#but i forgot about it and watched fma 03 lol

[xviicprc]

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People are so mean to FMA 03. It doesn't deserve it!!!

Don't get me wrong FMA:B is a grest show but it shouldn't be treated as "the Only FMA anime that exists, ignore the other one"

FMA 03 was a great introduction to anime for many people!!!

And it actually handled a lot of the serious moments even better than FMAB (*cough* Rose's belief being shattered while she stands on the ruins of the Chruch/symbolism of her faith *cough* The brother's failed Human transmutatiom is more horrific and gruesome, selling better the idea of a tabboo gone wrong *cough* Nina spend more episodes with the brothers tricking you into thinking she was gonna be a recuring character and was a surrogate little sister *cough* the emotional scene between Ed and Al where both almost die at the hands of Scar doesn't have All hitting Edd with comical sounds *cough* Actually having a great first episode)

Stop being so mean to it just because "it doesnt adapt the manga hyrr hurr dur"

Arakawa Herself said to enjoy the show for what differences it has from the source material!!!!!!!!! She worked on the anime seires as well for it to have her aproval!!!

Also there was no manga left to adapt for them! What? You wanted them to wait 10 years for Arakawa to finish???

(Also I dont like the colors in FMA:B a lot :/ they look washed out and I KNOW its a stylistic choice meant to imitate Hiromu Arakawa's oil paintings of FMA but.... Egh, Edd looks too light blonde to me?? The backgrounds are... Okay i guess. The colors don't catch my eye, and seem dull)

TBH maybe I will be hanged for this but FMA:B only gets good when it starts adapting the episodes the 03 series couldn't adapt

Also. FMAB (aside from the opening and ending songs) didn’t have such a memorable OST like FMA 03 "BROTHERS" IS SO fucking GOOD I CRY EVEYTIM-

[combustiblegarbage]

so i rewatched the first 4 eps of 03 with @petalbridges last night and here are some thoughts:

i’ve seen the first 3 episodes so many times. So Many Times. So. Many. Times.

as someone who at the time of my original watch of fma was religious and was struggling with trying to fit in with friends (who were not that good of friends in retrospect lol) by really getting invested in like, bible study and religion to a degree that would later come back to bite me in the gay ass, i see why this twigged me as a kid

them leading with such a strong and explicit religious theme (tho it’s technically about a sun god it’s undeniably christian in nature, with the form of prayer/worship and other religious conventions like “Father” cornello and even the priestlike clothing he wears) and then like....proceeding to have the main character demonstrate how religion is a Sham Dogma for men who want Power is kind of a bold move man!!

placing so much emphasis on faith and the importance thereof, and the other bold move of having rose at the end say “i wish you’d never come here, we weren’t hurting anyone, why couldn’t you just let us believe what we believed in peace?!?” is both A) tied to the larger themes of equivalent exchange, cuz at the end of the series the boys’ one rock-solid foundation for their entire understanding of the world will be called into question and they’ll decide: no! it’s important to believe in something! ([ed ep 50 voice] i thought i didn’t have to believe in something, dad, but i do) which neatly brackets the series

and B) it’s also tied to the larger ongoing theme that intervention in a problem is always going to make it worse, that looking into things is always going to escalate, that there’s a spreading stain and guess what! you’re complicit in it!!! ([ed ep 48 voice] there’s never going to be a war that isn’t in some way caused by all of us)

ed is positioned as this rational and scientific stalwart who only believes in what he can see and is skeptical of everything else, but then as the flashbacks unfold we really see that there’s an Emotional basis for what he’s saying. u know why he doesn’t like father cornello pretending he can bring back the dead? because you CAN’T bring back the dead. ed knows. he tried.

and yet despite ed being a bit of an fedora wearing atheist asshole, there’s a little bit of him that says things flatly to rose like, “i hope he is a miracle-worker, rose.” which is....probably not tru cuz ed likes being right lol but it also sort of shows his intentions as being, like...he’s not out here to hurt people. he’s not doing this to prove to rose she’s a Dumb Idiot, he really believes that in a naive sense that people shouldn’t believe things that are lies - even if it brings them comfort! which is a childish view of the world influenced by equivalent exchange (the truth will set u free, it will be Worth It in the end, intellectual mastery over the world is the most important and rewarding thing) and exactly the sort of thing dante will take him to task for at the end of the series ([dante ep49 voice] a lie we tell to comfort the oppressed and make children do their lessons]

another note: 03 was EXCEPTIONAL with its creepy gross body horror and even to this day the choking throaty noises the bird-resurrected-boyfriend-chimera makes are viscerally skin-crawling, as is father cornello’s Smile as he Lets rose see the chimera before trying to dispose of her

all in all, the first liore arc is a solid setup to a story that will neatly come back there and draw on those themes at the end of its narrative. which is exceptionally cool given that the 03 creators were drawing on manga content, which obviously didn’t go the direction 03 did. so they constructed their own meaning out of it, which is really well done

also, i forgot the first filler happens literally in ep4 (with the dolls and the butchy lil girl and the blue roses), and while it’s Definitely a filler, it also sets up a lot of themes about resurrection that we’ll continue to explore in the rest of the series. majhal didn’t want the real life version of his old love who was right in front of his eyes: he wanted the version of her he’d constructed in his head, the version of her he’d become obsessed with and wanted to recreate

one of the recurring threads of the homunculi is that people create homunculi, and then refuse to take responsibility for the creature they’ve created because it’s not their mother/lover/child/etc, not what they Wanted, but instead a whole new person with wants and needs and conflicting desires of their own. it draws on the arrogance of wanting to bring someone back to life to begin with, and what if they’re not what you want? what if you’re not doing it for them, but really for yourself?

(incidentally izumi is an amazing case study in this cuz she’s the one character who DOES take responsibility for what she did and also fully is aware that what she did was for herself out of grief and pain. i’m looking forward to revisiting her story)

anyway, those are all my thoughts for now!!! i’ll probably be streaming more eps later as i make it thru the series