Reasons why the First Fullmetal Alchemist Anime Sucked!

My first big Blog, ready for a rant of a lifetime?

Fullmetal Alchemist is my favorite series in anime and manga.  But when it was first given an anime it well... it went terribly.  While the Dub and Animation was great the rest of the anime sucked big time.  There are many reasons why it failed that might be too much to count.  So instead of just overviews of each episode, this will be looking at certain details of the first anime and why they just didn't work.  Also these will be points that are in the anime itself, so no notes on things like the Tringham brothers since that plot was from the FMA light novel and was not from the manga or the anime creators.  After all for it to stand on its own one must look that the changes they went with.  WARNING: There will be spoilers.

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THE DIRECTION

Kind of cheating for this being the first one but it is to sum up how the flaws of the first anime came to be.  The manga started in 2001 and ended in 2010, so at the time the first anime came out the original series was still ongoing.  The mangaka herself, Hiromu Arakawa, wanted the first series to be different so as to not end the way her manga does as she wanted the true end to come for when the manga ended.  An okay reason to make it different, but the direction it went in was horrible and left so many plot holes and then gave the middle finger to the people twice, once for the anime ending and second for the movie... but I'll get into the movie later.  If they wanted to make their own thing fine but the path they went in was the wrong one and the things that will be listed below are the result of it.

THE STATE ALCHEMY EXAM

One of the first things I take note of is the State Alchemy Exam.  For the brothers to take it they had to save a general on a train to get permission to take the exam.  Worthless as the State wouldn't mind as long as they had the talent for it, and if the government really felt that they are not of age then the test would have shown it.  Plus you have Bradley running it and wants them in so why have that when he would fix it for them to enter anyways?  In the first anime both Ed and Al take it, dumb considering this should have been something they would have discussed before taking it, and of course Al drops out.  The biggest problem I have with the exam would be the "only one can be a state alchemist" rule.  I understand them wanting the best of the best but since alchemists are the core fighting force of the military wouldn't make more sense to take ALL who have passed to be their alchemists than just the one?

THE START OF LOOKING FOR THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

The Elric brothers try to think of a way to get their bodies back, after learning of the power of the philosopher's stones Ed joins the military to find clues to get the item of myth.  That is simple and doesn't make any confusing points.  But the first anime had King Bradley tell the brothers about the stone and the power it had.  I ask, why?  I know the bad guys want them to make a stone but I'll explain later as to why that is stupid.  And considering how the stone is a legend among alchemists it is a strange detail that Bradley has to give Ed a motivational speech to go look for it.

SHOU TUCKER

Tucker was a one note character for his part in the story.  But for some reason they brought him back as a chimera with an upside down face... wait Tucker, upside down face, damn it's a Family Guy reference isn't it.  In his brief time in the story he was the first to show Ed and Al the kind of world they are in when it comes to alchemy and the military.  He placed his title higher than anything else in his life, even using his own daughter, Nina, in an experiment so he can keep being a State Alchemist.  When he returns at Lab 5 it is rather pointless as he doesn't give Ed any real information that he couldn't get himself or from the Slicer brothers.  But what does he do this work for?  He is doing it so he can bring back his daughter.  This is stupid because by this point he does not deserve any pity from anyone.  After the stuff he is done there really is no point for him being tragic in any way.

WINRY

Why was Winry pushed to the side?  That's what this anime did to her.  She is the person who is always there waiting for the Elric brothers to come home and worries about them, but here they really screwed her over.  One of the major events of the story is the birth of a child that Winry delivers with the help of the other people in the room.  It showed that she can do more than just automail.  In the first anime the birth was given to Elicia Hughes and Winry is nowhere to be found, how Ed, Al, and Nina got the job done is confusing to me and missed out on some great moments if she was there.  Then there is the watch, Winry finds out what is in Ed's State Alchemist watch and they completely ignore it.  Sure she cries for a bit but afterward it means nothing, but in the original story Winry found this out at Rush Valley and decided to stay so she can make better automail for Ed and that she can't just sit there and wait.  Again it ignores that and pushes her away to the point here she almost doesn't mean anything, sure she is a childhood friend, but I felt that the first anime didn't really go anywhere with it.  And there is her parents that I'll get to, her reaction to it in the original story is heart warming and sad, while this anime is like... meh.  The first anime doesn't do much with her and in any telling in FMA that shouldn't be the case.

DEATH OF MAES HUGHES

Yeah he sadly dies in the real story and this anime but the reasons for killing him off are so far stupid.  When he is looking through records he discovers that a name has been used a few times, a dead soldier, the name of the person who shot the child that started the Ishbal Civil war, and the name of Bradley's secretary.  Now Hughes thinks something is wrong right off the bat, but at no point does he think of the possibility that there are in fact some people in the military that DO have the same name?  Odd as it can be the military is one of the biggest organisations in the country, the fact that some might in fact have the same name is indeed possible.  Now for the original story Hughes discovers the transmutation circle around the country and knows for a fact that this can't be a coincidence, while the other reason... it can be labeled that way and can be easy to fake.  When Hughes made that discovery it remained a mystery till it's reveal and it was a pretty big one and showed that one of the most loved characters died before letting anyone know of this evil plot.  They sadly screwed up here with having him killed off for something that is weak and can be worked so as the name thing really is a coincidence.

THE ISHBAL CIVIL WAR

The start of it anyways.  The idea for the civil war was brilliant.  A child dying by the hands of a soldier, not the most greatest of events but illustrates how something of a small event leads to war and how humans can go to war over an event like that.  In any telling of FMA you don't need anything else because it is simple and nothing can top it, it's not something you needed to change.  But in the first anime they had to change it anyways.  The "truth" of that matter is the child being shot was a lie and the real start of the war was some black ops mission to kill some Ishbalian leaders in the dead of night.  Now I got to ask, how do you cover a kill leaders mission with shot a child by mistake?  For the real story the child being shot by mistake was only false in the sense that Envy became a soldier who was against the military at Ishbal that shot the child to start the work.  It really killed off the kind of impact that the civil war had in the first anime.

SCAR AND HIS BROTHER

The two are left unnamed by the time the series is done but in the story their relationship as brothers was perfect.  Scar was a more traditional Ishbalian and his brother studied alchemy against his own religious codes to help advance his people in this day and age.  So how do you screw that kind of thing up?  Love Triangle!  They are both in love with an Ishbalain woman who down the line "becomes" Lust.  Yeah the brother who studied alchemy to save his people is now doing it to bring back his dead girlfriend.  And it is revealed that Scar had feelings for her too.  Was this ever needed and did it do good for the plot?  The answer to both is, NO!

DEATH OF WINRY'S PARENTS

Mustang killed Winry's parents.  Now that alone should show how moronic that twist was.  Why did they have to use Mustang, they could have had Kimblee do it, heck in the manga Kimblee was informed about Mr. and Mrs. Rockbell with the idea of having him be the one to kill them.  And to add to that it would have been that some Ishbalains killed them to be a cover-up story.  Now it was Scar that ended up doing the deed and it worked out for the military in some ways since there didn't need to be a cover-up story.  I bring up a cover-up story since Mustang not only did it but people KNEW about it.  I can't understand why they don't use it for a cover-up story to push their war plans on Ishbal.  When Winry discovered that it was Scar that killed her parents she was crying about it as she was face to face with him, and the fact Scar was one of their patients as well.  She even grabbed a gun since she was that broken up about it.  That was meaningful and the kind of stress people go through when confronted with something like that.  In the anime while she isn't happy that it was Roy she doesn't seem to break down like a normal person would.  This also screws up Roy as apparently killing them was what sparked Mustang into be the leader of the country, while his character aimed for the top without something like that hanging over his head.

ROSE

I'm going to say it, the first anime RAPES the FMA series.  Think I have no right to say it, well just keep reading then tell me if I went too far.  So Rose appears first thing as a follower believing her dead boyfriend will come back to life, the Elric bothers come along and show her, and the town the truth and leaves them to continue to walk on their own feet.  In the manga she appears again but is the same as she was then, a supporting character.  The people who worked on the anime for some reason thought it would work to make her a main character by making her the love interest... though it was meant to be Winry.  So how do they pull this off?  Well after the first arc battles start in town and Rose gets raped.  That's right... she gets raped.... do I even have to go in detail of how sick and wrong it is?  Sure it happens and it can be done well in a story but here it is used as a tool to get Rose into a love interest role with Ed, oh and she gets pregnant from the rape. Classy... And after that unsettling plot device, Rose gives birth becomes a holy mother of her own cult.  This completely contradicts the whole move forward on your own that Ed told her.  To force her into the love interest role even more she is kidnapped by Dante and is planned to use to attract Ed over to Dante's side.  It's because of the first anime that people show hate towards Rose, and the anime never shown kindness to Rose.  Heck even the far better Brotherhood they had her point a gun at Ed, why don't they like her?

HOHENHEIM

In the original story Hohenheim had a reason to leave home.  While Ed hated him for it thinking he just walked out on them, fact was that it wasn't the reality of what happened creating a reasonable misunderstanding between them.  Here?  He just walks out on them.  For anyone who says that it was because he was rotting I call bull.  In the original story Trisha was alright with who Hohenheim was, and knew why he had to leave.  I doubt that Trisha wouldn't have been alright with his problem in this anime.  When he tells Ed of his reason on leaving it really did sound like an excuse rather than a reason he had to but didn't want to.  Also before Trisha he had another wife, Dante.  Stuff like this makes me hate the man, even more when talks to Maria Ross like being a playboy to her.  Yeah he really left because it was too much for his "family" to see him rot.  For the rotting thing turns out Hohenheim has lived a long time by taking other people's bodies.  This isn't against his own will or anything, for this he MUST have taken the bodies of others to live.  So he was evil? How long did he work with Dante?  Why did he leave her?  We never know.  Also he had a kid with Dante that he tried to bring back that resulted in Envy and... well I'll get that bag of worms soon enough.  Another thing, there are too many people who have done human transmutations.  Before it was just the Elric brothers and their teacher, but now Scar's brother and Hohenheim are added to the list.  When Hohenheim did open the gate it was against is own will and it was to create the stone, not bringing anyone back to life.

NO ROY VS ENVY

One of the major points of the FMA story was the death of Hughes that drove Roy to find the one who killed him, namely Envy.  In the original story Roy had his conflict with Envy and it ended on a moving note.  In the first anime, while Envy killed Hughes but Roy didn't seem to give a damn.  I know the first anime was meant to be different but with Envy killing Hughes there HAS to be a time were Roy fights Envy with the battle being different than the original one.

THE HOMUNCULI

The story behind them in the first anime is that they are created from fail transmutation.  Odd considering that would mean that it was successful and not a failure.  But the problem comes that if they were revived humans than who were they and why THEY were revived?  Only some are explained but it doesn't work as you would need to tell the tale for all of them.  Greed, Gluttony, and "Pride" are the only ones to not have a story behind them. Plus in this story it makes no sense to give them names of the Seven Deadly Sins.  In the original story they were parts of Father that came from the every sin in which they were named.  Here though, it's only because of the villain is called Dante.  As Film Brain would put it, "SYMBOLISM!"  Admittedly the idea is interesting but the execution of the homunculi here is dull and lame.  Oh in the manga a homunculus can die if one kills them enough, and the weakness of the homunculi in the first anime... the remains of the person that the alchemist tried to bring back.  A very lame weakness.  But that is the homunculi in general as some have problems of their own.

KING BRADLEY

Head of the government and one of the toughest of the homunculi, but even he gets downgraded in the first anime.  First thing, he is Wrath, not Pride.  This was a confusing thing with having to call him Pride when he already had the name Wrath to him.  He worked as Wrath.  While appearing calm and collective, he is ready to unleash all of his rage on anyone who makes him mad.  Heck at Hughe's funeral his hands are shaking in rage at want to cut up the crying Elicia.  As Pride though, there is not point to it.  Also Bradley has an important back story in the original story, he was human at first but was used to create a new Homunculus that was able to age and lead the country the way Father wanted.  For the first anime, it is never explained how he ages, how he was created, or even what his purpose was. 

LUST

While her character may not show her identity as well as the other homunculi she does have a way with seducing people as shown with Havoc when she tries to get information from him.  The first anime however, changes her from a badass woman who is proud of who she is to a whiny jerk who wants to be human.  Also to be included in her character is like noted before is that she has a connection to Scar.  I can't help but wonder why do this when it isn't a good idea to begin with?

WRATH

I already talked about the real Wrath, but this is the first anime one.  And he's.... a whiny kid.  You know Pride is a child but he wasn't like this, while wanting a real family he was loyal to Father and was a real frighting villain.  Wrath though seems to have mommy issues and isn't at all intimating.  And thinks of Sloth as his mother I guess... I really don't know why.  He also had Ed's arm and leg, confused?  Well since this is human transmutations he was born when Izumi tried to bring back her child and sending the thing that came to be through the gate.  Made more sense before as it just died... don't know why that happened.  So it grew... somehow, and somehow came through the gate... again makes no sense.  And after all that was said and done he lived in the end, until the movie that he died.  I can't follow that at all.

SLOTH

So the thing Ed and Al created was alive and is their enemy.  Interesting but a problem, how the heck did they not notice it was gone!  The real story had Pinako burying the thing in the back yard, yet at no point do I recall them wondering where it was.  And Dante was right outside of their house when it happened, HOW did she know!?  So plot holes as far as the eye can see.  Then there are the problems with her powers.  She can become ALL water, now equivalent exchange means that shouldn't be possible.  Take Greed for example, he had the power to change the carbon in his body into a powerful armor that covered his body and not change his full body to a carbon stone.  Humans are made of 75% water, so she shouldn't be able to become 100% water.  Then comes the name, again it is all the Dante's Inferno symbolism of it all so how did she get the name... by taking a bit more time to be ready like the other homunculi.

ENVY

So yeah the child of Dante and Hohenheim, and the first of the homunculi.  I'm still lost as to why Hohenheim left them (my theory is that he is just a bastard), but his causes Envy to feel.... well envy at the Elric brothers for "having his blood in their veins", thought that can't be true in the fact that it isn't really his body... and I'll be quiet about that.  Envy was really envious of humans and took out that anger he had about it by making them suffer going so far to shoot the child that caused the civil war and taking pleasure from that.  While in the manga Envy worked since he was envious as his nature and how Mustang referred that envy is an ugly sin which all his actions are meaningful.  The first anime however... if you had not guessed already Envy's problems are well, daddy issues, you know like Wrath and his mommy ones it was just as stupid there as it was here.

DANTE

And the award for worst anime villain of all time goes to... DANTE!  Dante, Dante, Dante... this woman has so many things wrong about her that it is unholy.  Most of the topic will be focused on her because she is that big of a flaw.  First of all her plans just stink and a failure of how it gets the story moving.  In the manga Father makes a whole country to create a big transmutation circle so he could make an all powerful philosopher's stone and gain the powers of god.  The way he does this requires many people, a long time, and a lot of work.  Dante just wants the stone to live longer and get other people to make despite the fact that she can use alchemy herself to make it herself, yeah it is just head scratching.  Dante keeps the Elric brothers alive to do this, though again she has more knowledge than them on the subject, plus even if you look beyond that bit of stupidity then why kill Marcoh?  Not only does it not make sense for them to do what you can do, but you go so far to contradict yourself shows us how much of a moron you are.  And the stupid of Dante goes even farther than just that, with Greed who rebelled against her, she imprisoned him in Lab 5... though she had what she needed to kill him off herself, she even used Greed's weakness so that Ed can kill him, why not do that yourself a LONG time ago?  So for her to live longer like Hohenheim is to use the stone to take someone else's body, a strange thing since she was Izumi's teacher, so way not take her body?  Then comes the problem with taking over another body, like I noted before the new body rots away, going faster every time she transfers to a new body.  How does she plan to avoid the death that is coming towards her though she doesn't want to die? NEVER EXPLAINED!  Also why does she need control of the government?  Again in the original story, Father created the country itself along with the government to create the stone, and had battles fought in order to make the circle.  Dante though doesn't take that route, and in fact the wars that break out in the first anime is more or less pointless now as here they have no meaning as they did in the manga, so she had war for no reason whatsoever.  It really stinks in the end that all she aimed for was a stone made out of a city when Father aimed for SO much bigger.  By the end like above she takes Rose to be her next body to be in love with Ed to get back at Hohenheim.  One why not Winry, she's the childhood friend who has a much closer tie to Edward than Rose.  Two trying to hook up with your Ex's son... there is no creeped out face in the world that can match how gross that is.  Finally how does the worst villain die out, well in the lamest written way that's how!  She made Gluttony into a completely mindless eating machine but somehow had no control over him so Gluttony ate her in the end. A pathetic end to a pathetic villain.

AL'S BODY

One of the great things about Fullmetal Alchemist is it's explanations of the plot, people, and alchemy.  As the Elric brothers try to find a way to get their bodies back to normal it dawns on Al as to what is happening to his body, and it is explain what is happening to it.  Again the first anime fails to give us anything that explains what happened to Al's body.  Sure it was taken, but where to, who had it?  I give this anime a little credit with it's excuse of what happened to Ed's arm and leg.

THE GATE

In the series it was the door way to the Truth, or to God in some ways.  Here however, Truth isn't there and the gate doesn't work like it should.  It is a doorway to "our" world, *face palm* of all the badly written plot details.  And it goes on to state that the powers of alchemy come from the lives of the people in that other world.  Now the problems with that, one that just makes the philosopher's stone pointless.  Think about it, if the power you use already is the equal to the power you are looking for than why look for it?  The stone was meant to to increase the powers of alchemy, because it used a different power from what alchemist tend to use.  Second point is that how does no one know where the power of alchemy comes from?  In dept to the story alchemy comes from the power of the moving plates of the planet, but it's not all true since Father uses the stone to control the alchemy of the land.  But there it worked because Father had control of all the knowledge of alchemy in the country.  In the first anime, well Dante didn't use any such control for anything.  So how does no one know?  Like so many things, never explained!  Heck anything else could have been passed the gate and it would make as much sense as the first one.  Look even I can do it, what is beyond the gate? KINGDOM HEARTS!  Strange, confusing, devoid of logic you say?  Well it's just as good as what the first anime gave us.

THE ENDING

And the end, where everything wrong comes together and gives us all the middle finger.  There's the reveal of Dante's plans that I already explained, what Envy is that I also explained, and the truth of the gate from the last problem.  How does one add on the mountain of stupid we already have.  Al uses the stone to get his brother back and only his brother making Al a dumbass. A point of note is that during their journey is that when they found the stone they decided not to use it as it is using the lives of other people, but here they don't care.  Another point being that with the amount of stone he had he could have easily get Ed and his own body back and HAPPY ENDING!  So by not doing that they avoided an easy way to end on a good end just so they have a bad one.  I don't mind ends that don't have a happy final note but don't do it in a way that is forced and when the BEST choices are there.  Then there is when Ed looks stupid as well.  After Al needlessly gives himself to bring back Ed, Ed does the same for Al, making Al's sacrifice useless.  In the real end of FMA Ed thinks of a way to bring back Al's body but not to pay with the stone or his own body, knowing it would be a bad thing to leave Al without his only family giving him the idea to give up his gate for it, and it was genius!  However the end here doesn't give us the same feeling of heart and emotion that the manga had.  Lets not forget the stupid way the villain died, classy.

THE MOVIE

So after one middle finger what do the fans get with this movie that continues the story one last time, a SECOND middle finger!  First off I must stress the thing from this movie that pisses me off more than anything that is in this, they made Hughes into a Nazi... I repeat, they made Maes Hughes into a Nazi.  If that isn't a reason to completely rage out on this movie I don't know what is.  So yeah Ed is in "our" world where there are people that look like the people in his world.  And we see him with a guy that looks like Al, so he needed to find someone to that looks like him and stay with him.... this is how yaoi is created people.  And he tells Not Al of how the nuclear bomb isn't from our world... no no no no, Ed and Al battled a mad scientist in their world and it got transported to ours.  Yeah that didn't sound stupid and forced in the slightest.  Oh and lets add a NEW love interest that resembles Rose... that's SO Mary Sueing this on so many levels.  And the movie ends with Ed AND Al in "our" world.  So to add to all the terrible ideas the series brought forth this one ends it all with the downright dumbest of ideas, Ed and Al in some other world, when they should be in their own world.

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I listed several comparisons to the original story, but in more ways than just to compare them, I did it illustrate how to write in a good way, while the choices made for the first one was well terrible.  Even if you look at these plot points by themselves they are still bad and lowers the quality of the series.  If it did anything right it was what they got out of the manga, and even a light novel.  That maybe that is why it did well, but when you take a good long look at it, it really shouldn't have.  Honestly I started with a game for the PS2, The Broken Angel, it was okay and was it's own thing but that got me into the anime.  I watched the first anime before anything else... and I'm ashamed of it.  By the end I was just left feeling confused by the whole thing.  If it wasn't for the manga and even Brotherhood I would have let the series and forgot about it.  There are other things but I'll leave it with these since this is more than enough.

I've been typing this up for a while to draft all the points I listed.  And while doing this blog I watched JesuOtaku's review of the anime.  I disagree on many things, and at times what she said sounded more like how Brotherhood is in it's quality.  Yeah I know it's her favorite anime but I still feel that there is so much more wrong with it than she really gives it credit for.  She seemed to think that the plot point with Tucker was interesting for a twist and plot points when really the whole deal was like noted before, forced and unneeded.

Now at Youmacon of 2011 I was able to see Vic Mignogna and Caitlin Glass and from what I heard they did say they liked the first series.  Now for me I personally believe that they have feelings towards it because of the work they did.  Their voices were fantastic though it didn't help the final product that much.  But they did say they thought Brotherhood was the better anime, and for the right reasons too.

As for Brotherhood, it has it's problems but it doesn't drag the anime down as much as the first anime.  The plot is presented in an orderly fashion and sticks with the core of what the story is, great. Problems being that at times there is a lot of Brotherhood going fast forward to catch up to the end of the manga which Brotherhood ended just about the same time.  This could have been longer so that problem doesn't exist but it's a problem that can be looked over.