brief introduction sets a grim and graphic tone for the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Two young boys begin what resembles a complex magical ritual, which rapidly and explosively goes wrong. As one of them looks dumbly at the bloody stump of his left leg, something stirs within the complicated chalked diagram on the ground in front of him. "Mom?"
he asks hopefully. Then the smoke begins to clear, and he sees the hideous monster he's called up from the dead. He screams.
Weirdly enough, the series immediately lightens up into super-deformed humor and slapstick comedy. The two boys from the opening scene are Edward and Alphonse Elric, young brothers skilled in the science (not magic, as they repeatedly insist) of alchemy. Given the proper symbols and concentration, they can change the state or composition of items, for instance transforming a broken radio into a working one, or a wall into a door. But as the series repeatedly and emphatically states, alchemy follows strict rules of conservation: like chemical transformations, alchemical equations have to balance, and for everything that is gained, something equal is lost.
Years ago, the two boys learned this in a graphic way when they tried to bring their mother back from the dead: They supplied the proper chemical equivalent for a human body but failed to account for the weight of a soul. The imbalance in their equation caused a reaction that destroyed Alphonse's body and part of Edward's. Edward managed to bind his brother's spirit
into a handy suit of armor and buy artificial "auto-mail" replacements for his missing limbs. Now they travel together, working as alchemists for the state and looking for a way to restore themselves. In the first two episodes on the initial Fullmetal Alchemist DVD, that search takes them to a desert town, where a priest uses alchemy to convince a fawning flock that he can perform miracles. The next three episodes go back in time to tell the story of the failed resurrection, and what followed as the two boys began their quest.
Repetition becomes redundant
No wonder Fullmetal Alchemist is so popular: It's brightly and vividly animated and full of memorable and (mostly) sympathetic characters. From the first episode, it begins developing a richly detailed fantasy world with its own intriguingly complicated rules, which just keep developing as the series' 51 episodes unfold. The show is particularly creative in its setting, a quaint, village-oriented old-world milieu where trains and horse-drawn wagons, telephones and miracle men, advanced robotics and stone dungeons all co-exist comfortably. It seems significant that in a world where the bad guys frequently pack machine guns, no one seems terribly shocked over Alphonse, who appears to be a man in full plate mail. It's an anything-can-happen kind of world, and those are generally good, unpredictable fun.
The series' only real problem so far is that it's almost criminally repetitive. Yes, it's crucial that viewers understand the story's central law, the alchemical "principle of equivalent exchange," the source of the boys' woes and the guideline to all alchemy. (Though it is sort of ironic that within the first 10 minutes of the first episode, Ed and Al have already encountered someone who freely violates this inviolate rule.) But it comes up over and over, several times per episode. And the boys' horrifying past is clearly crucial, but is it necessary to depict
it, explain it, re-explain it, summarize it again, reference it repeatedly and then depict it yet again in immense detail? Recaps make episodic TV series workable—new viewers tuning in to the show on Cartoon Network should be able to jump in almost anywhere—but for those watching multiple episodes back to back on DVD, the redundancy can become irritating.
Still, it'd take more than that to really spoil a series with this many pleasures. At least the repetition comes flavored with variety—as the story is retold, new and pertinent details emerge, and even the earliest episodes start throwing out teasers for the larger plot to come. Given how involved and creative Fullmetal Alchemist has shaped up to be so far, viewers are certainly likely to get hooked, and to climb on board for more of the series.
I'm pretty firmly on the subtitle side of the great sub-vs.-dub faceoff, but I really liked the English voices on this release—particularly Alphonse, who has a sweet, appealingly authentic voice, like an actual child, though with a voice full of actorly nuance and emotion. Excellently done.
— Tasha
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