Comments on: Fullmetal Alchemist: Manga Versus Anime

By: Tristan

Tristan — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:46:09 +0000

I agree. I left off at the 8th manga and went to the anime. I was wondering why the fake sloth and wrath hadnt showed up in the anime! Know I understand, and realize the anime is crap.(I do like how homunculi are created tho(Wrath and sloth are ok too(Ps have you heard about this pride in the manga?There is one its wraths sun)))

By: Freddy Padilla

Freddy Padilla — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:23:53 +0000

I have never read the manga and i loved the anime. After reading your rant I’m going to go pick up the manga and see what you’re talking about. I also recently heard that they are doing another FMA series that is more based on the manga than the original series is. We’ll see how that turns out.

By: MangaPunkSai

MangaPunkSai — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:13:57 +0000

Eh, when I do “rants” I always pretend to be angrier than I am, I think that makes it more amusing, but maybe everyone doesn’t see it that way. If I took this seriously I might have actually made an effort to go back and watch the episodes of which my memory is patchy, lol.

I also love discussing things, anything, it’s like an addiction. D:

By: Kitten

Kitten — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:09:41 +0000

I love the anime and the manga. The manga is much better then the anime, I agree, but the anime is pretty epic in it’s own way too.

A lot of your rant made me giggle, and a lot of it was pretty right on. But reguardless, I still think the anime is great. And I’m just going to say the ending is good, because I don’t feel the need to unsuccesfully shove my opinions at your biased self. I could spend a long time arguing with your rant and what I disagree on, but in the end, who cares. Not you, and not me.

But really… good rant, kinda funny, but you’re obviously taking the whole situation, and yourself, waaaay to fucking seriously.

FMA. SERIOUS BUSINESS.

By: MangaPunkSai

MangaPunkSai — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:37:44 +0000

XD You do well to question my memory of anime, seeing as I only saw most episodes once and was foaming at the mouth for the last 15 or so.

-Dogs: Well, even in the anime Hohenheim wasn’t a normal human being, I think a dog would still have reacted poorly to him. Besides that whole detail is a subtle way to communicate to the audience that there’s something wrong about him without even using words.

-Philostone: Weeell.. when I wrote this that part of the story hadn’t been revealed yet XD; It did make me cringe a little but its at least less hamfisted than what happened in the anime.

-Pride/Wrath: I don’t know about that really. Envy never strikes me as particularly “wrathful”, he’s usually calm or even sometimes humorous in battle. In fact he doesn’t even LIKE bothering with fights. Well, so he claims.

-Ending: No. Noooo. That alchemy is powered by the souls or whatamajig of people in an ALTERNATE DIMENSION is just… retarded! There’s no other word for it. The equal exchange is that the materials you transmute must be equal to the thing you’re creating, nothing is being used up besides the materials themselves and they’re really just turning into something different. The Philosopher’s Stone grants one the ability to break this rule by using people’s SOULS. Which is what’s horrendous about it. And if you’re using souls to begin with.. every time well.. that just stops being horrendous and then what’s so special or different about the Philosopher’s Stone anyway?

Well the manga has no real explanation as of yet, but there’s also the Xing version that it comes from the chi of the Earth. Which seeing as the Earth is surrounded by electromagneticity that could work fine.

By: MangaPunkSai

MangaPunkSai — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:27:58 +0000

Americans weren’t the first to wipe out indigenous people, enslave Africans, fight with Middle Easterners etc. Americans came from Europe, and Europe was definitely doing it all first.

I mean the naming could be a relation, but the culture and atmosphere just oozes Great Britain and Europe, or maybe coupled with the naming it’s a comment on European expansionism in general.

:B Or maybe we’re reading way way too far into this. But there’s definitely a strong underlying theme about racism in war and how many conflicts are sparked through stark culture clashes.

By: MangaPunkSai

MangaPunkSai — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:23:57 +0000

Huh. Maybe my brain was just imploding too much at that point to notice XD

But yeah that’s painful. Why have that sort of drama when you could have NAZIS!

By: Jesus

Jesus — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:16:41 +0000

It actually was brought up a couple of times. o.O And something that pissed me off about BONES, (just one thing, there are several I could list,) is that in the original script for the movie, they were going to have Winry accidentally meet Mustang at Hughes’ grave, and end up forgiving him… They decided to cut that out to save time. D: God only knows what other stuff they didn’t mention that they decided to cut out for time!

By: Jesus

Jesus — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:53:39 +0000

It probably was her intention. Arakawa does LOADS of research into history and whatnot to develop her story well, and with deep significance and symbolism. So you might very well be right! It makes more sense than my minitheory about Amestris = America, Ishbalans = Either black people, or possibly Indians, or maybe some other historically significant race. I’m a bit of a history dunce, so don’t mind me. Though I still hold fairly tight to my Amestris=America theory… It ties in pretty well. The fact we’re constantly at war, our military is corrupt (though definitely not as bad as some countries,) the fact that both Amestris and America are English-speaking countries… the list kinda goes on.

By: Jesus

Jesus — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:46:36 +0000

First off, I love both the anime and the manga dearly, but I lean more toward the manga. I agreed with a good amount of your argument, BUT, I didn’t like a few parts of your argument, or I found a problem with your logic or memory of the story… so I’m gunna point it out, so I hope you don’t mind. xD

About your “Dogs love Hohenheim” bit, you need to take a small step back and not confuse your storylines. In the manga, Hohenheim is basically the PhiloStone, he has numerous souls inside of him which the dog can detect. In the anime, he has just used the Stone. Therefore, dogs should be okay with Hohenheim in the anime.

Also, What I don’t understand is that you were flipping out about Al turning into the PhiloStone When in the manga, Hohenheim is the PhiloStone. If you call the anime silly over that point, it’s really only fair if you also point it out about the manga. Also, it means that bit about Arakawa never doing anything close to that, is false. xD “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. ”

Now, about your Pride & Wrath argument; You can pretty much say that in the end, all of the homunculi are wrathful, (ESPECIALLY Envy) in both the manga and the anime, (with the exception of manga!Sloth who is too dumb to care, and maaaaaaybe Gluttony if you want to get technical).

One thing I have to say about the ending that I did like, that you seemed to mock, was the fact that Alchemy itself was “Made of PEEEOPLLLLLEEE!!” Doesn’t it make a lot more sense that it would be? The Philosopher’s Stone is made of people’s souls, and it grants you the ability to “Create without equal exchange” (except not completely, because it erodes) So, it’s basically almost like a Gift card, or a Debit card. Yuh put the souls in, and you use them later. I kinda like the idea the anime has with this as opposed to the manga’s explanation, which is that the power for alchemy comes from tectonic plate movements. That sounded a bit ridiculous to me…

Again, I love both the anime and the manga, though prefer the manga. I just feel that a fair argument should be in place, and not a bashing… even if I did enjoy reading it. xD