Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist vols. 1-8 (#4-9)

[kate_nepveu]

I finally went back to reading Fullmetal Alchemist, by Hiromu Arakawa, when I heard that a new anime was on the way. Enough time had finally passed from my watching the original anime that I could enjoy this on its own merits, which are considerable. (The new anime appears to be much more closely based on the manga, so it was read it now or not for a long time.)

I started by reading the new-to-me volumes that I had on hand, volumes three through eight. I enjoyed these so much I went back to the beginning and re-read all eight straight through. Like the anime, the manga of Fullmetal Alchemist has great characters, fascinating worldbuilding, and gripping angst and action. (I talked about the basic premise in the entry for the first volume.) It eventually develops some pretty significant differences from the anime, but at this point these may also be strengths: certain aspects of the underlying plot seem to remove some logistical questions I had, and the worldbuilding and range of characters are wider and more diverse [*]. I'm not sure how I'll feel about their relative strengths when it comes to themes and philosophical musings, but the manga certainly has its eye on the questions. Finally, it may just be the difference between screen and page, but the manga doesn't feel as unsubtle about emotional matters.

[*] There are a couple of isolated instances in which this isn't a good thing. The series is set in a European-equivalent country, and a handful of characters are obviously meant to have African-equivalent ancestry; they're not characterized in a stereotypical way, but they do tend to have balloon-like lips, which is unfortunate. And the sole homosexual to date is extremely effeminate and has a thing for underage boys.

Roughly speaking, volumes three and four are the Lab 5 arc, which is where the anime began to diverge—well, rather, there were small hints of divergence from the very beginning, but the different outcomes of this arc start pointing toward the significant changes to come. Volume four is also a convenient point for comparing the overall progression of the two story lines: its end corresponds to episode twenty-five, that is, halfway through the anime, while the manga currently stands at ninety-three chapters, four chapters to a volume.

Volumes five and six take the Elric brothers to Rush Valley and into an extended flashback of their childhood and training. Volumes seven and eight play out the Devil's Nest arc, and then introduce manga-only characters from the adjacent empire of Xing. The divergences become very apparent and quite fascinating here, and it took a fair effort of will to write these volumes up first instead of diving into the ones that had arrived from Amazon.

Some other comments: the art is generally clear and fairly detailed. Over these volumes, I found myself noticing it more, in a good way, during emotionally-intense sequences. The fight scenes are usually not difficult to follow and not too prolonged, though I tend to skim them anyway—hey, I like stuff with dialogue. And I'm not crazy about the publisher's decision to overwrite the Japanese sound effects with English translations; I find it distracting when enormous "BOOM"s and such integrated into the artwork, and prefer the original Japanese with translations outside the panels where the meaning isn't obvious.

Spoilers for these volumes and, implicitly, for the entire original anime:

The Homunculi, under the control of "Father," who looks a LOT like Papa Elric, are making a list of alchemists to use as human sacrifices to make the Stone. They are not made by human transmutation, but by Father, which makes the Deadly Sins aspect more sensible. Sloth and Wrath are different from the anime; Pride hasn't been revealed yet.

Miscellany:

The Ishbal flashback is so short that it contains no information on the death of Winry's parents.

Scar doesn't appear necessarily divergent at this point, but we'll see.

On one hand, splitting the military chimeras and Tucker is necessary given that the Nina arc is now in the "present," not during their training. On the other, Tucker was SO CREEPY in the anime that I kind of miss him.

Al can do transmutation without a circle now too. I don't know if I ever wondered why he couldn't in the anime.

Several references to a city destroyed in one night, which may not be relevant for the same reasons as in the anime but, I'm sure, will be relevant.

Very interested in the Xing characters—who have not yet been spotted in any promo stuff for the new anime, right?

Gosh, this is fun.

Crossposted from my booklog: non-spoiler post, spoiler post.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

FMA is definately one of my favorite manga by far, and I think most of what you mentioned gets handled extremely well later on in the manga, and in ways that I much prefer. I'm actually glad I watched the anime when I'd only read a few volumes of the manga, because while I'm fond of the anime, I'm not sure I would have been if I'd read more of the source material, if you know what I mean.

I don't think the Xing characters have been seen in the promos, but other characters that appeared later in the manga have.

[b-writes.livejournal.com]

I stalled out halfway through the anime, so most of the changes in the manga came as pleasant surprises, as I found things I thought were handled much better.

There's actually a much longer Ishbal flashback later on that answers a lot of questions, kate_nepveu.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The long Ishbal flashback (and how it's connected to what's going on in the main story at the time) is possibly my favorite part of the series.

I have far too much love for Hawkeye and Winry to ever be able to abandon them halfway through. (I'm exceptionally fond of Mustang and Ed, too, but their anime versions were a bit too emo and "Penance! I must pay it!" for my love to truly transfer over.)

[kate_nepveu]

I do--I fell so passionately in love with the anime--I wrote literally thousands of words about it--and I'm hoping that the manga doesn't make it look too bad in retrospect, because I did love it so much, you know?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I really wish I'd watched the anime before reading the manga for just that reason, but the US trailers for it were, IIRC, obnoxious and made it look silly, so I ignored the whole thing until the manga was recced to me.