Top 25 Japanese Actresses on MDL
I have to admit I am an FMA nerd. I own several T-shirts, both FMA and FMA: Brotherhood on DVD and last but not least an autographed picture of Edward signed by Vic Mignogna. I was bad and watched it English dubbed instead of subbed. (Yeah I know I lost my geek cred... but Edward voiced by Romi Park all I could hear was Toshiro Hitsugaya from Bleach).
Alright enough about my credentials to review Fullmetal Alchemist and lets move on to the review itself.
CAST
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| This is Edward Elric (Yamada Ryosuke), Genius Alchemist who made State Alchemist at the age of 12. Known as Full Metal Alchemist, hates anyone referring to the fact that he is short. | |
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| This is Colonel Roy Mustang (Fujioka Dean), Hero of the Ishvalian Civil War and Full Metal's Boss. He has his hands full. | |
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Here are Lust (Matsuyuki Yasuko) and Envy (Hongo Kanata). Envy is a big deal in the Anime. Gluttony (Uchiyama Shinji) is there too but he's just a tool. | |
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Hughes (Sato Ryuta), Riza Hawkeye (Renbutsu Misako), and Winry Rockbell (Honda Tsubasa) are right on the money as well.
With anime to live action it is sometimes difficult to get the look right without being too over the top. I only cringed when Gluttony used his power. The CGI Effects for Alphonse were done well enough I forgot he was CGI or rather I wasn't thinking CGI the entire time.
STORY
The story line we see is set in episodes 3-10 of FMA: Brotherhood with several elements left out. It has one of the most gut-wrenching scenes from the whole anime in it, but it did not hit me as hard this time. Maybe cause I knew it was coming, I am not sure.
With me being familiar with the story, this was like a recap for me and I am not sure people unfamiliar with the story would be able to follow everything. The Law of Equivalent Exchange is explained well enough and that is the basis of the entire magic system of the world.
The characters themselves were correct, not one time did I go "Oh Ed wouldn't do that" or "that's not how Mustang would have handled that" which is key to making a live action adaptation. Don't poop on your source material.
The interactions between the characters was cut extremely tight so we don't get the tension between Mustang and Ed, One being a career Military man, and one using the military to get what he needs to save his brother.
The attraction and old married couple feel we get from Winry and Ed throughout the entire anime is just not there. The fact that Alphonse is in love with her too, not here.
The story that was told had action and highlighted characters without hand-holding. Finding the balance between die hard fans and newcomers to the franchise is extremely difficult to achieve. I feel it is better to keep the fans happy or you get backlash like Death Note.
CGI
There is a ton of CGI in this, but it did not bother me, meaning it did not feel out of place. There were a few places where it seemed they were showing off their abilities, but that was within the first 20 minutes of the movie and it settled down after that.
Visually the movie was very pretty and the colors stayed bright which coincides with the anime. The color palette usually reflected the tone of the story.
Overall I gave it a rating of 8.5 because they got it right, mostly. I wasn't disappointed I waited a year to see this. I will probably buy the dvd to go with the rest of mine. If you are a fan of the anime no need to shy away from this. If you are new to this franchise I recommend the anime, also on Netflix in 5 parts.
I will leave you with this link of Edward Proposing to Winry in the Anime... Why? cause I want to : )
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