Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the one with the world building
I caught up on Brotherhood years after it finished airing, another show I found on my own. The world building and Edward's arc are the best parts. The middle gets darker than I'd like.
I came to Brotherhood late. It had already finished airing by the time I found it, which was another one I dug up on my own, probably not long after I watched Erased. This review is a little light, but the short version is that the show is amazing and I’m glad I got to it.
What I love
The world building, first of all. There’s a whole logic to how alchemy works in this world, and the show actually respects its own rules instead of bending them whenever it’s convenient. On top of that you get the mystery of Edward: what happened to his body, what it cost him, and the slow process of him figuring out where he belongs and how to make up for the mistake that started it all. That question pulls you through the whole thing.
The art style, the sound, the character work, all of it lands for me. But the part I keep coming back to is Edward’s arc. He starts out frustrated and full of himself, and by the end he’s grown into someone steady enough that the only thing that really gets under his skin anymore is being called short. Watching a character soften like that, without losing who they are, is the kind of thing I love.
The one thing I don’t
The darkness gets to be a bit much for me. The first stretch is great, but somewhere around the middle it leans hard into body horror and monsters eating monsters, and it tips over the top for my taste. I get why it’s there, it just isn’t the part of the show I’d put on a poster.
Image credits
The cover art is the official Fullmetal Alchemist volume one art, used the way the game posts here use box art.