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Interview: Fullmetal Alchemist and Concrete Revolutio screenwriter Shou Aikawa

I think in the original work, many things had an impact on me. The most important thing I thought is that Ed has, as you know, only one leg and one arm, real, and the others are metal. In the case of, for example, on American TV it seems like there's a rule for regular dramas, like there has to be someone in a wheelchair or black people, and in Japan that's not the case.

Let's just hope people who may feel offended get that this comment is more based on ignorance because of being in Japan than mean-spiriteness. Still pretty funny to see this screw-up though

I don't know if I agree with Hope's assertion that FMA 2003 is that darker than Brotherhood. I mean, there's probably more blood and widespread genocide in Brotherhood, from the original manga, than in 2003's. There's at least one episode where it's nothing but a flashback of the military gunning down innocent civilians in a massacre.

You might argue that it approaches the material as more of a drama than the manga/Brotherhood, but it's not necessarily edgier or moodier in terms of pure "what can be shown". Edward gets impaled on a large piece of pipe or rebar in Brotherhood and there's tons of the red stuff.

But anyway, despite Aikawa's earlier... uh, less, shall we say, sensitive works (and that weird comment about black people and people in wheel chairs notwithstanding), I really loved FMA 2003 and I think this new show has an interesting concept, so I'll probably check it out.

penguintruth wrote:

I don't know if I agree with Hope's assertion that FMA 2003 is that darker than Brotherhood. I mean, there's probably more blood and widespread genocide in Brotherhood, from the original manga, than in 2003's. There's at least one episode where it's nothing but a flashback of the military gunning down innocent civilians in a massacre. You might argue that it approaches the material as more of a drama than the manga/Brotherhood, but it's not necessarily edgier or moodier in terms of pure "what can be shown". Edward gets impaled on a large piece of pipe or rebar in Brotherhood and there's tons of the red stuff. But anyway, despite Aikawa's earlier... uh, less, shall we say, sensitive works (and that weird comment about black people and people in wheel chairs notwithstanding), I really loved FMA 2003 and I think this new show has an interesting concept, so I'll probably check it out.

FMA 2003 being darker has nothing to do with the amount of violence or blood. It has more to do with the themes, thematic implications, the resolution of the show and the overall tone and presentation. FMA '03 is a much darker take on the story. As for him not commenting much about this, as another poster mentioned, I think that might just be a quirk in the anime industry of creators just not talking about the meaning of their work, as I believe Zac mentioned on an ANNCast (maybe the KLK one?).

Indeed, the 2003 anime is the better version in my opinion. I found myself disliking Brotherhood more and more with time and not because of the flaws within it such as the lackluster music and oil-painting backgrounds, but because of its obnoxious and pretentious fans.

Me: I prefer the original series
Brothertard: F*** YOU!!! YOU'RE RETARDED!! BROTHERHOOD IS CLOSER TO THE MANGA!! BROTHERHOOD IS WAY BETTER!! YOU'RE NOT A TRUE FAN! YOU SUCK!!

(I am not exaggerating, people have actually said those things to me when I say I like the original series.)

Me: Jeez! What crawled up your butt and died?

EDIT: On a more serious note, It doesn't matter what FMA did right, hell, what it did better is not even acknowledged (such as Lusts's character development or the overall soundtrack to name a few) solely because it wasn't the mangaka's original story and therefore automatically makes it crap and inferior to FMA Brotherhood no matter what and thus is spit out like yesterday's pork chops by the very same people who once called it one of the best anime ever made.

Is it a major rule in fandom that when multiple versions of something exists, only one must be appreciated and the other has to be labeled as sucky? Kind of sad for a show that was ranked 95 in IGN's Best Animated Series list.

Regarding the rest of the interview. I feel Aikawa, like most people being interviewed, was trying to give overly insightful answers but in all honesty, I think they just wrote something and it turned out good, probably in more ways than they intended.

It's like the original Ninja Turtles and Transformers, they were supposed to be mere toy commercials and the writers went into the projects with that in mind, but in the end they become much more than that.

The OVA discussion on the other hand actually made sense after looking back at the classics after reading this.

Many American fans are familiar with infamous or legendary works in the 80s, OVAs in the 80s you were heavily involved in: Urotsukidoji, Angel Cop, Violence Jack. For older anime fans those are classics.

Why are there Seven deadly sins?
Who are the Seven deadly sins?
Who/what's "father"?
Who/what is ed/al's "father".