Geek Addicts - Episode 12: A Full Metal Alchemist Retrospective!

[00:00:00] The following is a G&C podcast production. six hour colds. Yeah. Which was enough on its own to be a force. But then of course, she passed it on to Cindy and I and being the old farge that we are that 24 hour cold lasted all week. Yeah, but we're still feeling the residuals now. So I guess it's my turn to be fighting off the the leftovers of a cold.

[00:01:43] Yeah, it's like, there's like a good like span of like the evidence of it after effect. Well, it's weird. Is it like heated up and got like really hot like feeling and I was like, that's weird, which I guess was the swelling. And then it just kind of like stayed that way for like an hour. Now I only heard somebody put pressure on it. So that's not that at least. And this is not that bad.

[00:03:00] Yeah, it was just kind of like a shock thing.

[00:03:02] I'm surprised it didn't like bleed.

[00:03:04] But oh well.

[00:03:06] Yeah.

[00:03:07] My day was my weekly injury at work. It's going to be hit or miss with GNC just because Alex doesn't like to be filmed. But I might, if I can recover them, I might do some of the old geek addicts as well because I actually found out I can get a bunch of those old broadcasts back. All right. So I'll have to look at some of the footage because my podcasting setup has been so sporadic

[00:04:22] and random and I'm always puffing on my vape.

[00:04:26] Well, we're recording and shit.

[00:04:28] Sorry. that went out or I think into the fruits baskets one. So it's still in the fruit baskets one because that was on Zencaster and I didn't feel like editing it out. That's fair. Yeah. But actually on that subject my wife started watching that and she likes it a lot. Yeah. It's a good show. Yeah. I think she just recently got to the part where Ayame is introduced.

[00:05:44] Ah, yes. the car. That's how that one was extra fun for us because that's um the the Chinese Odeac for our daughter. Oh yeah. Where like the whole like the light and dark side like that just fits her so perfectly. So that was funny. Yeah that

[00:07:01] that's a great show. I gotta rewatch if you have. I have seen elements of it. The problem with watching the original is when you try to watch the original right after watching brotherhood, it is weird when I see 2000s there because that just doesn't feel old to me for some reason. No, not at all. And it was written by, I'm gonna butcher this probably. Do you know her name better than? Hiramu Aracawa.

[00:09:41] Okay, I don't wanna butcher that.

[00:09:45] Yes, so she wrote and illustrated this manga Other than that, they really didn't skip anything. There's two filler episodes. The first episode, funny enough, is a filler episode with the water guy. Right. And then there was an episode about midway through. I think it was right after, I could be getting my stuff,

[00:11:00] but I want to say it's right around the time where Ed and Link

[00:11:04] and me get swallowed by Gluttony. in the original show and not Brotherhood. Okay. Things like Yoki, is that a saying? Yoki? The guy with the mustache that hangs out in the scar? I think so, yeah. Yeah. His whole back story stuff that is covered in the original anime but is only kind of referenced a little bit in Brotherhood.

[00:12:22] Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I has been number one, like the number one overall rated anime for like ever. And anytime any other anime like overpasses it, they like throw a

[00:13:41] bitch fit and like either review, they used got the drama, it's got the action, it's got the beautiful, beautiful animation, beautiful soundtrack, top notch acting, the story is all there, the characters are alive and vibrant. Like it literally, it does have everything, but at the same time, like, I don't understand

[00:15:01] why fans do stuff like that,

[00:15:03] because when something is that good,

[00:15:05] you kind of have to let it stand in its own merit

[00:15:06] because if you just vomit like that, late 2021 or like extremely early 2022, I'd say. Because it was still in the house before the tree incident happened. Yeah, the tree happened in October of 2021, late October. So. OK, so it must have been 20. It would have had to been before that.

[00:16:21] OK.

[00:16:22] Yeah, so it was definitely 2021.

[00:16:24] So that's got like three years ago now.

[00:16:26] Yeah, you know, this is as bad as it gets. So, you know, if that makes you squeamish or whatever, don't worry, it gets better.

[00:18:46] Yeah, he basically everything he did he's pretty much like the biggest monster in this entire series in reality Oh, yeah, like screw it up all about monkey lie and father and all them like no, this dude's the worst

[00:18:53] It says a lot that like the main villain of this series like the big bad that gets like built up throughout the entire

[00:19:00] entire 64 episode run

[00:19:02] Isn't even the most heinous person in this show. It's literally the guy the one-off character that appears in episode four

[00:20:07] state alchemist status, but he never really improved his art from there. So when he's basically when he needs to get basically renew his contract,

[00:20:14] he goes and gets desperate and makes another one by using his daughter and their dog,

[00:20:18] and it is horrifying.

[00:20:20] Yes, it's very depressing to see.

[00:20:23] It's also heavily implied that his original experiment used his wife. biggest trauma for the rest of the series at this point. Oh yeah, going all the way to the final episode, it always gets brought out, so it's like this is the, I don't wanna say it's necessarily what they're trying to atone for. That's not really the right word, but it's kind of what they're trying to rise above

[00:21:42] the whole time.

[00:21:44] Yeah, it's actually funny,

[00:21:46] because I love the characters, you, you know, you even meet like the, the Fuhrer Bradley.

[00:23:04] It kind of gives you like an idea of how Alchemy works and the military structure of the country

[00:23:06] that they're, like that truth, it's truth, right? Is the, yeah, little shadow guy there. It's explained that the thing that truth takes from you is always like an ironic

[00:24:20] fate kind of thing.

[00:24:21] Like, I think it's like, so Al loses his leg.

[00:24:25] Not Al. that exists in this universe, it's basically like robotic prosthetics that everyone has and it's technology. Yeah, they are pretty cool. Unless you're in a wind cold area, then you have to have modified ones. Yeah, you can't get them wet. Yeah, they're pretty neat, but they're also kind of

[00:25:41] unwieldy at times. Yeah.

[00:25:45] But yeah, so it's like the best place to go from here is? Oh no, we already talked about the whole Shout Tucker thing. I mean, there's the whole Ishvah conflict. It's a pretty big thing that goes throughout the whole series.

[00:28:08] or might even be less than that I'm not sure. So the original FMA ran for 51 episodes from 2003 to 2004. Yeah, so yeah, it only ran for about a year. And obviously the manga was still super

[00:28:15] early on at that point. So they didn't have the whole story. So I think basically our car went

[00:29:28] of another Naruto Naruto just the entire show basically yeah one piece to a degree one piece has handled it better over the years one piece I feel like more they mostly like

[00:29:34] stretch out scenes as opposed to just making whole new shit yeah hunter hunter this happened

[00:29:40] to twice where they ran out of material black So she had to, there was kind of this weird hide, like just kind of period where they couldn't get any more manga. So the first anime ends pretty early into the manga's run.

[00:31:03] And she had such a bad experience with that studio the most infamous one is Comey, where it's like that that there's like almost 30 volumes of Comey in there. They've only covered up to volume like eight, I think. So yeah, it's like they got plenty to work with, but it doesn't look like they're gonna do much more. So who knows there? Yeah. But yeah, going back to FMA though,

[00:33:42] FMA legit like the first like 20 or so. Of course. Yeah, it's strange. And then he tries to like clone, create another one of his daughter. I don't know, it's weird. Yeah, and there's like assaults that happen in the anime that's bizarre.

[00:33:44] They just do some really weird,

[00:33:46] they went some weird places in the original FMA. it now. Yeah, it's like I give them props for trying their own take on it, but I'll say say it not brotherhood stories just better. Yeah, it's it's just makes more sense. It has that kind of like that kind of well thought out structure to it, where you know that that a lot of thought went

[00:35:02] into this story and probably had a lot of this story mapped out before it even started.

[00:36:04] Yeah, because it's like, isn't one of them completely a different character?

[00:36:07] Uh, a couple of them are, yeah.

[00:36:13] If we visit, Wrath isn't, um, isn't the same character, right? It's, uh, yeah, some of them are switched up.

[00:36:15] Um, Bradley is pride in the original series as opposed to Wrath.

[00:36:20] Yeah.

[00:36:21] Yeah, that's what it is.

[00:36:22] Cause then, cause Pride doesn't, cause hison. Yeah, going on though, I'm like trying to think of other big moments that we should probably talk

[00:37:43] about.

[00:38:45] form also in in the brotherhood and it's actually leads to his demise. Yeah.

[00:38:46] Yeah.

[00:38:47] As I love by the end of that whole thing, he's just like a little piece of scrap with

[00:38:51] the blood seal.

[00:38:52] Yeah.

[00:38:53] And then it gets a, it gets erased by his, his, his original body.

[00:38:57] And he's like, no, stop.

[00:38:58] Don't do that.

[00:38:59] Yeah.

[00:39:00] It's just so silly.

[00:39:02] He's also voiced by Jerry Jule, which is just hilarious to me.

[00:39:07] Jerry Jule has range. performance here and like it's spot on like he it is such a like interesting character because he's like kind of an annoying little shit but you also really like him because he he's smart but also dumb at the same time yeah he's kind of like smart me you know he's he's kind of a punk but you know he's it's not he's not as much of a really fucked up. He's basically stealing all of Ed's nutrition and that's why Ed is so short. Yeah, I love how they just had to throw in that little explanation. Ed even mentions it as they're figuring it all out. It just actually explains everything.

[00:41:42] It's like he's basically siphoning his life force from Ed and that's how they're going to get their body back. You've also got, so then we mentioned them a few times, you've got you've got Ling and Lon, his assistant Lon Phan, who are from one of the neighboring regions and they are also looking for a full, well, Ling is looking for the basically like the source of like,

[00:43:03] he's basically just trying to find a way to bring about immortality when in the country, every like major clan, and they all have to like compete to, you know, see who's going to succeed. Yes, Emperor. It's kind of a fucked up thing when you really think about it because it's kind of like, they're basically fighting each other for this. And yeah, there's- Ultimate sibling rival rate.

[00:44:20] Pretty much.

[00:44:21] Cause you see it a lot whenever,

[00:44:25] whenever a Ling runs into a May,

[00:45:25] subplot we have is we've got obviously the stuff going on back in the capital with the

[00:45:30] God, I'm forgetting their names Mustang Mustang

[00:45:39] Havoc Hawkeye all them. Yeah, they're all essentially like they have their own thing because they're also trying to like basically

[00:45:42] Find out what the weird shit that's going on because doesn't like

[00:45:48] Doesn't Mustang not trust Bradley at all or is it the flask kind of explained it. He did it in a very like poetic way. It's just something like the man who had a vision for the future had his sight in it. That kind of thing. Yeah, although he gets his sight back at the end like in like the most like nonchalant way ever, but that's besides the point. Yeah, that what's his name? Marco shows up. He's okay. I guess I got

[00:47:00] one of these. I still called bullshit on that though. But like, her whole thing was that they had a baby that had a miscarriage. And so she tried to bring the baby back. So truth took away her ability to have babies ever again, which is, and she never got it healed. So she just like vomits blood like randomly throughout the series. Yeah, whatever she's getting worked out, she's bad.

[00:48:23] Yeah. I love, I love the like an extension of the whole thing of Mustang, because the the war that Mustang took part in was the war against scars homeland, which kind of set scar on this whole path of revenge. That's that's that's another scene in the anime that's super

[00:49:40] like F'd up is when you find out what happened to scars brother.

[00:49:44] Yeah, would you realize that his arm isn't even his arm?

[00:49:46] Yeah, it was like because his reconstruction to reconstruct scars arm at the rice. Maybe he did like he had to trade some himself basically to do it. I don't know. Something like that.

[00:51:01] Well, I mean, OK, history, they make it a big, but he's got his whole journey. Like there's actually a fun subplot with him and Meg is may also use his Alka history. Yeah, they have a bit of a bonding moment there. Like he gets his whole group. Basically, his whole thing is he's against all alchemy users. In a sense, and like when he sees her using alka history,

[00:52:22] he kind of immediately takes a liking to her because of that.

[00:52:25] I think it's more so interesting way that the story unfolds like that.

[00:53:40] Like what's crazy to me is everybody is linked together somehow.

[00:53:44] Like everybody, everything connects in the room for no reason. Eating a sandwich. Yeah. He just looks over like, huh? He's just like, just wanted a quiet place to eat my sandwich. It's like, that is like one of the rare, just like weird anime

[00:55:03] slapstick scenes that like, it doesn't really fit anything I think it's a zoomy. I think it's a zoomy. Yeah. Her sandals throw me off because I'm pretty sure it's like WC. Or M. See. Yeah. So that that always throws me off. I always think it's me zoomy instead of Izumi. But honestly, thinking about it, I think the most fan servicey hair, like female character in this is probably

[00:56:20] windry and even then it's mostly just because of she's got like the.

[00:56:24] School girlish outfit for like a say about that show, but that's

[00:57:42] for another time. Let's just say. Yeah, he does screw with him too a little bit that's for different reasons Envy like he's trying to take out envy and then envy a shape shifts into a lonfon just to mess with him We didn't actually mention the all the huma huma

[00:59:03] Immaculate I can't talk tonight I'm with you dude my

[01:00:06] have as many lives. Like you take the Philosopher's Stone as like, you know, a life counter in a video game, say this. And, you know, every time you get a mortal injury and heal it, that's one

[01:00:13] soul lost. That's essentially the way I understand it. Yeah, I don't know if that's exactly how it

[01:00:18] works. But that's the way I always quantified it. Because the one who gets like injured the most

[01:00:23] is gluttony because he's just kind of a big another. Yeah, and then they like set this over and we were having some drinks and stuff and I was like most of the way into the bag by that point. And he was like, hey, let's throw it on. I'm like, yeah, fuck it.

[01:03:02] Why not? And we watched the first four episodes and I'm like, what the hell?

[01:04:03] by then to like Lawn Fawn comes back with her new auto mail arm.

[01:04:06] Yeah, which is like awesome scene.

[01:04:10] Yeah, hers is like they heard they went they found a different mechanic for hers. So hers is like epic and like way over, pretty over made, but still bad as

[01:04:15] it seems.

[01:04:16] And I love how like how the hump of the humm, Munkula, the seven deadly sins,

[01:04:22] so to speak, are all kind of defeated by their own sin.

[01:04:27] Yeah, pretty much.

[01:05:24] greed, like figuring out that he already had all he needed, like, and how each of each of these different sins kind of faces their own sin and is ultimately defeated and kind

[01:05:33] of, well, in some cases, fine peace and other cases, not so much.

[01:05:39] Yeah, I don't think lust found peace.

[01:05:42] No, and probably not envy either. show OVA's so maybe so she might come back for the remake who knows maybe I'd be okay with it. I mean Keko has like maybe like half an hour of scenes in that show so I mean it's not like it's going to take that much but true but I think the only anime roles that she's come back for

[01:07:02] recently has been um fruit basket yeah take a take in the show as young Hoenheim. So that was interesting. Oh, that is kind of cool. Oh, it notice it, you know? He has so few scenes throughout the series like early on, but like whenever he does appear, he always leaves an impact. Like I think one of my favorites is when he meets up with Ed and Al for the first time

[01:09:40] after they lost their bodies essentially, he sees Alfonso, he's like, my section of the show and manga to a degree is phenomenal. Like, because it's basically like the buildup of everything that we've been like building up to at this point, because 64 episodes isn't short, but it's also not that long in hindsight. Yeah, it's fairly short as far as anime goes. Yeah, it's it's a it's about the same length as fruit baskets.

[01:11:02] The second fruit baskets that is. that scene for the first time to not cry. I'm heartless, so. Many of the family tears have been shed at this show. My favorite too is then like we get the after-ed defeats, after-ed defeats father, he goes to truth to get Al back. And the whole reveal basically where like truth's like,

[01:12:21] so what are you gonna give me now?

[01:12:22] You've kind of screwed yourself here.

[01:12:24] And it's basically like, no, I wasn't feeding off his life force, I don't think he would have known that there was a difference between the two doors. Yeah, because you know,

[01:13:41] everyone's door looks different. Everyone's door is

[01:13:44] different. So if you didn't see like, no, because he like mentions he's like, I've made this, this power literally leads to so many things. And it's like, he basically accepts that he's like, I don't need it. And he gives it up, like just like that. I thought that my way more important. Yeah, I thought that was like super sweet. Like it was like such a nice like way to cap it off.

[01:15:02] It's such a wholesome show. The I think the battle itself was what drained the last bit of his life in the first place. Yeah, that actually is a very nice reveal too, as it explains where he's been this entire time.

[01:16:21] Because at first you think he's just a deadbeat

[01:16:23] who's just fucking off the entire time.

[01:16:25] Yeah.

[01:16:26] Then you find out that Ling got the

[01:17:40] flossper stone so he became the emperor altogether. It's a really sweet ending. reason to continue it. Yeah, it just wrapped up so neatly like they would it would just. Oh, God. Talking too much. Yeah, you're yeah. Yeah, they would just ruin it if they tried to bring it back.

[01:20:22] Yeah, it's kind of like you haka show that ended pretty much perfectly to.

[01:20:26] Yeah, it's like we got just enough, you okay. I don't want another series. Yeah. I mean, it's like, what's Ed gonna do? He little jit has no more alchemy. And he's older now. And I mean, I know Japan doesn't care about any of our stuff, but like, as far as English gems go. Well, yeah, it's like all the full metal purists are not's true but yeah oh there was that movie for uh well metal alcus brother of the the superstar milo that's like not canon at all oh yeah like it takes place like right after um

[01:24:23] it was like right after the stuff with uh the not like offensively bad either. They just kind of exist. I know um In one of the manga volumes our kawa had written like a little Like prequel chapter to it to one of the games Yeah, there was two on well three technically, but we only got two of them over here for the ps2

[01:27:02] There's also one on those there's also one on you ever watch the Brotherhood OVAs? I don't think I did. I saw them once a while ago. I tried to buy them like deal was where there was but like there technically was one but it was I don't remember exactly what was it well for that but it was a really weird structure. Like it was but it wasn't.

[01:28:25] Interesting. They might have fixed it by now but this was like right when the first one came out Yeah, like literally that show keeps you on the edge of the seat the whole time. It's it's really hard to cover in a reasonable amount of time. It's one of those ones where if we really wanted to touch all the things we wanted to talk about, we'd have to like actually go through episode by episode. Yeah, it's honestly makes more sense. It's like a bundle kind of thing, which I mean, it would make more sense if you could do more with it. But they're probably gonna do a merger. It's someone just merge them together. But we'll see. It would be nice if they did something like that.

[01:29:40] Cause like when I saw that they were doing that, I was like,

[01:29:42] Oh shit. Well, maybe I can actually download episodes of

[01:29:44] Bleach or Watch Bleach again.

[01:29:45] But like all the episodes I couldn use some of license, but they they've they outsourced the dub to like Crunchyroll.

[01:32:03] But Brotherhood is definitely a superior story. Yeah.

[01:32:04] It's also just more concise.

[01:32:07] Yeah, it's just, it's so tidy.

[01:32:10] It's so neat.

[01:32:11] You know, it just comes together so well.

[01:32:14] Yeah.

[01:32:15] But yeah, this one wasn't too long, but not too short either.

[01:32:20] So we did pretty good.

[01:32:22] But once again, guys, thanks for joining us on geek addicts.

[01:32:25] Geek addicts can be found in all the major podcasting platforms in the GNC podcast.