Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episode 51

Unleashing a half-finished immortal army upon the world was never likely to be the best of ideas, and so it proves as this fifty-first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood kicks off with said army going on a rampage against... well, anything living basically.

It's no time at all before Edward Elric and his current band of comrades come up against this force, leaving them with no option other than to seal themselves off from the outside world to stop these immortal soldiers from escaping "into the wild", in the process leaving them to handle the situation without any back-up.


Indeed, after the triumph rise of the rebels last episode, this instalment is a rather more sobering affair throughout, with Major General Armstrong finding herself up against Sloth, while Pride's incessant banging on Alphone's armour head reaps a reward for him and Envy also sees his plan to lure May Chang back to Central pay dividends. There are tough times ahead for our heroes, that's for sure, although if nothing else Alphonse has quite the windfall which could well allow him to turn the tide in his particular struggles...

While episode fifty of this series was all air-punching, whopping and cheering on the heroes of this piece, this latest instalment of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is much more tense as the tide turns back in the other direction, although this does also mean plenty more fantastic action sequences that are beautifully realised by BONES once again just as they've proved themselves capable of plenty of times within this series before. Indeed, May Chang's brief sparring with that immortal army was particularly outstanding, but once again the episode as a whole was paced well and proved to be as gripping to watch as ever. My only criticism as a whole was Heinkel's sudden "oh, did I forget to mention what I have in my pocket?" moment towards the end of the episode, but I can forgive such trifles in a series that is otherwise packed wall to wall with absolute quality to once again leave me realising that next week and another episode just can't come soon enough.