re: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood

[samatethecookie]

Well, I watched the first volume of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. And, well, I have some thoughts!

PROS:
(1) Um, I'm not sure why anyone else has been complaining about the English dub and how horrible it is, because I think it sounds just fine. Maybe it's because I knew most of the cast from the first anime, and I've barely watched any of the Japanese episodes, so it doesn't bother me. I thought a lot of the other characters' voices sound great. Whoever is playing Alphonse is doing a marvelous job and he's probably my favorite next to Scar's voice. And randomly, Armstrong's booming voice just cracks me up.

So...I really don't understand why people are complaining about it or why it's supposedly horrible. Sure, I'm ready to bitch with people about Vic Migwhatshisface getting more acting jobs, but even he didn't really bother me. (A-Actually, I like him as Edward Elric. I'M SO SORRY, PPL.)

(2) The music is absolutely beautiful. It's on the same level as the soundtrack from the first anime, and it really compliments the series and each scene the songs are thrown into. And while Trisha's Lullaby isn't the first anime's Bratya, it's still very pretty and kinda eerie.

(3) THERE'S NO FUCKING RANDOM GIANT BIRD MONSTER THAT IS PRETENDING TO BE ROSE'S FIANCE. SO. THAT'S GOOD. I WON'T HAVE NIGHTMARES FOREVER NOW. :(


CONS:
(1) Even though I do love the English dub for what it is, I do have one issue with the dub: Funimation really should start hiring child actors to voice the characters in flashbacks when they're children. Silly Vic trying to play a ten-year-old Edward Elric sounds absolutely awful. For God's sake, the man is almost forty years old, I think, and his voice is nowhere near flexible enough to try to pass himself off as a child. It's really obvious he's trying too hard. (It isn't just him, either. Winry's voice actress sounds just as awkward, too.)

(2) I'm not sure if it's just me, but the first few episodes feel...extremely rushed. Like, we meet Nina and her father in one episode, and at the end of that episode, they're already dead. That's barely enough time to bond with the characters. Did they feel that they had to rush it because they dragged it out in the first anime, or were they following the pace in the manga? I don't know, it just didn't feel right to me, but I think it's because I was used to the pacing in the first anime. It might take time for me to adjust to it.

(3) The show skips over little things that I'm surprised I miss from the manga. For example, in the manga, when Winry begs that one guy to welcome her as his apprentice, he declines, not only because he just doesn't want to, but because he knows Winry's grandmother and he's scared shitless of her. In the anime, her grandmother is never mentioned in the episode. WHY DID THEY CUT THAT OUT? That was hilarious.

Again, it's really not that big of a deal. I'm just being nit-picky.


Final Thoughts: So, yeah, it's great! I'm a little nit-picky about it, but I loved it, and so did my sister, and I can't wait to watch the rest of it.

Comments

[deltashade.livejournal.com]

The pacing's kind of weird throughout the first half, up until the point where the first anime branched off from the manga and became its own thing. After that it gets a lot easier to deal with. They cut out little things here and there from the manga, too—I remember someone on SomethingAwful being really adamant about that stuff—but from what I've heard of the manga it still sticks really closely to the source material once it gets going.

Rose rocks, this is fact. I'm glad she doesn't have the bird monster to deal with either.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good. I thought it was just me. The pacing felt...so off and way too quick for anything to really stick with you. Maybe they were just doing that because they already went through everything with the first anime. It's really hard for me not to notice what they left out of the anime from its source material, but thankfully they're little things.

I was never huge on Rose, but yeah, I'm glad she doesn't have to deal with the bird monster and the trauma of it all. Poor girl didn't need that.

[escalove.livejournal.com]

I admit I don't like the dub because I think none of the voices fit the characters with the exception of Roy and Riza, everybody else sounds horribly miscast to me. I felt this when I tried to watch the first anime all those years ago and didn't because it just didn't jive with me at all. The one besides Ed that gets me is Winry who I think sounds too old in the English version to me.

I also find Vic Mignogna's voice so obvious that I can't get into any character that involves him due to outside associations. Also I just don't plain like his voice or his Ed. So when I hear him, I am not hearing Ed, I am hearing Vic Mignogna which upsets me in so many ways.

Man the fact that Brotherhood lacks so many of the annoying and icky things from the first anime makes it already miles ahead. (No bird monster, no icky misogynist episode where Ed just randomly kills a person, Rose doesn't fall into FAIL! I admit the bird monster never made sense to me as I didn't see a reason why it needed to exist since Cornello was clearly a fraud. Why go to the trouble of creating it when you knew it would give you away for what you were? OH right because it is more ANGSTY and TRAUMATIC.)

The beginning of Brotherhood is not paced well and is not really following the pacing of the manga, because the manga is very smartly paced. I guess the assumption is that people don't want to have to relive stuff that happened in the first anime, but since the manga handles those things in a different way because it is a different story I don't really understand why they needed to.

It does however pick up when it reaches the part where the first anime didn't go and that is when it finds it feet. I don't think it is as good as the manga, but it isn't horrible and has some nice small additions that later on are really awesome.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

I pretty much feel the complete opposite of you. I think their voices sound fine, and it's probably one of the only English dubs that I'm happy with. The only one in the English dub that bothers me right now is Ling. The little I've heard on Adult Swim episodes didn't really impress me. I expected his voice to be deeper? I only heard his voice while he was being generally goofy, though, so I haven't listened to him when he had to get down to serious business. I definitely dread hearing him as Greed, though. :/

I totally understand your feelings about Vic Mignogna. He is a bit of a distraction when you realize his reputation IRL. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt, because dealing with slash fans (especially Roy/Ed fans or Ed/Al fans) has to be annoying on some level, but...yeah, some of the things he said and did in response to it just wasn't cool.

Also, my problem with him outside of his role as Edward Elric is that he has one of those voices that's limited to one character. To me, he's Edward Elric, and anything else he tries to pick up, he's still Edward Elric. I don't think it's so much his fault as it is Funimation for failing to realize he isn't going to fit every character they pick for him. (Like, when he was cast as Tamaki. That was just awful. Couldn't they find somebody else?)

I guess the assumption is that people don't want to have to relive stuff that happened in the first anime, but since the manga handles those things in a different way because it is a different story I don't really understand why they needed to.

That's what I was guessing the problem was, and yeah, I don't understand their choice either. I watched the first anime, but I wouldn't have minded sitting through everything as long as they followed the manga's pace. It doesn't make much sense, because Brotherhood is just as likely to pick up new fans as they would the older fanbase.

I'm glad to hear it doe flow better later on, and I'm familiar with some of the small additions so I'm really looking forward to it! (The manga will always be better, though. I'm still in the process of purchasing as many books as I can on my crappy salary. I need so much more.)

[shidoikarji26.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's fit to match the manga more closely this time around. I will it felt like the first eps feel stuffed. As if to say "You've seen or read this by now, so let's gloss over it."

It annoys me when people say "WHY ISN'T "X" THERE?" It's an adaption, some things can't make the cut.

[samatethecookie.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why it took me so long to answer your comment, but here I am!

Yeah, I really didn't enjoy the rush. I am familiar with the whole story, since I read the entire manga and I watched the first anime, but it's not going to sit well with newer fans who've never seen or heard anything about FMA before.

Hahah, yeah, I try not to complain about little things like that because I do understand it's a whole lot of material to include. Thankfully it isn't anything too major that they're cutting out, and they're still hitting home with the fanbase in the episodes.