This is a good deal of fun from beginning to end. I like how dark the show can get while still retaining its lighthearted nature, with minimal whiplash as a result. The story of these two brothers trying to right a major wrong they made as children by finding the Philosopher’s Stone. There’s more to it than just that obviously, and this isn’t a Shonen that really puts big fights on display, you are not here of the next big fight, you are here for this story of these two brothers, a story of redemption, A story of tragedy, the story of Ed and Al trying to right their wrong and get back what they lost, willing to do anything that is needed to fix it. Well, almost anything. They have lines they aren’t willing to cross, at least not without a little push. Even though this iteration of the series is largely its own thing, it never feels lost or directionless or that it’s just going through the motions. It’s got its destination in mind and a good sense of direction to get it there.. until it’s just about to the end and it loses focus for a second and misses its turn. But hey, no big deal, it still manages to finish off the story very strongly, especially for an anime-only ending which 9.9 times out of 10 are always terrible it seems.
The shows art does kinda show its age. You can tell this was made in the early 2000s before most studios had a better handle on digital animation, but the show doesn’t look bad by any means. Especially in the animation department, this show has some great bits throughout, but it will inevitably show its age at points. Even so, the show's color palette is varied, lighting effects are better than in a lot of shows now. I’ve always liked the character designs from this series, even before I watched the show I could probably have recognized a good number of characters being from this series. They’re all rather simplistic designs but quirky enough to stand out in a good way. I’ve also always thought that the idea of having a main character being just a walking suit of armor was cool, it’s silly but hey it works. Also, the designs of every Homunculi are great and make for excellent antagonists.
Characters-wise, most of them are really fun and enjoyable. Not many really grow as characters a whole lot but like 90% of the characters are enjoyable when they first appear so the fact there’s not a lot of character development for them doesn’t bother me. I didn’t really like Scar though. I’m sorry if this is a more liked character but he did nothing for me. I just didn’t click with him at all. I don’t really dislike him I guess, hell I don’t really dislike any character in the show, but I did notice that when the show would shift its focus to someone like Scar, I would lose interest in what was going on. I’m sorry, I just didn’t really care I guess.
I quite like the music in the show, especially songs like Pint Sized Alchemist, Brothers, Vestige, Pulse, and Dante to name a handful I really liked and went out of my way to listen to again. Although in the OP and ED department, I was always a fan of the EDs but most of the OPs besides the final one, I didn’t click with.
Overall, Quite good. It’s aged a bit in a couple of areas, not every stop in the journey is as good as the previous, but it’s still a damn good time. If you think your score is a bit low for how much praised a lot of what the show had to offer, I’ve not really settled in a concrete score, so that might change to an 8 later on and this little bit will delete this little but because I’m an indecisive bitch and you should realize that 7.5s are good. Overall, don’t fuck with the dead, you have to give an arm and a leg.
