Why do I like FMA so much?
One reason and one reason only: intelligence.
So far -- and I say "so far" to cover my own ass, as I am still only on episode 20 or so -- I have gotten the distinct impression that FMA is like a gateway anime. A bridge between the sweeping yet fallible story arcs of an artsy anime like Wolf's Rain, and the indestructibility of a villain-of-the-week anime like Inuyasha. Best of both worlds.
What I appreciate most about FMA, though, is its thoroughness. Being a chimaera-like hybrid of artsy and formula, it manages to avoid the pitfalls of both stereotypes: the artsy tendency to underexplain (Evangelion) and the formula tendency to overexplain (Kenshin). The show hasn't yet hit a villain who spent more than half an episode explaining his evil plan; the heros have yet to make a mistake they could fix painlessly. The angst is audience-participatory, as the heros don't spend too long explaining in excruciating detail just why they're manipulative bastards(Roy)/obnoxiously determined(Ed)/blinded by fear and love(Al), etc. No character is infallible. No character is above the law. No character is completely lacking in common sense, and most have had higher-level educations.
But most importantly, the laws of physics are obeyed.
God, do I love seeing "magic" that obeys the basic principles of physics. Equivalent exchange, the relative molecular flexibility of different kinds of matter, displacement instead of "vanishment." I love it. It makes me melt into a little puddle of scientific contentedness. (Just to note: I can't stand to watch the end of the Other Brothers Elric two-parter, it makes me want to hide under the couch and take back all the nice things I've ever said about FMA. Shiny red and blue trees! Did the animators just take a coffee break or what? Who came up with that crack-brained script?)
This fascination with correct science is also a large part of what's turning me into a major Al-fan. I mean, he rarely talks about his reasons for angst -- you can only see his melancholy in the way he moves, the way he flinches away from people, and in his silence and soft apologies for Ed's behavior. (The fact that he doesn't talk about his pain just makes me love him more, and want to go through the screen and give him a BIG HUG.) But I also love his silence because it forces the viewer to really think about the science of his condition, to empathize without the training wheels of internal monologue. He's lost three out of five senses. He no longer has bodily functions, he doesn't need to eat or breathe or even sleep. He can't feel real emotion because he doesn't have the glands that produce the chemicals that cause certain emotions, like adrenaline to cause mortal fear or excitement. (I wonder how much of the emotion he does show is faked for Ed's sake?) He can't feel human, he can only tell himself that, logically, he is human because his soul originally resided in a human body. But in this most recent episode, even that is thrown into doubt: has his soul/memories been tampered with, or even fabricated completely? It's the identity crisis to end all identity crises. Poor Al. *luffs Al to death*
There are other reasons I like FMA: the art, the attention to detail, the way every action has consequences no matter how minor, the importance placed on the value of a human life (that was also part of why I loved Trigun!), the excess of books seen on screen (books in an anime=instant love). But definitely the biggest thing I have fallen for in FMA is its intelligence.
So there. I hath ranted. And now that that's out of my system...
I MADE 1310 ON MY SAT! *SQUEES AND DIES HAPPY*
Off to work on EtE (OMG for real this time),
-rave
So far -- and I say "so far" to cover my own ass, as I am still only on episode 20 or so -- I have gotten the distinct impression that FMA is like a gateway anime. A bridge between the sweeping yet fallible story arcs of an artsy anime like Wolf's Rain, and the indestructibility of a villain-of-the-week anime like Inuyasha. Best of both worlds.
What I appreciate most about FMA, though, is its thoroughness. Being a chimaera-like hybrid of artsy and formula, it manages to avoid the pitfalls of both stereotypes: the artsy tendency to underexplain (Evangelion) and the formula tendency to overexplain (Kenshin). The show hasn't yet hit a villain who spent more than half an episode explaining his evil plan; the heros have yet to make a mistake they could fix painlessly. The angst is audience-participatory, as the heros don't spend too long explaining in excruciating detail just why they're manipulative bastards(Roy)/obnoxiously determined(Ed)/blinded by fear and love(Al), etc. No character is infallible. No character is above the law. No character is completely lacking in common sense, and most have had higher-level educations.
But most importantly, the laws of physics are obeyed.
God, do I love seeing "magic" that obeys the basic principles of physics. Equivalent exchange, the relative molecular flexibility of different kinds of matter, displacement instead of "vanishment." I love it. It makes me melt into a little puddle of scientific contentedness. (Just to note: I can't stand to watch the end of the Other Brothers Elric two-parter, it makes me want to hide under the couch and take back all the nice things I've ever said about FMA. Shiny red and blue trees! Did the animators just take a coffee break or what? Who came up with that crack-brained script?)
This fascination with correct science is also a large part of what's turning me into a major Al-fan. I mean, he rarely talks about his reasons for angst -- you can only see his melancholy in the way he moves, the way he flinches away from people, and in his silence and soft apologies for Ed's behavior. (The fact that he doesn't talk about his pain just makes me love him more, and want to go through the screen and give him a BIG HUG.) But I also love his silence because it forces the viewer to really think about the science of his condition, to empathize without the training wheels of internal monologue. He's lost three out of five senses. He no longer has bodily functions, he doesn't need to eat or breathe or even sleep. He can't feel real emotion because he doesn't have the glands that produce the chemicals that cause certain emotions, like adrenaline to cause mortal fear or excitement. (I wonder how much of the emotion he does show is faked for Ed's sake?) He can't feel human, he can only tell himself that, logically, he is human because his soul originally resided in a human body. But in this most recent episode, even that is thrown into doubt: has his soul/memories been tampered with, or even fabricated completely? It's the identity crisis to end all identity crises. Poor Al. *luffs Al to death*
There are other reasons I like FMA: the art, the attention to detail, the way every action has consequences no matter how minor, the importance placed on the value of a human life (that was also part of why I loved Trigun!), the excess of books seen on screen (books in an anime=instant love). But definitely the biggest thing I have fallen for in FMA is its intelligence.
So there. I hath ranted. And now that that's out of my system...
I MADE 1310 ON MY SAT! *SQUEES AND DIES HAPPY*
Off to work on EtE (OMG for real this time),
-rave