotherhood.