Anime - FMA + RL
In which I am not RAGE POSTING, for once.
SO! I've finished watching FMA. Yes, I know, it's 51 episode long and I started less than a week ago. What do you want: as always I got sick right at the beginning of the holiday (though technically, I got sick even before that, it's just been lingeeeering for a week and a half) and so I had to stay home. Then I got a little bit better but by then I'd gotten some translation tests from one of the enterprises at which I'm trying to get a job for the summer... so yeah, I had to stay home and work on that (BECAUSE IT WAS HORRIBLE OH GOD Who'd have thought british documentaries about Africa could be so hard to translate?).
And so, obviously, whenever I took a break, I'd either stay online and complain to my other friends doing the same translations (three of us applied for the same job and got answers on the same day which was very weird because our first instinct was "So how do we share the workload this time? ... Oh, wait, no.") or I'd just watch some FMA.
SO FMA!
I quite liked it but you know, it's not the kind of anime I could see myself watch over and over again. Mostly because WOW 50 episodes. PLUS it's a bite repetitive at times. I liked the plot, even though it became a liiiittle obvious they were confusing themselves at the end ("We're trying to make people create philosopher stones so we can steal then! By making it known that whoever tries to make one will die!" Fine Dante, whatever). I'll try to organize that because I'm not going to manage otherwise.
Plot
Fairly interesting, though it did feel a bit rushed at the end. I liked that they tried to go into "what makes us human" territory but it's obvious that they didn't want to go into that too much, so that too feels a bit rushed. Also, I did like the whole "what it takes to make a philosopher stone" thing and the awesome way Scar made one.
On the subject of Scar, I think the whole Ishbal war plot was good, if only because it made for great drama but I laughed a lot at why the Ishbalans were being discriminated against. They're supposed to have dark skin but the colorists made Scar the same color as Ed. Also, racism against red eyes when the Elrics have golden eyes seems a bit weird (okay, I know that people have been disciminated against for ridiculous reasons IRL, but what I mean is that in this anime, most hair and eye colors make no sense. Same for the haircuts. So why are red eyes discriminated against and not people who are HALF MACHINE? OR CAN MAKE STUFF APPEAR BY MAGIC?).
Characters
As always, I ended up not really liking the main protagonist because... man, Edward Elric is annoying. I liked him at times but some of the finer points made me think he was a complete idiot. The "I'm not small" thing also annoyed me because EVERYTIME A CHARACTER IS SMALL IT'S LIKE THAT. I did like Al, though, probably because he's such a victim (also: angst). Winry was a complete cliché AND boring and I'll be glad if I never ever have to see a "I'ma mechanic!" female character. EVER.
I liked Mustang and Armstrong (because the first one is angsty, and the second is ARMSTRONG), as well as Hughes... but I failed to find any personality in the other army guys. I know someone who cosplayed as Riza Hawkeye and I really really hope that character had more personality in the manga than in the anime because man, otherwise it really sucked to cosplay as her. I loved the Mustang/Hugues interactions but unfortunately I KNEW IT WOULDN'T LAST because I'd been sort of spoiled on Hughes' death. And by "sort of" I mean that I knew a major, likable character would die in the middle of the series and Hughes was a major, likable character WHO HAD A DAUGHTER AND A WIFE AND KEPT SHOWING THEIR PICTURE. So yeah, sort of obvious.
Lust and Scar were love, because, let's admit it: morally grey character with angst all around and amazing power. Unfortunately they both died. Oh, well, I'm used to that. And the death scenes rocked, so that's good.
I really couldn't care less for the other homonculi, though: they were very annoying and not frightening at all. I DID LIKE GREED THOUGH. Oh wait, he died after 5 episodes, just like every single character I do like.
Random
The music really bothered me. Some of it was very good but most of it was bad and the openings sucked (except the second one). AND ONE SONG WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE BEGINNING OF BACK TO THE FUTURE. How can I take things seriously when your sad song begins like Back to the Future, FMA? Also, the "sad harmonica song" made me sad because it sucked - Yoko Kanno & team may steal from every single source ever, but at least their "sad harmonica song" is great and moving. Compare Cowboy Bebop and FMA... really.
ONCE AGAIN, I'm being very critical of the series, but I did really enjoy it. The action was very well done, the suspens was there, I did love how much Ed and Al need each others and some scenes were downright heartbreaking.
... not so with the movie.
I watched it right after the end of the series and wow, did I notice the drop in quality. The series makes you want more at the end of each episode but the movie managed to have me bored after 40 minutes. I did like the concept of getting the brothers back together but I think introducing a new, very cliché big bad with sucky motivations did no good (if Eckart wants to go to Shamballa because it's MagicHappyLand... why the fuck does she invade it? I mean, from what she says, it's a magical place where you get everything you want, YET SHE NEEDS ARMED PLANES TO BE THERE - OH RIGHT, she's afraid. That the MagicHappyLand is going to invade. Consistency: learn what it means).
Some moments were just ridiculous: Al just standing there for ten minutes while Wrath battles Gluttony? Seriously, can't he do something? He seemed to do fine against giant armors from parallel worlds thirty minutes ago. Also, the whole Mustang thing. (Also: the other army guys are still useless. Just thought I'd mention it.)
I laughed quite a lot at the fact that Hughes was a reluctant nazi. OH NOES HE'S A NAZI! But he still ends up not a Nazi and marrying Glacier. Seriously, if you decide to play the "guy we all liked is now a jerk!" cliché, stay with it. Don't get cold feet halfway through because the fanbase will be pissed off.
AND AT THE END EDWARD GOES OFF ALL MESSIAH LIKE... I really do not like Edward, sometimes. I suppose that if I was an Edward fan, I'd go "OH HE'S SO COURAGEOUS" but as I am, I just see that as him running away.
Meanwhile, in our world, Alfons gets killed. Big surprise. Alfons is a Replacement Goldfish with a Cough of Death, OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO DIE - otherwise you'd have Alfons and Alphonse, and really wouldn't that confuse the people watching?
Other things that made me laugh in the movie: the opening! OH THE OPENING! I imagine the meeting went like that:
Team Leader: So guys, do you have any ideas for the opening?
Team Guy: Well, I thought we could, you know, make it look good?
Team Leader: ... how much will it cost?
Team Guy: A lot.
Team Leader: ALL RIGHT THEN let's do ridiculous credit with overbishounized pictures of the male leads, it would cost less.
And then, one months later, someone showed up with that, which may well be one of the most frighteningly ridiculous pictures I've ever seen.
DESPITE ALL THAT, THE MOVIE STILL WAS ENJOYABLE.
... >_>
Okay, I like FMA. And I understand why people go all HHJJ over it.
Still won't break my heart like Planetes and CowboyBebop, though.
Anyway!
GOOD SMILE COMPANY WANTS MY MONEY. And possibly yours.
And I don't even know what that first series is but the figure is SO CUTE.
I know what I'm reading next.
SO! I've finished watching FMA. Yes, I know, it's 51 episode long and I started less than a week ago. What do you want: as always I got sick right at the beginning of the holiday (though technically, I got sick even before that, it's just been lingeeeering for a week and a half) and so I had to stay home. Then I got a little bit better but by then I'd gotten some translation tests from one of the enterprises at which I'm trying to get a job for the summer... so yeah, I had to stay home and work on that (BECAUSE IT WAS HORRIBLE OH GOD Who'd have thought british documentaries about Africa could be so hard to translate?).
And so, obviously, whenever I took a break, I'd either stay online and complain to my other friends doing the same translations (three of us applied for the same job and got answers on the same day which was very weird because our first instinct was "So how do we share the workload this time? ... Oh, wait, no.") or I'd just watch some FMA.
SO FMA!
I quite liked it but you know, it's not the kind of anime I could see myself watch over and over again. Mostly because WOW 50 episodes. PLUS it's a bite repetitive at times. I liked the plot, even though it became a liiiittle obvious they were confusing themselves at the end ("We're trying to make people create philosopher stones so we can steal then! By making it known that whoever tries to make one will die!" Fine Dante, whatever). I'll try to organize that because I'm not going to manage otherwise.
Plot
Fairly interesting, though it did feel a bit rushed at the end. I liked that they tried to go into "what makes us human" territory but it's obvious that they didn't want to go into that too much, so that too feels a bit rushed. Also, I did like the whole "what it takes to make a philosopher stone" thing and the awesome way Scar made one.
On the subject of Scar, I think the whole Ishbal war plot was good, if only because it made for great drama but I laughed a lot at why the Ishbalans were being discriminated against. They're supposed to have dark skin but the colorists made Scar the same color as Ed. Also, racism against red eyes when the Elrics have golden eyes seems a bit weird (okay, I know that people have been disciminated against for ridiculous reasons IRL, but what I mean is that in this anime, most hair and eye colors make no sense. Same for the haircuts. So why are red eyes discriminated against and not people who are HALF MACHINE? OR CAN MAKE STUFF APPEAR BY MAGIC?).
Characters
As always, I ended up not really liking the main protagonist because... man, Edward Elric is annoying. I liked him at times but some of the finer points made me think he was a complete idiot. The "I'm not small" thing also annoyed me because EVERYTIME A CHARACTER IS SMALL IT'S LIKE THAT. I did like Al, though, probably because he's such a victim (also: angst). Winry was a complete cliché AND boring and I'll be glad if I never ever have to see a "I'ma mechanic!" female character. EVER.
I liked Mustang and Armstrong (because the first one is angsty, and the second is ARMSTRONG), as well as Hughes... but I failed to find any personality in the other army guys. I know someone who cosplayed as Riza Hawkeye and I really really hope that character had more personality in the manga than in the anime because man, otherwise it really sucked to cosplay as her. I loved the Mustang/Hugues interactions but unfortunately I KNEW IT WOULDN'T LAST because I'd been sort of spoiled on Hughes' death. And by "sort of" I mean that I knew a major, likable character would die in the middle of the series and Hughes was a major, likable character WHO HAD A DAUGHTER AND A WIFE AND KEPT SHOWING THEIR PICTURE. So yeah, sort of obvious.
Lust and Scar were love, because, let's admit it: morally grey character with angst all around and amazing power. Unfortunately they both died. Oh, well, I'm used to that. And the death scenes rocked, so that's good.
I really couldn't care less for the other homonculi, though: they were very annoying and not frightening at all. I DID LIKE GREED THOUGH. Oh wait, he died after 5 episodes, just like every single character I do like.
Random
The music really bothered me. Some of it was very good but most of it was bad and the openings sucked (except the second one). AND ONE SONG WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE BEGINNING OF BACK TO THE FUTURE. How can I take things seriously when your sad song begins like Back to the Future, FMA? Also, the "sad harmonica song" made me sad because it sucked - Yoko Kanno & team may steal from every single source ever, but at least their "sad harmonica song" is great and moving. Compare Cowboy Bebop and FMA... really.
ONCE AGAIN, I'm being very critical of the series, but I did really enjoy it. The action was very well done, the suspens was there, I did love how much Ed and Al need each others and some scenes were downright heartbreaking.
... not so with the movie.
I watched it right after the end of the series and wow, did I notice the drop in quality. The series makes you want more at the end of each episode but the movie managed to have me bored after 40 minutes. I did like the concept of getting the brothers back together but I think introducing a new, very cliché big bad with sucky motivations did no good (if Eckart wants to go to Shamballa because it's MagicHappyLand... why the fuck does she invade it? I mean, from what she says, it's a magical place where you get everything you want, YET SHE NEEDS ARMED PLANES TO BE THERE - OH RIGHT, she's afraid. That the MagicHappyLand is going to invade. Consistency: learn what it means).
Some moments were just ridiculous: Al just standing there for ten minutes while Wrath battles Gluttony? Seriously, can't he do something? He seemed to do fine against giant armors from parallel worlds thirty minutes ago. Also, the whole Mustang thing. (Also: the other army guys are still useless. Just thought I'd mention it.)
I laughed quite a lot at the fact that Hughes was a reluctant nazi. OH NOES HE'S A NAZI! But he still ends up not a Nazi and marrying Glacier. Seriously, if you decide to play the "guy we all liked is now a jerk!" cliché, stay with it. Don't get cold feet halfway through because the fanbase will be pissed off.
AND AT THE END EDWARD GOES OFF ALL MESSIAH LIKE... I really do not like Edward, sometimes. I suppose that if I was an Edward fan, I'd go "OH HE'S SO COURAGEOUS" but as I am, I just see that as him running away.
Meanwhile, in our world, Alfons gets killed. Big surprise. Alfons is a Replacement Goldfish with a Cough of Death, OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO DIE - otherwise you'd have Alfons and Alphonse, and really wouldn't that confuse the people watching?
Other things that made me laugh in the movie: the opening! OH THE OPENING! I imagine the meeting went like that:
Team Leader: So guys, do you have any ideas for the opening?
Team Guy: Well, I thought we could, you know, make it look good?
Team Leader: ... how much will it cost?
Team Guy: A lot.
Team Leader: ALL RIGHT THEN let's do ridiculous credit with overbishounized pictures of the male leads, it would cost less.
And then, one months later, someone showed up with that, which may well be one of the most frighteningly ridiculous pictures I've ever seen.
DESPITE ALL THAT, THE MOVIE STILL WAS ENJOYABLE.
... >_>
Okay, I like FMA. And I understand why people go all HHJJ over it.
Still won't break my heart like Planetes and CowboyBebop, though.
Anyway!
GOOD SMILE COMPANY WANTS MY MONEY. And possibly yours.
And I don't even know what that first series is but the figure is SO CUTE.
I know what I'm reading next.