Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episode 1

If you're looking to pinpoint one big hitter for this new anime season, it is quite clearly Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a reboot of the hugely popular original series which is, supposedly, going to follow the manga far more closely this time around. As I haven't actually read the manga at all, sadly I'm not going to be able to comment on that as this series progresses.

What I can say however is that even I was surprised at my own delight when it came to seeing all of these familiar characters once again, from (of course) the Elric brothers themselves through to the likes of Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes. It's a lot like meeting up with some old friends, but finding that they're even better looking now thanks to a bigger animation budget. Actually hang on a second, friends don't have animation budgets do they?


Anyhow, with that "reboot" tag hanging over it, I was more than a little surprised to find us starting not at the beginning of the story, but some way into it, with Ed already in place as a state alchemist and thus fighting alongside his colleagues within the military. Their mission on this occasion is to capture and/or defeat the Ice Alchemist, a former state alchemist with a nasty habit of boiling people alive, or conversely freezing them and letting them shatter into tiny little pieces. As with so many things in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe, events at Ishbal seem to have been the catalyst for his defection, leading us into a battle against this man intent on striking at the heart of the military.

If nothing else, this gives us the opportunity for plenty of action, all of which is handled with plenty of style, and the kind of "cool factor" you'd expect from the series. As per the original series, this is also sprinkled with a fair amount of humour, frequently revolving around Edward's diminiutive size. Again, this particular blend feels much like seeing an old friend.

If there's one thing that this opening episode of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood seems to have made clear, it's that the cost of entry is at least some familiarity with either the original series or (and I'm guessing preferably from some of the references) the manga - While it looks like episode two will at least take us back to the very beginning to some extent, this instalment made a lot of assumptions of its viewers, so I can only imagine that anyone new to the franchise was left thinking "Well that seemed cool, but what the Hell just happened?". If I'm honest, even my brain didn't manage to join some of the dots.

Assuming you did manage to keep up however, this was an enjoyable dose of Full Metal Alchemist - A real reminder of what we've been missing since the original series closed with that slightly odd movie. For anyone familiar with the story its sewn plenty of seeds for what is to come, but if you're new to it all I'd urge you to take a deep breath, be patient, and hope that all the gaping holes and questions left by this first episode will be answered in due course. I have a definite feeling that your patience will be duly rewarded if that is the case.