Shelf Life

Band of Brothers

Curious podcasters want to know-- if you're watching Fullmetal Alchemist for the first time starting with Brotherhood, and you've never read the manga, what do you think of it? Does it make sense to you? I ask because I can't tell if Brotherhood stands alone very well or not. I can't un-watch the original series or forget that I've seen it.

Allow me to save you some reading time if you've seen Brotherhood already; this set is a retelling of a little over half of the original series. There are a couple of divergent plot points, but the new material will begin in the next DVD set.

If you don't know what's up with Brotherhood, here's the deal; It's like the new Evangelion movies or Dragon Ball Z Kai. Much of the beginning of the first series has been re-animated, although not shot-per-shot like with Eva. It's like an American comic "reboot." The original anime series was produced before the manga was half-way done, so the TV crew, with the author's blessing, invented their own ending. Meanwhile, the manga plugged along. Brotherhood claims to be the manga version of the story. Instead of keeping the same pace, Brotherhood assumes you've seen the first series and condenses the story like Campbell's condenses soups.

In case you've never, ever seen FMA (what are you waiting for?) Ed and Al dabbled in alchemy as kids trying to raise their mother from the dead. Their failure cost Ed a leg and Al his body. Fortunately, in this alternate-universe pre-WWI version of Germany, a kind of armor called "automail" has provided nifty replacement parts. Ed and Al join a branch of the military known as the State Alchemists. They hope to find the legendary Philosopher's Stone and restore their bodies. A lot of adventures unfold along their quest; a dark-skinned "Ishbalan" is serial killing State Alchemists on a holy revenge mission. To make matters worse, some mysterious bad guys with crazy powers are following Ed and Al, and burning down libraries where they plan to research the Philosopher's Stone.

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.

Just like Kai or the new Eva movies, Brotherhood provides a handy shorthand for revisiting an old favorite (or in this case, not that old). Watch it again without having to re-watch the original verbatim! In these tough economic times, launching a new franchise is a huge financial risk for an anime studio. It's safer to stick with remakes, reboots, and re-cuts, and if they're as good as Brotherhood, I don't mind. I'd rather see a new-ish anime than no new series and a bunch of unemployed people (although it turns out I get both, whether I like it or not).

The dub is quite nice, maybe even better than the original dub. Unfortunately, Aaron Dismuke had to be replaced as Al, because he was a kid and his voice changed. I really loved Dismuke, who sounded like Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Fortunately it doesn't take long to get used to Maxey Whitehead, who is a very good Al. [TOP]

Dearest Funimation, what is the harm in labeling DVDs sequentially? I got these episodes in the mail some time ago. They arrived without the box, and because the DVDs were labeled "Disc 1" and "Disc 2". I thought I had duplicates of Part One, which I already reviewed. Then Part Three came in the mail, also labeled "Disc 1" and "Disc 2" but with different characters, and I realized my mistake.

I don't want to ghettoize Soul Eater by saying this, but basically this series delivers everything I'm looking for as an anime fan. I love the Shonen Jump formula (Soul Eater ran in a Square Enix magazine but you get the idea). Sure, the formula is predictable, but sometimes that's what you want.

For example, I knew when Maka fought a certain rival in this set that they would become friends. As a fighting protagonist, you must befriend your feared rivals, whether you're Goku or Grappler Baki. 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. (Actually you can tell this isn't a Shonen Jump title because the two main rivals are not blonde and brunette boys as in Naruto, Death Note, and Hikaru No Go.)

Soul Eater continues to deliver high quality animation and creative character designs. Everything is drawn with gusto. This is a great show for aspiring artists and graphic designers. There are no off-model episodes or poorly designed filler-only characters. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Soul Eater almost never feels like filler, and if there is filler, it is mercifully short.

My favorite episode of the set was 17, "Legend of the Holy Sword 2 – Wanna Go Drinking, Gambling, and Playing?". Part One established the legendary sword Excalibur as a weapon who can take the form of some kind of foppish dog creature. Anyone can draw the sword from the stone in Soul Eater, the trouble is that Excalibur tells long-winded stories and insults the would-be sword bearer. This would get old if Excalibur were a regular character, but Part Two confines Excalibur's rambling to one excellent slapstick episode. We're given quick glimpses of Excalibur's improbably life story, which includes leading the Jets in 1950's New York.

Excalibur as the leader of the Jets - I can't say was expecting to see that when I got up in the morning! It also happens that the madness living in Maka's head (think Herman's Head) takes on a devil-form and occupies a room suspiciously similar to the Red Room in Twin Peaks. That is awesome, because even if you don't get the pop culture reference, it still fits into the story.

You know because of the well-documented Shonen Power Creep that Maka is going to have to fight some kind of vague, universal evil eventually. You know it. Brak know it. Zorak know it. I thought I skipped a set when the kids started battling Asura, a bad guy from Death's younger days who may never have been human to begin with. The series seems to start wrapping up (and much quicker than usual!) around episode 24.

Somehow it keeps moving forward, with the action now split evenly between the teachers' generation and the student's generation. It's very Harry Potter. Death is like Dumbledore, Asura is your shonen version of Voldemort, and instead of Harry, Maka is the kickass version of Hermione, leading the fight. I think we'd all like to see Hermione kick a little more ass.[TOP]