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This is something I've been planning on doing for awhile. I watched the original series years ago, and I always knew about the storyline split and had been curious to delve into the manga plotline at some point. With the announcement of Brotherhood I decided to hold off for the animated series to have a more direct comparison, but eventually I forgot about it. Finally, I was reminded about the series by our own administrator Silh, and so I embarked on my journey through the series in a couple days. I told Silh that I'd let him know what I thought of it, and figured I'd do a moderate-sized review of the series when I finished. This was the result:
So, now that I've finished Brotherhood, I can say for sure that the original series was objectively better. There are small aspects of Brotherhood that are really cool which are not present in the original series, especially in the department of having big monumental "epic" moments. However, as a complete series, Brotherhood is severely inferior to the original series in a lot of aspects. After consideration of the "ending" of Brotherhood as a whole, obviously it's easy to see why a lot of people could still really like it because it feels more "satisfying" of a conclusion to the audience. But to me that doesn't really make it better or even really an excusable comparison.
And don't get me wrong, my preference is after careful consideration of precisely WHY I felt the way I do about the original series. It's not simply a matter of "the one you saw first you like better". From very early on into the split in storyline I found myself often perturbed by small aspects of the Brotherhood storyline which only grew as the series progressed. Small things which, at their very core, feel so alien to the very tone and mythos of the series. I'll try to break down my feelings pretty simply in a list:
1. Philosopher's Stones. Brotherhood throws these around like god damn candy. For an ancient, holy, epic artifact of pure legend which embodies the very soul of the human condition and the sin of man...as soon as nearly a single one of these shows up in Brotherhood, suddenly they're a complete commodity. This very nearly ruins even the sickening shock or horror of the method in which they’re produced: human sacrifice. We feel HOLY SHIT HOW HORRIBLE about it for all of a couple episodes, and then these things are around nearly EVERYWHERE. Bad guys are fueled by it, zombies are fueled by it, the military has barrels of them, the main antagonist can literally shit them out of his head. I don't know about you, but as a viewer the whole "epicness" of the true power that we should feel from this material is completely lost over time.
2. Homunculi. As both individual characters, and as plot devices, these creatures are objectively pretty inferior in Brotherhood. The original series crafts an origin around these creatures that is unnerving, yet sympathetic, and fits completely into past events and ties to characters in the series in such a fashion that is truly a "HOLY SHIT" moment when it is unveiled what they are. In Brotherhood, they're packs of flesh that have a philosopher's stone jammed in them which serve as monsters to fight. Not only that, but even in knowing WHAT they are, the original series even manages to add an extra level of depth that continues on deep into the series of WHO they are. The homunculi themselves, as personalities and as characters who exist and take part in the story, are objectively inferior in Brotherhood. The only exception would be Greed, who is a character that I genuinely felt was portrayed and fleshed out as a character in Brotherhood in a very touching and exciting manner. However, when you compare the characters of Lust, Wrath, Sloth, and Envy in the original series who were ALL extremely deep, satisfying characters....it's hardly a trade-off.
3. Alchemy. The portrayal of Alchemy in Brotherhood by the end of the series becomes insulting nearly to the level of my feelings of the Philosopher's stones. The very explanation of how alchemy works in Brotherhood is insulting. Like...this nigh-magic spiritual force which has severe binding laws and principals, requires arcane knowledge and ingenuity, revolving around the formation of geometric scripts and language....is fueled by god damn tectonic plates shifting beneath the earth? Are you shitting me? Why does energy released from the earth give a shit about whether something is in a circle or not, or if you draw a sun/half-moon picture with the right amount of materials to represent that you want to turn this chair into a wooden dildo. Like, really? The original series explanation of Alchemy is actually pretty damn shocking, especially when the true concept of "equivalent exchange" is revealed, and retains the sense that it is this powerful spiritual force that is truly beyond our comprehension.
4. The Military. This shit got EYE-ROLLING bad in Brotherhood. Like, the whole shadow-government conspiracy shit was god damn TIRED by the end of this shit. The Military wasn't exactly angels in the original series, but the level of messed-up taking place was a level of believable corruption. In Brotherhood, this shit is a motherfuking 400 year long conspiracy that the entire staff of this great shadow government has been perpetrating and we're just supposed to be like "oh yeah, I get that literally an entire government just sits around for 30 years being the evilest motherfukers known to man ever, but this isnt apparent until about the last 6 months of shit going down". In the original series, the military were evil shits because they were doing evil military shit things that a military would do. Kill some brown people, conquer some shit, do weird ass science to make weapons. The only supernaturally evil power was the Fuhror, and his influence on the military was clever manipulation of power that no one saw coming. In Brotherhood, the military was god damn Lex Luthor and the League of Shadows. Only the League of Shadows also had zombies. oh and don't even get me started on this
5. Zombie "mannequins". The series turns into a god damn zombie apocalypse movie for the last 10 entire episodes. Are you serious.
5. Hoenheim of Light. Honestly, this is one thing where I could give a toss-up to either series about who does the character better. I think both series do an excellent job of portraying the true tragedy of this character in unique ways,. I think by the end of Brotherhood, his final scene is what would very nearly give me a final nod to Brotherhood's....except for this shit:
6. Motherfuking deus ex machina. This shit. This motherfuking shit right here oh my god. I've said at the beginning of this that I can understand why I was told "wait for the ending, shit gets real", and how by the end people could really be hype for Brotherhood. And I can see that. I can see that because the ending is really "epic". But that’s sort of a big ass problem. It's "epic" on a level completely disproportional to the entire series, and it's actually completely ridiculous. The show becomes Dragon Ball Z in about 2 episodes flat. Suddenly the entire planet is a god damn spirit ball, the moon is a giant eyeball which is God, the main antagonist becomes god damn Kefka, and suddenly lasers and shit are flying everywhere. But that doesn't necessarily get to the title of this section: the deus ex machina. Without any prompt or nearly any satisfying foreshadowing to the viewer except for 1 scene, Hoenheim of light has been pulling some M Night Shamalan shit this entire series and planted some blood seeds around the planet and now all of these souls are just flying around like Captain Planet and INSTANTLY SAVE THE DAY THE SECOND THAT THE CRAZY BAD THING HAPPENED. The show doesn't even give you a second to feel any horrifying weight of witnessing the antagonist's evil plans following through and, as far as we're concerned, succeeding in killing absolutely fuking everyone. The second that this pretty epic "oh my god, did the bad guy just win?" feeling washes over you, Hoenheim of Light is like SURPRISE BITCH, I DID THIS THING THAT MAKES THAT THING YOU DID NOT WORK. There is no satisfying overcoming of a seemingly impossible loss, there is just an equally seemingly impossible rewind button that is instantly pressed. To put it in perspective: what if halfway through Final Fantasy 6 when Kefka succeeds in acquiring god power and shatters the planet into pieces....the second that happened, suddenly Cid shows up and says "Unbeknownst to everyone here, I invented a machine that uses Earth energy to....pull the Earth back together!" and then the final boss battle happens RIGHT THERE. Final Fantasy 6 would suck because that right there is some bullshit. The big problem here, as well, is the fact that it wasn't even the main characters that accomplished this great triumph. For all intents and purposes, Ed and Al lost. They had a plan, with the reverse transmutation circle, and they actually lost and DIED failing to actually perform it. But then a character, who is not the main character of the series, hits the reset button and we're supposed to feel great about it?
7. Final battle. The final battle of Brotherhood is where I really want to hit home this "Brotherhood becomes DBZ" point to you. The final battle of FMA: Brotherhood is literally Goku vs Freiza on planet Namek. So, after Hoenheim of Light's deus ex machina, let me remind you that he whips this gem of information out: "I have foiled your plans, you have absorbed the power of God but now I sucked out your body's ability to contain it, so you're going to fail to contain all the power you have, you are going to explode............in about 5 minutes". This is something that profoundly confused me when this great turn-around on the bad guy took place. Essentially it is: We have completely nullified all the power that you just acquired....except you still have all of it. Just, you know, for about 5-10 minutes. And then the bad guy is apparently a God powered by Duracell, because he hops up and starts sapping souls to apparently recharge his batteries. Then for some reason he STOPS attacking people because they start firing bullets at him, and instead stands there looking badass while infinitely blocking attacks...because...somehow this is will benefit him. Instead of flying off with the power he just demonstrated having, he stands there and is like "wait guys, I gotta let you guys know that I'm a god". And after the initial 15 seconds of his plan being "I need to kill some humans to recharge my stone", he decides to STOP killing humans because like 100 soldiers show up to shoot bullets at him... at which point he doesn't feel the need to reap this new supply of jesus-juice? So then Goku shows up and gets pissed off because Freiza killed Krillin (see: Greed), so he goes Super Saiyan and the bad guy turns to dust while everyone surrounds the fight in a big circle and CHEERS HIM ON~
8. Getting their bodies back. The way this played out in Brotherhood just felt....so incredibly dumb to me. Like, the transitive property element of human transmutation was laughable when I heard "Brother sacrificed his arm for my soul, that means I should sacrifice my soul and then his arm should plop right back into place, amirite guys?". Even though at the basic core, what Ed does to get their bodies back is thematically the same, the implications of the act are much deeper in the original series. In Brotherhood, human transmutation is some kind of like "Here, let me pop into the spirit realm real quick LOL" thing where Ed does it just to go talk to the Mass Effect 3 ghost child and pass a riddle....which, apparently the solution to the riddle is FRIENDSHIP IS ALL THE MAGIC YOU NEED~. In the original series, the laws of equivalent exchange are truly abided and come full circle as Ed....literally exchanges his body and soul for the sake of his brothers. It's fuking heart breaking, and it's god damn beautiful. He made a promise to his brother that he would get him his body back, and if he has to sacrifice the chance to ever see his brother again for that, he would do it. In Brotherhood, 10 different people mention to Ed that literally at any point in ending half of the series he could pick up one of the 1000 philosopher stones that are shitting around and instantly fix what they've been striving for. I have no idea how the sacrifice of "cant do alchemy anymore" is supposed to in any way feel meaningful or impactful to the viewer, especially when for all intents and purposes everything is god damn roses and rainbows aside from that fact. The ending of the original series is tragic, but has a melancholy beauty to it that actually leaves a mixture of emotions for the viewer that are evidence of a story, as a whole, being done RIGHT for how it's ending could leave you feeling.
9. Final point: Theme. Overall, the simplest way I could summarize how I felt about the differences between these two series is their sense of tone and theme. I would be hard pressed to think that even if I saw FMA: Brotherhood first that I would somehow think any differently than what I've written here. This fact stems from the basic elements of knowing the context of your universe, setting a tone and theme, and then following through with it. I'm sure many people would agree that Fullmetal Alchemist, as a basic premise, is a pretty darkly delivered concept. The story takes place in a setting which is, essentially, an alternate universe nazi germany where the discovery of alchemy supplemented certain technological progresses. The theme of the series follows elements of sacrifice, abomination of nature, the human condition, the philosophy of a soul, playing god....and all of this plays out through some pretty bloody happenings. The difference I find between these two series, is that one embraces the chance to truly delve headfirst into the darkest depths of these themes to try and explore something gut-wrenching and raw. The other series is a japanese anime. From where the series splits, the original series follows through into a story of the sacrifices made for love, the true sins of man, the monster people become pursuing their human desires, and throws in some good ol' fashion rape babies for good measure. From where the series splits, Brotherhood introduces pandas, huge DBZ monster fights, comic-relief pig/gorilla/etc chimeras, and 3 times an episode someone makes the SAME short joke at Ed and his face gets cartoony and big. This is why to me, and I think anyone who pays attention, it's so easy appreciate the original series on a level that transcends the source material. It crafts a story and explanation that are altogether EXTREMELY more satisfying, gripping, and raw than the manga series...and frankly, it manages to make more SENSE both logically and (more importantly) thematically.
Brotherhood is a pretty good anime series. But it's no Fullmetal Alchemist.
So, now that I've finished Brotherhood, I can say for sure that the original series was objectively better. There are small aspects of Brotherhood that are really cool which are not present in the original series, especially in the department of having big monumental "epic" moments. However, as a complete series, Brotherhood is severely inferior to the original series in a lot of aspects. After consideration of the "ending" of Brotherhood as a whole, obviously it's easy to see why a lot of people could still really like it because it feels more "satisfying" of a conclusion to the audience. But to me that doesn't really make it better or even really an excusable comparison.
And don't get me wrong, my preference is after careful consideration of precisely WHY I felt the way I do about the original series. It's not simply a matter of "the one you saw first you like better". From very early on into the split in storyline I found myself often perturbed by small aspects of the Brotherhood storyline which only grew as the series progressed. Small things which, at their very core, feel so alien to the very tone and mythos of the series. I'll try to break down my feelings pretty simply in a list:
1. Philosopher's Stones. Brotherhood throws these around like god damn candy. For an ancient, holy, epic artifact of pure legend which embodies the very soul of the human condition and the sin of man...as soon as nearly a single one of these shows up in Brotherhood, suddenly they're a complete commodity. This very nearly ruins even the sickening shock or horror of the method in which they’re produced: human sacrifice. We feel HOLY SHIT HOW HORRIBLE about it for all of a couple episodes, and then these things are around nearly EVERYWHERE. Bad guys are fueled by it, zombies are fueled by it, the military has barrels of them, the main antagonist can literally shit them out of his head. I don't know about you, but as a viewer the whole "epicness" of the true power that we should feel from this material is completely lost over time.
2. Homunculi. As both individual characters, and as plot devices, these creatures are objectively pretty inferior in Brotherhood. The original series crafts an origin around these creatures that is unnerving, yet sympathetic, and fits completely into past events and ties to characters in the series in such a fashion that is truly a "HOLY SHIT" moment when it is unveiled what they are. In Brotherhood, they're packs of flesh that have a philosopher's stone jammed in them which serve as monsters to fight. Not only that, but even in knowing WHAT they are, the original series even manages to add an extra level of depth that continues on deep into the series of WHO they are. The homunculi themselves, as personalities and as characters who exist and take part in the story, are objectively inferior in Brotherhood. The only exception would be Greed, who is a character that I genuinely felt was portrayed and fleshed out as a character in Brotherhood in a very touching and exciting manner. However, when you compare the characters of Lust, Wrath, Sloth, and Envy in the original series who were ALL extremely deep, satisfying characters....it's hardly a trade-off.
3. Alchemy. The portrayal of Alchemy in Brotherhood by the end of the series becomes insulting nearly to the level of my feelings of the Philosopher's stones. The very explanation of how alchemy works in Brotherhood is insulting. Like...this nigh-magic spiritual force which has severe binding laws and principals, requires arcane knowledge and ingenuity, revolving around the formation of geometric scripts and language....is fueled by god damn tectonic plates shifting beneath the earth? Are you shitting me? Why does energy released from the earth give a shit about whether something is in a circle or not, or if you draw a sun/half-moon picture with the right amount of materials to represent that you want to turn this chair into a wooden dildo. Like, really? The original series explanation of Alchemy is actually pretty damn shocking, especially when the true concept of "equivalent exchange" is revealed, and retains the sense that it is this powerful spiritual force that is truly beyond our comprehension.
4. The Military. This shit got EYE-ROLLING bad in Brotherhood. Like, the whole shadow-government conspiracy shit was god damn TIRED by the end of this shit. The Military wasn't exactly angels in the original series, but the level of messed-up taking place was a level of believable corruption. In Brotherhood, this shit is a motherfuking 400 year long conspiracy that the entire staff of this great shadow government has been perpetrating and we're just supposed to be like "oh yeah, I get that literally an entire government just sits around for 30 years being the evilest motherfukers known to man ever, but this isnt apparent until about the last 6 months of shit going down". In the original series, the military were evil shits because they were doing evil military shit things that a military would do. Kill some brown people, conquer some shit, do weird ass science to make weapons. The only supernaturally evil power was the Fuhror, and his influence on the military was clever manipulation of power that no one saw coming. In Brotherhood, the military was god damn Lex Luthor and the League of Shadows. Only the League of Shadows also had zombies. oh and don't even get me started on this
5. Zombie "mannequins". The series turns into a god damn zombie apocalypse movie for the last 10 entire episodes. Are you serious.
5. Hoenheim of Light. Honestly, this is one thing where I could give a toss-up to either series about who does the character better. I think both series do an excellent job of portraying the true tragedy of this character in unique ways,. I think by the end of Brotherhood, his final scene is what would very nearly give me a final nod to Brotherhood's....except for this shit:
6. Motherfuking deus ex machina. This shit. This motherfuking shit right here oh my god. I've said at the beginning of this that I can understand why I was told "wait for the ending, shit gets real", and how by the end people could really be hype for Brotherhood. And I can see that. I can see that because the ending is really "epic". But that’s sort of a big ass problem. It's "epic" on a level completely disproportional to the entire series, and it's actually completely ridiculous. The show becomes Dragon Ball Z in about 2 episodes flat. Suddenly the entire planet is a god damn spirit ball, the moon is a giant eyeball which is God, the main antagonist becomes god damn Kefka, and suddenly lasers and shit are flying everywhere. But that doesn't necessarily get to the title of this section: the deus ex machina. Without any prompt or nearly any satisfying foreshadowing to the viewer except for 1 scene, Hoenheim of light has been pulling some M Night Shamalan shit this entire series and planted some blood seeds around the planet and now all of these souls are just flying around like Captain Planet and INSTANTLY SAVE THE DAY THE SECOND THAT THE CRAZY BAD THING HAPPENED. The show doesn't even give you a second to feel any horrifying weight of witnessing the antagonist's evil plans following through and, as far as we're concerned, succeeding in killing absolutely fuking everyone. The second that this pretty epic "oh my god, did the bad guy just win?" feeling washes over you, Hoenheim of Light is like SURPRISE BITCH, I DID THIS THING THAT MAKES THAT THING YOU DID NOT WORK. There is no satisfying overcoming of a seemingly impossible loss, there is just an equally seemingly impossible rewind button that is instantly pressed. To put it in perspective: what if halfway through Final Fantasy 6 when Kefka succeeds in acquiring god power and shatters the planet into pieces....the second that happened, suddenly Cid shows up and says "Unbeknownst to everyone here, I invented a machine that uses Earth energy to....pull the Earth back together!" and then the final boss battle happens RIGHT THERE. Final Fantasy 6 would suck because that right there is some bullshit. The big problem here, as well, is the fact that it wasn't even the main characters that accomplished this great triumph. For all intents and purposes, Ed and Al lost. They had a plan, with the reverse transmutation circle, and they actually lost and DIED failing to actually perform it. But then a character, who is not the main character of the series, hits the reset button and we're supposed to feel great about it?
7. Final battle. The final battle of Brotherhood is where I really want to hit home this "Brotherhood becomes DBZ" point to you. The final battle of FMA: Brotherhood is literally Goku vs Freiza on planet Namek. So, after Hoenheim of Light's deus ex machina, let me remind you that he whips this gem of information out: "I have foiled your plans, you have absorbed the power of God but now I sucked out your body's ability to contain it, so you're going to fail to contain all the power you have, you are going to explode............in about 5 minutes". This is something that profoundly confused me when this great turn-around on the bad guy took place. Essentially it is: We have completely nullified all the power that you just acquired....except you still have all of it. Just, you know, for about 5-10 minutes. And then the bad guy is apparently a God powered by Duracell, because he hops up and starts sapping souls to apparently recharge his batteries. Then for some reason he STOPS attacking people because they start firing bullets at him, and instead stands there looking badass while infinitely blocking attacks...because...somehow this is will benefit him. Instead of flying off with the power he just demonstrated having, he stands there and is like "wait guys, I gotta let you guys know that I'm a god". And after the initial 15 seconds of his plan being "I need to kill some humans to recharge my stone", he decides to STOP killing humans because like 100 soldiers show up to shoot bullets at him... at which point he doesn't feel the need to reap this new supply of jesus-juice? So then Goku shows up and gets pissed off because Freiza killed Krillin (see: Greed), so he goes Super Saiyan and the bad guy turns to dust while everyone surrounds the fight in a big circle and CHEERS HIM ON~
8. Getting their bodies back. The way this played out in Brotherhood just felt....so incredibly dumb to me. Like, the transitive property element of human transmutation was laughable when I heard "Brother sacrificed his arm for my soul, that means I should sacrifice my soul and then his arm should plop right back into place, amirite guys?". Even though at the basic core, what Ed does to get their bodies back is thematically the same, the implications of the act are much deeper in the original series. In Brotherhood, human transmutation is some kind of like "Here, let me pop into the spirit realm real quick LOL" thing where Ed does it just to go talk to the Mass Effect 3 ghost child and pass a riddle....which, apparently the solution to the riddle is FRIENDSHIP IS ALL THE MAGIC YOU NEED~. In the original series, the laws of equivalent exchange are truly abided and come full circle as Ed....literally exchanges his body and soul for the sake of his brothers. It's fuking heart breaking, and it's god damn beautiful. He made a promise to his brother that he would get him his body back, and if he has to sacrifice the chance to ever see his brother again for that, he would do it. In Brotherhood, 10 different people mention to Ed that literally at any point in ending half of the series he could pick up one of the 1000 philosopher stones that are shitting around and instantly fix what they've been striving for. I have no idea how the sacrifice of "cant do alchemy anymore" is supposed to in any way feel meaningful or impactful to the viewer, especially when for all intents and purposes everything is god damn roses and rainbows aside from that fact. The ending of the original series is tragic, but has a melancholy beauty to it that actually leaves a mixture of emotions for the viewer that are evidence of a story, as a whole, being done RIGHT for how it's ending could leave you feeling.
9. Final point: Theme. Overall, the simplest way I could summarize how I felt about the differences between these two series is their sense of tone and theme. I would be hard pressed to think that even if I saw FMA: Brotherhood first that I would somehow think any differently than what I've written here. This fact stems from the basic elements of knowing the context of your universe, setting a tone and theme, and then following through with it. I'm sure many people would agree that Fullmetal Alchemist, as a basic premise, is a pretty darkly delivered concept. The story takes place in a setting which is, essentially, an alternate universe nazi germany where the discovery of alchemy supplemented certain technological progresses. The theme of the series follows elements of sacrifice, abomination of nature, the human condition, the philosophy of a soul, playing god....and all of this plays out through some pretty bloody happenings. The difference I find between these two series, is that one embraces the chance to truly delve headfirst into the darkest depths of these themes to try and explore something gut-wrenching and raw. The other series is a japanese anime. From where the series splits, the original series follows through into a story of the sacrifices made for love, the true sins of man, the monster people become pursuing their human desires, and throws in some good ol' fashion rape babies for good measure. From where the series splits, Brotherhood introduces pandas, huge DBZ monster fights, comic-relief pig/gorilla/etc chimeras, and 3 times an episode someone makes the SAME short joke at Ed and his face gets cartoony and big. This is why to me, and I think anyone who pays attention, it's so easy appreciate the original series on a level that transcends the source material. It crafts a story and explanation that are altogether EXTREMELY more satisfying, gripping, and raw than the manga series...and frankly, it manages to make more SENSE both logically and (more importantly) thematically.
Brotherhood is a pretty good anime series. But it's no Fullmetal Alchemist.
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