Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Mar. 31st, 2019 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitI mentioned a while ago I was watching this, I think? Anyway, I am! Finally. :D It's practically vintage at this point, but I still think of it as 'the new FMA' because I entered this fandom in 2003 and okay wow that is a lot longer ago when I count it out than it feels like it should be.
Things I have noticed: I felt like Tucker and Hughes didn't have the same impact? Maybe it's the lack of surprise - this is the third incarnation of FMA for me - but I don't think so. Especially with Tucker, I just felt less emotional investment in both him and in Nina. There's some scenes of her being supremely adorable, and some creepy foreshadowing that Tucker is a bad guy, and in about two episodes everything is over and done with.
Hughes was definitely more intense than Tucker, and I really did love his staggering into the phone area, only to walk out again without calling - it's such a nice silent portrayal of how smart Hughes is and the connections he has made. Then at the phone booth he recognises that "Maria Ross" is counterfeit, once again proving what an intelligent guy he is... only to see him falter at seeing "Gracia" despite the fact he must know it's not her. Okay, maybe the Hughes scene was done better than I first thought. :D
A lot of my reaction to Tucker's storyline could be that I don't react to Kids Being Cute montages the way most people do, but I think it's also partly tied to the more overt nature of both Brotherhood and the manga? They both present a somewhat limited, black-and-white approach to character morality: the good guys are clearly the good guys, and the bad guys are clearly the bad guys. And yes, I know Arakawa put a lot of work into the moral ambiguity of elements of this story - sometimes I am rather dryly aware that I could describe Roy Mustang as "my favourite war criminal" - but I don't really feel that in the show so far. The Homunculi are such bog-standard bad guys, lurking in shadows and discussing sacrifices and meeting up with creepy guys in tube-strewn basements, that they overshadow the more human evils. The sympathetic members of the cast all fall into Ed's "I did bad things but I'm trying to make up for it" end of the good-guy spectrum, whether from sheer contrast with the homunculi or from the very limited screen time given to their wrong actions.
However, I've only just reached Ling's entrance, so things may change in future!
(For one thing, my irritation will shift focus. I didn't like Ling in the manga, and so far he's extremely true to canon... I genuinely love Mei and Lan Fan, though, so hurrah for them finally arriving onscreen!)
Things I have noticed: I felt like Tucker and Hughes didn't have the same impact? Maybe it's the lack of surprise - this is the third incarnation of FMA for me - but I don't think so. Especially with Tucker, I just felt less emotional investment in both him and in Nina. There's some scenes of her being supremely adorable, and some creepy foreshadowing that Tucker is a bad guy, and in about two episodes everything is over and done with.
Hughes was definitely more intense than Tucker, and I really did love his staggering into the phone area, only to walk out again without calling - it's such a nice silent portrayal of how smart Hughes is and the connections he has made. Then at the phone booth he recognises that "Maria Ross" is counterfeit, once again proving what an intelligent guy he is... only to see him falter at seeing "Gracia" despite the fact he must know it's not her. Okay, maybe the Hughes scene was done better than I first thought. :D
A lot of my reaction to Tucker's storyline could be that I don't react to Kids Being Cute montages the way most people do, but I think it's also partly tied to the more overt nature of both Brotherhood and the manga? They both present a somewhat limited, black-and-white approach to character morality: the good guys are clearly the good guys, and the bad guys are clearly the bad guys. And yes, I know Arakawa put a lot of work into the moral ambiguity of elements of this story - sometimes I am rather dryly aware that I could describe Roy Mustang as "my favourite war criminal" - but I don't really feel that in the show so far. The Homunculi are such bog-standard bad guys, lurking in shadows and discussing sacrifices and meeting up with creepy guys in tube-strewn basements, that they overshadow the more human evils. The sympathetic members of the cast all fall into Ed's "I did bad things but I'm trying to make up for it" end of the good-guy spectrum, whether from sheer contrast with the homunculi or from the very limited screen time given to their wrong actions.
However, I've only just reached Ling's entrance, so things may change in future!
(For one thing, my irritation will shift focus. I didn't like Ling in the manga, and so far he's extremely true to canon... I genuinely love Mei and Lan Fan, though, so hurrah for them finally arriving onscreen!)
no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 10:36 pm (UTC)Hughes' storyline in Brotherhood was lovely, I thought. They kept the necessary parts and eschewed some of the excess fluff, which I liked. (I mean, the manga's original mix is best, of course, but I like the Brotherhood version more than the 2003 version, wherein Hughes wasn't actually portrayed as that intelligence, except in that last scene. In Brotherhood, he manages to be as intelligent as his manga counterpart the whole time, and the last scene is basically just icing on a very impressive cake.)
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Date: 2019-04-03 01:26 am (UTC)I definitely agree that they cut some fluff, and it wasn't missed! (And left in him all-but-kidnapping Winry, which always makes me laugh!)
Oh, and I liked seeing Armstrong fight and lose (or almost-lose) in Brotherhood, too, as a balance toward the humour his scenes often bring; his '03 incarnation was sketched much more lightly - in both senses.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 01:53 pm (UTC)ARMSTRONG. Man, having his actual characterization is definitely great.