Summary:

Greed confronts Wrath about the memories that he’s experiencing, but Wrath calls him a fool, and the two engage in a brief battle. Wrath clearly has the upper hand, and after nearly getting his head cut off, Greed is forced to retreat. Sometime later, over at the Armstrong estate, Olivier tries to convince her father to retire and turn over the family to her, so her father has Alex to fight her. Olivier has very little trouble defeating her brother, but Alex has also realized that Olivier goal was to send the rest of the family away on vacation so that they wouldn’t be taken hostage. Meanwhile, May Chang arrives in Youswell on her way back to Xing, and she runs into a lot of friendly people. This makes her feel bad about what she’s doing, and Envy decides to use this to his advantage to convince her that it’d be better for her to go back to Central.

On the outskirts of Central, Ed and the two Chimera head to the old cabin because Ed thinks that Al might be there. Instead of running into Al though, they encounter Ling and end up feeding him. Ling subsequently fills them in on how Greed has cut ties with the Homunculus and how he took back his body for the time being. Unfortunately, Ling feels Greed returning, so he tells Ed that Father is planning on opening the gate when a certain day arrives, and he suggests that Ed and Al could get their original bodies back if they jump in at that time. Greed then regains control of the body and starts to leave because he has no business with Ed and company, but Ed stops him by suggesting that they can become his friends and allies. Being the greedy one though, Greed refuses because he feels that everything in the world belongs to him.

After thinking about it for a moment, Ed chases after Greed and agrees to work for him as a subordinate because he recognizes the opportunity. While this is going on, Ed and Al’s other allies are also on the move. Izumi and her husband learn of the promised day thanks to a message passed to them from Al and Hohenheim, and Izumi allows herself to be captured at Briggs so that she can pass along the information to Miles and Buccaneer. Falman then informs General Grumman who gets the message to Hawkeye, and Hawkeye in turn lets Mustang know by passing along to Havoc a message inside a pack of cigarettes. The message says that the promised day will come the next spring and that the north and east will make their move.

ED Sequence

Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

Preview

So the action budget for this episode looked like it was blown in the first few minutes for the fight between Wrath and Greed. The battle was short but pretty exciting, and it’s too bad Greed withdrew. The rest of this episode felt like it was setting up for a showdown that’ll involve everyone, including Izumi (whose housewife scene here was pretty funny) and all of Mustang’s former subordinates. Not surprisingly, Envy was able to convince May Chang to go back to Central. What was interesting was how Ed joined forces with (or rather, agreed to work under) Greed, which makes a lot of sense strategically, but I didn’t think Greed would actually go along with it.

This episode didn’t end in a traditional cliffhanger either. Rather, they changed the ED sequence, probably as a one-time special montage which you can see above, to reflect how all the different players are in motion. To further emphasize the idea of the promised day, the episode title card was even the last thing shown in the episode, not including the preview for next week. All told, it was pretty effective, though I’m really hoping whatever happens is worthy of the build-up. I assume that the ED montage also represents some time passing and that next episode will be much closer to the spring date.

60 Comments

  1. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!
    I’ve yet to see it, but I can already feel this episode will be an epic one. I love what they did with “moving all the pieces” for the final showdown. Even though I noticed they ruined the shit out of Gluttony’s surprise comeback later on..
    If only my Lusty was still alive to see all this awesomeness. ; 3;
    Also, apparently super pissed off Homunculi get their own hardlines/mad/rough drawing attack, (Lust’s final attack and Wrath’s in the second screenshot). @ w @

    Homuncurus!
  2. Oh man… they actually plan on ending this series in 51 eps. Or less. No wonder the beginning went by so fast.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Zero
  3. It feels like there’s still a lot of things to happen, yet they’re already ep 45. How many episodes are still there? ANN shows about 63 episodes, though some are saying it’s wrong. Hard to comment when I haven’t seen the episode yet. ED looks awesome though, great way to foreshadow on things to come.

    Miko86
  4. @Kori
    Olivia does have super strength. She picks Alex up with one hand and throws him 20+ feet across the dining room, many times considering all the holes Alex makes. She holds him in a headlock with one arm while using her other hand to hold her sword up to Alex’s throat! I think she really could best Wrath or Lin/Greed. Didn’t little sis pick up a grand piano? The girls don’t get the thick muscles, thankfully.

    samu
  5. I’ve never seen that happen with an ending sequence. I thought it was very creative of them.
    Greeling is my favorite character to watch move around. He tends to be wherever it suits him and it’s fun trying to see if he’s developed. It’s a pity, like someone said, he’s like allergic to screentime!

    youkokun
  6. Awwwwwwwyeah. We’re finally getting down to the “Switching cameras every 5-minutes” part.

    I just can’t believe how great this series has been. Something I can actually look forward to every week and not get disappointed on.

    AznCoffee
  7. I’m really happy with what they did regarding the Armstrong brawl. And for those of you that complain they cut too much stuff from the manga, the Armstrong fight in the manga was nowhere near as long as it was here.

    No, the series is NOT ending in 51 episodes. Whoever started that rumor needs to burn in a fire.
    No, there will not be any fillers. If anything — ANYTHING — I’d say we might get /one/ more recap episode, like the Prelude Party/Hohenheim one. And even that one, for a recap, was very interesting on its own.
    I’d say we’re looking at a 55-60 episodes series here.

    Homuncurus!
  8. Even 55-60 episodes is low. I’m betting 63 is on the mark, especially with how little there is that can be cut out at this point.

    I really wonder where people are pulling 51 episodes from. Yeah, that’s the first series episode count, but that’s a totally different story.

    arnyjk
  9. I think people (like me before I was set straight) were assuming 51-52 based on a standard non-Dragonball class anime length. Fortunately it’s got the extra 12 or so episodes to wrap things up.

    Looks like a good episode, can’t wait until the subs come out and I can see it for myself. Looks like a ton of stuff happens, but that’s only to be expected with the size of the cast right now.

    I’m not all that surprised to see Gluttony, though, as he was hinted at to be returning a while ago, and since we’ve not seen Greed/Ling for almost as long I figured they were off somewhere chilling until being called into action or something.

    Sol Fury
  10. Anyone notice the music used during the armstrong fight? 😀 I LAWLED when they started playing it.
    They’ve only used that track 3 times before.
    Lust vs. Mustang
    Ed/envy/ling going through the gate
    and Olivier riding up the elevator in a mother freakin tank.

    It’s been used in the series most epic moments, and here they use it for one of the funniest moments. I LOVE IT 😀

    Deet
  11. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but this show really is the highlight of my week. I look forward to every Sunday just so I can see the screencaps and then the show itself. I don’t know what I’ll do when the series finally ends later this year. 🙁

    I’m not sure how Olivier beat Alex, but the fact that he didn’t use alchemy probably had a lot to do with it (that we could see, anyway–but then, we didn’t see Alex perform a single offensive move). Especially since the Armstrong girls seem to have all the power of the Armstrong family without the huge muscles. If Alex was trying to fight fair by not using alchemy, Olivier definitely has the edge in battle experience.

    Guardian
  12. The epicness of Greed vs Wrath needs no further mention from me, it’s already been well elaborated by everyone else here.

    Gotta love the last bit, where the message from Hohenheim and Al from Lior got passed all over the country, first to Dublith, then Briggs, then East City, and finally Central. The special ED montage this week further emphasizes how everyone is in motion for the fightback against Father and his minions.

    As with the first FMA series, Mrs Armstrong is once again voiced by Paku Romi (Edward), while the cute piano-lifting Catherine Armstrong is voiced by Kugimiya Rie (Alphonse). XD

    As every Kugimiya fan knows, she’s used to these loli roles (Shana, Taiga, Nagi, etc), so her voice was easy to recognize. Paku Romi’s feminine voice needs a bit more concentration in order to identify. (The reason Kugimiya is credited as Catherine and Paku is not as Mrs Armstrong is because Alphonse didn’t have a voicing role this week)

    Kinny Riddle
  13. @ dragon

    F*ck TMD-Raze, they suck. [Eclipse] had their speed sub up sometime late sunday/early monday.(I got up @ about 9am and there were already 1300 seeds) Their subs and video quality(720p) are just plain better than TMD and they are always early. 2 weeks ago(the episode w/the part where people were talking over each other when Scar/Marcoh/May left) their sub didn’t post until tuesday. In response their last two subs were up the same day. Plus they are pro’s(if speedsubbers can be called such) with their own tracker, not releasing to hotfile/megaupload bullsh*t. Besides, why watch a crappy speedsub when one need only wait a week for the official sub stream. Read the rules before posting links, ASS. gfy dragon.

    rant closed.

    Loved the episode. Greedling rules! It’s only a matter of time before he gathers up a new chimera team. The back end of the show, including the credits and the message sequence, was a nice way to catch up with the rest of the cast before whatever happens next. The author has not let a single charachter go to waste yet, and I feel they will all play some role before the end. It was nice to see Havoc again, I really like his charachter in this show.(/the manga?) Also the Grumman butt grope scene was F-ing hilarious. I like Grumman, too, he’s eccentric. Another fine example of this series’ lack of throw away charachters. Character is the most important storytelling element for me, which may be why I freaking LOVE this show.

    hms-one
  14. Long time since i left the last comment here. This far i must say that i enjoyed this ep’ a lot!The characters are developing quite well, and mostly i loved Ed’s changing attitude, from the spoiled brat of the first season to the short 😀 man he’s now, a direct effect of the distance from Al…

    important question for OMNI: are you going to blog Gundam Unicorn?

    in any case this blog rocks.

    Actarus
  15. Epic episode. I’m happy… goodness knows how much got in the way of my watching FMA this week so I’m so glad it didn’t dissapoint.

    During the ending I was like ‘omg it’s all coming together now!’

    Satoida
  16. Eclipse isn’t bad, but they’re not that great either.

    I remember back when Geass R2 was being subbed, they misspelled that giant satellite gun (FLEIJA) plenty of times, even though it was clearly written “FLEIJA” on the monitor. herp derp.

    AznCoffee
  17. Speaking of Eclipse…

    In one of the early episodes (Ep 2, I think), the on-screen text of “4 years ago” was translated as “4 years later”. The scene was a flashback of Ed and Al’s childhood. GG.

    Dark_Fishie
  18. The Greed vs Wrath fight was much more pronounced than it was in the manga.
    Epic part: Flying dish.

    I noticed in the manga when Wrath tried to behead Greed, he used the back of the blade, but not in the anime, which makes more sense.

    Karis
  19. The only mistake that’s really bothered me was when Hohenhim talked with Pride. It was like “Pride? I see, that means avarice” in the Eclipse sub.

    No matter how you look at it, avarice means Greed. Period, there’s no way it could mean Pride, so it makes little sense.

    I think maybe they were going for “Arrogant” which would have been better.

    Cornwiggle
  20. well, no speedsub is ever gonna be perfect, but as far as video/audio quality and speed of release I have no complaints so far about their FMAb releases. I know I am watching an amatuer sub, and I don’t really care as long as I get to watch the show at a release rate comparable to the japs. Besides, the TMD releases of FMAb are just too awful for words.

    hms-one
  21. you know i find it said that the awesomeness of FMA’s short run easily eclipses over the hundreds and hundreds of chapters of Naruto,Bleach and One Piece. It is the best one out of all of them. All the characters are well developed and have their moments to shine. The overall plot is amazing and grew to beyond words when I peeked at the manga. The manga seems like it will end at CH.106 or 107. I am writing this to say that I am really going to miss this series. There arent a lot of decent pieces of work that have been able to hold my interest like this. It is like watching Supernatural which is going head to head with some supernatural deity as well. So anyway as usual I loved this episode they all that came before it. I really hope for some kind of a good ending these characters really deserve one with all the stuff they have been though.

    abe

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