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NEWS: New Fullmetal Alchemist TV Commercial Streamed


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bayoab



Joined: 06 Oct 2004
Posts: 831
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:01 am Reply with quote
troizen wrote:
what is the big difference between the manga and the anime? like at what point does the anime go off in its own direction? i have never read the manga so i really have no idea. so an explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Minor changes: Something like episode 6.
Major changes: Slightly before/around the 5th lab. (Ep 20ish. By here the anime is already showing signs of going in it's own direction and has been changing major plot points for a few episodes already.)
Not even based on the manga anymore: Slightly after the 5th lab. (Around 27 or so.)
Also note that at least 5 episodes prior to episode 20 are entirely filler.

The anime changed characters identities, changes who kills who, who dies, etc.
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Josh7289



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:23 am Reply with quote
Are you serious? Seriously, that's Ed's Japanese voice? This is my first time hearing it, wow... that's totally totally different.

OK, anyway, so cool... so cool so cool, I really want to start reading this manga.
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Ikari1



Joined: 23 Jun 2008
Posts: 531
Location: London
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:44 am Reply with quote
Ill be very dissapointed if this turns out to be a re- make. I see it as a bit of a cop out to be honest to simply re- make the series even if it is based more closely to the manga.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:44 am Reply with quote
BTW, for anyone interested in an English professor's take on the Fullmetal Alchemist anime, particularly its relation to Goethe's Faust, episode-by-episode as it aired on CN, there's the Fullmetal Analyst. Cool
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RhymesWithEmpty



Joined: 01 Sep 2008
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:00 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
One of the best parts of the anime was how well developed Lust was, and she was arguably the best developed character in the entire anime.


Not to dredge up a finished argument that I wasn't even in, but I think this statement carries a lot of weight to it - but I also think it supports a lot of what penguintruth was saying.

I agree that Lust is one of the most developed characters in the anime - I wouldn't say best developed, but she's definitely up there, and she's easily one of my favorite characters. Meanwhile, in the manga, it is the exact opposite. And while the manga typically has more fleshed out minor characters, as it has been argued, the situation is completely reversed when it comes to the homonculi, which is much to the manga's detriment and the anime's benefit. As penguintruth was saying, in the anime, the homonculi represent very strong thematic elements of sin, redemption, responsibility, and, depending on whichever homonculus you specifically want to discuss(because, honestly, I'd argue that all of the homonculi, except perhaps Gluttony, were very strong characters), many other things. Giving them strong characterization only serves to greatly increase the power of these themes. I'd argue that the strength and the significance of their characterization far exceeds the vast majority of the minor characters' improved characterization in the manga. I'd rather see Lust having a meaningful scene with Scar than Lust being another typical (buxom)villain while Scar has a pointless scene featuring Yoki, who continuously fails to contribute anything of significance.

That isn't to say that I think all of the extra characterization going on in the manga is all worthless - quite the contrary, I really do love some of it. It's just my point that the anime also employs excellent characterization in ways that the manga doesn't, which also happen to be thematically significant, so it definitely shouldn't be generalized that the manga is always superior in that department. More wide scale characterization definitely doesn't always mean better characterization. All in all, I think it balances out pretty evenly. I guess it's just a matter of preference, in the end - more broad characterization and a more submersive world, or more acute characterization for key characters and more powerful thematic elements.

And I'm also really looking forward to seeing scenes such as Dr. Knox opening his door to see his wife and son, and then crying in secret over his cup of coffee - that scene chokes me up and gets me all teary eyed every single time I read it.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
Posts: 3085
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:58 am Reply with quote
troizen wrote:
what is the big difference between the manga and the anime? like at what point does the anime go off in its own direction? i have never read the manga so i really have no idea. so an explanation would be greatly appreciated.


Generally speaking the manga is MUCH more action packed, with an emphasis on characters trying to outsmart each other. On the other hand in the anime characters will frequently start up philosophical questions, and the occasional "why is this scene in here" like the Ball Room dance scene will appear.

Also the themes are different for example one of the main themes of the manga is the idea that the army should be used for protection of the country, to go along with that theme pretty much every soldier in the army is prortrayed as good, and well meaning only doing the job that they where given while showing the atrocities that can happen because of that.

As for the homunculi being better, the only massive improvement was Lust, while Envy was slightly better, and Wrath was arguably better.

Gluttony is the exact same character in both versions, Sloth while looking important is really only a character for Wrath to latch on to, and Greed is basically the same character as well, and Pride was done better in the manga.

The only characters whose previous life was important to their characterization was Envy, Wrath, and Lust, they where the only characters that I felt where the same as their human counterparts, the rest where basically different characters that just looked the same.

As for Yoki, the only dramatic scene he plays a part of in the manga is the scene where asks for Scar's name and Scar tells him that he has thrown away everything in the name of revenge, and his only role is to ask Scar for his name, otherwise his pure comic relief and I think he does it well.

As for Scar's future role in the manga, keep in mind that Arakawa has stated that she is saving Scar's name for a later date so we still have the revelation of Scar's name left. It must be dramatic since I bet the only reason Scar's name was never revealed in the anime was so that it would be revealed in the manga.
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posterior_praiser



Joined: 21 Oct 2007
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:19 am Reply with quote
Josh7289 wrote:
Are you serious? Seriously, that's Ed's Japanese voice? This is my first time hearing it, wow... that's totally totally different.


Never heard Paku romi as Ed before? I prefer it, just because I think she really made Ed, Ed IMO, so I'm glad she's back on board for this series. Al's voice is also very nice in Japanese. You should give the Japanese version a try some day ^.~

The english version picked a man to voice Ed, so yeah. It's gonna sound different.
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 1505
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:17 pm Reply with quote
About the differences between the manga and the old anime, I would add something not related to characters and plot.

One of the reasons I thought the manga was better is the fact that in it themes and "moods" are better balanced, in my opinion.

In the manga there is a bit of everything: drama (most of all), action, comedy and romance.

The anime, instead, in the second part focused too much only on drama, imho, and even if it did that, it never reached peaks of emotions like the manga, concerning the two brothers.

There is aa awesome scene in the manga that I don't want spoil here, and I can't wait to see that animated, among many others.

Furthermore, like some already said, the world in the manga is much wider and complex, while the anime at the end falls in the overused cliché of the parallels world, that even if well done, detracted a lot from the fantasy side of the story.

After all, I believe that FMA scenario is one of the best fantasy world ever created, and it was a shame that in the first anime this aspect wasn't fully developed (even if it would have been pretty impossible, and maybe it's better that they did it like they did).

Still, it's great to have a new anime, but faithful to the manga this time, and I can't really understand why some (few) people complain: after all, it's not like the old anime will disappear just because they are making a new one. Wink
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:13 pm Reply with quote
Sariachan wrote:

Still, it's great to have a new anime, but faithful to the manga this time, and I can't really understand why some (few) people complain: after all, it's not like the old anime will disappear just because they are making a new one. Wink


That's what they say about the new Dragonball Evolution movie too! Laughing
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
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Location: Italy
PostPosted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:15 pm Reply with quote
^ Too bad that that movie is an alternate version of DB, while the new FMA anime will maybe be the most faithful adaptation of the original thing ever. Wink

Anyway, I don't care about the DB movie, really. I just won't see it.
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RhymesWithEmpty



Joined: 01 Sep 2008
Posts: 208
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:37 am Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:

As for the homunculi being better, the only massive improvement was Lust, while Envy was slightly better, and Wrath was arguably better.

Gluttony is the exact same character in both versions, Sloth while looking important is really only a character for Wrath to latch on to, and Greed is basically the same character as well, and Pride was done better in the manga.

The only characters whose previous life was important to their characterization was Envy, Wrath, and Lust, they where the only characters that I felt where the same as their human counterparts, the rest where basically different characters that just looked the same.


I've got to heavily disagree in the case of Sloth. She might not have gotten as much screen time as Lust, but her identity alone grants her a great deal of significance, and I thought Ed and Al's confrontation of her was a wonderful bit of character development for her, brief though it was. She was basically the antithesis of Lust, but she showed that she could still have very human emotions, cold as they were. She was much more than something for Wrath to latch on to, especially since you can view her character from so many different perspectives. Actually, I think she just as confused as Wrath on some points, they both suffered from major identity crises, she just kept it all bottled up until the last possible moment, which makes sense, considering her namesake.

I could argue that Gluttony is spoiler[more distraught over Lust's death] in the anime, which at least shows that even he has a human side, but he's an incredibly flat character either way. There are other characters that are better developed in the anime than they are in the manga too, though - Izumi, or Shou Tucker, for example. I just think it's silly to talk in such generalities with both the anime and the manga are steeped in wonderful characters and other such great story elements.

Quote:
As for Yoki, the only dramatic scene he plays a part of in the manga is the scene where asks for Scar's name and Scar tells him that he has thrown away everything in the name of revenge, and his only role is to ask Scar for his name, otherwise his pure comic relief and I think he does it well.

As for Scar's future role in the manga, keep in mind that Arakawa has stated that she is saving Scar's name for a later date so we still have the revelation of Scar's name left. It must be dramatic since I bet the only reason Scar's name was never revealed in the anime was so that it would be revealed in the manga.


Personally, I think Lust played that part way better than Loki. She actually had a reason to ask. Anybody could've replaced Loki for that part in the manga to the same effect, really. And I don't find him to be good comic relief, either, but that's just me. I just find Scar's whole troupe scenario to be annoying and detrimental to his character. It seems cliched. Reminds me of Sesshomaru, Jaken, and Rin, although I guess it isn't completely fair to equate May Chang to Rin, heh. spoiler[Marcoh] is the only one who brings anything worthwhile to the table, imo. I love the line "Scar... I see deity in you." That scene is one I'm definitely looking forward to.

I'm also very eager for the revelation of Scar's true name, as I'm sure most fans are, and I'm hoping it'll be as dramatic as you're predicting.

I can see why fans of the original series and not the manga are getting concerned about this new series and understand the logic that leads them to kind of view it as a threat, but I also think it's kind of silly. Hell, the original series already established the premise of having multiple universes, why not just treat this as another alternate universe, where the story takes a different path? No big deal, really. And if you're really that upset about it, well, I'd say give the manga a chance and then see what you think of the idea. Fans of the original series definitely owe it to themselves - it's totally worth it.
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mglittlerobin



Joined: 28 Aug 2008
Posts: 1071
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:38 am Reply with quote
What's with all the bashing? As long as it's FMA we should all be happy. I for one, haven't read the manga so I don't mind the remake, but I love the original series too. We should all be happy. it's going to be good either way.
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Charred Knight



Joined: 29 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:37 am Reply with quote
RhymesWithEmpty wrote:
Charred Knight wrote:

As for the homunculi being better, the only massive improvement was Lust, while Envy was slightly better, and Wrath was arguably better.

Gluttony is the exact same character in both versions, Sloth while looking important is really only a character for Wrath to latch on to, and Greed is basically the same character as well, and Pride was done better in the manga.

The only characters whose previous life was important to their characterization was Envy, Wrath, and Lust, they where the only characters that I felt where the same as their human counterparts, the rest where basically different characters that just looked the same.


I've got to heavily disagree in the case of Sloth. She might not have gotten as much screen time as Lust, but her identity alone grants her a great deal of significance, and I thought Ed and Al's confrontation of her was a wonderful bit of character development for her, brief though it was. She was basically the antithesis of Lust, but she showed that she could still have very human emotions, cold as they were. She was much more than something for Wrath to latch on to, especially since you can view her character from so many different perspectives. Actually, I think she just as confused as Wrath on some points, they both suffered from major identity crises, she just kept it all bottled up until the last possible moment, which makes sense, considering her namesake.

I could argue that Gluttony is spoiler[more distraught over Lust's death] in the anime, which at least shows that even he has a human side, but he's an incredibly flat character either way. There are other characters that are better developed in the anime than they are in the manga too, though - Izumi, or Shou Tucker, for example. I just think it's silly to talk in such generalities with both the anime and the manga are steeped in wonderful characters and other such great story elements.

Quote:
As for Yoki, the only dramatic scene he plays a part of in the manga is the scene where asks for Scar's name and Scar tells him that he has thrown away everything in the name of revenge, and his only role is to ask Scar for his name, otherwise his pure comic relief and I think he does it well.

As for Scar's future role in the manga, keep in mind that Arakawa has stated that she is saving Scar's name for a later date so we still have the revelation of Scar's name left. It must be dramatic since I bet the only reason Scar's name was never revealed in the anime was so that it would be revealed in the manga.


Personally, I think Lust played that part way better than Loki. She actually had a reason to ask. Anybody could've replaced Loki for that part in the manga to the same effect, really. And I don't find him to be good comic relief, either, but that's just me. I just find Scar's whole troupe scenario to be annoying and detrimental to his character. It seems cliched. Reminds me of Sesshomaru, Jaken, and Rin, although I guess it isn't completely fair to equate May Chang to Rin, heh. spoiler[Marcoh] is the only one who brings anything worthwhile to the table, imo. I love the line "Scar... I see deity in you." That scene is one I'm definitely looking forward to.

I'm also very eager for the revelation of Scar's true name, as I'm sure most fans are, and I'm hoping it'll be as dramatic as you're predicting.

I can see why fans of the original series and not the manga are getting concerned about this new series and understand the logic that leads them to kind of view it as a threat, but I also think it's kind of silly. Hell, the original series already established the premise of having multiple universes, why not just treat this as another alternate universe, where the story takes a different path? No big deal, really. And if you're really that upset about it, well, I'd say give the manga a chance and then see what you think of the idea. Fans of the original series definitely owe it to themselves - it's totally worth it.


The only reason you would be scared would be because their afraid that if this anime is popular it would make people forget the first series ever existed.

Which speaks wonders about how they feel about the first series. Let's be blunt, the first series was pretty good only suffering from some plotlines that made no sense apparently after Dante spoiler[took over the country she never bothered actually researching how to make Philosopher's stones easier , which makes me wonder what she did for all that time.] It overall had some good ideas (homonculus) and some bad ideas (parallel worlds, Ed's romantic relationship with Rose), and frankly if they had more of the first and less of the last two I would have had a much higher opinion of it.

For example I have heard several times that Homonculi don't have souls when the plot only makes sense if they do have souls. I mean spoiler[Lust,, Envy, and Wrath] all had their original personalities which is dictated by the soul since the personality must be dictated by the Soul as seen by Al. Also one scene from the movie only makes sense if Wrath had a soul. Presumably to bring a person back to life you must first turn them into a homunculus than turn them back into a human.

Also my biggest problem with the whole parallel world is that the whole souls thing is never explained.
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Sariachan



Joined: 09 May 2005
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Location: Italy
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:49 pm Reply with quote
Charred Knight wrote:
The only reason you would be scared would be because their afraid that if this anime is popular it would make people forget the first series ever existed.

Well, it's too early to say anything, but if this second FMA series will become more popular than the first one, then it would mean that this new one is really, really well made, and I could only be really happy if this will be the case.

After all, the first FMA series, manga or not (and I still love the manga much more), was like one of the best TV animated series ever made. People won't forget it so easily. Wink
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RhymesWithEmpty



Joined: 01 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 12:35 am Reply with quote
Tons of explanation about Dante's predicament has already been done in this thread, and I find it all very acceptable. I actually like what little we see of Dante's character - she's a person who has been twisted by the ravages of time and filled with delusions of grandeur, even while she's incredibly defendant on all of her servants. I really like that depiction, because usually when you have a character who has lived hundreds of years, you get someone more like Hoenheim, or some wisened elves in whichever fantasy book who are usually so infallible, it's sickening. I think Dante provides a great foil to this. And I think it's a bit more realistic, too, but that's just me.

She's been corrupted, she's rather incompetent compared to Hoenheim, she knows that creating the philosopher's stone also results in death. spoiler[Hoenheim would've died had she not transferred his soul to another body, and Scar, well, he obviously did die.] That seems to be the other ingredient to the stone - lots and lots of souls, and the body of the person enacting the transmutation. We basically learn as much from Scar's brother. Obviously, Dante isn't going to sacrifice herself like that, so she has to create all of these complex plans to trick another alchemist into doing her dirty work for her.

But it's not like that's all she was doing, either - she's also got complete control of what seems to be the most powerful government in their world, making her the most powerful person in the world. No small feat. Which means she had to create Pride, the only aging homunculi, which was likely a significant task. I will say it's a shame they didn't delve into that more like in the manga, but, to be fair, the manga hadn't even reached that point yet. That's just another thing to look forward to in this new series, though! Anyways - she also had to collect/create the rest of her little homunculi army, then deal with Greed's little rebellion - y'know, I'd love to hear more story behind that incident as well. And all the while she's waging wars and trying to lure in suitable alchemists - training Izumi was probably part of that plan. She might have taken on several other apprentices before Izumi as well. Point is, she wasn't just sitting around doing nothing the whole time.

And I never saw Ed and Rose as having any romantic tension between them, except at the very end, which was very obviously just a part of Dante's plot, seeing as she had a firm grip on Rose's mind at the time. No doubt she thought it would be great fun to seduce one of Hoenheim's sons. Ed even stops Rose and is essentially like, "the hell are you doing?" And I seem to be the only person who actually did feel a fair amount of romantic tension between Ed and Winry throughout the series. There could've been more of it, but I'm glad there wasn't, because that's not what the series is about. It's nice to have as a little side dish in the manga, but it's harder to work into the show, I think.

Whether or not homunculi have souls is very much open to debate, and is debated in the show itself, which is something I love about it. Really, it's one of the big philosophical questions of the series - what is a soul? How can you define it in order to put it into an equation? That's a problem Ed and Al encounter right off the bat, obviously. Personally, I like Lust's theory, that homunculi spoiler[are in fact the people who were being resurrected, they're merely an incomplete product. So while they're missing the person's soul, they do have their memories, which obviously affect the actions they take and leads to them developing their own personalities.] Who's to say that, at some point during this process, they don't develop souls of their own? It makes sense to me, and it explains quite a bit. The whole ideology behind souls is very fluid anyways - it's nothing we have an answer to, so we are free to search out our own answers, which is what the original series wants us to do, I think. I just hope this new series is just as thought provoking, because, while the manga is absolutely wonderful, it would also be very easy to just dumb it down to pure action. I've got faith in studio BONES, though.

I like the parallel world thing, I thought it added even more depth to the show - they may not have explained it so well as to dispel all questions about it, obviously, but they gave a general explanation that worked for their purposes, I think. To be honest, they really didn't give themselves enough time to explain it, seeing as it came at the climax of the show, which also happened to be the second to last episode, heh. And that's where it should've been, I think. But if they had taken more time just to explain the specifics, it would've disrupted the climax and thrown off the pacing of it all. They could've explained it more in the movie, but I guess they wanted to keep it rather mystical. Which makes sense, I mean, spoiler[if Hoenheim is just barely able to make sense of it, it's not likely that we're going to have a bunch of scientific facts about it. Traveling between the 2 universes is unprecedented until he does it, as far as we know, and Dante doesn't even really know what she's done to him, just that she's separated his body and soul,] so there's not really any way for us to canonically obtain the information anyways. All we really need to know is that there is some kind of flow of energy(which we are told is beyond our understanding enough to make it a significant theme of the show), or of "souls," between the two universes, and the energy that reaches Ed's universe from the other side of the gate is used for transmutation. If anything, I think it was smart to incorporate that sense of mysticism about it all in the movie, I found it to be a very good fit.

Man, I'm way too long winded when discussing FMA, heh. The walls of text symbolize my love! Razz *bricked*
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