Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode Four Review

Woah, that episode was disturbing.

No Spoilers:

That hit home a bit. It was a lighter episode towards the beginning, except for the opener that provided some entertaining action. And then the end of the episode happens. It hit me like a ton of bricks. There’s not much I can say without spoiling it, but the characterization in this episode was quite good, Ed gets some good development and testing this episode, and I appreciated that. This is not an episode I can make a value judgement of, it’s shaken me a little bit. The music was great, and the cinematography was definitely a step up from episode 3.

Spoilers:

I liked how we saw Ed’s relationship with his father through his interaction with the child of the scientist. The scene where they all play together is heartwarming, and sets you up for the unexpected horror of the ending. You start to like this kid and her dog. The scientist does seem a little creepy throughout, but it’s only at the end you see how evil he is.It was also good that the scientist had logical motives. It doesn’t justify what he did, but makes for a more convincing character and antagonist. This episode was good for showing how alchemy can be used for truly twisting things. The idea of combining an animal and a human to make it talk is just sick, it was clever to use the scientist as a foil for Ed. However, it isn’t truly equivocal, because Ed committed his “crimes” to try to bring a loved one back, he didn’t sacrifice both his wife and daughter. I didn’t enjoy this episode because of how horrifying it was, but it was a good episode, and it was gripping.

Endnote:

Thanks for reading this. See you ’round. You are priceless.