Summary:

Roy Mustang arrives at Central to find everyone talking about him, but he ignores them and goes to see King Bradley. He finds out, however, that King Bradley is out. The truth is that King Bradley and Armstrong have gone south and have arrived already at the Devil’s Nest. Inside, Greed decides to escape from Izumi and Ed, and the two can’t give chase because Izumi starts throwing up blood again. Greed manages to find Al and Martel in the nearby sewers, but the three of them are then confronted by King Bradley himself. Armstrong meanwhile has his hands full taking on the chimera Roa, and he gives Roa the chance to surrender after he finds out that Roa used to be in the military. Roa doesn’t take the offer though, and he escapes with Dolcetto. Back in the sewers, King Bradley quickly starts slicing Greed apart using his swords, but Greed manages to knock off his eye patch. This reveals King Bradley’s left eye which has an Ouroboros mark on it, and he calls it his ultimate eye.

Roa and Dolcetto arrive in the sewers to find Greed unable to do anything but keep regenerating as King Bradley keeps killing him. After freeing Al’s chains so that he can escape with Martel, the two chimera go after King Bradley and prompted get themselves killed. Al prevents Martel from helping her friends, and after King Bradley takes out Greed one more time, he approaches Al. From inside of Al, Martel reaches out and grabs King Bradley, and he responds by stabbing into the armor, killing her. Martel’s blood spilling all over Al’s blood seal causes him to experience his memories of what happened directly after the failed transmutation of his mother. When he regains consciousness, he finds that he’s back with his brother and that Martel’s body has been extracted from inside of him. Ed wants to go home now, but before they can, they’re interrogated by King Bradley who wants to know if they found out anything from Greed. When he asks about a connection to Ed’s arm and Al’s body, Ed isn’t able to hide his surprise, and King Bradley ends up letting them go.

Later that night, King Bradley pays a bedside visit to Izumi and leaves her with an offer for her to become a State Alchemist. Ed meanwhile tells Armstrong of the Ouroboros tattoo that Greed had and how Hughes had mentioned the connection to the Philosopher’s Stone. At the mention of Hughes, Armstrong advises Ed not to be reckless, and he then leaves. Afterward, Al tells Ed about his regained memories, but he feels that he didn’t learn anything about human transmutation from it. Despite this, Ed thinks that they made some progress because they now are more suspicious of the military based on how King Bradley himself showed up here and killed everyone. Unbeknownst to them, the man in question returns to Central with Greed’s body and takes it to a secret place where the other Homunculus are waiting. After reporting on how the younger Elric brother as well as their teacher could be used as human sacrifices, King Bradley presents Greed. Greed recognizes everyone except for the man that captured him, and he’s surprised to learn that King Bradley is actually Wrath, a Homunculus that ages.

Right as Greed and Envy start arguing, they’re broken up by their mysterious father. He questions why Greed betrayed him and gives Greed another chance to work for him, but Greed refuses, so their father dumps Greed’s body into a vat of a lava-like substance. The machinery connected to this vat produces a liquid that their father is able to drink, thereby returning Greed to his soul. Later that night, King Bradley returns to his family and acts like a normal father, giving away no signs of who he really is.

Preview

Well damn, that was an impressive fight in the first half of the episode. We got to see the full extent of King Bradley/Wrath’s sword skills which was like a flurry of blade movement, and there’s no shortage of blood as he kills off all the chimera and subdues Greed. It was a great way to cap off the end of this first story arc, though it’s a shame that Izumi didn’t get to see more action – I really wanted to see her kick some ass. This episode also introduced us to this creepy father character who looks like/is Hohenheim, as well as Sloth who’s quite different from the first series. Things are starting to get a lot more interesting now that we’re in different territory story-wise from the first series, and the sacrifices that Wrath mentioned sound like they could be important to the overarching plot. I also wonder if Izumi will ever take him up on his offer for her to become a State Alchemist.

In any case, there should be a new OP and ED next week. They aired the same commercial again from last week, but no new one (I had been hoping they would have another to showcase the new ED).

57 Comments

  1. This episode was a HUGE improvement from the last one, with nearly everything better.

    I still sort of prefer Greed’s exit from the first series, but it was still pretty cool to see Greed lowered into that oil/lava/whatever.

    Manga!Sloth! FATHER! Wow. It really is starting to feel different now.

    penguintruth
  2. yay for Father! 😀 Show Spoiler ▼

    i’m dissapointed with one thing – they actually censored the scene with Greed being lowered into lava, with Greed being tied to a pillar and not to a cross, as it was in the manga. well, that could have offended some of the Christians out there, but it still seems somehow wierd for me.

    bgi
  3. @bgi

    It was Arakawa herself who agreed to the censoring of the cross in the English version of the manga for Viz, so it makes sense that Bones would pick up on that and make what Greed was attached to not a cross.

    penguintruth
  4. For me as a Christian it’s not offending. Not only Christians (Jesus included) were crucified, so i do not understand why they’re censoring something like this, which makes the scene more appealing.
    Overall manga is still b etter than anime, the changes BONES is making are completly incomprehensible.

    Still waiting for the next chapter which should be a big WOW 😉

    James
  5. It turned out how I expected it to turn out. No surprises for me. The only thing I’ll be waiting for at this time is the Edward – GREED fight, and that thing with Mistress Dante.

    Rakuen
  6. @penguintruth – well, i didn’t know that, and it makes sense this way. also, from what i remember, in the source from which Arakawa gets ideas for homunculi characters (i don’t really remember if it was the Bible, Dante’s Divine Comedy or something else), Greed is killed by being submerged in hot liquid, and it is not specified that he is crucified. it’s only that it gave the scene a nice touch, as James wrote.

    bgi
  7. @Rakuen

    Fortunately (I think), no Dante this time around. I didn’t mind her so much as a villain, but she sort of fizzled out after revealing her intentions.

    penguintruth
  8. @Unknown Voice

    Now that you mention it, it does seem like a lot to do in the next episode. Just introducing Mei and Ling and having the battle in Rush Valley should be enough, but they did skip Barry in tonight’s material. Scar fighting Joliot is just weird, why would they have that now?

    penguintruth
  9. @liborek3

    I’m pretty sure it was in some side story. I remember reading it years ago. I think it’s supposed to take place when Scar was still wandering around Central killing State Alchemists.

    penguintruth
  10. I think they’re trying to keep Scar relevant between his first and next battle with Ed and Al by having him fight Joliot next episode. In the manga, he doesn’t really do a lot in between those points.

    penguintruth
  11. great episode. though i dont really like Father’s voice. since his first appearance in the manga i’d always imagined him to have a menacing voice but in this episode he sounded like an old bum you’d find on the street who hasnt eaten in days. i wish they had used Hohenheim’s VA from the first series.

    dbag
  12. I have to know. Do they actually explain how the Bradly found out about Greed? I’m also a bit sad that they don’t show Armstrong and Sig becoming friends. That actually has a tiny bit of relevance later on.

    Otherwise, great episode. Fingers are crossed for the next one. I hope they can handle all those scenes well.

    Colin
  13. Whoa, the fight between Comanche and Scar happened after the ‘Mustang goes fishing’ incident in the manga. That’s weird, I wonder why they changed this.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Ando
  14. Ok, this was the first episode of Brotherhood that disapointed me immensely. Last chapter was way too rushed and they cut out almost everything that made Greed and his group nice, fun and sympathetic (and they cut out Grumman being Riza’s granpa; for shame); but there was a very cool fight, so I could forgive. Not so much in this one.

    Ed/Izumi vs. Greed was less than shortlived: it didn’t even take place. Izumi didn’t kick ass and she didn’t get hurt by Greed. Even worse, Ed didn’t get to kick ass being smart and not just fighty shonen-ish lead. That’s just bad. I like Ed BECAUSE he’s smart

    Also, the fuhrer appeared out of nowhere (and no hawaian shirt *pouts*)but at least he…dunno, was announced, and arrived there. Armstrong just teletransported himself, or something, and to exactly the right place at that. Silly. His fight is even started by the time we see him!!
    Dolcetto kept running randomly and appearing even more randomly all over the place. Also, it appeared that him and Roa are immune to bullets but not to Bradley’s swords, how weird. At least Martel’s desperation was well done
    Also, Greed devolved to such LAME character it’s not even funny. You never get to root for him and be angry at Bradley for utterly humiliating and torturing him (and, of course, there will be no excitement over his replacement). Even his calling out of Bradley for killing his chimera-tachi was lame; in the manga he was NOT smirking psychotically, he was frowning and clearly hating Bradley’s guts. Well, at least his death was great
    I also missed Armstrong/Sig bonding tiems OH SO MUCH

    And now for the good:
    -Loved Mustang’s coming to Central, though I wonder what he wanted with the fuhrer
    -Liked Ed cleaning out Al
    -LOVED Al regaining his memories and his shock with Martel’s death

    Next chapter we get the great Xingese cast…I hope they get this right. And they better slow the fuck down a little, please (this chapter was actually all new material and they rushed like whoa). I see the Comanche appears in the next episode, but he shouldn’t appear so soon. I hope they don’t cut ANY Barry, because Barry is crack and awesome.
    Really, less first episode, less Rush Valley 1 and less Lior would have been AWESOME, in exchange for a decent Greed arc

    Soka
  15. Damn, that’s a lot of blood. It’s like Martel is a paint-filled balloon!

    So next week we go into unknown territory. It’ll be nice to see the Xingese in animation finally, though I don’t think they’re God’s gift to Fullmetal Alchemist like the majority of the fanbase seems to. Barry’s showing up too, which is great, because I loved the story arc with him that’s coming up.

    Crossword
  16. I haven’t seen the ep itself, but seems like a cool one, eh?
    We get to see Show Spoiler ▼

    and the story started to move on a completely different pathway from 1st series. Exciment awaits!!
    I’d love to see reactions from the 1st FMA fans and how they think of the new story!

    PS: Hey Kim, it’s me Zizi, finally here!^^

    Camille
  17. Hm, now that I’ve seen it, I’m pretty sure Father is voiced by the Narrator. I was hoping for something a little more forceful. I hope Hohenheim is voiced by someone else.

    Man, they really went all out for Bradley massacring Greed and the Armstrong/Loa bashfest. It was very enjoyable to watch, and Bradley was pretty beastly. They also showed a bit more of Sloth’s face than the manga did at the same point.

    But, Christ, this episode was absolutely drenched in blood.

    Crossword
  18. Although I don’t really follow the manga it seems the introduction of Father and the arrival of the easterners is were the series main differences are. I mainly dislike this version for the lack of character growth form the start, so this is basically all I’ve been watching for.

    Wererat42
  19. Great, I have no idea Martel died soooooooo early unlike the 1st series..=

    then those homonculus characters really confusing me… Sloth is actually a MALE!? WTF!?

    this show is totally GUNDAM 00 ALUMNI.

    JafriZain2009
  20. Finally started watching FMA brotherhood again. Well this episode was pretty good but at the same time I prefered Greed’s exit from the first series. It was much more dramatic and significant. Also the Devil’s Nest scene just seemed cheapened. The part where they were all killed off was far more emotional in the original series.

    TheHollowwithin

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