Inerasable Sin. Fullmetal Alchemist Anime Review.

Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is an ongoing manga written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. It is set in a world were alchemy still exist (Yes, there is alchemy back then which later evolved into Chemistry), and it is the advance type of science out there. This story is about brothers who broke the taboo of alchemy and that is, Human Transmutation and their quest to return their bodies to normal by finding the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.

Because of the popularity of the manga, it was adapted into two anime series, and the series that I will review is the first FMA series.

The anime starts with a cold opening depicting the brothers, Edward and Alphonse doing transmutation, human transmutation that is. Al’s body disappears and Edward is missing his leg and then, we saw someone coming out from the circle. On the next scene, we are welcomed into the present time, in which the brothers visit Lior, hearing the rumors about the priest that does miracles in the town. In here, we saw the brothers in their present look, the short one, is Edward Elric, State Alchemist with the title of Fullmetal Alchemist in which is commonly mistaken for his younger brother, Alphonse Elric who is wearing (or is it?) a large suit of armor. After we are briefly introduced about alchemy, heard Edward’s reactions about his size, here comes the fun part.

To cut the long story short, we learn what happened after they did the human transmutation. We learn that Ed’s lost two limbs, the first, his left leg, in which he lost by doing human transmutation while the second limb, his right arm, in which he lost by affixing his brother’s soul, Alphonse, into the large armor making Al the elder brother in terms of appearance.

The brothers knew that Father Cornello (The priest rumored to do miracles), has the Philosopher’s Stone and they want to take it away from him. After the brothers exert a lot of effort fighting him, we learned that the stone is a fake. Ouch.

As the series progress, we met a bunch of important characters, such as Col. Roy Mustang, Ed’s superior best known as the Flame Alchemist. Lt. Col. Maes Hughes, Roy’s friend, loves his wife and daughter and likes giving pictures of them to everyone. Lt. Riza Hawkeye, Roy’s lieutenant and the character always being paired to Roy in fanfics. Major Alex Armstrong, also known as the Strong Arm Alchemist Lastly, Scar, best known for killing various State Alchemist.

As the series progress, we learned the method on creating a perfect Philosopher’s Stone, where do homunculus came from and who is gathering them all seven of them.

On to the review, on the first episode, the show gave a big impression on me that this series is a blast, until some time in the first part of the series when they keep on airing episodes not that relevant to the plot. The anime starts kicking in after the introduction of Scar and the introduction of Dr. Marcoh, best known for his research on the Philosopher’s Stone.

To those who watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, FMA: B felt like FMA Abridged, considering that the first series didn’t have a lot of super-deformed Ed scenes and other caricature comedy scenes and as we all know, FMA: B is closer to the manga. Speaking of manga adaptation closness, the first series, after the introduction of Dante, the anime departed away from the manga. Even if that is the case, the anime didn’t lose its quality. Heck, there are some instances that I still believe that the homunculus are actually results of failed human transmutation!

For the voice acting, the voice acting is superb and boy, Ed’s VA, Romi Park did an awesome job with Edward. As for the other characters, boy, Kimblee, you made my day.

The animation, BONES really did a great job. The transmutation sequences are too fluid and for an anime that is based on an action pack manga, they really did a fine job especially on the shows major battles.

For the series finale, here's the summary of it. Just watch the movie sequel of the first series for you to experience a proper conclusion. This anime is recommended to all ages.