Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Spoilers ahead!

I think I'll never be able to recover from this. I've been watching anime for years, but every time I think of FMAB my heart immediately tears open, I don't even know from where to start.

Two brothers find a purpose in pursuing the art of alchemy to impress and please their parents. However, this trivial passion eventually turns into a tragedy. Following their mother’s funeral, the Elric brothers try to fill in the void by trespassing the realm of what’s allowed to human beings: they cross the alchemic taboo and get punished for it. They end up completely shaken by that and choose to make up by looking for the only chance to get their bodies back: to find the philosopher’s stone.

So, alchemy is the key pillar of the whole story. Which is cool and charming. However, I swear FMAB is a rare pearl under several other aspects. It tackles fundamental and extremely actual issues, which makes it a pretty immortal work of art. War crimes, colonialism, and eugenics are the hardest pills to digest. While some characters literally incarnate wickedness and are responsible for horrible deeds, they try to be true to themselves. Each character of FMAB is well-rounded and, put aside magic and alchemy, deeply human. And when the roles of religion, science, and knowledge are discussed, that’s when the magic begins: how could you decide that what you believe in, being it science, alchemy, or religion, also works for other human experiences completely detached from your own path and background? Is science the absolute answer to everything? What about the comfort religion provides to its believers? And what to do when both these disciplines are brought to the excess?

So, as we’ve seen, originally started as a story about the complications created after the brothers’ experiments and their coming of age, the story expanded into a lot of more complicated issues that would deserve a whole novel of in-depth and thorough analysis. Moreover, as a good shonen, FMAB couldn’t avoid tackling issues related to redemption, family, friendship, love, and the importance of trust. Everything is topped with reflections on the mystery of life and human mortality. Even the seven deadly sins, which should have embodied the pure cruelty and wickedness of human beings, hold intrinsic humanity: that’s a wonderful and endearing metaphor to let us learn about the importance of knowing ourselves, flawed and mortal beings, to accept our nature and to simply live up to the best version of ourselves.

What’s more, there are no plotholes, and that’s a delight. 64 episodes are enough, every subplot has its beginning and ending, it’s absolutely well-planned and the emptiness that follows the ending does not spur from something which is left unsaid, but from the most human of all the reactions: after identifying yourself in the characters, you eventually end up missing them.

Openings, endings, and OSTs are heartbreaking. I absolutely adore them all. From an animation point of view, I think it has nothing to envy more recent anime which enjoy modern animation techniques and technologies. Even the less relevant crash/battle is portrayed in great detail and with extreme respect and dignity. I'll always remember when Ling Yao uses a kind of rope to strongly tie Gluttony: the accuracy of the movements is so pleasing to watch. Speaking about fights, they're not too short, nor too long. They take into account WHO is fighting and their abilities, thus adjusting the length and the movements according to a lot of variables. FMAB doesn't provide excessive power-ups or battles which cover from 3 to 15 episodes, but focuses more on the importance of the events and the storyline EVEN THOUGH FIGHT SCENES ARE EPIC and catch the strength of the characters, but also their anger, fear, worries, grief, and anguish. Most of the characters in shonen tend to be quite long-winded, but this is not the case. Of course, there's introspection, chatting, dialogues that are essential in fights as well, but I think they are given the just-right amount of time.

I also have to give a shoutout to the mangaka: Hiromu Arakawa. As a woman, she manages to empower female characters without oversimplifying their features or falling for the most hateful of fanservice. At the same time, they are weak, as well as their male counterparts, because every human being is nothing but a little creature in a vast universe. Each character of FMAB is amazingly well-rounded, has its own aspirations and beliefs, its role to enrich the storyline. You will fall in love with secondary characters as well as the main ones since their lives are consciously intertwined. Friendships and love stories develop naturally and with no force.

In conclusion: ​life is full of errors, sadness, loss, submission, and tragedy. But as we live in this world, we also deserve to love and to be loved, to be compassionate, to be happy. FMAB is a wonderful mix of comedy and tragedy. People can laugh even in the darkest of times, and humor is used in a superconscious and measured way. After experiencing so many powerful emotions I felt empty but reinvigorated like I wanted more, but I also know everything's been said already. I'm very well aware this endearing feeling will never leave me.