Fullmetal Alchemist: Manga Versus Anime

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WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
also tl;dr

This is a huge rant I was writing on and off for some time: there’s not alot of stuff out there that can give me a serious case of nerd rage, but this is one of them: Fullmetal Alchemist the brilliant manga and its grossly subpar anime counterpart. I just heard some fangirl heads explode, but hear me out! Unless you don’t like spoilers, because I don’t care to dance around them and wish to make a solid case for why the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is superior and why it should be read. Please keep in mind this post is aimed at people already familiar with the series, although it may get you interested, and you may find it funny, you might be confused at some points!

First, a little history on my own fandom: I am a big Fullmetal Alchemist fan, but I froth-at-the-mouth-hate the anime. How did I get this way? Well I began watching Fullmetal  fansubs probably in 2003. I was hooked from the opening scene and enjoyed about 12 episodes before my experimental beta version of BitTorrent began giving me the blue screen of death and I sort of fell out of the habit. Fast-forward: FMA is being shown on Adult Swim, I start watching it there and have bought some of the DVDs. Somewhere during this period someone introduces me to Readmanga.com’s Fullmetal Alchemist scanlations.  While waiting for Adult Swim to air new episodes I eat up chapter after chapter of the manga, eager to see these events unfold in the animation. Unable to wait any longer I download the last 25 or so episodes I haven’t seen and have myself a marathon. I sit there waiting for the plot to improve, waiting for the writing to stop being so contrived, expecting all this convoluted nonsense to somehow pay off in the end and am… sorely disappointed, resulting in long term nerd rage symptoms any time the series is brought up in conversation.

Second, a little history on the anime and manga: I understand the anime went into production when there was only a few volumes worth of the manga written, but that right there is my first criticism. If they had only waited another year or two to produce the anime, some of our favorite elements and characters of the manga may have made an appearance in it, and would have lent it much better storytelling. Secondly, the manga is still going, it isn’t finished, and the story is much more solid with much better pacing. The problem here is not only did the anime producers tack on a really retarded ending but they also made a movie, a movie with Nazis in it, so now there’s no hope of continuing the series with anything other than what they’ve previously established (unless OVAs come into the picture or another anime is produced ignoring the first one.) If they had just left it open-ended they could have easily continued the anime at a later date with the new manga material. Bones doesn’t seem to be very good at ending series anyway.

The differences between the manga and the anime go beyond simple timeline changes, or story condensing: the very core of the plot is changed, and it’s changed to something really badly written and stupid. And that is what I’m about to rant endlessly about discuss in a calm and (semi)organized manner.

Case One: The Homunculi

I think this is what chafs my ass more than anything: how the homunculi are portrayed in the anime. Despite the manga showing a mysterious phenomenon in which human transmutations create black-haired entities (that don’t survive long, mind you) that don’t resemble the person the alchemist intended to revive (Ed and granny Pinako confirm this by digging up the thing Ed and Al transmuted in a particularly grim scene), this is not how homunculi are made. At least not the homunculi named Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Sloth, Greed, and Wrath, who in the manga were in fact all made by the same person (I’ll be getting to that.)

Emo Beamo

One of the most shameless elements in the anime is the constant emo-crying of the homunculi. Sympathetic villains can be good, and showing a character’s emotions is always important, but this portrayal is so poor that it just comes off as generic, cookie-cutter whining and questions of the self that have been done to death and don’t seem to take into consideration the characters’ individual personalities. Also it’s just annoying.

In the manga the homunculi are monsters, and they’re not ashamed of it. Where they do have interesting turmoils, and at least one (Greed) is rather rebellious, they can’t overcome the intense natures imdued in them. They all seem to have demonic true forms as well, which brings me to…

Envy’s True Form

Envy revealing he’s Hohenheim’s
failed-ressurected son. Argh

Envy’s true form in the anime is… ridiculously anti-climatic. So he’s Hohenheim’s failed-resurrected son from at least 100 years ago who died of mercury poisoning? What? Seriously what the fucking fuck? 

Envy’s actual true form

In the manga we’ve seen Envy’s true form and it’s badass as hell, in fact the most recently domestically (U.S) released volume, volume 13, contains the issues featuring it (and the truth about Alphonse’s body and soul. I highly recommend it, it’s a very intense and particularly awesome part of the comic.) He’s a monsterous, eight-legged beast with anguished, undulating faces all over his body which all speak at the same time in different voices, some at times begging to be killed, crying for their mothers or other loved ones, or just laughing insanely. I lament we’ll probably never get to see this in animated form, because it would be awesome beyond words.

Sloth

In the anime Sloth is the boys’ failed-resurrected mommy who somehow ended up with the homunculi even though the massive pile of screaming organs they created was very obviously dead at the beginning of the anime. But no, organ-pile was somehow able to move and walk, and somehow no one ever bothered to question why and how it went missing, and it just happened to run into Dante who was conveniently taking a stroll around Resembool in the middle of the night for some reason, despite the fact she lives all the way in the South in Dublith. Dante then feeds the thing mini-Philosopher Stone bites into its deformed mouth and it turns into a hot chick (with bigger boobs than their mom ever had. I swear to god.) And this all to play into Ed and Al’s mommy complex in the most ham-handed, asinine way possible. Oh waaaahh they has to kills their mommy agains! HOW SADS! And she has human memories as she dissapears oh wah wah wah sob cry. Urgh. It’s so poorly written and has all the dramatic depth of a soap opera. She also sure moves around a whole fuck alot for someone named SLOTH, and attacks with water for some unknown reason.

Sloth in the manga, we don’t know much about him yet, but he apparently has been digging a giant tunnel to Briggs Cliff, a military base in the Northern mountains, this whole time (the homunculi group need to keep him busy apparently.) True to his name he is very slow, sluggish, somewhat narcoleptic, and constantly says "how tiresome" (at least according to the scanlators’ translations.)

Pride & Wrath

Where Fuhrer (President) King Bradley is indeed a homunculus in the manga, he’s Wrath, not Pride. Anime!Wrath is just another excuse for melodrama, being Izumi’s failed-ressurected baby who was sucked into the Door of Truth (which leads to Germany! So… what?) and now like 8 or 10 years later pops back out as a homunculus. And he has Ed’s arm and leg. For some reason. Somehow (did "Truth" give the limbs to him? I don’t think he, it, whatever even comes into play in the anime really.) And he doesn’t even know he’s a homunculus or acts like one until he eats from Philosopher Stone mini-bites (now in human blood flavor!) and then he just goes around being really annoying and screaming alot, coming to see Sloth as a mother figure for some reason (be expecting me to say that alot.) I always laugh that when they first fight Wrath, and Izumi explains how it’s her son and shit Edward actually yells out  "But that doesn’t make any sense!" I agree, Ed, it so fucking doesn’t. On top of that they turn Izumi into such a whiny wimp about all this, which is completely out of character for her, turning this tough, hardcore bitch into a stereotypical weak woman. Thanks, Bones. Ruin one of my favorite characters why don’t you?

And then at the end of the anime they make King Bradley get all super-pissed even though he’s Pride, not Wrath. *sigh* I’m not going to spoil who Pride is, because he’s been enigmatic and mysterious up until chapters 70 and 71 (as of this article the most recent ones) , and even I didn’t see it coming at all (though I was constantly trying to guess who it was.) It will blow your miiinnndddd. Well maybe not, but he is pretty creepy.

P.S. King Bradley, in the manga, was human once, he was literally injected with the essence of Wrath and that’s how he became an aging homunculus. He was set up to lead the country of Amestris by a vast conspiracy that created and is using the country for some massive alchemic purpose that is yet to be made completely clear. Which leads me to…

The Father

The "Father" is the creator of the homunculi who feature in the story (and are the only known homunculi so far). I don’t wanna tell you much about him, not just because much hasn’t been revealed, but because of his mysterious link to another character. I don’t want to ruin everything….

Anyway, he creates the homunculi using the essence of his own soul. Thus, the idea they’re named after and represent the Seven Deadly Sins makes a whole lot of sense now, doesn’t it? Because of the anime’s clumbsiness their names are relegated to just sounding cool but having no real purpose or representation of anything.

He’s the one who kills the rebellious Greed, by the way, none of this ooohh being near their original bones makes them weeeaaak bullshit used to make Ed feel guilty about killing a monster and being all freaked out that he took life (even though he’s killed people earlier in the anime! Remember that filler about the fucking blue roses and shit? He totally sword’d that guy!) The Father absorbs Greed back into him with some kind of machine (the Father stays on this throne hooked up to tubes and wires and shit most of the time, in some secret underground base guarded by chimera that can only be reached through the slums. Creepy.) There’s a new Greed now, by the way, in fact you’ll see when volume 14 comes out. Also, Lust is dead. She dead. That has nothing to do with the Father though, Mustang kept torching her til she finally died. But that leads me into another thing…

Case Two: The Philosopher’s Stone

Al is The Philophser’s Stone!

Would you like some people soup,
big brother?

Let me see if I can remember this series of events correctly, because I’ve only seen it once and I never, ever, want to watch it again, and it caused me to begin hitting my head against the wall very hard. So.. uhh.. back in Lior… you know the crazy religious town from the beginning of both the anime and manga (the girl Rose lives there? Father Cornello was the crazy priest guy? Sun God Leto cult?) …uh.. things have gone to shit. Rose has a rape baby or something and she can’t talk from trauma but she’s being hailed as some Virgin Mary/Mother Teresa type figure. Ed is helping the people escape cause … someone is gonna use the whole town to make a Philosper’s Stone. They want to lure the military in to kill them all and do this. SCAR might be the one doing this.. for some reason.. or maybe he just wants to kill people. I don’t know. Let me look it up on Wikipedia. …. Yeah goddamnit, Scar of all people, the angry badass Muslim Middle-Eastern sexy hobo Ishbalan man who hates alchemy and alchemists is making a Philospher’s Stone. I don’t remember why and I don’t care to know. Moving on… so, crazy-ass bomb pyro Kimbley (the Crimson Alchemist) is attacking with a bunch of chimera. He tries to turn Al into … a bomb…  and to save him Scar somehow transfers his tattoo onto Al. Then he.. loses his arm.. arms.. both arms. Then anime-only bastard Colonel Archer sends a bunch of troops in. Armless Scar collapses to connect a transumation circle around the town he somehow knew how to make, and dies like a pussy crying about his brother. Oh man (he’s still very alive in the manga, by the way, and still rockin’ hardcore, sexy hobo for all!) And then.. the town.. explodes. Ed goes searching for Al, who he finds, but he can’t touch him because Al has BECOME TEH PHILOSOPHMER’S STONES!!1

Has your brain broken yet?

Anyway, just like in the manga, yes, THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE IS PEOPLE! PEEEEOOPPPLEEEEE! *cough* (That’s two posts now where I’ve imitated Charlton Heston) but none of that above bullshit happens. Ever. Or anything even close to it. Thank god Hiromu Arakawa knows how to write a goddamn story. Anyway, in the manga the core of each homunculus is, in fact, a Philospher’s Stone. Roy Mustang finds this out before he kills Lust, unfortunately the thing disintegrates when she dies for good. How to obtain the true Philosopher’s Stone is still out of the characters’ collective reach.

Case Three: Assorted Changed Scenes/Story Archs/Details

Edward

I’m sorry, but, anime!Edward is such a pussy emo crybaby. Manga!Edward is so much more… feral. Arakawa doesn’t really try to make him super-bishie-cute, he’s often seen making twisted, horrendous and quite hilarious facial expressions, and personality-wise he’s often portrayed as rude, pigheaded, domineering and quite boarish (not to say he doesn’t have good qualities under all that.) Manga!Edward is also a bit more stilted and closed emotionally, but quite realistically so. He also sometimes behaves in a strange, socially inept manner when he does attempt to say something thoughtful. Considering what he’s been through, what his goals are, and what he knows about the world around him he keeps himself quite guarded. Rarely does he break down crying or is he seen visibly moping, and because of the rarity you really feel for him in those times (as opposed to just not giving a damn about how he feels because he does it so often, like in the anime.) He tends to react to most tough situations with critical thought and frothing, energetic determination, or at times dark humor. A downside to this is he rarely gives himself a moment to stop and dwell on his situation, one gets the idea that if he did he might very well crumble.

Short version: Manga!Ed > Anime!Ed

Lab 5

The Lab 5 story arch is pretty epic. You know, Ed and Al sneak into an abandoned laboratory that was part of the military’s evil plotingness where horrible human experiments took place, including making chimera and Philosopher’s Stones (we find out later in issue 59 of the manga that they actually used Ishbalans in their Philosopher’s Stone experiments, great war flashbacks in that one featuring all the main military characters.) This pretty much starts out the same in the manga as it does in the anime, even so far as Edward battling those two killers in a suit of armor, but then it abruptly takes a turn for the retarded. Keep in mind none of this is in the manga:

Tucker as a bear-sloth. What?

First they bring Shou Tucker back as some sort of warped manbeast, and he’s trying to recreate his daughter Nina, you know, the one he turned into a dog chimera in desperation to pass his alchemy evaluation and continue getting big research funds from the military government to live on. Well apparently he’s had some regrets, and is now a bear-sloth with an upsidedown head. This serves very little purpose other than to wave Nina in Edward’s face all over again, with the added bonus that she’s now a furry. What? The trauma of what happened to that little girl haunts Ed in the manga, but it’s never hammered into his face this blatantly in such a lame, nonsensical, half-assed attempt to tug at the audience’s heartstrings.

Then the kicker: They conveniently have a bunch of prisoners in a big glass box, which also happens to be holding puesdo-Philosopher Stone goo, in this long abandoned laboratory, and with all the homunculi in attending they offer to let Ed make a Philosopher’s Stone, eventually getting ahold of Alphonse and threatening to break his blood seal if Ed doesn’t do it. Which omg he has inner turmoil about whether he should or not and omg is he gonna do it? Is he? Of course he’s not, any idiot can see that, it’s hardly dramatic, hardly suspenseful, and the sheer idiocy surrounding the situation (just happening to have all these people and this giant container on hand) is simply staggering. Then Scar stops him and causes some shit to happen. Then the container breaks, and Edward touches the goo and GOES INTO THE AVATAR STATE  BECOMES THE ONE  GOES SUPER SAIYAN …. fuck I don’t know what he does. Lt. Ross and that blonde guy who were serving as the boys’ bodyguards at the time watch on, Lt. Ross comments on how its some big alchemic charge that could turn Ed into a god, then she goes and hugs him to calm him down and this shit never comes up again and wasn’t significant in any way. What a budget waster.

"Fullmetal Heart"

Like in the manga, after the Lab 5 events Al is upset and questioning his existence. Unlike in the manga, this part of the story is dragged out across two fucking episodes in the anime. In the manga the brothers make up, and the issue is resolved a bit quickly, but realistically in a charming scene where Ed, still injured, has wandered to the roof of the hospital after being harshly questioned by Al regarding the nature of his memories as a human. Al, gently prompted by Winry (read: she hit him repeatedly with a wrench before crying and demanding Al go after Ed) cautiously approaches his brother, who abruptly initiates a sparring match. Eventually the two brothers are laying on the roof and begin reminiscing about their childhood, to which Ed asks if all those memories are really fake and Al apologizes and is reassured. Later on, in a more amusing scene, they test Al’s memories by having him and Winry talk about things from their childhood Ed didn’t know about.

But no, this charm is eradicated from the anime and replaced with nauseating melodrama. Al runs off crying, more or less, and no one can find him. He spends alot of time wandering around in the rain and other blatant, dull, uninspired cliches. Then in a really round-about way he ends up at a secret Ishbalan refugee camp, where Scar happens to be, being nursed back to health (although in the manga Scar really does end up in this situation, this part of the anime is just stupid.) Then, the camp is abruptly attacked by some military mercenaries on motorcycles. Scar does some badass stuff here, but this is all generally just a waste of time story-wise. Ed shows up in the heat of the fight and sobbingly asks Al if he blames him for everything that happened (you know, Al being in that body cause Ed convinced him it was a good idea to try and resurrect their mother.) Ed asks this question in the manga, during a serious, genuinely touching scene, not in the middle of a fight with a bike gang. Jesus.

I’ll take this time to mention that the end of the anime suggests that the Alphonse we loved all along was, in fact, fake, seeing as he comes back at the same age when he was taken in the transmutation and has no memories of his adventure at all (which pisses me off cause he narrates the story in the past tense throughout the entire anime.) In the manga Al’s body does still exist, on the other side, and Ed has a theory about how it’s maintained, although a certain duality between Al’s body and soul is suggested. I don’t wanna give away too much, just read up to volume 13/Chapter 53.

Marta/Martel

Martel is the snake chimera chick with the pouty lips. They go to great lengths in the anime to keep her alive longer than they should have probably for purely fanservice reasons. She dies in the exact same way in both the anime and manga, but the location and her involvement in the plot is dramatically different.

In the manga she dies in the sewers when Alphonse is trying to keep her hidden inside his armor body while King Bradley kills the other chimera (who were minions of Greed, whom Bradley was apprehending.) Bradley callously stabs her through a gap in Al’s armor, killing her. This happens in the anime as well, except before her death she’s first spirited away from the massacre in the sewers and then spends some time hanging out inside Al as he carries her around the military headquarters. There is no goddamn way he’d be able to sneak in a person inside himself into a secure military building like that! Especially with all the "whacky" and cliche scenes where she accidentally makes noise or shouts in anger. And he would definitely, you know, be held responsible in any rational world had he snuck in any civilian, nevermind a chimera that was being hunted by the military in the first place. They do, however, use this stupid addition to the plot and the elongating of her role to reveal to the characters that Bradley is a homunculus. She gasps this, of course, right before Bradley looms up to Al and stabs her through the armor. In the manga this factoid is revealed much later in the story by Ling (I’ll get to him later) to the other characters for the first time, however the audience by that point has already known for a long while.

Barry the Chopper

In the anime they throw in a filler episode early on featuring Barry the Chopper. I have to admit, the episode itself isn’t that bad. In fact, it has alot of good points. But after reading the manga it became a very "I see what you did there" situation. It also made the timeline of Lab 5 very awkward to have had the brothers fight this guy just like 2 years before, considering he was put in his armor body when the lab was in actual operation. You see, the boys never met Barry previously to Lab 5 in the manga, so it’s funnier in that scene where he tries to scare Alphonse with who he is and Al just stares at him cluelessly.

But actually my bigger grief is how early they kill off Barry in the anime. It sucks! He gets killed in the biker gang fight, I think, mentioned earlier during Ed and Al’s drawn-out drama. See in the manga he ends up running amuck, but is used by Roy’s little crew for the information he has, this is because he falls in love (humorously) with Liza Hawkeye after he tries to chop her up and she unflinchingly shoots him in the head. From that point on he does whatever she tells him, constantly gushing over her. Well he is destroyed eventually but… hell read the manga, already!

Dogs Love Hohenheim

This is very minor, but it still made me pull at my hair in frustration. When Hohenheim (Ed and Al’s father) first appears in the anime, he’s sitting there peacefully petting the Rockbells’ dog. In the manga when he first arrives and shows up at granny Pinako’s house, even though he looks kinda dumb and harmless, the dog begins snarling ferociously at him and he mentions animals never did like him much. Just that little detail makes you wonder about Hohenheim’s true nature. Hell I’m still wondering. Need moar manga! 

 Case Four: The Anime Ending

People have tried to defend the ending from my wrath before, but all they can say is "it’s good!" or "it’s not bad!" or "it makes PERFECT sense!" but they never can give me a very good reason, or any reason at all, as to why. From a bit before the point where Scar decides to make a Philosopher’s Stone (and Al becomes the Philospher’s Stone), it feels like the animators went: "Holy shit, we only have 10 episodes left, we need to figure out how to end this" and threw in whatever ideas came to mind while they were reading lolicon doujins and injecting heroin straight into their eyeballs.

Look, I know how people get sometimes: You liked something, you were really into it, it made you feel and you enjoyed it, but it ended horribly. You delve into denial, groping desperately for any reason you can think of for why it wasn’t so bad when deep down you know it stunk out fucking loud. Matrix triology fans, I’m looking at you. Anyway, here’s my big rant about the ending that people waiting in line for movies with me, sitting in my basement, or visiting my table at anime cons have been (at times unwillingly) treated to:

Okay so first Dante uses Rose’s rape baby to open the Doors of Truth (because Bones seems to think recycling characters from earlier and jamming them awkwardly into the present storyline makes their plot look well-rounded), if it was that easy you’d think alot more people would have done it. She and Hohenheim are like hundreds of years old and have continually changed bodies to stay alive (Or at least she has. lol Galaxy Express 999), where Hohenheim probably is hundreds of years old and immortal in the manga, this isn’t the reason. And so.. Ed goes through the doors.. and.. ends up in Britain during World War 1, where a Bizarro Hohenheim explains to him alchemy in Ed’s world is produced by drawing from the souls of people from that/our reality. Great. Fucking great. Here I thought it was natural elements and electromagnetic energy and shit. No. Alchemy itself is also MADE OF PEEEEOOPPLEEEE! So then Ed.. like.. dies in Britain, cause there’s war planes and shit and a zeppelin crashed down onto him. So Ed comes back to his own world by forcing the Doors of Truth open again and is all emo that his bizarro self he posessed in Britain is dead, and that alchemy is MADE OF PEEEEOOPPLEEEE! Does this sound like it makes perfect sense so far? No, I didn’t think so.

So they got Al strapped down in a transmutation circle, cause he’s the Philopsher’s Stone, remember!? Argghh! Anyway, Ed fights Envy sans alchemy cause he doesn’t want to accidently use Al, I guess. Envy reveals his lame as fuck "true form" that I mentioned earlier and then accordingly stabs Ed while he’s dumbstruck and trying to figure out how this possibly makes any goddamn sense.

Did he really have to strip for this?

Then we go into a melodramatic seesaw of Al saving Ed and Ed saving Al. It started with Ed going through the doors, just when you thought one was OH NOES GONE FOREVERS they come back. This sort of shameless, hackneyed attempt at making the audience care or worry is sickening and made me stop giving a damn about the characters completely. So anyway, Ed dies from the stabbing, Alphonse is all "big brother nooooo!" and uses his philosopher’s stone self to get up and revive Ed. Not only is Ed revived, but he has his limbs back (cause Al somehow thought to do this in an emotionally charged time of crisis.) But of course now Alphonse has OH NOES DISSPEARED FOREVER. Ed proclaims he won’t let him dissapear. So he strips (well his shirt anyway) and somehow, sans Philosopher’s Stone (which he needed the whole damn story in order to do this. That was the goal, Bones, you assholes), and we don’t even see it, brings Al back. For being the sole mission in Ed’s life, the thing the whole story is supposed to build to, the climax is painfully brief and wholly unsatisfying. Now Al’s back, with no memories, and now Ed’s GONE FOREVER. Or wait. He’s in Britain. Or Germany. Or Transylvania. Who the fuck knows. Or cares, for that matter? I totally stopped giving a damn by this point. Ed’s limbs are gone again and he has metal ones, but they’re not as sophisticated as automail (like anyone in that time period would make metal prosthetics, he’d have a wooden peg at best!) And that’s it. That’s how it ends. And if you try to tell me that’s anything resembling "good" I’m going to smack you in the mouth!

Also Mustang gets an eyepatch. It doesn’t suit him at fucking all.

Case Five: Stuff in the Anime That Just Sucks

Robo Archer: I actually laughed when I saw this. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Anime-only Colonel Archer gets turned into some early 20th century answer to the Terminator, and he looks fucking retarded. It was even harder to take the ending events seriously with this shit interspliced. I couldn’t help but laugh at Hawkeye’s terrified reaction to him as well. I mean, come on, Liza, look at him. He can’t even move that quickly.

Dante: Fuck you. Fuck you in your old, poorly designed ass, Dante. Dante too is anime only. Apparently the robust cast of characters that already existed weren’t enough. Yeah that’s right, the entire ending is based around a main villain the animation team just made up. And she posesses the body of Lyra, another anime-only character whose design is so out of place and who really really really didn’t need to be in the episode with the Youswell Mines. Or anywhere else in the anime for that matter. Fuck Lyra too.

Melodrama: So much melodrama in the anime. Humor is often sucked right out of scenes that worked so well in the manga. The manga really knows how to balance its humor and drama, the anime does not. Most instances of Izumi coughing up blood in the manga, for example, are on a more humorous note, and it generally happens when she’s in the middle of yelling at/scolding someone or otherwise exerts herself. There’s also a scene at Rush Valley in which Ed wins an automail arm wrestling challenge by cheating with alchemy (because the people running the thing had also been cheating), in the manga Winry’s reaction to this is funny and light-hearted but in the anime she literally mopingly trudges off into the sunset to sad music over it, I shit you not. Which leads me to…

Paninya.. Pananya.. Bunny..: Whatever her name is. For lack of better description: you know, the black chick at Rush Valley with automail legs in the stylish black tank top and camo pants. She steals Ed’s State Alchemist pocket watch, which is used primarily for identification and as a talismen for enhancing alchemy. However in the anime it’s all some scheme cooked up by Winry to teach Ed a roundabout lesson about cheating at arm wrestling, rather than a genuine pickpocketing. Ed’s pursuit of Paninya is also pretty lame and boring and not nearly as hilarious in the anime. Which is a shame, because Paninya is by far my favorite minor character.

The scene where the wife of the son of Dominic, the man Paninya keeps trying to pay back for her automail legs and who won’t accept it, has to give birth at home because a raging storm outside is too much to bring her to town to the doctor, is hijacked in the anime by Maes Hughes’ wife Glacia instead. Which is sad, because the panel of Paninya crumpled on the floor freaked out by the sight of blood is also very funny.

Songs: The opening themesongs and accompanying animations are always so good. Why is this under the "things that suck about the anime" heading? Because they get you all pumped up and ready for quality programming and then it just is a bunch of whining and crying and plotholes and outright suck. Even Adult Swim’s commercial for the final episodes managed to make them look kinda cool. Fuck!

Case Six: Awesome Stuff in the Manga Only

Ling Yao: I don’t think there is a single person who has read the manga who doesn’t like Ling and doesn’t lament his exclusion from the anime. Ling is a character from the country of Xing (read: China. lol) across a desert to the East of Amestris. He’s a prince, the 12th son of the Emperor of Xing. He’s trying to find the Philospher’s Stone as well, looking for the secret of immortality (or at least something that looks like immortality long enough to gain the favor of the aging, sickly Emperor, wishing to become Emperor himself.) Generally he’s a pretty funny character, but when he gets serious he can be very intense. He is awesome and you will bow down to Ling.

Mei Chan: An adorable little Xingian girl who features often in the manga. Currently she’s partied with Scar, oblivious to his past, scarey looks and murderous agenda (although he hasn’t killed any alchemists recently.) She’s also searching for the secret of immortality to gain favor from the Emperor, as her clan is the one with the least power and lowest standing in Xing. She’s a very accomplished Alchemist and uses a foreign form. She hears about Edward, constantly picturing him as a tall, handsome, prince-like gentlemen (it’s very funny, trust me) but when they first meet, she’s defending Scar from him, has no idea who Ed is and thinks he’s a horrible little monster. Much later, after a conversation with Alphonse, she starts picturing Al in his real body in an equally Prince-like manner and now has a giant crush on him. She too, is awesome.

Major General Olivia Milla Armstrong: Introduced in recent chapters, Major Armstrong’s terrifying, hot, super awesome, frightening, totally hot, older sister. Did I mention she’s hot? She’s in charge of Briggs Cliff, an army base in the North up in the snow-covered mountains that protects the border between Drachma and Amestris. She’s a stone cold bitch who makes her own rules in her isolated ice kingdom and commands the respect and unwavering loyalty of every last soldier there. She’s intelligent, somewhat manipulative, totally hot, and will fuck. you. up. Ten gazillion awesome points for Major General Armstrong.

Lt. Ross’ Framing: Some may recall that in the anime, Envy takes Ross’ form to shoot Hughes. Well in the manga this continues, it was the homunculi’s intention to frame her all along, and she is arrested and thrown in jail and finds out she’s supposed to be executed without even going to trial (the newspapers already proclaiming she’s been found guilty.) I don’t want to give away too much of this part of the story, just trust me that it is awesome and will at first make you hate Roy Mustang and think he’s crazy, and then think he’s totally awesome again.

And by now, I’ve completely run out of steam. I know I didn’t cover anything, but these are the things that make me twitch and writhe the most. I think I’ve made a pretty good case for why the FMA manga should be embraced and the anime should be BURNED.

With that in mind…

Read the manga.

READ THE MANGA.

READ THE MANGA.

Buy that shit, too. It’s sweet in paperback book form. Provided, of course, you get a copy where Viz hasn’t fucked up the text balloons, left words out, and made characters call each other by their own names. Also each volume is stock full of omakes written by Arakawa at the end, and they’re all weird and hilarious.

And that… is the end. And quite possibly the geekiest thing I’ve ever written. I’m including the Supah Funtime Anime Rant in that statement (I really need to retool that one and post it here.)