I'll start this review off by saying I was never really a fan of FMA (the 2003 anime and the manga) and I am not particularly fond of its very vocal fanbase either. I didn't enjoy the original series either, I found that at the halfway point of that series the story fell apart and some of the homunculus characters didn't feel right. With that taste in my mouth I decided to watch Brotherhood as I was told it followed more accurately the story of the manga, and for the most part I found this to be more enjoyable then the original run. When do fans of a series get two versions of the same show, they've been spoiled thats a fact. But I digress Brotherhood addresses what I didn't like in the last series, but it also does some things that I generally hate in any type of show. So without further meandering from the point lets start off with some of the negatives and then move into the positives and what I liked.
Now the only real downside of this show is the character pacing, what I mean by this is how we see and are introduced to them. Many modern anime shows bring in characters either way to early or way to late and then ether discard them one or two episodes in or completely forget about them. One such character is Sloth, he shows up late and in literally a couple of episodes later he is gone. Though this version and the one found in the 2003 one are completely different and I enjoy this one way more I was a little irked that he didn't get that much screen time. Lust who was a major character in the original series, is not as important in this one and as such is discarded early on. The only other thing is that the story hasn't changed, instead of half of it in the first series you finally get the full original story which is good but it makes many of these episodes feel played out and old.
With all that out of the way lets get on with the positives, the introduction of characters from Xing are great and I enjoyed Lan Fan and May. The characters feel much better and more natural in this version, Greed has a bigger part and I like him a hell of a lot more then the original run. Bradley and Scar are also better this time around and the introduction of Oliver Armstrong is great, Izumi is awesome as usual and even the homunculi are better. We finally get to see them all and they are pretty good all round characters. The animation looks great and the design is similar to the original series but it is done well, Bones is a great studio and this piece shows off how talented they are in creating great enjoyable shows. The music is average nothing spectacular though I did enjoy the opening of the second quarter of episodes and I think the song closed the last episode off its pretty good.
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: 7.5/10
+Story is still fairly good
+Characters seem to have more depth then previous
+ Double offering for fans
-Really did there need to be another series
-expendable characters
its ''than'' not ''then''
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