Fullmetal alchemist check 1
Author: Hiromu Arkawa
Genre: Manga
Book description:
Breaking the laws of nature is a serious crime!
In an alchemical ritual gone wrong, Edward Elric lost his arm and his leg, and his brother Alphonse became nothing but a soul in a suit of armor. Equipped with mechanical “auto-mail” limbs, Edward becomes a state alchemist, seeking the one thing that can restore his and his brother’s bodies...the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.
Alchemy: the mystical power to alter the natural world; something between magic, art and science. When two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, dabbled in this power to grant their dearest wish, one of them lost an arm and a leg…and the other became nothing but a soul locked into a body of living steel. Now Edward is an agent of the government, a slave of the military-alchemical complex, using his unique powers to obey orders…even to kill. Except his powers aren't unique. The world has been ravaged by the abuse of alchemy. And in pursuit of the ultimate alchemical treasure, the Philosopher's Stone, their enemies are even more ruthless than they are
Thoughts:
This is very interesting. Let's be honest this is not a very recent manga so by now its nothing new for many people. I had started this anime a long time ago. So it can be said this is a nostalgic series. But I was not very into manga if the anime was available so I was the kid who prefers to watch it instead of reading it. Now is more like the opposite.
It starts with Ed and Al, the Elric brothers who have their trademark due to trying the forbidden human transmutation. They tried to resurrect their mother. It fails miserably. Now Ed is missing an arm and leg and Al lost his full body, in a desperate attempt to save him Ed attached his soul to metal armor. They travel around their country researching how to get the philosopher's stone.
The manga moves faster than what I remembered or maybe in the anime the pacing was a bit different. We get to know most of the characters. Winry Rockbell and her grandma both are very skilled in automail, so she is the official mechanic for both brothers. I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that Ed, Al, and Winry could be so skilled in their topics if they are so young. At the start of the story they all are around 12 years old and in the point, I am in right now volume 9, they are 16. Everyone is a genius really. How can Winry be so skilled, her mechanical knowledge, she can even help women give birth with absolutely no training whatsoever. I mean you have to be lenient in that aspect, it very unrealistic. Additionally, everyone is easily fooled. Al is not technically alive, he does not eat, sleep, or has any other normal bodily functions yet everyone is supposed to believe he has a normal body behind the armor.
Moving on, Ed joins the military. Since the very start, it's very obvious people hate the military. There are a few very corrupt people as they travel around who have high military ranks, but the level of hate towards the military itself is not explained so far.
A lot of people seem to want to be researching forbidden topics like the philosopher stone and human transmutation. And as the main characters, the Elric brothers manage to run into a lot of them as he travels.
In the first few volumes we are getting to know the characters, and finding out a bit about their pasts. I do like getting snips of the backstories. My favorite so far is volume 6. We get to see a bit of the backstory of the Elric brothers, how they grew up with their mom, how she died and they started their training with their teacher Izumi. So far we had seen mentioned but not how it happened.
We see a nice philosophical aspect of the cycle of life, and how it keeps on even after a single individual´s death. How in the grand scheme of things someone´s life is almost inconcsecuencial.
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