This is a lot of writing, so forgive me for misspelling and possible spoilers. And rambling.
I am a huge FMA fan. It's my second favorite manga of all time, and both (BOTH) TV shows are tied for third in my favorite anime of all time (well, on my list of TV series and OVAs). I understand people having a preference for one or the other based on certain atmospheric differences and approaches, but I myself have no such preference. I appreciate the first series for having great emotional and thematic complexities and its reflection of our real world history, and I appreciate the second series for its internal consistency in amazing world building and well-plotted story with some really choice scenes and creative thinking. They're equally valid in my opinion.
I am really glad that Zac recognized that there were enough differences in the first thirteen episodes of Brotherhood that it couldn't just be skipped. Many times I've heard the advice to people that "Oh, you should just watch the original up until the end of the Greed stuff and then go into Brotherhood after the Greed stuff there" and the like. What happened was that Arakawa specified to Bones where she was going with the manga when they were working on the first show and wanted them to take it in a different direction, which they did starting almost immediately. If you ignore the changes early on, later on things will be very confusing, and there was a definite necessity for Bones to get through that material in Brotherhood.
That said, I really wish Bones hadn't skimped on certain elements of the early parts of the story just to get to the parts nobody had seen animated before. I felt like, with the (original) Greed material, they kind of dropped the ball, as well as with some of the other early elements from the manga. And that first episode of Brotherhood exists for the sole purpose of showcasing "This is a different version, this is a different show!", since it's anime-only. It kind of takes the wind out of the sails of the revelations about Edward and Alphonse that were supposed to occur in Lior, but at this point I suppose Bones assumed that everybody already knew.
The thing about Nina Tucker's death in Brotherhood is that while the Tucker incident is just one incident in their lives as they discover just how badly alchemy can be abused (and thus a precursor to the real corruption in the Amestris gov't), Edward and Alphonse remember this incident throughout the entire story and it's reflected on later on, as well. It may not have as big an impact all at once the way it did in the first series, but it carries throughout, whereas in the original, it was more of a BIG THING THAT HAPPENS and then kind of tossed aside for the building tension of the main plot. That Shou Tucker continues to exist in the 2003 show is almost irrelevant since he barely does anything and while we're supposed to feel he gets some kind of karmic retribution of losing all touch with sanity, it's sort of besides the point that Arakawa was trying to make in her manga, and thus in Brotherhood. I think it works to some degree in both shows, though even at the end of Brotherhood, Alphonse still feels terrible he was unable to help a girl like Nina and wants to find a way to do that.
The Nina Tucker thing is supposed to be more about how horrible it is that the Elric brothers couldn't help this little girl. For as smart and strong they are, they can't be gods, they can't do everything. By making it all about how Shou Tucker is a bad guy, you can argue that it misses how it's supposed to really reflect on the brothers.
The visual aesthetics difference between the two shows is very noticeable, which you brought up. Brotherhood has this super painted feel to it, this "things moving in a painting" visual, especially the backgrounds. The characters themselves are very solid (though super blobby at times), but some of the settings, be it background or foreground have a very mural-like quality to them. It makes for some really beautiful visuals. And the character designs are not just more accurate to Arakawa's own art, but clearly it's easier for the animators to work with when they do the very complex action sequences that occur.
Xing is pronounced "Shin" or "Shing". As for the characters... eh, I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of those characters, especially at first. They felt like they were from a different manga/anime altogether. Probably a better version of Naruto. I get that Arakawa didn't want to make the world of FMA into this one, monolithic culture, but I just never really took to most of these characters. Some of them felt weirdly overpowered for non-alchemists, and even the one alchemist (alchehestry...ist) from Xing, May, took me a long time to really attach to. I felt Ling especially was pretty obnoxious and just kind of a slightly tweaked version of Edward with little else to offer but a decent action scene or two. But he did end up growing on me through his interactions with Greed. He just isn't one of my favorite characters, and I resent that you can't find any good original Greed action figures because the closest they have is Ling-Greed. Greedling. Whatever.
The thing about the mechanics of alchemy is that actually Western, or Amestrian alchemy doesn't work like it should be working, for a very specific reason we discover towards the end of the story. Western alchemy itself, as it's supposed to work, isn't evil, but it's being buffered and actually made less powerful by the evil machinations of the main villain. Eastern alchemy, or alkehestry, or whatever, is using the "dragon lines" of the Earth, Western alchemy is supposed to be using the energy released through plate tectonics, but something is wrong with it. Thus Scar's brother's revelation that "Something is wrong with this country's alchemy!" (Scar's brother is kind of the lynchpin in... well, entirely too much in my opinion, but there you go, he's basically the lynchpin in the whole story). I do like the 2003 conceit that it's the energy that is released from people's bodies when they die in our world, but it relies very heavily on the context of that series, where in this one it's much more usable in any scenario.
I don't really believe that the two shows are really that different, thematically. I think they're differently emphasized. What are the main themes of FMA, the original manga and Brotherhood? The necessity, importance, tragedy, and romanticism all of sacrifice, that we're connected, all have a similar ultimate fate, that we have all responsibilities and burdens to carry, that oftentimes even the people who seem the strongest can feel the most powerless, and I think those are mostly the same themes as in the 2003 version. I think the 2003 version emphasizes the responsibility the brothers feel towards each other and Brotherhood (ironically) emphasizes the responsibility everyone has towards everyone else, but the same streams run through both versions.
With Maes Hughes, in the manga, and Brotherhood, it was more about how much he meant specifically to Roy Mustang, and how angry he was and determined to find the individual who took him from his life, which is why Roy questioned the homunculi he met until the culprit eventually admitted to it. What I would argue, though, is that it wasn't really necessary for Roy to avenge Hughes' death on the specific individual who did the actual killing of Hughes, but the person or person responsible for that killer, which is why I kind of like that he goes after a different character in the first series, because in a way they were in charge of everybody, even if they weren't the exact mastermind, and it was a lot closer to getting to the person who was actually responsible for what happened. (If you follow me.) I felt like they kind of dropped the impact of Hughes' death for too long in Brotherhood (really, Arakawa did), only to bring it up when it wasn't especially relevant any longer. And that Hughes' basically figured out the whole scheme of the homunculi rather than in the 2003 series when he just found a piece of the puzzle seems really unlikely (Father really should have put his plan in motion much quicker than he did to avoid that kind of thing).
I would be very much interested in any interview that Arakawa admitted she extended the importance of Hughes because of the popularity of the TV series. I've not read anything like that, and while I'm not saying Hope made it up, I haven't seen it.
Mustang's confrontation with Lust was probably my favorite episode of Brotherhood. It was a decent bit of the manga, but the episode actually improves on it with the animation and presentation of it.
As far as the giant cast, it's interesting, because the first TV series has a big cast, and the cast of the manga/Brotherhood is even larger, and yes, I felt like the Elric brothers were marginalized, too, especially since Ed is the titular character, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and there were times he was hardly relevant to the plot. However, I think it compensates for this in some ways by having so many really colorful, interesting characters of varying backgrounds and ideals, but whose paths intersect ultimately, and most of them have the Elrics in common and through them meet each other or come to some larger understanding or purpose through the brothers, so it usually works out.
When it comes to the voice cast, and I really prefer the Japanese cast, despite the popularity of the Engish dub (which I think is overrated), I felt really glad that many of the VAs in Brotherhood were the same as in the first series. Specifically, Romi Paku as Edward Elric, Rie Kugiyima as Alphonse Elric, Kenji Utsumi (RIP) as Alex Louis Armstrong, Hidekatsu Shibata as Bradley, Seiji Fujiwara as Maes Hughes, and Shoko Tsuda as Izumi Curtis. They were all excellent.
The changed VAs? Eh, well it depended. Usually I had no preference. The voices of Greed, Junichi Suwabe and Yuichi Nakamura in 2003 and 2009, respectively, were both really good. Same with Toru Okawa and Shinichiro Miki as Roy Mustang. Sometimes I preferred the 2003 voice actor, like with Winry Rockbell and Riza Hawkeye. I felt like they wanted to change them because they had bigger roles in Brotherhood, but the old VAs would have actually done a better job with those extended roles. The newer Hawkeye sounds a little too soft and weak. Sometimes I preferred the Brotherhood VA, like with Envy's really boisterously sadistic VA, the same as Dilandau's in Escaflowne. It is a cast change, by the way, Hope.
Then there were the new characters cast, and while I wasn't a big Ling fan, Mamoru Miyano did his best and I adore Yoko Soumi as Olivier Mira Armstrong.
The English dub... well, I just don't particularly like Vic Mignogna as Edward Elric. There's no emotional dimension to his performance. Caitlin Glass is shrill as Winry, Chris Patton drops the ball as Greed (fortunately Troy Baker takes over and excels), and Wendy Powell's Envy is frankly one of the worst performances in an English dub I've ever heard in my life. I can't even imagine what her approach for the character is, but it's all wrong. There are plenty of good performances, as I mentioned, Troy Baker, but also Todd Haberkorn as Ling, Stephanie Young as Olivier Mira Armstrong, Chris Sabat as Alex Louis Armstrong, Christine Auten as Izumi Curtis, Kent Williams as Father, and Colleen Clinkenbeard as Riza Hawkeye. But there's so little to work with otherwise. A lot of VAs are just phoning it in and a few are just plain terrible actors. Funimation has plenty of good VAs and some great, solid English dubs, but I don't understand the attention this dub gets. It's vastly overrated.
I'm totally with Hope about Volume 15 of the manga. That might be my favorite volume of manga ever crafted, and while the episode on it was pretty good, I was really disappointed they didn't do more. I suppose if they had people might argue they took too much time to directly tell the Ishbal story and it timed out the main story, but they could have done so much more with the material from Arakawa and I always wanted to see a feature film based entirely around that volume. It certainly would have been better than Mary Sue of Milos... I mean, Sacred Star of Milos.
As far as the injected humor, which Arakawa does to relieve some of the tension and create a cathertic effect, but also to provide kind of a gallows humor, it's not as though one show has it more than the other, but rather 2003 had several episodes unrelated to the main plot where that kind of humor was aplenty, and 2009 tends to use it when Arakawa does, which is whenever she felt like the situation could use it. I agree that it doesn't always work, but I also sort of like it at times because it shows that human beings can joke around during stressful situations.
I sort of understand where Zac and Hope are coming from with the revelation exhaustion, and one of my gripes with FMA in the manga and Brotherhood (especially Brotherhood since it frames it a certain way with the direction) is that it sometimes feel like it's just going from one "big moment" or "big reveal" to another and making the connective tissue secondary. This is the identical problem I have with One Piece, by the way. You can point to a million great "big scenes" and "stand out moments" in One Piece, but the journey between them is such a slog and it's made in such a way that clearly the writer is trying to make EVERYTHING into a "big moment" rather than let those big moments come out on their own, naturally. Now, of course, FMA has a lot better writing than One Piece (sorry, Oda), with more gravity to even the basic narrative, so it's not suffering as severely as One Piece over this. But when you get these HUGE GASP REVELATIONS every chapter, that's not compelling writing, that's just pandering, and that's how some of the final leg of FMA's story feels to me, and what keeps it from being my all time favorite. But you can easily argue the 2003 series had a problem with that, too.
I think of the Dante vs Father thing this way: Father seems very disconnected and not particularly active in the goings on in the story, but he is this dark, twisted reflection of Hohenheim's, humanity's, and even sort of the reader's own desire to gain more knowledge. To Father, gaining the power of the Gate, the "God" of the Gate will allow him to be everything there is so he can never have to feel powerless again, as he did when he was born. Hohenheim just wanted the knowledge of alchemy as a slave to better his lot in life, so maybe he can have a family and make the people around him happy, to satiate his emptiness. In 2003, Dante has a petty, desperate need to continue living because she's narcissistic and believe that if she has the knowledge and ability to transfer bodies it makes everybody else chattel, and so you get the impression that in both cases people are little more than raw material for either of these villains. But what makes Father works, what makes the large scale countrywide plot to absorb "God" work when it cheapens lives is that it reflects in the desires of the protagonists in some way. With Dante, it's almost like, "You went through all that trouble for that?" I understand we're supposed to feel that way about her motivation, but after having gone through the entire series of events, you still have to feel your time watching these struggles is justified with a bigger, all-consuming motivation. I think either plan suits their respective stories.
I think my biggest problem with Father and his plan is that once he's actually SUCCEEDED in it, he doesn't really DO anything with that power. Sadly, we discover that Father's big weakness is, ultimately, he's not creative. At all. He has no creativity. He just sits around and continues to gloat. He doesn't, for instance, just snap his fingers and turn everybody into daffodils. Or make the planet a cube. Or blast himself into space to go look for other planets to hassle. He's just as he is normally, except looking younger and with more power. Even when his plan is reversed, he still has so much power, he could find a place to lay low while he comes up with a strategy. He's waited this long, he can't do this again? We don't even discover HOW he came to be removed from the Gate, or if there are more of him, or what he actually is in relation to the Gate. He kind of just wastes his power.
And that's the problem with having one of those enormous work-shaking motivations. What do you do when you've achieved that goal? And the answer we're given is: loaf around. Only what he's been doing this entire time.. But as a "final boss" he does provide an interesting threat in CONCEPT, if not in execution. Dante is mostly just a regular person who's pretty decent at alchemy, kind of sort of.
Remember, Father still has "God" in himself at this point, even after Amestrians' souls escape. He just can't contain it for very long unless he gets more souls. But he just basically stands around as everybody chips away at his stones.
But what is amazing about the manga, and Brotherhood, is that there's a lot of internal consistency with how the characters work, how the world works, how the alchemy elements and the mechanics of everything, the technology being used, the architecture, the world building altogether. It is the mostly single vision of a single individual, Hiromu Arakawa, who created these characters and story, and comes off as being better "lived in". FMA 2003, because Shou Aikawa and Seiji Mizushima had to go in a different direction, often has these really odd, offputtingly inconsistent plot and character choices. And then there's the ending and Conqueror of Shamballa, which is VERY divisive (I like it, but many others despise it).
But like I said, I love both shows. Arakawa created this full, lush, complex, involving world you can walk around in, but I enjoy the emotional weight of the 2003 TV series.
If you're looking for two shows with different approaches to the same or similar material... Bubblegum Crisis. Well, that isn't perfect, since they aren't based on a single manga, and 2040 is a remake of the original OVA in a different context. Also, nobody prefers 2040, even though it's decent. Hm, maybe this was a bad example.
When somebody asks me, "Which version of FMA should I watch?" I answer, "Both."
Also, 2003 was written by the Angel Cop guy. ANGEL COP.
tl:dr - WELL ACTUALLY, I LIKE BOTH, GUYS. GUYS, I LIKE BOTH. AREN'T I SPECIAL? I LIKE BOTH. GUYS. GUYS! I LIKE BOTH. GUUUUUUYS!
Last edited by penguintruth on Thu Jan 22, 2015 11:00 pm; edited 3 times in total
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