Summary:

In a hut somewhere in the north, Al wakes up to find his armor in pieces because that’s how everyone carried him. Marcoh suggests putting Al back together, and as they’re doing this, May Chang gets the idea to scatter the pages of the research documents on the floor and rearrange them. She then connects the markings on each page to make a transmutation circle, the same as the one that’s to be used around the country. It’s not until Yoki sneezes that Al figures out that they should turn the pages over, and this leads to them connecting the dots to get a new Amestris transmutation circle that incorporates alkahestry. Meanwhile, Kimblee travels through the mine tunnels and comes across the tunnel that Sloth dug. There, he encounters Pride who wants him to put off looking for Scar and instead cause some bloodshed at Briggs. At around this same time, Breda and Falman are trading notes over the phone about what’s going on and how Fuery is in the south fighting for his life. Unbeknownst to Falman, Sloth has just completed the tunnel somewhere underneath Briggs.

Over in the town of Lior, Hohenheim arrives exhausted and is fed by Rosé. Afterward, he has her lead him to a passage under the church. Since there is a segment of impassable poison water, Hohenheim proceeds ahead alone using alchemy to create a path. He eventually comes to part of Sloth’s tunnel, and after a moment of exploring, he’s attacked by Pride. Hohenheim’s alchemy can’t stop the Homunculus, but Pride can’t advance into the passageway that Hohenheim came from, so Hohenheim is safe. Hohenheim guesses that Pride would die if he left the tunnel, and after Pride reveals who he is, Hohenheim conjectures that Father separated Pride from himself first, with Pride being similar in form to Father’s original flask appearance. Hohenheim is in no hurry to go see Father though and tells Pride to tell Father that Slave No. 23 will go see him eventually. When he returns to Rosé, Hohenheim explains that he went in to declare war. Back at Briggs, a real war is about to break out because the forces of Drachma, backed by Kimblee, have started attacking.

While all of this is going on, one of Kimblee’s subordinates calls up Envy and Wrath to tell them about where Marcoh is hiding.

Preview

Based on the preview from last week, I thought that Rosé would come back and play a bigger part, but she really just had a side role this episode. The focus instead went to Hohenheim who escaped from and then confronted Pride, and it was nice to hear him talk about the seven deadly sins and how Pride came to be. I loved how Hohenheim called it all a declaration of war, though I thought that after all these years and with all of his power, he would have been more fearless against Pride. I guess he didn’t want to get caught and taken to Central just yet.

It was also interesting seeing what all of Mustang’s ex-subordinates were up to now since we haven’t seen them in a while, and Fuery in particular had it pretty tough in that war-zone. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for him. Drachma finally attacking Briggs with Kimblee’s backing made for a great end and cliffhanger too. Come to think of it, I guess war was the overarching theme of the episode, and that makes me think we’re headed to another climax in the story. I hope Kimblee dies in the middle of the fighting or something. As for his former subordinate betraying Marcoh and company, this seems like confirmation that the Chimera couldn’t be trusted, though I guess there’s always the possibility that this is just a ruse. The preview, however, makes me think that Marcoh will die next week…

48 Comments

  1. In b4 comparisons with the first series involving Rose.

    Also, I’m glad it was just Keyhole that sucked more than usual this week, and not the quality of the animation.

    A decent episode, but next week… NEXT WEEK… oh, I’m totally jazzed! 😀

  2. I was surprised to see Rose return again in the manga, since I thought the author abandoned her. Glad to see she wasn’t broken like in the original series.

    Now I hope they keep the scene with her, Al, and Winry. That was hilarious.

    Freeter
  3. Excellent episode, even just watching the raw I’m tremendously excited about this series. I don’t want it to end and yet I can’t wait to see how everything comes together. I’m sure there’s a lot more excellent twists in store for the final third of the episodes. Looks like next week will see a lot of fighting, between the Battle of Briggs and Envy going after Scar and Marcoh. Wonder if this is when we see Ran Fan and old guy take on Big Ugly, or if that’s later on. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take 4 days to translate it like it did last week …

    Guardian
  4. Omni, seriously? You want Kimblee dead? He’s such an excellent character.

    So yeah, this was a setup episode for next week, which is what Im really excited about. If my memory serves me right, everything that comes after this episode is great fun.

    And I miss Lust…

    damian
  5. Yeah, nice fake spoiler juju. Don’t worry peeps, it’s not true 🙂

    I AM SO STOKED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE!

    And holy crap, Bones actually went an episode without Ed. Whaddya know 😛

    Deet
  6. lol Hohenheim is just strange like that. It’s one of the reasons why I like his character.

    I’m really looking forward to the next episode~ And I’ll be saying that until this series ends 😀

    Death
  7. im satisfied with everything except one thing, there is supposed to be a scene where Millitary men vist Izumi’s house that sets up a very important plot point later on(you manga readers know what i am talking about) yet it has been skipped!

    TakashiD
  8. Jeeman at 8:50 am on January 31st, 2010

    eclipse(dot)speedsubs(dot)org/projects/alchemist

    these guys have their own tracker and usually* have this series subbed & up by monday evening. not sure where to see the raws. The offical website has subbed streams on a 1 wk delay.

    hms-one
  9. @penguintruth: ohhh… so that’s how you’ve been comparing every episode to the manga! I’ve been sitting here reading posts and going “yikes how good is this guy’s memory?!” Sorry… just had a Eureka moment. If I offended I’m sorry.

    Satoida
  10. @Jack: Well, that’s up to you isn’t it? If you think that it’s fake, just ignore it.

    If you feel that it’s real, well, you have just spoiled yourself haven’t you? We can’t force you to unsee things you know.

    Next time, if you want to avoid any kind of spoilers, here’s a simple tip: Stay away from the comments and discussion boards. Should be easy enough eh?

    Chris
  11. well,I guess the series still didn’t completely ruind for me…
    the manga still didn’t ended.. and there is a lot of things I don’t know yet.so I will still watch the series,but I will be more careful about spoilers.

    Jack
  12. Jack… he hid the spoilers… why did you click them? I can understand if someone just commented out on the open, but Azncoffee clearly had spoiler tags. If you don’t want to be spoiled… don’t click them.

    You can’t accidentally click on spoiler tags.

    Cornwiggle
  13. Who is this second Jack that reads spoilers? 😮 Oh well, I’m clarifying myself as a different person now, because I wanted to comment again.

    I think they’ll be able to put the Bido scene in even though it won’t be in the same place as the manga. I think they may have changed it to be closer to the actual event it will provoke so maybe Brotherhood viewers won’t be confused if it’s a few episodes later until anything happens.

    I feel sorry for this double-Jack at least…that’s one of the worst spoilers you could read as of yet. But you should still be more careful.

    JackDawkins
  14. @Jack: Yes, there are definitely a LOT more things which happen which “could be spoiled for you”! So I would encourage you to keep following FMA Brotherhood, as there’s a lots of surprises and excitement ahead. And, as you said, the manga hasn’t finished yet and there is still a surprising amount of things still to happen/be wrapped up! I would guess it’ll end in about 5 chapters time (about in June 2010) if not later.

    Sim

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