Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Review Episode 2

Hello again,

Spoiler free:

This episode hits hard — also, before we get started, I want to say how I was mildly disappointed I didn’t get the “this is law of equivalent exchange” speech, so I was excited to see it at the beginning of this episode. Anyway, the first scene was AMAZING. Just, horrifying, and emotional and painful. This show is delivering gut punches and it’s only the second episode. This is such a show, and by most accounts it only really hits its stride by episode thirteen. I can tell that I’m in for a thrill ride. I think I like this episode better than the first, but only because the beginning is so good, there’s more emotional energy. For those of you who haven’t watched, or haven’t watched in a long time, this episode was a backstory episode and it’s amazingly tragic. I have no complaints, although I still find some of the anime stuff kind of annoying. This series has such a brilliant premise. And also, Alphonse is so sweet.

Spoilers:

The worldbuilding of this show is so fascinating. The scene with the Fuhrer was great, but as is obvious from the first chunk of this review, it was the beginning that stole my heart. It works having this as a second episode so well, because you know what’s going to happen to these kids, and there’s this sort of dread. And then the human transmutation scene. It was so emotional and heartbreaking. The music was haunting and perfect for the sequence. There was some good characterization, the show set up the Elric brother’s childhood friend’s dislike of soldiers and I’m looking forward to this coming to play. I need to talk about Ed meeting the god of this world, it was mind bending and terrifying and I love how you only see a shadow, it just adds to the mystery of this character, and it’s infinite nature.

Recommendations:

I’ve already done recommendations today, but if you really want me to tell you to read something, than read Wheel of Time, if you’re into long form epic fantasy, and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender.

End note:

Thanks for showing up, you are priceless. “For what could equal the value of a human soul?”

Cheers — Elijah