Full Metal Alchemist: A Reasessment

Alphonse, Courage the cowardly dog, Eagle the not so chicken chicken and
 Edward take a rest by the yellowbrick road on their way to the Emerald City.
Just kidding.

Full Metal Alchemist: A Reasessment


For years I've been avoiding this one. I now find I may have made a mistake.

I usually don't go in for "magic" anime. Yeah, God don't like the occult and I never did care for magic being used as a shortcut/plot device/crutch.

You know the drill:

"So wadaya' make of it doc?"

"Magic!"

"Say What!?"

And the story/plot goes merrily on its' way leaving me ticked off about plot holes and scriptwriter laziness.

And what's up with that symbol? Kinda like Blue Oyster Cults'.

Well, I was downtown in the bustling metropolis of Delaware, Ohio the other day when I decided to stop at Gameplay. Not into vid games, I usually go there to check out their DVD movie rack. There I found the first four episode disc to Full Metal Alchemist.

Folks had been telling me for the longest time to check it out and hey, $3.99 used? OK!

I learned my lesson from Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Oh! It really ISN'T Sailor Moon! Now if Aniplex U.S.A. would market it right and put it in a box set instead of three episode singles at thirty plus bucks a pop, I'd get it in a New Jersey minute.).

The story is about the Elric brothers, Darwin and Dudley ... er, uh ... Edward and Alphonse (After the colossal boner that got them in their predicament and on their journey, you'd call them that too!) and their quest to find Alchemys' fabled "Philosophers' Stone" to correct the results of aforementioned misadventure.

From what I've seen so far, the "Dragon Ball Z" and "Sailor Moon" aren't overplayed. It was the "hook" that got me. The "laws" of reciprocity and equivalent exchange are at the forefront from the start. Being something of a Randroid, that appeals to me.

Shoot. If someone told me this was a more action oriented Spice and Wolf of sorts, I'd have got it long ago.

I do wonder if they go into the principle of entropy later. Where something may not be worth the price you're paying. Examples: Physically, a DVD only costs 35-40 cents to make yet you pay many times that (The content jacks the price up.). Or, no matter how much your paycheck, you're never going to be able to buy back even one second of the time you spent at work.

As it is, I'm going to get this one ...


Wikipedia articles on Full Metal Alchemist here and here.


Go to Jays' Tee Vee blog main page here. If there's a buncha' articles under this one, you're already there.