Monday 7 September 2009

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episode 22

The last episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood left us delicately poised on the precipice of some major action, and thankfully episode twenty-two doesn't disappoint by dropping us straight into the thick of things from where we left off last time.

Thus, we get to enjoy the openings of Ling Yao's battle with Bradley and Gluttony, while the Elric Brothers continue to face off against Scar in that particular struggle. This particular chain of events comes to its temporary conclusion however, as a wandering Winry walks into the thick of things just as Ed is confronting Scar about him killing her parents. Oops.


This state of affairs (with an unstable Winry threatening Scar at gunpoint) gives us ample opportunity for a flashback to the circumstances which led both to Scar being wounded in Ishbal through to how he was saved by his brother all the way to the reason behind killing Winry's parents, before closing out to scenes of Scar looking to make his escape while Ed comforts Winry.

Overall then, this proved to be another solid episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - While the path of its progress was all pretty predictable, and for viewers of the original series the origins of Scar's tattooed arm was more of a recap than a new revelation, it did everything that it needed to and managed to blend its action with the more emotional side of things pretty well. You could argue for wanting more of that hot alchemist on alchemist action I suppose, but there's plenty of fight left in the scrapes which are currently on-going to satisfy your needs in future episodes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a pretty mediocre review, to be honest I thought it was a brilliant episode. I cried in a couple of the scenes; which was sucky 'cause then I found it awkward to read the subtitles.

In all seriousness though, it was much better than how you described... and for the fiftieth time it's not predictable, it's only that way because you saw the first anime which tbh was kinda bad in the first place compared to this one anyway. My point being, stop thinking of it as a 'first' series remake and more an adaptation of the manga! Don't relate FMA and brotherhood together... besides even if some of the pieces of the story are recovered it shouldn't matter - why would the people wan to leave out parts of this story just because they were partially covered in the first version?

temperus said...

I think your reviews so far are spot-on for people with the perspective of having watched the first series. You aren't giving too much away, and it's always good to know whether a "remake" episode is significantly different and therefore worth watching.

I've actually never watched the first series (or read the manga), and although I more or less see what's coming a mile away I am still enjoying things so far. I'm reading your episode reviews to know the perspective of someone who's watched both, and it's great to find someone who's inner fanboy doesn't cloud their reviewing much.