In an alternate 19th century world, teenage brothers Edward and Alphonse “Al” Elric have burned their house down and are searching for the philosopher’s stone in order to get back their human bodies. Edward lost half and Al all of his body after they tried to use alchemy to revive their dead mother, so Edward now has a robotic arm and leg, whereas Al is a metallic armor. Alchemist Roy Mustang persuades them to become official state alchemists for the Army. Their country perpetrated the Ishbal massacre when the traditional local populace considered alchemy blasphemous and declared independence. The survivor, Scar, became a murderer who is killing alchemist out of revenge. Edward discovers that people sentenced to death by the Army were actually sacrificed in secret experiments in order to create the philosopher’s stone. However, each attempt at reviving the dead creates Homunculi, artificial humanoids which have secretly installed their representatives among the military high commanders. The Homunuculi are commanded by Dante, an ancient alchemist who continuously transported her own mind into new, younger bodies for over 400 years, prolonging her own existence, and wants the philosopher’s stone to switch into the body of a girl called Rose. Dante was the lover of Hohenheim, Edward and Al's father who mysteriously disappeared because his body started decaying after so many rejuvenations. Dante is defeated and killed, while Edward sacrifices his life to give Al's body back. Edward is in exchange transformed to Munich in the early 20th century Earth, together with Hohenheim.
The first anime adaptation of “Fullmetal Alchemist” is an intriguing enterprise: flawed and overstretched with its 51 episodes, but with several incredible moments of awe. A few creative ideas are used to exploit the potentials of the concept in which Edward can draw an alchemy sign on an object and thus reconfigure it through alchemy into something different. In one of them, he draws the sign on a train and thus “conjures up” a cannon on top of it, which he mounts and uses against the enemies who tried to kidnap the train. He uses the trick in several other clever ways, too: by touching the floor, he conjures up prison bars which trap a fleeing burglar, or draws the sign when he is chained by a serial killer, thereby breaking the chain and freeing himself. The first 12 episodes are fillers, just random adventures Ed and Al encounter on their journey, but starting from episode 13 onwards, the story finally aligns into an overarching narrative with a clear guideline that leads somewhere. Episode 27 should also be noted for a virtuoso moment: teacher Izumi is holding a book in her hand, but when Edward charges for an attack, she throws the book up in the sky, grabs Edward’s hand and catapults him away, while the book falls back into Izumi’s hand—and Edward falls down parallely in the bushes in the background. Now that is style. Some melodramatic moments fare less, including the said episode: it contains a syrupy subplot or a pregnant cat that was scared by a dog, and thus fled on the rooftop of a house (!) to give birth there, but ultimately died from straining itself too much of all the climbing. A girl wants Izumi to revive the cat with alchemy, but the latter informs her that it is not possible. The message is that people should be mature and accept harsh reality, instead of trying to “cheat” and find easy answers, but it is presented through such a ludicrous, contrived parable of a pregnant cat that it kind of nullifies it, unable to be realistic.
The story features a fascinating socio-political essay on military rule, presented through the dark subplot of the Ishbal massacre perpetrated in order to block its independence and keep them as their colony, even including a false flag operation to invent a casus belli, which is very close to reality—for instance, it is almost identical to what Kremlin did to Chechnya when it declared independence, as well. Comedy episode 37 surprises as a refreshing “intruder” (the Army finds a bone and concludes that the skeleton of a murdered soldier is buried under ground, but it all leads to a hilarious reveal when they discover a dog was just burying its bones there), but, congruent to its own motto of equal balance, this anime also has serious moments to counterbalance humor which are on the other, dark spectrum of emotions, some of which are tragic, bloody or downright unsettling. For instance, Marta hides inside inside Al’s armor, but is killed when the military commander Bradley stabs through the armor with his sword, leaving only blood dripping down from Al. A clever set-up is also established: in a couple of episodes, Scar is seen randomly plowing the ground with a stone. At first, it is unknown why he is doing that. Until, in episode 42, it is revealed that he plowed a giant alchemy sign around an entire city, evacuated it, and then, when thousands of soldiers invaded it, used alchemy to sacrifice all of them to create the philosopher's stone—this is Scar's one giant checkmate. All this is strung up to illustrate several themes about life in the grand finale, from Frankenstein-style fear of death, trying to overcome fatalism, mankind’s struggle to gain power through enlightenment (evident even in Edward’s discovery of the true nature of his father), up to the bitter realization that for every victory something else must be lost and sacrificed as a compensation. There are several surprises in the story, but the viewers will not see the four (!) plot twists coming until they are right in front of them. “Fullmetal Alchemist” has that unique tenacity of anime: it has dozens of flaws, yet its one main virtue—it is good—is so strong and all-encompassing that nothing else matters.
Grade:+++
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