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Shelf Life - Band of Brothers [2010-06-28]

Maxey Whitehead is doing a fantastic job, and Aaron Dismuke can go back into Dub acting if he likes-based on his performance in Ouran, he's still got the stuff!

It suddenly occurred to me after that particular fight that Maka is a female protagonist of a shonen show. Sure, she fights on a team with Soul, but it's nice to see a girl in the lead role for once.

It's like the new Evangelion movies or Dragon Ball Z Kai.

The statement that has gotten me more hate mail than anything I have ever written was my saying that the constant jokes about Ed being short get really old, really fast. But despite that, I stated Fullmetal Alchemist was still the top show of the decade. That just WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH for a sizable amount of people. In fact, due to the compressed nature of Brotherhood, those "Ed is short, and Al is the younger brother!" jokes are even MORE frequent. I think I counted 7 or 8 in a single episode.

Shelf photos- my collection is probaly not the most discriminating. Ever since I've had access to internet shopping and my own source of income, I have not been the model of restraint. I recently had to convert my dvd's to thin cd cases to save room and it took over 900 cases. Yeah, I've got a problem.

Jaymie wrote:

And Hohenheim doesn't actually make his first appearance until Episode 19, which is on the second set. He did appear a lot in the first opening though.

He was totally in Ed's dream/flashback thing in this set. Like we saw his face, maybe twice, and I was really surprised since I didn't remember seeing his face for quite some time in the first series.

I'm kinda curious...what race is Felipe Smith? I know it doesn't relate to anything, but I would like to see from what perspective Peepo Choo was written in.

kpk wrote:

Quote: Characters that only turned up in the second half of the original turn up early on in Brotherhood. Sheska (the girl with a photographic memory) gets a lot of screen time and Ed and Al's dad makes more than one appearance. Wha..?

Can you be a little more specific?

Brotherhood isn't really comparable to Dragon Ball Kai because Kai is little more than a glorified clip show with little bits of new art here and there, and cut a certain way so it resembles the manga slightly closer. Minimal effort was put into it. Brotherhood is a completely new series based on the original manga's story, with all new animation.

Ashen Phoenix wrote:

doctordoom85 wrote: She's not really bashing those sort of people, just saying their "standards" (though YMMV on where the line between different standards and simply different tastes lies) are probably lower. And really, you should always be proud of your collection considering it shows how much you've supported the industry. Even if a bunch of the ANN staff came to your house and saw your collection, I doubt they would say anything too negative since they all strongly push the "support the industry" argument. Only if you had done something genuinely stupid, like push yourself into debt by buying too much at once, would some well-earned criticism be coming your way. Thanks for the point of clarification, doc. I was a little taken aback by the way her comment came across, too. But now I don't feel upset. As for Brotherhood, I'm still pretty torn; on the one hand I'm very turned off by the almost constant joke-spewing, even in serious situations, but on the other hand it's still a deliciously animated BONES work, still has one of the most well-suited VA casts I've ever heard, and as the manga has told me: it gets better.

I have trouble with the jokes too. The first series certainly had a number of them, but I feel like it did a better job of backing off in the right places. I've had an easier time lately now that the epsiodes on TV have moved into new territory, so I'm not either thinking, "no I liked the other way better", or "wow they just blew throught that." I still have some hang-ups since the first one is my favorite series ever, but I'm at least able to give this a shot. And I barely notice Al's different voice. Maybe once an episode I'll remember it is someone else, and the rest of the time I don't think about it.

I think I'd have a whole lot easier time with Brotherhood overall if people didn't all of a sudden act like the first one was bad. I'm totally fine with people preferring this new one, but the first one was the darling of the anime industry when it came out. Obviously, the popularity of the manga was a factor, but I doubt if we'd see a second series out within a few years if the first didn't do something right. I suppose I have issues with peolple letting a desire for faithfulness keep them from admitting when an adaptation was good. I can go on and on about how Batman Begins and the Dark Knight changed things about Batman, but at least I'll admit those were good movies.

This is of course the nature of reviewing anime: you either get a bunch of contrary responses from people who've seen the thing you're talking about and made up their minds, or very few responses because you're talking about something nobody's heard of.

Then again, this IS the Shelf Life feedback thread. You know of this all too well!

I'm also scratching my head as to why Soul Eater isn't on [as], based on it's buzz and fan loyalty quotient, it has a lot more going for it than Kekkaishi (and I really like the Kekkaishi manga). Well, this review makes me want to check out SE, anyway.

Having read the article and the comments, I am a little more confident on the differences between the FMA series. If I were to buy, I'd go with the first and completely ditch Brotherhood.