First Impressions / Fullmetal Alchemist

Summary:

Despite her sympathy, Izumi expels the Elric brothers as her students and makes them leave. Her husband though reminds the brothers that they can be treated as equal human beings now that they’re no longer in a master-student relationship. This causes them to return to Izumi, and even though she’s not happy to see them, the two refuse to leave without finding clues on how to return to their old bodies. Given their determination, Izumi decides to help them out, so the three discuss how Al doesn’t remember seeing the truth like she and Ed did. The solution is to get Al’s memory of that time back, and Izumi decides to ask around to find a way. For the time being, she takes the two brothers in again. Around this same time, over in East City, Roy is getting ready to leave for Central and takes along his five trusted subordinates.

Scar meanwhile is still recovering from his injuries and meets with a village leader who urges him not to continue seeking vengeance. Their conversation is interrupted by some thugs who are after the bounty on Scar, but Scar easily takes care of them. He ultimately decides to leave the settlement because he feels that he can no longer turn back. Back in Dublith, Al gets tossed a message on a piece of paper while he’s alone, and it directs him to a place called Devil’s Nest where several people are waiting. They claim to know about his secret, and when Al decides that it’s better to use force against them, they manage to restrain him by inserting the female of the group into his armor. The leader of the group then appears and introduces them as chimeras who were each combined with a different animal by the military. He himself is not a chimera though and reveals that he’s instead Greed, a Homunculus.

Al finds this hard to believe, so Greed demonstrates his regenerative ability by having his underling knock off the top half of his head. Greed’s interested in the immortal life that Al technically has and wants to know the secrets of Al’s body, but Al himself doesn’t know. Fortunately for Greed, the one person who might know – Ed – then shows up. Greed tries to offer him a deal – knowledge on how to produce a Homunculus in exchange for knowledge of how to transmute a soul – but Ed just gets angry. That leads to Greed having one of his men take Al away while he himself fights Ed. Although Ed proves to be a better fighter than Greed, Greed has his Ultimate Shield and is able to protect his entire body. Greed soon has Ed on the ropes, but Ed figures out that the Ultimate Shield uses the body’s carbon, and he’s able to use alchemy to counter that. He also realizes that Greed can’t harden himself and regenerate at the same time, but the problem is that Ed’s own body isn’t doing too well at this point.

Luckily for Ed, Izumi shows up to save him, and she knows to use alchemy combined with force against Greed. When Greed then questions who she is, Izumi calls herself a passing housewife.

Preview

Well that was both funny and fairly exciting to watch, the former thanks mostly to Izumi and the latter thanks to all the fighting there was this episode. For the most part, this was pretty different from the original series, though a few of the scenes with Greed and his men were similar. Either way, I enjoyed it. In fact, it’s good to see that this series doesn’t need to be censored to hell, unlike a certain other series. The funny thing of course is that FMA airs at an even earlier timeslot than Bleach does, albeit on a different day.

The most interesting thing about this episode though wasn’t even in the episode itself; it was the commercial they aired for the next season/story arc featuring new characters and the new opening song Hologram by NICO Touches the Walls (which I like already). I’m not entirely sure why they decided to do a separate promo for it, but it certainly succeeded in getting me excited about what’s coming up next. The commercial made me laugh too because it looks like Miyano Mamoru is going to voice one of the characters, so it’s really like the entire Gundam 00 cast is in FMA now. I think the only Gundam Meister’s voice we’re missing now is Tieria/Kamiya Hiroshi. You can watch the commercial here.

75 Comments

  1. I’m not even sure what show I’m watching anymore. This episode juggled, dropped, and cut short scenes and felt really lazy. They’re going as fast as they can so they can get to the Xingese characters, and that’s a shame, because the Greed arc is my favorite in all of FMA.

    At least the new Greed voice was decent.

    penguintruth
    Reply

  2. REALLY not happy with this episode.

    For one they cut out WAY TOO MUCH STUFF from manga.

    for two WHY THE HELL THEY HAVE SWITCHED IZUMI FIGHT TO AFTER ELRIC FIGHT?

    And…WHY THE HEll they took out the “license confirmation” part, how are they going to Show Spoiler ▼

    Unknown Voice
    Reply

  6. Hm they certainly cut some rather odd scenes out, as those scenes as Unknown Voice mentioned are continuity scenes. The biggest oddity of this episode being re-arranging the fights against greed. I don’t see why they had to rush this one since the last episode followed the chapter nicely and its not like the content seen in the previous incarnation was THAT similar.

    Machi
    Reply

  9. @penguintruth, Unknown Voice – the time has come? 🙂

    having Greed done in two episodes is a big NO for me. true, it’s still the material that is very similiar to the first series, but now i’m starting to get a feeling, that they are not going to slow down…

    bgi
    Reply

  11. ya this anime isnt doing nearly as well as i hoped it would but im still going to watch it till the end. because its full metal alchemist. full metal alchemist is awesome.

    sean
    Reply

  16. Not a big Ling fan, myself. Especially now that they’re speeding their way through my favorite character to get to him. Though, the irony doesn’t escape me, given the events later.

    penguintruth
    Reply

  19. @ Sigh

    Some of us have been reading the manga for over 5 years now. It’s a little too late to say that.

    But the truth is while the episode might be enjoyable on its own merits it’s definitely inferior to the manga chapter it corresponds to.

    Kim
    Reply

  24. The first hagane series were so bad it hurts. As well as Soul Eater, another fake intent to do a proper adaptation. Just stop the f***ing show but don’t change the story, for God’s sake.

    Damn, sometimes it seems they don’t want to do as they have to, or the manga will end as something useless against a good adaptation in the anime. Anyway, let’s have hope in this anime for a little longer…

    Unknown
    Reply

  27. Huh, well that was sort of weird. I can’t really figure out why they switched all those scenes and cut some of the others out. Did they really need to get to the fight with Greed that fast?

    Not a bad episode I suppose, but I am curious why they seem to be rushing through everything so fast. I’m not expecting them to include every little scene, but this much seems a bit strange. It doesn’t seem they developed Greed or his crew very much at all, which to me sort of lessens the impact of a few of the scenes later on though maybe they’ll just cut those as well.

    Hmmm
    Reply

  28. Mixed feelings really.
    For one, they should just slow down and give new comers time to actually get to terms with what’s going on. All it seems to me is that they want to get as quickly as possible to the new manga content so people can see how different the series really is from the original.
    On the other hand, they tend to include the best scenes from the manga, animation is top notch, and it’s certainly entertaining. The new VA’s are also doing a great job.
    On a final note, that new CM has really gto me pumped up. 🙂

    blinx01
    Reply

  29. Remind me again… why is this show being remade? The animation levels are fairly the same. The chemistry references are reduced to nil and alchemy has literally become full-blown magic and the scale of what Ed and Alfonse can do seem to match any situation which suits them.

    Though this one does seem to try to have a two-way contest of motivations between hitting at the nostalgia of the popular original anime series (giving OAV a deeper meaning) and going in an unpredictable new direction that will also promise to “redeem” the faithfulness to the manga where the original series diverged. All in a matter of what looks like a compact 26 episode run – might as well make a live-action adaptation condensation film for that matter… Though it will be difficult to cast ethnically considering that Full Metal Alchemist is one of those animes that both eludes and encourages the argument of whether the characters look more like any of a certain race of humans.

    Just what are the Elric brothers? This is set in a fictional Industrial Revolution alternate era world and especially with the movie, it does go even into the World Wars and early rocket technology.

    I do hope they kept that unshakeably awesome scene in this episode from the original series:

    “Who the hell are you?!” – Greed to Teacher

    “PISSED OFF!!!” – Teacher

    ElegyTrek
    Reply

  30. are they going to keep up their fast pace?!
    OMG i’ll be really disappointed if they do that!!!!
    I know they want to get to the Lin part, but it’s going really fast!!!!!
    If they keep this pace going, they are going to catch up with the manga at episode 50, and there are about 96 chapters of about 40 o 35 pages each! i mean naruto has about 4 hundred chapters and they are going as slow as they’re able to!
    If this keeps on going they are going to ruin it…
    UGH! now i’m mad!!!!!!!!

    worried
    Reply

  32. @Elegy Trek

    Yes they are rushing through the early parts but there is no way in hell this series is only going to be 26 episodes. They are at volume 7 of a 22 volume series that is still ongoing. Most likely they are rushing to get to the new parts which is what most people want to see. Although it is a shame that some of the early parts are being sacrificed.

    Also can you explain exactly where Ed & Al were able to do anything that suits them in this series? Because from what I remember the so called “science explanations” were almost exactly the same between the two series.

    Kim
    Reply

  33. @ElegyTrek

    “the animation levels are fairly the same”
    no they are not.

    “The chemistry references are reduced to nil and alchemy has literally become full-blown magic and the scale of what Ed and Alfonse can do seem to match any situation which suits them.”
    But isnt that what Alchemy is? changing any material into any material equal of value. All you need is creativity and some Truth(so you can do the clap-hands stuff) and you are unstoppable if you want to be. That’s why Alchemists can be good weapons of mass destruction in a war.

    “All in a matter of what looks like a compact 26 episode run – might as well make a live-action adaptation condensation film for that matter…”
    This is nonsense. Nowhere does it say that it will be “26 episode run”. From everything that is going we are barelly at chapter ~25 out of ~90+ chapters currently existing. With manga concluding in chapter 100-110, its easily 60+ episodes of material.

    “Though it will be difficult to cast ethnically considering that Full Metal Alchemist is one of those animes that both eludes and encourages the argument of whether the characters look more like any of a certain race of humans.”
    Why?
    Most of Amestrians are white or black, Ishvalians are brown, Xingese are asian, Drachmese are mostly a mix between Russians and Turks.

    “Just what are the Elric brothers? This is set in a fictional Industrial Revolution alternate era world and especially with the movie, it does go even into the World Wars and early rocket technology.”

    That is excuse in the fail known as Shamballa movie. None of that shit exists in in fma manga or brotherhood. There’s no “other worlds”.

    do hope they kept that unshakeably awesome scene in this episode from the original series:

    “Who the hell are you?!” – Greed to Teacher

    “PISSED OFF!!!” – Teacher

    manga and FMA:B goes like this:
    “Who the hell are you?!”
    “A HOUSEWIFE”

    Unknown Voice
    Reply

  34. @Cheshire Lion

    https://randomc.net/image/Fullmetal%20Alchemist/Fullmetal%20Alchemist%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2005.jpg

    Ed and Izumi describing “The Gate experience” to Al.

    https://randomc.net/image/Fullmetal%20Alchemist/Fullmetal%20Alchemist%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2010.jpg

    Yoki remembering Ed and Al and how he will get them back one day after he climbs back up.

    https://randomc.net/image/Fullmetal%20Alchemist/Fullmetal%20Alchemist%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2013.jpg

    Al breaking Dog-guy’s nose. He did a lot more in manga, but that was just too brutal and too awesome to be shown in anime 😛

    https://randomc.net/image/Fullmetal%20Alchemist/Fullmetal%20Alchemist%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2004.jpg

    Izumi being in her anger mode 😛

    Unknown Voice
    Reply

  35. @Unknown Voice

    I agree with most of your response to ElegyTrek but even with Ed’s power of being able to clap without a transmutation circle he isn’t as unstoppable as he wants to be. He still has to follow the rules of alchemy: he can only create something out of something of equal value. This is why I wish they had included that scene when Ed fails to make the bridge in episode 11. Since I think it explained the limitations of alchemy pretty well.

    Kim
    Reply

  36. YAAAAY LIN YAO!!!! and the new opening is great, I just hope now that they are nearing the part where it’s totally diffrent from the first season that they’ll decide to slow the pace down a little

    ConfusedGirl29
    Reply

  37. This episode was…well…I’m just gonna put my faith in Bones and hope that Episode 14 and beyond redeem the series.

    I did like Greed and the chimeras’ voices, though.

    Trashcan
    Reply

  38. Ah, they left out two of my all time favorite manga scenes: Izumi at the Devil’s Nest entrance and Bradly arriving in Dublith.

    Who doesn’t want to see Bradly in a Hawaiian shirt?

    Colin
    Reply

  41. This episode was compacted just like last week’s, but at least next week we’ll finally break off from the old anime and go into uncharted territory (I mean the parts of the manga that the old anime didn’t cover)

    TJ
    Reply

  43. I think it would of been best to paste some of the first anime scenes that actually does follow the manga, and cut out some of the scenes here that didn’t follow in it’s place. Didn’t have to rush everything so much. They need to somewhat milk it like they do on Bleach but not to much.

    SilentCid
    Reply

  44. @penguintruth: Actually it was three different responses funnily enough. In the manga it was “a housewife,” in the first series it was “his teacher,” and in the dub of the first series it was “pissed off.”

    Kira-chan
    Reply

  45. In this anime’s defense, maybe it is going at a rate that it would “in real life”, for lack of better term (though I haven’t seen this episode yet). That, or we’re comparing it to the old anime where it takes 5 seconds to get a reaction or word from a character, or the manga where time is shown through the distance between panels and isn’t clear.

    RayJ
    Reply

  47. @Penguintruth

    OHI! Freshverse represent, etc.

    I agree for the most part about the episode being a bit too fast. I was confused most of the time, but eh. Maybe next episode won’t be as fast and they’ll have some sort of flashback to Ed visiting Bradley that didn’t get shown in the actual previous episode. Also, lol @ basically all of Gundam 00’s cast being in FMA now. D:

    Katsumara
    Reply

  48. @Katsumara

    Heh, yeah, spotted me. I mostly go there for DB Kai and FMA. Also, randomly for Japanese commercial lulz.

    Also, when would Bradley and Armstrong have had time? I mean, Ed didn’t go anywhere.

    penguintruth
    Reply

  50. @Kira-chan

    I went into my Funimation boxset of the first series to check, and she said, “Housewife!” I don’t know for sure, since I don’t speak moonspeak, but she certainly didn’t say “sensei” or anything of the sort, so I don’t think she was saying “teacher” and the subs were wrong.

    I almost want to watch the first series again now. I’m reading a lot of bashing of it, but it was lauded then, and it’s still one of my favorites now.

    penguintruth
    Reply

  52. from what i’ve heard, it is’t as bad as i thought it would be, though i have to watch it myself yet. maybe they’ll somehow magically show Bradley searching for Izumi…

    as for Izumi introducing herself, changing it from “housewife” would be a bad idea…Show Spoiler ▼

    bgi
    Reply

  53. Well, I think at this point it is rather clear that they are gunning for a 4 seasons (52 episodes) show. That means they have to cover 80-90 pages of manga in 20 minutes, so of course there will be cuts.

    All in all, I applaud the choice. They could have gone with a more relaxed pace at 8 seasons length but that would have dragged the story too long in my opinion and lessened its impact. So far it’s been a distillation of the best scenes from the manga, so there’s really nothing to complain about.

    Steelman
    Reply

  55. LOL at Izumi’s “housewife passing by” remark at the end.

    Now that Omni’s mentioned it, it does seem like quite a lot of the Gundam 00 cast is coming over to FMA Brotherhood:

    Regene = Edward
    Nena = Alphonse
    (Paku Romi and Kugimiya Rie simply reprised their famous FMA roles, but I’ll list them here as well)

    Lockon = Roy
    Allelujah = Kimblee
    Setsuna = ???
    Graham = Greed
    Billy = Havoc (Ueda Yuji happens to voice Kimblee in the first FMA series)
    Ali Al-Sanchez = Hughes
    Andrei = Gluttony

    Kinny Riddle
    Reply

  58. @Penguintruth: Yeah I think yours are probably right. Just as well, but it’s funny because I can remember someone making an issue over “his teacher” being a lot more meaningful when the dub came out. ^_^;

    Kira-chan
    Reply

  60. So. I’ve liked this series form the start, specially the art and animation. I was looking forward to this ep, since I love Greed…and I have mixed feelings

    On the one hand, I’m disapointed. Because, we all know this could have been done better than that. Greed and his chimeras are entertaining, funny, and even cute (in a “twisted family” kind of wayXD). This part was also incredibly funny in the manga, and I was hoping for that, not for heartwrenchingly sad/awesome like the first series. Instead…we got very little Greed and even littler of the chimeras, and almost no funny. I keep telling myself I don’t remember what happened at this point in the manga (and it’s true; it’s been long since I read it) but the general feeling remains that I enjoyed myself more than this
    On the other hand…AWESOME FIGHT SEQUENCE IS INCREDIBLY AWESOME. I’ve never seen a better anime fight than this too short Ed/Greed one. Wow, that’s some high quality material.

    So, cons: Greed is better than stupid ice alchemist and Rose and Rush Valley baby arcs. I really wouldn’t have minded all those being cut out and spending more on this guy (ice alchemist was filler, stupid Roze and stupid Liore could be introduced a la Yoki, as a passing reference, and Rush Valley isn’t important at all). More chimera stuff would have been awesome. I hoped that, when we reached Greed, they’d slow down, but doesn’t look like it. Also, I’m remembering something about Bradley being here in the manga with a hawaian shirt (what was he doing here? more importantly, why the hell do I remember the hawain shirt and not all this?XD), and that would have been awesome. This part was more amusing, and Greed more entertaining and kind of “happy-go-lucky bad boy” that makes you root for him. Also, too many over-the-top agressive declarations in this ep

    Pros: I keep telling myself Ed is fifteen. Because he’s too hot in this adaptation for his own good. Al took a level in badass, he’s always been awesome in the manga and I like how it shows, not like his stupid, childish too-soft-and-tender-to-be-real first anime counterpart (how, quite frankly, frustrated me to no end). Izumi is too awesome. Ed defeating Greed through alchemy and intelligence is great. Ed/Greed fight is the best fighting animated sequence I’ve ever seen
    And OMG, Ling is coming!!!! My favourite character approaches, and he’s voiced by Light YagamiXDXDXD (Miyano is very versatile, so he better be doing a great job). Also, considering how big he is in Japan now, interesting choice for Ling, they’re clearly wanna make him popular very early on

    Soka
    Reply

  61. @Soka

    I am sorry, Rush Valley is not important?
    Since when?

    its one of major Winry development arcs and one of things to be referenced latter on, not to mention the place where one of THE FIRST EdWin moments happen.

    It COULD NOT be skipped.

    Unknown Voice
    Reply

  62. unlike some others, I thought the animation in the greed battle was done pretty badly this time.

    they skipped some parts and didnt really do anything creative. It reminded me of some of the parts in naruto with pretty bad animation where they just show the characters getting hit. I’m really hoping the animation quality picks up again because it was great to start this series :/

    DtB
    Reply

  64. Ah, I had hoped that they wouldn’t have sped through this, ’cause I really liked this part of the story in the manga, but that fight was pretty great, even though I liked its setting in the first series more. I wonder how they’re going to handle Bradley’s raid. I guess Greed is just going to randomly encounter Bradley in the sewers, which makes some sense, given how the Homunculi operate underground, but I dunno how they’re going to explain away Armstrong. Oh well, we’ll see.

    I totally forgot that Yoki is voiced by Kazuki Yao (Yet another Gundam 00 seiyuu). He sounded like Franky from One Piece got all of the super sucked out of him. Y’know, they should just go ahead and cast everyone from 00. We’ve all ready got Regene, Nena, Lockon, Hallejuah, Lindt, Ian, Billy, Setsuna, Graham, Barrack, Andrei, and probably one or two other people I’m forgetting; they might as well go the whole damn way.

    Crossword
    Reply

  65. I’m really impressed with this series, whether or not they’ve been cutting stuff out.

    I’d probably recommend this rather than the original to people who have never seen FMA before, especially if they want a quick run through.

    There’s no point to this if they made it just like the original.

    SS
    Reply

  66. At first, I was saying WTF.
    Then I rewatched it…

    And you know, even know this episode was very rushed, people who haven’t read the manga would most likely think this is a very good episode. The scenes flow together and the fighting scene was well animated.

    And I was more dissapointed with the first anime than this.
    Where as the first had no scenes from the manga at this point, this is an adaptation.
    And I’ve never seen a perfect adaptation.

    Decipher
    Reply

  67. @ steelman:
    I don’t think they are going to do a 52 episode series…I mean it’s going to be extremely rushed and if they do… I’ll be really disappointed…
    Can someone please investigate whether they are doing a 52 episode anime or are they going to go at normal pace and end it with the number of episodes that could be done…
    I mean, come on!
    there are about 96 chapters in only 52 episodes!!!!! that’s NO good! It’s going to suck if they do that!!!!!
    Can someone please tell me how many episodes they’re going to be?!

    worried
    Reply

  71. I think we need to give bones a break as well as a benifit of the doubt. FMA is a good series and bones wants to give peeps the advantage of having the original story (as it kicks more ass than the “other” FMA). Bones more than likely knows what they are doing.
    I just think we should let some of the little things slide.

    Rickter
    Reply

  72. Jesus Christ. I feel that all people ever do is bloody complain about this show anymore. If you don´t like it…don´t watch it. Seriously, it is as simple as that. Do you know how long it would take for the director to show each little scene in the manga? Sad to say, but the directors have to make artistic choices as to what scenes will remain and what makes the final “cut”. If they were to include everything, the show would never arrive at the point where it deviates from the original anime. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but for those of us who enjoy the new series, it really gets tiring hearing people say: “They are ruining it.” “This show sucks.” This is an adapation of the manga, and I knew for a fact that it wouldn´t be exactly like the author´s original work. I myself feel as though the show would be rather dull if all the directors did waws animate panels from the manga. So if you don´t like it…stop complaining.

    Matchatea
    Reply

  73. The begging of EdxGreed-fight was so flowing and well done.

    I don’t know why, I just looove the wavy arm-thing. And they don’t use “amazing” to describe it in swedish manga, they make a word up, it’s relly funny. if I try to translate it it would be “flyly”

    @Matchatea
    I LOVED THE EPISODE!!! happy? ;P

    Lily
    Reply

  74. Unknown Voice,
    I think they could have shortened Rush Valley A LOT, because it’s not a complex plot. Whereas the Greed plot is

    Decipher,
    I just realised you’re probably right. It’s because I’ve read the manga that I’m so nitpicky ^^
    But then again, who wouldn’t want to see Bradley with a hawain shirt!!!XD

    scherzo,
    I hope you’re talking about the mangaXD

    Soka
    Reply

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