人柱諸君っていうな！
Full Metal Alchemist #105!! Gaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I was too impatient to wait for an English translation, so I read the raw scans. Then about 12 hours later, an English version came out, but my personal translation was close enough. :P I'm not skilled enough to consider volunteering to to translate manga, but I'm confident enough to read raws on my own.
ANYWAY. Getting to the story:
The first page is a flashback to Ed'n'Al as kiddies, researching alchemy. They are reading about the sun being masculine, the moon feminine, and how the combination of both creates a perfect being. Al thinks this is a reference to immortality (不老不死 - no aging, no dying), but Ed thinks that's not thinking big enough. He thinks the "perfect being" created by a powerful Philosopher's Stone is the equivalent of a god.
Then we get back to the present. Like the last several chapters, this one is action-driven, focusing on Hohenheim, Scar, and Mei, but noticeably lacking in cool Ed'n'Al moments. :< That's probably an inevitable part of the whole dramatic, apocalyptic climax schtick, but the Ed'n'Al brotherly-wuverly-ness and their personal journeys and struggles were always what kept me reading FMA, even when I largely stopped reading manga. I've been feeling like there's something off about FMA for several months, and I think it's this shift in focus that's really been niggling at me.
But it is, as I said, pretty much inevitable - because of the Black Thing (I'm not sure what to call it)'s powers, the alchemists can't use their abilities. So Hohenheim, Scar and Mei, who have studied rentanjutsu (or had rentanjutsu forced on them), are the only characters able to fight back. They deserve the spotlight for that. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge them at all or think they're stealing the story - I still love Arakawa's plot and I can't wait to see where it leads. I just miss Ed'n'Al!
And it's frustrating that so many chapters in a row have just been people beating up each other and making cryptic comments. Very little character development. For me, the most interesting thing that's happened in the past year has been Izumi's and Olivia Armstrong's total girl-crush friendship, and Mustang losing his eyesight. (I can't come up with a good theory for whether or not that'll stick!)
But we do get to find out what Hohenheim's been wandering around trying to do all those years. He's basically undermined Black Thing's plan to use Amestris as a Philosopher's Stone, by learning to return the souls to their still warm bodies. Black Thing still has considerable power, since he's also fueled by the souls from Xerxes who no longer have bodies to contain them. But those souls don't seem keen on helping him; they conspire to help Hohenheim and to not let what happened to them happen to the souls of Amestris.
Probably the most interesting part of the chapter is Scar's battle with Bradley. Scar succeeds in destroying Bradley's arms, but is seriously wounded himself. Then... oh, I forgot her name... the Xingese ninja girl comes to kill Bradley for killing her grandfather (or that's what he thinks, at least), and she asks him if he has any last words to leave for his wife. Bradley refers to his wife as あれ or "it" and says "I chose her," and talks about her like she doesn't matter. That's a big difference from the Bradley in the first anime, but I'm not surprised Arakawa chose to do that. I thought it was too sappy for the manga's homunculi, or the usual tone of FMA. Still, we don't know 100% for sure what Bradley thinks of his family, because he does say, "It was a good life" before he dies. We don't know if the homunculi feel very similarly to humans. But we've seen some familiar, human-like traits in Greed, so it's not a stretch to say Bradley may feel more for his wife than he lets on. I think that would be quite Arakawa-like too.
Then Scar does something with his renkinjutsu and rentanjutsu-fueled arms, which makes it possible for alchemy to be used in the area that Ed'n'Al and the Black Thing are battling. So the manga ends with Hohenheim making a final stand, and then Ed'n'Al decide to step up to the plate. They get a cute father-and-sons moment, in which Ed calls Hohenheim a "bastard" *snerk* and then the chapter ends with Ed promising to destroy the Black Thing, or something light that yadda yadda.
Overall, I liked this chapter a lot, but I'm so impatient to know what's going to happen to Ed and Al that I can't appreciate it as much as I would otherwise. ^^' For example, I disliked a lot of the last fifty chapters of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles when they were first coming out. I wanted most to know what would happen to Fai and Kurogane, but they were barely in the last several chapters, and the plot became even more hard to follow. But once the series was over, and I stepped away from it for a time, I appreciated it more when I reread it (fairly recently, as it happens). It's still not going down in my list of favorite manga endings ever, but I was able to enjoy it more.
I'm sure that will happen when all is said and done with FMA, too - especially since, in my book, FMA is a superior series by far to TRC. (Not to bash TRC at all, though. Chapter 90-180 always break my heart, even though I know what's going to happen.) But what matters to me most is what happens to Al with his body, and Ed's future, because the first anime's ending was so heart-wrenching, and Arakawa really has to impress in order to outdo it. (My opinion of the Shambala movie was that it was good, but didn't feel right for FMA, so I'm basically ignoring it and claiming the anime ended with Ed sacrificing himself for Al. Actually, I probably would have liked the movie's story just fine if it hadn't included "Shambala".)
So... now I have to wait another month. T_T C'mon, Arakawa-sensei, throw me a bone...!
So I was too impatient to wait for an English translation, so I read the raw scans. Then about 12 hours later, an English version came out, but my personal translation was close enough. :P I'm not skilled enough to consider volunteering to to translate manga, but I'm confident enough to read raws on my own.
ANYWAY. Getting to the story:
The first page is a flashback to Ed'n'Al as kiddies, researching alchemy. They are reading about the sun being masculine, the moon feminine, and how the combination of both creates a perfect being. Al thinks this is a reference to immortality (不老不死 - no aging, no dying), but Ed thinks that's not thinking big enough. He thinks the "perfect being" created by a powerful Philosopher's Stone is the equivalent of a god.
Then we get back to the present. Like the last several chapters, this one is action-driven, focusing on Hohenheim, Scar, and Mei, but noticeably lacking in cool Ed'n'Al moments. :< That's probably an inevitable part of the whole dramatic, apocalyptic climax schtick, but the Ed'n'Al brotherly-wuverly-ness and their personal journeys and struggles were always what kept me reading FMA, even when I largely stopped reading manga. I've been feeling like there's something off about FMA for several months, and I think it's this shift in focus that's really been niggling at me.
But it is, as I said, pretty much inevitable - because of the Black Thing (I'm not sure what to call it)'s powers, the alchemists can't use their abilities. So Hohenheim, Scar and Mei, who have studied rentanjutsu (or had rentanjutsu forced on them), are the only characters able to fight back. They deserve the spotlight for that. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge them at all or think they're stealing the story - I still love Arakawa's plot and I can't wait to see where it leads. I just miss Ed'n'Al!
And it's frustrating that so many chapters in a row have just been people beating up each other and making cryptic comments. Very little character development. For me, the most interesting thing that's happened in the past year has been Izumi's and Olivia Armstrong's total girl-crush friendship, and Mustang losing his eyesight. (I can't come up with a good theory for whether or not that'll stick!)
But we do get to find out what Hohenheim's been wandering around trying to do all those years. He's basically undermined Black Thing's plan to use Amestris as a Philosopher's Stone, by learning to return the souls to their still warm bodies. Black Thing still has considerable power, since he's also fueled by the souls from Xerxes who no longer have bodies to contain them. But those souls don't seem keen on helping him; they conspire to help Hohenheim and to not let what happened to them happen to the souls of Amestris.
Probably the most interesting part of the chapter is Scar's battle with Bradley. Scar succeeds in destroying Bradley's arms, but is seriously wounded himself. Then... oh, I forgot her name... the Xingese ninja girl comes to kill Bradley for killing her grandfather (or that's what he thinks, at least), and she asks him if he has any last words to leave for his wife. Bradley refers to his wife as あれ or "it" and says "I chose her," and talks about her like she doesn't matter. That's a big difference from the Bradley in the first anime, but I'm not surprised Arakawa chose to do that. I thought it was too sappy for the manga's homunculi, or the usual tone of FMA. Still, we don't know 100% for sure what Bradley thinks of his family, because he does say, "It was a good life" before he dies. We don't know if the homunculi feel very similarly to humans. But we've seen some familiar, human-like traits in Greed, so it's not a stretch to say Bradley may feel more for his wife than he lets on. I think that would be quite Arakawa-like too.
Then Scar does something with his renkinjutsu and rentanjutsu-fueled arms, which makes it possible for alchemy to be used in the area that Ed'n'Al and the Black Thing are battling. So the manga ends with Hohenheim making a final stand, and then Ed'n'Al decide to step up to the plate. They get a cute father-and-sons moment, in which Ed calls Hohenheim a "bastard" *snerk* and then the chapter ends with Ed promising to destroy the Black Thing, or something light that yadda yadda.
Overall, I liked this chapter a lot, but I'm so impatient to know what's going to happen to Ed and Al that I can't appreciate it as much as I would otherwise. ^^' For example, I disliked a lot of the last fifty chapters of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles when they were first coming out. I wanted most to know what would happen to Fai and Kurogane, but they were barely in the last several chapters, and the plot became even more hard to follow. But once the series was over, and I stepped away from it for a time, I appreciated it more when I reread it (fairly recently, as it happens). It's still not going down in my list of favorite manga endings ever, but I was able to enjoy it more.
I'm sure that will happen when all is said and done with FMA, too - especially since, in my book, FMA is a superior series by far to TRC. (Not to bash TRC at all, though. Chapter 90-180 always break my heart, even though I know what's going to happen.) But what matters to me most is what happens to Al with his body, and Ed's future, because the first anime's ending was so heart-wrenching, and Arakawa really has to impress in order to outdo it. (My opinion of the Shambala movie was that it was good, but didn't feel right for FMA, so I'm basically ignoring it and claiming the anime ended with Ed sacrificing himself for Al. Actually, I probably would have liked the movie's story just fine if it hadn't included "Shambala".)
So... now I have to wait another month. T_T C'mon, Arakawa-sensei, throw me a bone...!