Over 20 years ago, an seemingly unassuming manga titled Fullmetal Alchemist started serialization in Enix’s (at the time) Monthly Shonen Gangan. Since then, it’s become a classic in the anime and manga sphere, between its well-written characters and plot, cohesive themes, and cool battle sequences. To this day, companies are still releasing merchandise of it! And for good reason too. Fullmetal Alchemist remains, in my opinion, one of the best anime and manga series, and if you’ve been looking for an excuse to reread or rewatch it, well, here it is.
Fullmetal Alchemist, for the uninitiated, takes place in the fictional Germany-inspired Amestris. In Amestris, people can learn how to use alchemy to transmute a material into another through the Law of Equivalent Exchange. If you’re a particularly good alchemist, then you can even work for the government and receive the title of State Alchemist. There are a few hard rules of alchemy though, and one of the biggest taboos is transmuting people.
Protagonists Edward and Alphonse Elric are brothers who are very talented in the art of alchemy, and Edward in particular even achieved the title of State Alchemist. However, they have a secret: Edward lost his arm and leg, and Alphonse lost his entire body because when they were children, they attempted to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life. Now, their goal is to retrieve what they’ve lost—not their mother, but their bodies. In order to accomplish that, they need the Philosopher’s Stone.
As a note, I personally haven’t rewatched the 2003 anime since it came out, so I can’t really remember how the anime-original characters were in that. So everything I talk about here is in regards to the manga and Brotherhood. The story of Fullmetal Alchemist on the surface level is really interesting. The premise allows for Edward to journey pretty much everywhere he wants to, and author Hiromu Arakawa excels at writing well-rounded characters. I particularly like the way that she writes women and children. With the latter, it’s so easy to write children as either ridiculously obnoxious or unrealistically innocent. As for women, well, I’m sure most people have seen discussions about how some authors under-utilize their female characters, leading to no real development or strong personality. Arakawa doesn’t really have that issue.
By strong here, I don’t mean the MCU type where a woman’s fighting strength is the be-all and end-all. Winry, for example, takes on a support role in the series thanks to her job as Edward’s mechanic. While I don’t have any real attachment to the pair’s romance (and thus I have no real thoughts on Winry as a love interest), Winry on her own is an interesting character between her personality, dynamic with the Elric brothers, and her history with Scar. The real “Wow, I love this queen” characters are, of course, Izumi, Hawkeye, and Olivier. They’re not just smart or strong, but they also have their own vulnerable and emotional sides that make them feel like actual living people rather than a “girl power” icon.
It’s really too bad that Lust’s backstory with Scar’s brother was entirely a creation of the original 2003 anime. The conflict between her Homunculus persona and her human memories made her so much more compelling. While all the other Homunculi had rather poignant or ironic deaths and revelations in regards to their namesake, Lust felt underutilized in comparison. This isn’t a knock on her death scene or who killed her, but more that I wish she had a bit more going on. However, I understand that too much attention on Lust, who’s a side character at most, would’ve been detrimental on the overall pacing.
Aside from the characters and story, I loved how Arakawa depicted the themes and messages that she wanted to convey through the story. Even though the military characters like Armstrong, Mustang, and Hawkeye are likable, neither they nor the story ever shy away from the fact that these people are, indeed, war criminals. Yet how they choose to carry that burden and how it shapes their ambitions to better the world, especially in contrast to characters like Kimbly, make them sympathetic and compelling.
Considering the current fandom climate when it comes to depictions of “problematic” material, I’m pretty sure that if Fullmetal Alchemist aired today, certain fans would be cancelling the military characters left and right without any critical though as to why Arakawa wrote them this way. Ironically, in an old interview about how she created the series, Arakawa discussed this sort of thinking, in a way. After mentioning that her ancestors displaced the Ainu despite some of her relatives having Ainu blood, as well as the cognitive dissonance in Scar killing State Alchemists while using alchemy, she stated, “I think the truly serious problems in this world are when people don’t make any effort to learn about these everyday situations, when they turn away from them or view them from only a single perspective.” That message still resonates today.
There’s a lot going on in Fullmetal Alchemist and I won’t say that the story is a short one. The storytelling is tight, while still leaving enough room for levity so the characters (and readers) can breathe. But the true triumph of Fullmetal Alchemist is in the ending. Arakawa told the story she wanted to tell and it was pretty clear from the way the story concluded. Sure, you can say it’s a babies-ever-after ending. But remember that the Elrics’ goal, from the very beginning, had been to return to normalcy. And you can’t get more normal (albeit in a rather heteronormative way) than settling down with someone after a thrill of an adventure. The kids deserve some R&R!
Fullmetal Alchemist remains one of my favorite shonen anime and manga series for its strong writing, and I love how you can feel how much care Arakawa put into every aspect of its characters and worldbuilding. Now more than ever, I feel like it’s a story that people should experience or re-experience, and it’s not just because October 3 was Fullmetal-Alchemist-and-Mean-Girls Day. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly implore you to do so, whether it’s Brotherhood or the first anime adaptation. Just don’t forget the tissues!
You can watch Fullmetal Alchemist on Crunchyroll (only Brotherhood though). The manga is available in English via either Yen Press or Viz Media.
Published: Oct 6, 2024 12:00 pm