Summary:

Ed and company arrive in Central, but Ling has disappeared again and left his bodyguards behind. He’s found by some police who question him about his documents to enter the country and then arrest him for being an illegal immigrant. Unaware and unconcerned about this, Ed and Al head to the military complex while Winry goes to the Hughes home. Sheska meanwhile is having to cover for Mustang because he’s fallen asleep while doing research. Focker finds out about it and questions Sheska about what Mustang is investigating, but she only knows that it’s related to the Fifth Laboratory and Hughes. What Sheska doesn’t realize is that the person she’s talking to isn’t the real Focker; it’s Envy. Not knowing that he’s being talked about, Mustang heads to the bathroom to freshen up and runs into Armstrong who reveals that he met the Elric brothers. After finding out that Armstrong didn’t tell the brothers about Hughes’ death, Mustang notes that they’d be hurt if they found out that Hughes died because he was involved with them. When Mustang subsequently runs into the brothers though, he finds himself also unable to tell them and instead lies about Hughes being in the countryside.

Unfortunately, Ed and Al then bump into Ross, and after she inadvertently tips them off on the fact that Hughes is dead, she tells them about what happened. Ed immediately starts blaming himself, and once he’s gets a grip on himself again, he and Al head to the Hughes home where Winry already is. Ed is ready to accept the blame, but Al points out that they’re both responsible. Al feels that even though he had decided on returning to his former body, he doesn’t want it at the cost of others dying. Ed ends up apologizing to Gracia, and she tells him that she doesn’t think her husband regretted it. She also doesn’t want the brothers to give up because that would mean that her husband died in vain, and she urges them to move forward. As Ed, Al, and Winry are then leaving, they hear Elicia telling her mother not to cry. Still pained by all this, the three spend the rest of the day moping around their hotel. When Ed goes to check on Winry a little later, she pulls him into her room and tearfully reveals that she had been practicing making apple pie and had wanted Hughes to try it.

Meanwhile, Envy returns to Lust and tells her about what Mustang is up to. Lust considers him to be an important human sacrifice candidate, and Envy comes up with a plan. The next day, Ross is approached by the military police and is arrested on suspicions of having murdered Hughes. When Mustang hears about it, he has Hawkeye gather whatever documents she can on Ross. What Mustang doesn’t realize is that his subordinate Jean Havoc is dating a girl named Solaris who is actually Lust in disguise.

Preview

Despite the new arc and the supposed Xing character focus, this episode turned out to be more about the fallout from Hughes’ death and the plotting of the Homunculi. Elicia once again pulls at the heart strings with how she told her mother not to cry, as did Winry’s apple pie scene. Having Ed and Al run past the phone booth was a nice ominous touch as well. Overall, it ended up being just about as emotional as episode 10 was, though that admittedly says more about the limited impact of episode 10 than of this episode. Even if you put these two episodes together though, I still think the first series handled Hughes’ overall death a bit better. Of course, that might also be bias towards the series I was exposed to first.

In any case, I enjoyed this episode, and all the talk about sacrifices and having Lust date Havoc gets me excited about where the story is headed. I’m curious how Ling fits into it all as well, especially since the new OP has him fighting King Bradley. Speaking of which, something about Lust’s character design looked off or different this week. I think it’s her lips, but maybe it was just my imagination.

69 Comments

  1. This arc is not going to end the Hughes death fallout, which is another reason why I preferred the manga. In the manga it’s clear that Mustang just lost his best friend, while in the first anime Hughes was largely forgotten.

    While they did rearrange some scenes the episode itself looks pretty good, as we see both the Homunculi’s plan, and Roy looking for information.

    Charred Knight
  2. Well Bones change things. Normally Ed Al and Winry learn Hugues death when they read the newspaper because at the first page they read that Maria Ross was arrested for the murder of Hugues.

    So i think they read the newspaper next week BUT at this point they learn the Hugues death 🙁

    Angous
  3. @Charred Knight

    Hughes was largely forgotten in the first series? More like in the manga, until Arakawa conveniently remembered it after having already had Envy’s defeat, and then brought back up so Roy can have his big revenge fan service moment.

    Hughes’ death wasn’t revealed to the brothers until near the final arc of the first series, when they were hiding with Sheska in the basement of the Rockbell home, so while it wasn’t really talked about for a while, it was a major motivation for Roy confronting the Fuhrer at the end.

    Anyway, about the episode:

    Ed and Al running past the phone booth that Hughes was killed in was a good touch. Ed running for three minutes flashing back to Hughes moments later on was stupid, though. We’ve been watching, we know what Hughes means to him.

    I’m glad Havoc finally doesn’t look like his face is too long. Two characters DID look a little weird in this episode: Lust (in that scene where she was talking with Envy, what’s with her lips?) and the guy from the intelligence office that arrests Maria (doesn’t really look like his manga design).

    Episode was still pretty good, though. Scheska was in it and there’s very little of the Xingese.

    penguintruth
  4. @Charred Knight
    Agreed. In FMA1 it was like “baaw heeees dead….ok now onto other things, that hag thar is bitch Dante oh and thar is a shotacon-fanservice Wrath for you”

    FMA:B and manga handled the continuity of Hughes mistery a lot better.

    Unknown Voice
  5. @penguintruth
    But that’s the truth.

    In FMA1 we got one episode for Hughes flashback and thats all. Mustang never follows up with his revenge thoughts, everyone just forgets Hughes existed.

    Instead of expanding on Hughes and Mustang plot we got a lot of nonsensical and cringe-worthy things to look at. I don’t want to even think on about just how much time was wasted on the horrible horrible annoying character known as Wrath. The screentime of Dante was equally wasted – They could have expanded her character and etc, but no. Instead we got pointless scenes till she suddenly reveals her “DADUM MUHAHAH” plan which makes no sense and sounds like something thought up by 4 year old.

    Unknown Voice
  6. @Unknown Voice

    You’re full of shit. You love to oversimplify something so it’s real easy to mock, but you haven’t any thought out criticisms. You’re a troll, plain and simple.

    Anime Wrath may have been a tad obnoxious, but he made Izumi all the more developed. At least the first anime bothered DOING something with Izumi. It’s only recently that Arakawa realized that she’s actually an interesting character, unlike Winry, those random chimeras Ed and Al met, and losers like Doctor Knox who add nothing to the plot and don’t even have personalities.

    Dante was a great villain, becuase she actually took the time to manipulate things actively, via her transfer to Lyra. And the BEST part was her plan wasn’t some big, grandiose one. She just wanted to continue being immortal. A simple, selfish goal. Father sits around on his ass letting everyone do all the work for him.

    penguintruth
  7. @penguintruth

    More developed? IZUMI?

    I prefer her manga development instead of butchery of FMA1.

    All Wrath did with Izumi was to turn her into useless weak female, Mizushima is so keen of. It turned a completely badass character into whimpering hurt woman , completely destroying whatever bonds she had with Elric Brothers.

    She was as butchered as was Winry in FMA1.

    The chimeras Ed met were great characters(unlike the obnoxiously stupid Tucker and please-kill-him-already Frank ARcher in FMA1). I am loving every moment of those chimera characters. Knox was an interesting expansion and I loved how that arc expanded upon Ran Fan.

    Dante? Manipulate? Oh Please. I would have believed that she was manipulator IF she did manipulate. However all she did was show off a random xanathos gambit which would, realistically have 1 in thousand chance of success (Omg lets liek make everyone’s lives shitty so they do something for me, oh how smart I am). Her wish for immortality was…puny…fitting for arc villain but not for final one. If she had another goal for which she needed immortality – then maybe, however as she was portrayed, she was just a stupid woman unable to do anything by herself(Mizushima’s favourite type of character, since Shamballa movie was FULL of that)

    Hence why Father is so much better as final(?) villain. He is true manipulator. He does NOT NEED to do anything by himself as others are readily waging tails for him. He is confident and smart, undistorted by things like simple immortality.

    Unknown Voice
  8. wow, guys, slow down. it’s not like hughes was forgotten in FMA1 or in the manga. it’s just that having him mentioned in every single conversation (as it seems some of You would like it to be) would be extremely boring, and he isn’t even a main character.

    bgi
  9. @Unknown Voice

    U MAD?

    Izumi was a far stronger character in the first series, pulling herself through great tragedy and continuing on as to help her students in their lives. Whimpering hurt woman? She’s barely even a character in the manga!

    Winry wasn’t butchered, she was made tolerable, so you didn’t have to hear her every little annoying opinion and reaction to everything. They downplayed her and let her get over her parents’ death and come to grips with the dual nature of their killer without making her too prominent or irritating.

    The manga wasted so much time giving us crap like meeting flat chimera characters and melodrama about characters like Knox who we barely even know.

    Dante was great because she WAS petty and yet her plans were grand to achieve them, because human lives are meaningless to her, out of her arrogance. Father is a boring Evil Hohenheim. Dante has a human reason for doing what she does, making her more interesting and the story more palpable.

    penguintruth
  10. @Penguinlie

    Izumi? Izumi was like an embodyment of “females are weak” In FMA1.

    Likewise with Winry. Winry is strong character in manga, having her own opinion that matters. Like I said before in FMA1 she was fragile background decoration, whoa cted foolishly and embodied the “women are weak and stupid” cliche. Thankfully in manga she has bigger role than that chauvinist Mizushima gave her in FMA1

    Dante’s plans were GRAND? Oh sorry, I must have been laughing too much at her plans to notice just HOW GRAND they were…She is selfish woman butthurt over her lover leaving her. Not to mention that, as I said, her laughable plan has incredibly small chance of success.

    Father however is interesting – his otherworldly way of acting, his personality, the way it all mirrors on how Hohenheim is/was. Its a lot more interesting to watch and guess the plans of Father than of boring Dante.

    Unknown Voice
  11. So your saying you would rather have Ed dance with a mute personality less girl than to have a storyline showcasing how it wasn’t just the important people whose lives have been ruined by the homunculus.

    The scene where Knox meets his Wife and Son is one of the finest scenes in the entire manga, it’s scenes with minor characters like Knox and Havoc that seperates the manga from the first anime, the manga was a fully realized world where minor characters where heavily developed where as compared to the first anime where the entire world only revolves around Ed.

    Charred Knight
  12. @Unknown Voice

    Izumi was a powerful, strong woman character who was only made stronger in the first series by pulling through a great tragedy. Even at her breaking point, she managed to get back on her feet and go an assist her students.

    Mizushima is chauvanistic? Now you’re reaching. He puts all the characters in his shows through hell. Many of the males are much weaker than the female characters. You’re reading too much into things because you have some pathetic psuedo-feminist agenda, and will say whatever will justify your baseless criticisms, despite lack of reason.

    Dante’s desperation to hold onto her immortality is what made her intriguing, and the lengths at which she went to manipulate Ed and Al’s feelings. Father is flat and his plans are nebulous. A human’s motivation is better than some “LOL MY MINIONS ARE PART OF ME” monster.

    penguintruth
  13. @Charred Knight

    HERF DERF WORLD REVOLVED ONLY AROUND ED.

    You must have watched a different series than I did. The world didn’t revolve around Ed, but Dante’s plans did somewhat hinge on purposely using Hohenheim’s sons because they’re good alchemists and she’s vindictive against him for leaving her. At least the brothers actually DO something, rather than sit around waiting for scene-stealers to get hurt or walk off the page.

    penguintruth
  14. Personally, I find it more interesting to see two fanboys fighting each other than watching the episode itself! xD

    Just kidding! I’m feel glad that the changes made in this episode didn’t mess up the story and it still turned out to be quite a decent episode!:D From what I heard it was a touching and emotional ep too. Wow, now I really can’t wait to see!

    Looking forward to some RAW….

    Camille
  15. @penguintruth

    Izumi was frail weak woman with “strong” facade in FMA1. She went to help and “lots of help” she was. For me it seemed like she went to get killed, wanting that. In manga she is a woman who, while still a bit hurt over what happened in the past, lives moving forward towards the future, conquering all the sadness that would come in the way.

    And yes Mizushima is chauvinistic – The Rape of Rose, The way they handled Riza(who instead of being badass comrade with feelings towards Mustang, was his lapdog without personality), the way he completely downplayed Winry into a background element without good personality, the way he converted Cheska into completely obnoxious person in FMA1, the way he created Dante as completely despicable character, the way he handed shotacon Sloth and the way he stupidly fluffy-ed Lust and offed her. There’s enough of examples.

    While Dante’s desperation was an interesting premise, the way she handled that was way too stupid. Her character and storyline can be summed up in “that slutty psycho who wanted to live forever”. Father, even before the big “23” storyline, was trumphing over Dante in personality sector.

    Unknown Voice
  16. @penguintruth

    Oh and yes, world did revolve around Elrics in FMA1. I MEAN, everything was THEIR FAULT. Elric Brothers and Hughes were only characters to be developed. Other characters were either background decorations or were used in OOC way to move forward the convulted DANTE plot.

    Unknown Voice
  17. @Unknown Voice

    Your arguments just get more laughable, I even pity you and your lack of comprehension.

    Izumi, like most of the characters in FMA1 was put through the wringer via tragedies, and had human frailities and weaknesses that made her more believable, but nevertheless found the strength to move on, even trying to take responsibility for Wrath at the factory and helping Ed try to find the Fuhrer, teaming up with the Tringhams to get Ed where he needed to go for the final battle. Izumi is a mother figure to Ed, giving him the “fight” he needs in him to continue, and to admit that he’s really matured. She is his measurement of growth, because even she, as strong as she is, becomes impressed by him.

    Mizushima likewise has many of his male characters in similar states, whether you want to call that weak or not. But I’ll address your complaints.

    Rose was a classic example of “breaking the cutie”, I’ll admit, but it helped carry through the message of going forward “because you have two good legs”. Winry was as developed as much as she needed to be to contribute just enough to the plot without any of those lingering scenes in the manga where it’s just her complaining. Fluffied Lust? Mizushima made Lust a worthwhile, full character with a tragic desire.

    Dante’s was complicated, not some “slutty psycho”. Her reason for picking Ed was to get an ultimate revenge on Hohenheim, not just because she’ll do any guy. She personalized everything to really twist the knife in.

    Father is just some generic monster with a man’s face. They even got rid of that recently so we can see what he really is, a boring monster character.

    Look, obviously we’re going to keep arguing about this forever. You want the final word? Go ahead, take it. I can’t spend the whole fucking day arguing about this. I’ll check by later for a nice laugh.

    penguintruth
  18. Will someone shut these two up please….I’m getting sick of it every week. I come on here to see what other people think of the episode not to here children bicker.

    I’m glad they finally have started to slow things down a bit. I was getting a bit worried. Still I wish they wouldn’t switch things up for no reason.

    @Charred Knight I agree with you completely about the Knox scene definately one of my favorites.

    Blaineo
  19. that’s all shit.

    Parallel World? Aniem Wrath? Sloth as Trisha Elric?Dante and Father?

    I peesonally liked the First series, and how they Worked out Izumi, Dante, Ed and Al’s parentage, Mustang’s love for Hawkeye and vice versa, Scar’s true intent with the Stone, Al being the stone and the Driving force on the Plot, and Hohenheim’s love for his two children.

    Agree with Floppy, this is two stories of the same character, with the same place, time and circumstances, but with different story. And we should be appreciative of both.

    Although comparisons cannot be denied. that is the fact.

    knight of one
  20. @penguintruth, Unknown Voice – these are basically Your opinions, so could You kindly cut the crap and start respecting the fact, that other people have different views? geez, both of You are basically trolling this place with “it’s like that because i think it is” type of arguments.

    bgi
  21. Personally I’m still leaning towards the first season. But always open for this season. All I can say is they made season 1 fantastic even though it had limited manga material and that IS appluadable. Season 1 was most of the time straight to the point; straight into the heart of the story and that kept me watching it.

    megalith
  22. @Unknown Voice & penguintruth

    The point I would like to make is the next.
    The ORIGINAL history is the manga, and the 1st series was BASED on the manga until the Greed’s plot. What Mizushima did in the 1st anime was use the plot of the manga to where it was at the time and create a whole new COMPLETE history with it.
    As many of you know this wasn’t even 1/2 of the history in the manga, and at that point nobody really knew what was going to happen next, so all Mizushima did was trying to expand the universe from his perspective.
    The truth is that Arakawa already had most of the plot planed on her head, so there is a real plan for the things happening that way in the manga while in the 1st anime those where just mere speculations. I personally like a lot more the manga for 1 reason: THE PLOT ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE.
    The 1st anime was the definition of chaos, the death of Hughes makes no sense in the 1st series; he is supposedly killed in the 1st series because he find about a piece of information about the true identity of the Homunculus Sloth, but latter in the same anime Winry and Scheska also find an equivalent piece of information about sloth, and they are actually confronted by her, but they where never killed.
    Also things like, how the fuck did Dante made the homunculus Pride intro the Fuhrer makes no sense at all, and also why did the homunculus helped Dante is just a paradox, it was just random.
    While in the manga it’s explained that the whole country was created by Father’s influence, and the Fuhrer was an experiment made by Father, and all the homunculus are actually parts of father (that’s the reason for their names), and the reason why Hughes is killed in the manga is actually better, because he figured out Father’s plan.
    So it’s fair to say that the 1st anime was just a professional fanfic, all is speculation and it doesn’t care if “I liked more the personality of that character on the 1st anime”, it is just a fanfic work, it’s not the actual personality the creator of that character had planed.

    ShikiGami
  23. @Unknown Voice & penguintruth

    Your guys argument basically boil’s down to just one question, what is strength? Is it the immovable pine that weathers any storm or is it the springy bamboo that bends with it and bounces back.

    Penguin seems to like his characters with “real” emotions with a shine on the bitterness of human feelings. Unknown likes his guys more on the side of “ideal” emotional resolution. Fact is you are both never going to see eye to eye because your views on what is good are vastly different from the start.

    Though I do wonder, what does Father need another Philosopher’s stone for? I mean, he just set up an entire country so he could create one almost right after he just made one but why did he do so? If you look at it from the start he needed the stone to keep himself in that world, he didn’t just need a “container” but the stones power as well. So since the stones power runs out over use it wouldn’t be illogical in assuming that he needs another one to continue “living” in that world and to not go back beyond the gate. Yawn… or I could be reading too much into things.

    Anyways the first anime was like a battle between human depravity and human virtues. The manga is more like a battle between opposing philosophies.

    Koroshiya
  24. @Unknown Voice & penguintruth

    “waaaaah! my opinion iz better than yours”
    “lulz no mine is”
    “nu-uh! my opinions are facts!”
    “no, everyone knows the only opinions in this world that can be considered as facts are mine”
    “bullshit!”
    “lawlz”

    Moral of the story, you both are idiots becase oopinions are subjective. Comments from someone bad mouthing a series shouldnt turn you into bitch mode and start defending it with tooth and nail… unless of course theres a thought nibbling at the back of your head telling you that maybe you dont enjoy the series as much as you thought you did, and it wont go away no matter how many times you try to make it go away with a flannel of lame excuses.

    In short; STOP BEING FANBOY TWATS.

    Though one thing does interest me, whoever keeps disliking the manga story, why are you even watching this series then? Stick with your first series if you think its that superior and stop instigating fights.

    damian
  25. penguintruth why don’t you just stop watching this series if you hate the manga so damn much and leave us all the hell alone. you’re tiring and it looks like you need to defend the 1st anime so hard because in reality you know it made no sense and the characters were empty and tools and nothing like the actual characters are.

    god almighty how obnoxious can you be.

    ps. i may be biased.

    scar wants your cat
  26. @penguintruth- and if you dislike secondary characters and their development so damn much then you dislike what’s so great about fma. maybe you’d be better off watching naruto or something similar.

    or go fap to the 1st anime please

    scar wants your cat
  27. @damian

    LAWL @ conversation XD

    But seriously, exactly what I (and a lot of other people) were thinking.

    Anyway, this episode look awesome! I can’t wait for the subs to come out! Hopefully there won’t be as long a wait now that they translated the OP and ED.

    distantblue
  28. I think like most other people.
    How penguintruth is saying “making me laugh” is very irritating, just as a tip. Try to accept other people’s opinions, agree, and poof!, there’s no more argument.

    ANYWAY. This episodes looks like it’s gonna be awesome. >__< -searches for the raw-

    Decipher
  29. I like some change they made in this episode. Like the flashbacks when Ed realized he and Al’s goal unintentionally lead Hughes to his dead, Glasia’s cry, Ed, Al and Winry walked back to their hotel in silent. Making Ed and Al know about Hughes’ death from Maria was a nice touch too, giving what’s about to come.

    The pace seemed to slow down finally.

    K2
  30. well, to break the pattern…

    I actually thought that I wouldn’t like this episode, because of the changes from the manga, BUT I actually liked it. Even though I really like the applepie scene in the manga, I think they handled it pretty well. Big + on Winry, instead of grabbing Ed’s handwrist(?) like in the manga, she grabbed his ‘hand’ (if only it wasn’t automail) That part was really sweet, and afterwards when you could see them standing pretty close, but not close enough. I’m looking forward to the next few episodes =)

    idaaa
  31. There is so much hate in here… why cant all of us be friends
    anyways i like both and well i guess there are many views about all of this. And on a side note, this might be a bit late but yea for new episodes instead of compressed 1st anime eps. I still enjoy it but it is still good to see new faces and new stuff.

    srimongka
  32. @scar wants your cat

    Now that’s just silly. I never said I didn’t like Brotherhood or the manga. There are things I dislike about it, but I’d say I probably like the manga at least as equally as the first series.

    At the same time, I’m not going to just sit around while somebody parrots the same criticisms of the first series without having anything to back it up but the same lame memes spewed by the garbage on 4chan and the mad dog Arakawa-can-do-no-wrong fangirls I see on forum after forum. These are the same people who loved the first series until it became popular NOT to, they have no real opinions, whatever is popular to believe automatically becomes their belief.

    I quite liked this episode, in fact, and even mentioned so in my original post. My only problems were the same as Omni, the weird Lust character design in that one scene, and an additional problem of the guy who arrested Maria Ross not really looking like he does in the manga.

    Please don’t put words in my mouth.

    penguintruth
  33. @Omni

    I posted this one the last episode’s entry, but it was last night so you probably never read it so Im just gonna repost it here:

    “I didn’t read the manga prior to this series and have intentionally kept myself away from it so as not to spoil myself.”

    Really? Methinks you should be really careful reading the comments then. You never know when a troll might just post a spoiler intentionally with no warning. Anyhoo, I think you should read the manga (you read Bleach manga after all and get spoiled for the anime). Why? Because the anime is missing A LOT of scenes from the manga, some (if not most) are IMPORTANT scenes to the plot. Let me give you an example from this episode; whats Falman doing with Roy and Riza? Riza called Roy obviously but why is Falman in the scene? Hes there to interrogate Barry. Falman is considered the human library of Mustang’s subordinate so he uses his knowledge to interrogate and figure out whether that is the real Barry or not. Another example, this time from ep 14; Bradley just accidentally shows up at Greed’s hideout. Its actually more complicated in the manga. Ed goes away by himself to do his State Alchemist Assessment and accidentally lets Bradley know about Izumi being his master and where she lives. He then follows Ed back to Dublith, interested in making Izumi a State Alchemist for a “human sacrifice” and then eavesdrops on someone commenting about Greed’s hideout and THAT’S how he ends up there

    .See, The FMA manga isnt like a weekly ShonenJump series where each 20-page advances the plot slowly, like Bleach or Naruturd. No, each FMA chapter is around 40 paged with A LOT of story to tell. Hell, almost every chapter has enough material to be one episode. Here they do 2 (or more) chapters per episode and omit lots of material. And when you squeeze more than two chapters into a 20-minute episode you get a rushed plot.

    I think you owe it to yourself to read the manga. If not ahead of the story, you should at least read the story youve seen so far, which would be volumes 1-8. That way you get the WHOLE story and not a rushed version of it.

    damian
  34. @ Penguintruth

    I understand from some of your posts that you do indeed like the manga. But just because someone dislikes the first series (for whatever reason) doesn’t mean you have to insult the manga storyline to prove your point why the first anime is so wonderful. Is it so hard to defend the 1st anime without also saying what is wrong with the manga. And yes I understand it is frustrating to you when someone insults the 1st anime but that doesn’t mean you have to insult the manga as well because then it is just an endless pointless cycle.

    Also some people just dislike the 1st anime. People don’t dislike the 1st anime because it is cool to do so. Just like I would not venture to say that people dislike the manga because it is cool or popular to do so. Both statements are ridiculous since frankly I see an equal amount of divide between the two sides of the fandom. Sometimes people just don’t like one thing for whatever reason. The two FMA series are very different so while I can see why people might enjoy both for different reasons. I can also see why some fans might like one version of the series and not the other. It’s not a matter of what is better just different tastes. And this constant attempt to prove which version is better is pointless (that last sentence is not just for you).

    Kim
  35. Hey Omni, I agree that you might want to give the manga a try. The anime is inevitably going to be different, and confusing at points because of skipped scenes — not to mention that the manga is a pretty fun read by itself. I guess you could read the manga afterwards to get the full story; it’s definitely worthwhile. (And yeah, the best arcs are all coming up!)

    dfs
  36. Fighting aside, I hope Eclipse gets their subs out sometime before Wednesday this time. At least now they won’t be fiddling around with karaoke effects for days.

    penguintruth
  37. I personally thought that this episode went off very well. For me, it compensated a lot for the less-effective-than-FMA1’s Hughes death episode.

    This was a pretty episode overall. This anime really seems to be picking up.

    DMetroneis
  38. LOL…this comments thread has been pretty entertaining.

    Seriously, guys, chill out! I’m tired of reading the same arguments back and forth, back and forth.

    By the way, most of those comments are full or spoilers, I’m surprised they have not been deleted! Think about other people who have not read the manga…although if it is like this every week, I guess such people have stopped reading comments here a long time ago…

    Darklord
  39. a lot of you guys keep arguing about fma1 this and manga that, but what you don’t understand is that this is a brand new anime. When i started watching this show i told myself that iwould treat it like a whole new anime, because otherwise i knew i would end up getting mad at all the things they left out or all the things they could’ve done, and comparing this to the first anime is unfair in so many ways. Hughes death was a shock in the first anime that was a real tearjerker, but after watching that you can’t expect the same impact a second time from this brotherhood. i thought this episode was a real fanservice to all the people who didn’t like the way 10 ended, becuase they slowed down the whoe series and gave another whole episode to Hughes which he deserved.

    Oh and the manga definately focused the impact Hughes death had on the other characters, especially on Roy, more then the first anime, but I think that the first anime focusd on just his death more.

    Sean
  40. Is not a fan of Penguintruth attacking someones opinions, saying their trolling, and saying their argument is laughable when their argument makes about as much sense as your own. But it was entertaining to read lol. Couldn’t help but root for Unknown Voice.

    My girlfriend yawned during the saddest parts this episode while i was getting all sniffly >.< I got mad at her haha. nya~

    Lucky Channel
  41. @Penguintruth

    Since you view manga and first anime with it’s strengths and weaknesses could you tell me if the accusation of first anime being much darker and much angsty than manga holds water. Because I can’t much difference between two.

    Goldarmy
  42. *whiping away tears* I’m such a crybaby…They captured Ed’s pain and guilt very well.

    “I like some change they made in this episode. Like the flashbacks when Ed realized he and Al’s goal unintentionally lead Hughes to his dead, Glasia’s cry, Ed, Al and Winry walked back to their hotel in silent. Making Ed and Al know about Hughes’ death from Maria was a nice touch too, giving what’s about to come.” — K2
    *nod nod* Me agrees! Although Clacia actually cried in the manga too. Although I would’ve liked Ed to eat an applepie by Winry (like in manga)…that was really sad…
    I actually like it better that Maria happened to slip it to them.
    More burning emotions next week!

    Lily
  43. As a faithful manga-reader, I can say that there are some things this episode didn’t handle as well as they could of. For me, the most notable part was the substitution of of the image of Gracia holding Elicia & crying for voices through the door. There was so much power in that small scene, and it wouldn’t have taken much more animation to work.

    As for those who are annoyed with all this attention towards Hughes’ death and Mustang’s vengeful thoughts…IT’S IMPORTANT!! That’s all I can say. And Arakawa didn’t drop it for as long as you think–just as long as Mustang-tachi wasn’t being focused on.

    @ Penguintruth: I second Goldarmy’s request. What do you say to the notion that maybe the first series milked any and all drama for as much as they could get, resulting in watered-down plot?

    dorcas
  44. @PenguinTruth

    I’m late to this and probably won’t be read but really? The whole wrath/Izumi thing in the first anime only served to undermine her strong character and was, frankly, OUT of character for her. Most of the female characters were often downplayed and made weaker in the first anime.

    Not to mention Izumi is already a maternal figure to the brothers, we didn’t need her being a stupidly cliched maternal figure to Wrath. In fact the fact she lost a child significantly effects her relationship with the brothers and this is something the writers of the first anime didn’t seem to grasp.

    Not to mention the whole situation didn’t make any goddamn sense. If the Doors of Truth lead to an alternate dimension, where was Wrath all this time? Why didn’t he act like a homunculus until he had some philosopher stone mini-bites? Why did he have Ed’s leg and arm?

    Sai

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