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Summary:
Ed is devastated to find that Marcoh’s research materials were destroyed in a fire, unaware that it was Lust who intentionally burned the building down. Lust also joins Gluttony in attacking Scar in the sewers, causing a huge explosion, but Scar gets away, and Roy and his men later find Scar’s bloody jacket among the rubble. Meanwhile, Ed and Al are transferred into the care of Denny Brosh and Maria Ross, and they take the brothers to someone who’s familiar with the destroyed documents. They find this person buried in a room full of books, and after digging her out, they’re introduced to a woman named Sheska who loves books and was employed at the branch where Marcoh’s materials were. As it turns out, Sheska remembers the complete and exact contents of those books, and she’s able to copy everything straight out of her memory. It takes her five days to do so, and Ed and Al discover that Marcoh actually wrote a cooking recipe book. Ed knows that this is useful though, and he pays Sheska a large amount of money out of his research funds.
Back at the Central Library, Ed explains to Brosh that Marcoh encrypted his alchemy research to look like a cooking research. He and Al get to work deciphering it, but they have a hard time with it at first. In the middle of this, they’re paid a visit by Sheska who was able to put her sick mother in a good hospital thanks to the money Ed gave her. When Sheska expresses her gratitude over how they let a useless person like her help, Al tells her that she’s not useless and that trying your hardest for something is in itself a talent. As fate would have it, Hughes shows up to complain to the brothers about the loss of his archived documents in the fire, and so Ed and Al set him up with Sheska who remembers those files. Remotivated by Al’s words to Sheska, Ed resumes deciphering Marcoh’s work and finally succeeds. The answer he finds frustrates him though: the ingredients for the Philosopher’s Stone are living humans.
Disheartened by how far away their goal keeps getting, Ed and Al stay in their room until Armstrong comes by after hearing what happened from Brosh and Ross. By mentioning that the truth can be cruel, Armstrong reminds Ed of what Marcoh had said about the real truth beyond truth, and this in turn makes Ed realize that there’s something more to all this. Armstrong reveals that Marcoh belonged to the Third Laboratory, but what catches Ed’s eye on the map is the closed Fifth Laboratory building that has been put off-limits. Next door to it is a prison, and Ed suspects that prisoners who were to be executed were instead used for this research. Armstrong decides to personally look into this, but he doesn’t want Ed and Al doing anything for the time being. Despite this, the two brothers head to the off-limits building during the night. Ed is able to get in through a vent, but Al is too big to fit inside, so he waits outside. A short while later, Al gets attacked by someone wielding a cleaver.
Preview
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Well this episode was very similar to episodes 18 and 19 from the first series (minus some of the Scar stuff), so there’s still not much really new. I was actually hoping for more from the fight between Scar and the Homunculi this week, but it was short, and they still haven’t shown what ended up happening between Lust and Marcoh. They are, however, at least moving fairly quickly through the story so that we can get to the point where the plots will widely diverge. It’s probably a really good thing in this case because it means that we’re past some of the slower, albeit amusing, parts with Sheska and figuring out Marcoh’s research, and next week’s episode should have plenty of action.
Speaking of which, Sheska’s new voice actress Fujimura Chika is portraying her in a more animated/hyper manner than Wakabayashi Naomi did, and it makes her a little more interesting to watch. It also took me a little bit of getting used to hearing Nazuka Kaori as Ross since I still closely associate her voice with characters from other big series (like SOUL EATER and true tears).
Seems like a decent episode. Can’t wait till next week’s episode though.
Did they have the last three days of Sheska as she got stuck under her pile of book.
I found that funny in the first series when what she imagined happened to her and what really took place was completely off.
No, that scene wasn’t in there.
thx! finally it same with the manga series. um, is this ep is about lust burns the library,, then ed and al meet sheska, until elric brothers fight in 5th laboratory where marcoh has been made philosopher stone there…
i like the criminal that likes chopping. 😀
Holy fucking shits, will the next episode include the most sorrowful scene that anime world has ever seen? (fma first season, episode 25?)
I didn’t think the new Sheska sounded different at all from the old one, to be honest.
It’s too bad the character has such a smaller role in the manga when compared to the first series.
It’s also weird that they stopped sort of mid chapter 11.
So this is basically just a fast run through of the first “season” and then on to the manga parts right? Obviously not ALL of the first season (since that one actually ended) but up to where the manga is right? I’m still not 100% sure cuz I’m getting mixed things from different people. Is this just a remake or is this the manga version?
@rakkynon:
No, that never happened in the manga.
@ROFLWAFFLELAWL
This is following the manga.
@rakkynon:
O…. actually I guess it did. But that won’t be till later still.
Next week will be interesting, especially with the thoughts that Barry the chopper plants into Al’s head.
Finally, Barry’s getting more screen time than the first series!! w00t!
By the the pacing their going at Hughes is gonna die in about 2 or 3 episode and in my opinion they haven’t build up his character enough so we would remember him for the rest the show. I mean the guy only had about a min or so screen time in the episodes so far.
This is going a lot bloody faster then I thought it would, we’ll likely reach to the point where the manga totally deviates from the original anime by ep 10 or 11.
if you check wikipedia, it has the names of the eps up to 10…and it seems like Show Spoiler ▼
@ROFLWAFFLELAWL
This follows manga.
FMA1 loosely followed manga with a differences there and there, inserting stuff for their anime-original ending, adding fillers, NOT-killing some characters, etc. FMA1 did that up until 5th lab, where differences began to grow bigger and bigger, that by the time Greed is introduced, everything is completely different from manga..
FMA2 so far follows manga almost page to page so far, except for first episode which was anime-original based on character mentioned in manga.
Just wait till you see Ran Fan, you whiners. 😛
Just wait till mei also appears with her kung fu panda.
last two comments^^ AGREE!!!!!
The Xingese characters are NOT a way to draw people to the manga material.
They are, by far, the worst characters in any FMA universe. Especially Ling.
@penguintruth
Well…for you.
Others(like me) might have an entirely different opinion.
For me both “He” and “She”(along with “mini-She”) were perfect additions to the cast.
“He” added a lot of interesting bits to whole plot of you-know-who, while “She
and “Mini-She” made m ost of the most hilarious fma moments possible.
Or wait until you see the Major genaral.
Or many crowning moment of awesome from many characters that wasn’t getting developed at all from the first series.
The Xingese are fun. Their arrival expand the world beyond Amestris. Add an outsider’s POV, and bring new key elements to the plot.
Looking forward to next week with the debut of Barry the Chopper. The old series didn’t do him justice.
no Naomi makes me sad 🙁
spamming of glowing red eye effect.
man nextweek episode should be interesting
or wait to see that this series will have a real villain. oh, and Show Spoiler ▼
about the episode: first part of it urges me to use word “rushed” for the first time since the begining. but everything goes back to normal later, and everything goes smoothly.
lol what was that pathetic sobbing “full metal alchemist!” reading at the commercial break?! XD
The Xingese aren’t bad but when they appeared for the first time I thought “Ninjas? In FMA? What the hell.”
I thought the art was kinda crappy this week. I wasn’t surprised at all to see all of those Korean names in the credits. Next week doesn’t look any better, but at least we have some pretty action sequences courtesy of Al and Barry to distract us. I wonder if they’ll show that guy getting half his head cut off without censoring it.
Kinda bummed that Kentaro Ito isn’t voicing Barry anymore. He’s entertaining to listen too. I chuckled when I heard Hideyuki Umezu as Slicer. Even though I just watched him as Ian Vashti in Gundam 00, I will always remember him as the decidedly ridiculous Gauss Magnets.
And yeah, really wimpy showing there, Mr. Eyecatch Announcer Guy.
haven’t watched it yet…but saw the pics above and happily recognised the unbeatable ‘Lucky I’m small…….NOO! I said I’m small’
Wow, things are moving pleasently forward…
does anyone remember what was the first big thing that separeted the first series and the manga? if you don’t count the fact that they were running around in a desert (dessert?) in the begining.
I liked ling and mei (and her eversofunny mimicing panda) and company..the are really funny, and ling is very important for the story…
I love FMA characters; Sheska, Ross, Armstrong…even Barry…(I thought I didn’t have to mention Ed & Al….but I guess I just did…)
Great episode. I liked this version of things a little more personally, and Sheska = <3
Man, easily the worst episode yet of FMA:Brotherhood. Just when I thought the style was picking up, it goes crashing all over again.
Poor art (everywhere), horrible insertion of typical anime gags (spotlight on exaggeratedly depressed Sheska, Armstrong crying in disbelief instantly and muscles flaring up instantly as he gets huge, the scene of Ed and Al in the car with the two soldiers who ask Al about his armor that make Al sweat profusely), and… we’re already THIS far.
I’ll keep watching but I really hope there aren’t any more episodes that jerk me around with so much “xD they don’t know he’s a soul attached to his armor, and not really wearing a suit of armor XD” typical-lame humor attempts as much this one did. FMA the anime is anything but typical, and it doesn’t deserve that tone.
@scherzo – this far? we are practically at the begining of the series. still, comparing to the first one it’s probably around the middle. that’s about the difference of the amont of content. also, i don’t know what do You mean about this not being a tone this series deserve. manga has humorous situations even when everything becomes darker, and the show still shows the “lighter” part.
This is also the episode that I saw a dramatic drop in quality. It’s a bit much to ask for 100% consistent on-model character animation for a show that’s slated to be at least 50+ episodes. I noticed that while the main character’s fidelity to character design sheet is still good, newer character (and especially Sheska) suffers from occasional short cut.
The last long show that I saw where the character design is followed through consistently is Monster. But that’s a different genre.
Scherzo, this may be pretty far comparing to the original series, but it’s only up to about Chapter 11 or so of the manga – so it’s barely the beginning of the story (The manga’s at 95 chapters and ongoing)
That said, I do agree with BigFire at Scherzo that we saw a noticeable drop in quality this ep where the animation is concerned. Beyond that, I’, pretty satisfied with the ep. It’s not my favorite, but it’s not terrible.
Does anyone else wonder about the eyecatch in this episode? The one that showed Sheska? The voice was different from the other english voice that says ” Fullmetal Alcehmist ”
It was all, like… Painful sounding. It almost sounded like Vic Migogna ( Ed’s Dub voice )
Does anybody have any idea?