Beware the ides of March!
Mar. 15th, 2005 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bobcatmoranI'm coming into the home stretch on my capstone paper. Yays. I'm not quite done yet, though. I decided to take a break and watch the last two episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist. They've been calling to me for the past two days, and my self-control finally broke.
Wow, I can't believe it's over. Well, over for me, that is. I know the series actually ended in Japan just about the time that I decided to see what was so amazing about this anime that so many people seemed to be raving about. They so left the door wide open for the movie. I hope Ed gets back. I really, really hope he does. Although, if the explanation for how/if he gets back really does have something to do with rockets and ether, I think I will have to go and bang my head against the wall. Overall, the ending was pretty bittersweet, which didn't completely surprise me. This just isn't the sort of series to do happily-ever-after endings. And even if the brothers are reunited, both in human form, both in Hagaren, it will have been what, at least eight years since that last happened? Yeeps.
The first episode I actually saw was episode 27, the one where you really meet Izumi for the first time. I'm not quite sure what on earth posessed me to download that one first. I was really impressed with the quality of the animation and the storytelling, even if I wasn't quite sure who all these people were. I remember being very startled to hear that high-pitched voice coming out of that great big suit of armor. It was good enough that I went and started to track down the episodes, this time starting at the beginning.
It took me about five seconds to fall in love with Ed's character. He was just this little ball of energy and grumpiness and oh so cute. It took me a bit longer to warm up to Al, mainly because I had trouble reconciling the voice with the visual. By the end of the first two Lior episodes, though, I was a definite Elric-kyoudai fan. I still am. It's rare for me to have the main characters also be my favorite characters, whether it be a cartoon, book, or movie, but Ed and Al made it to there. They're probably among my all-time favorite fictional characters, in fact, with Al narrowly beating out Ed just because I think that if I ever met Edward Elric in real life, I would be tempted to throttle him after about five minutes.
Hughes was another character who I really loved. When I was originally downloading episodes, I only had the DivX codec, not the Xvid, and for some reason episode 25 wouldn't play for me even though all the other episodes up to that point had worked fine. So I skipped that one and went on ahead to episode 26. Imagine my shock when suddenly Mustang and Hawkeye started talking about Hughes' murder. I think that came as the most unpleasant surprise in the entire series for me, just because I never saw it coming. I was shocked by quite a few of the other character deaths, but I sort of saw them coming in advance. I didn't actually get a working Xvid codec until I was well into the 30s, episode-wise, and had run into a couple more episodes that didn't work. Thus, I had been left hanging for quite awhile over what exactly happened after Al jumped off the hospital roof, angsting that Ed had in fact made a walking guilt-trip just for his own convenience, and also what happened after Ed first ran off after Wrath, yelling, "Hey, those are my limbs! Give them back!"
Schiezka (or however you spell her name) is another character I took about five seconds to warm up to. My sister insists that she's like my Hagaren incarnation. I don't have a photographic memory by a long shot, but the whole bit about getting fired from the library for reading too much on the job? And getting buried by books? That's not too far of a stretch. ^_^;;
Actually, I truly disliked very few characters in the entire series. All I can really think of are General Halcrow (sp?), Basque Gran, Archer, Shou Tucker, and Dante. And I dislike them not in the sense that I can't stand to see them come on screen (which is the usual case with characters I really don't like--Rush in the American Mega Man cartoon, for example), but in the sense that I think they are Really Horrible People which, I believe, was kind of the point with those characters. Mustang was actually filed under Really Horrible People for his first few episodes, but I really warmed to his character as the series went on to the point where I let out a "squee!" at the "Flame Alchemist" episode.
FMA seems to be vying to be the fourth series I write fanfiction for (I wrote some Gargoyles stuff in middle school and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle story when I was nine), but so far my attempts haven't worked out so well. My plot bunnies have so far all included Edward, and he keeps on going OOC. It's very annoying. They're all pretty angsty little plot bunnies, too, which I guess is to be expected, considering the series, and I think that might be where some of the problem is stemming from, since I've never really written any hard-core angst.
Wow, I can't believe it's over. Well, over for me, that is. I know the series actually ended in Japan just about the time that I decided to see what was so amazing about this anime that so many people seemed to be raving about. They so left the door wide open for the movie. I hope Ed gets back. I really, really hope he does. Although, if the explanation for how/if he gets back really does have something to do with rockets and ether, I think I will have to go and bang my head against the wall. Overall, the ending was pretty bittersweet, which didn't completely surprise me. This just isn't the sort of series to do happily-ever-after endings. And even if the brothers are reunited, both in human form, both in Hagaren, it will have been what, at least eight years since that last happened? Yeeps.
The first episode I actually saw was episode 27, the one where you really meet Izumi for the first time. I'm not quite sure what on earth posessed me to download that one first. I was really impressed with the quality of the animation and the storytelling, even if I wasn't quite sure who all these people were. I remember being very startled to hear that high-pitched voice coming out of that great big suit of armor. It was good enough that I went and started to track down the episodes, this time starting at the beginning.
It took me about five seconds to fall in love with Ed's character. He was just this little ball of energy and grumpiness and oh so cute. It took me a bit longer to warm up to Al, mainly because I had trouble reconciling the voice with the visual. By the end of the first two Lior episodes, though, I was a definite Elric-kyoudai fan. I still am. It's rare for me to have the main characters also be my favorite characters, whether it be a cartoon, book, or movie, but Ed and Al made it to there. They're probably among my all-time favorite fictional characters, in fact, with Al narrowly beating out Ed just because I think that if I ever met Edward Elric in real life, I would be tempted to throttle him after about five minutes.
Hughes was another character who I really loved. When I was originally downloading episodes, I only had the DivX codec, not the Xvid, and for some reason episode 25 wouldn't play for me even though all the other episodes up to that point had worked fine. So I skipped that one and went on ahead to episode 26. Imagine my shock when suddenly Mustang and Hawkeye started talking about Hughes' murder. I think that came as the most unpleasant surprise in the entire series for me, just because I never saw it coming. I was shocked by quite a few of the other character deaths, but I sort of saw them coming in advance. I didn't actually get a working Xvid codec until I was well into the 30s, episode-wise, and had run into a couple more episodes that didn't work. Thus, I had been left hanging for quite awhile over what exactly happened after Al jumped off the hospital roof, angsting that Ed had in fact made a walking guilt-trip just for his own convenience, and also what happened after Ed first ran off after Wrath, yelling, "Hey, those are my limbs! Give them back!"
Schiezka (or however you spell her name) is another character I took about five seconds to warm up to. My sister insists that she's like my Hagaren incarnation. I don't have a photographic memory by a long shot, but the whole bit about getting fired from the library for reading too much on the job? And getting buried by books? That's not too far of a stretch. ^_^;;
Actually, I truly disliked very few characters in the entire series. All I can really think of are General Halcrow (sp?), Basque Gran, Archer, Shou Tucker, and Dante. And I dislike them not in the sense that I can't stand to see them come on screen (which is the usual case with characters I really don't like--Rush in the American Mega Man cartoon, for example), but in the sense that I think they are Really Horrible People which, I believe, was kind of the point with those characters. Mustang was actually filed under Really Horrible People for his first few episodes, but I really warmed to his character as the series went on to the point where I let out a "squee!" at the "Flame Alchemist" episode.
FMA seems to be vying to be the fourth series I write fanfiction for (I wrote some Gargoyles stuff in middle school and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle story when I was nine), but so far my attempts haven't worked out so well. My plot bunnies have so far all included Edward, and he keeps on going OOC. It's very annoying. They're all pretty angsty little plot bunnies, too, which I guess is to be expected, considering the series, and I think that might be where some of the problem is stemming from, since I've never really written any hard-core angst.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-16 08:52 am (UTC)What? It's over? *Is not reading the cut part, but had to comment*
[Shhhhhhh! Don't spoil it for me!]
Dangit! >_<
I've got to see this show in its entirety! All I've managed to get ahold of are the first five episodes...
How many episodes are there in all?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-16 04:21 pm (UTC)If you have cable, the dub is airing on the Cartoon Network during Adult Swim. I think they're somewhere in the 20s right now, but don't quote me on that. I haven't actually seen the dub yet — having no TV kind of makes that difficult — but I haven't heard much in the way of outright bashing of it.