Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Review: A 10/10 Complete Work Built on a Faithful Adaptation

“Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” opens with two boys burning down their own house. Edward and Alphonse Elric stand in the field outside Resembool and watch it go, because they have decided there is no turning back. That image — the deliberate destruction of home as a promise to keep moving — is the engine of everything that follows across 64 episodes.

Trailer, via KSM Anime.

Edward and Alphonse Elric’s Failed Transmutation

The brothers are raised by their mother Trisha in the remote village of Resembool, in the country of Amestris. Their father, Hohenheim, a gifted alchemist, abandoned the family while they were young. Trisha dies of a lingering illness, and the boys are cared for by their neighbor Pinako Rockbell and her granddaughter Winry, their closest friend.

Ed and Al travel to train under the teacher Izumi Curtis. When they come home, they try to bring their mother back with alchemy. Human transmutation is a taboo, and it is impossible to do properly. The attempt fails. Al’s body is destroyed. Ed loses his left leg. To keep his brother alive, Ed gives up his right arm and binds Al’s soul to a suit of armor.

After Winry and Pinako fit Edward with automail prosthetics, the brothers burn the house and head for the capital to become State Alchemists. Edward passes the exam and the military names him the “Fullmetal Alchemist.” Their goal is to recover their bodies through the Philosopher’s Stone.

Bones, Yasuhiro Irie, and a Faithful Second Adaptation

“Brotherhood” is the second animated adaptation of Hiromu Arakawa’s manga, after the 2003 series. Bones produced it. Yasuhiro Irie directed. Hiroshi Ōnogi wrote it, and Akira Senju composed the music. Production began in 2008.

The reason it exists is the reason it works. The 2003 anime ran out of published manga and invented its own story. “Brotherhood” was conceived to follow the entire manga directly. That decision is the spine of the show’s reputation, and it is the right one.

Roy Mustang, the Homunculi, and the State Military

The brothers’ quest runs under Colonel Roy Mustang. Along the way they find a government conspiracy to hide the true nature of the Philosopher’s Stone. It involves the homunculi, artificially made humans, and the alchemists of the neighboring nation of Xing. A scarred serial killer enters the story as well.

The enemies and allies shift. The corrupt military, the Homunculi and foreign alchemists all alter the brothers’ course. What does not shift is their purpose and their bond. The show states this plainly and then spends 64 episodes proving it.

64 Episodes on MBS, TBS, and Adult Swim

“Brotherhood” aired 64 episodes on MBS, TBS and their affiliates from April 2009 to July 2010. The first episode aired April 5, 2009. The last aired July 4, 2010. It ran one season.

Funimation licensed it in North America and broadcast an English dub on Adult Swim from February 2010 to September 2011. In March 2016, Funimation’s license expired and the series moved to Aniplex of America. The show has changed hands. It has not changed standing.

Romi Park and Rie Kugimiya Lead the Cast

Romi Park voices Edward Elric. Rie Kugimiya voices Alphonse Elric. Shin-ichiro Miki voices Roy Mustang. Fumiko Orikasa voices Riza Hawkeye. Megumi Takamoto voices Winry Rockbell.

The cast carries the two leads the whole way, and the show asks a lot of them. Edward is loud, proud and often wrong about what he can afford to lose. Alphonse is a voice inside a hollow suit of armor, and the performance has to make a body that cannot feel anything feel like a person. It does.

What the Praise Actually Rests On

“Brotherhood” has drawn acclaim since it first aired and is regarded as one of the greatest anime series of all time. The praise goes to its faithfulness to the manga and to its use of characters and plot details absent from the 2003 series — material that was either unpublished at the time or changed for creative reasons. The climactic episodes drew particular notice.

That is the correct place for the credit to sit. The show is not great because it is long. It is great because it knows where it is going. The Philosopher’s Stone is introduced early as a fix for the brothers’ bodies, and the series never lets the audience forget that the thing they want is built out of something terrible. The conspiracy, the homunculi, the Xing alchemists — none of it is noise. Each piece tightens the same knot.

The 2003 series is not a failure for having invented its own ending. It ran out of material and did what it had to. But “Brotherhood” is the version that gets to land the ending Arakawa wrote, and the difference shows in the back half, where the climactic episodes earn their reputation. A show that improvises its finish can only be so good. A show that has been building toward a known finish for 64 episodes can be great.

The one real cost is the opening. “Brotherhood” moves fast through material the 2003 series had already covered, on the assumption that viewers had seen it. Newcomers get the burned house and the failed transmutation quickly, and the early episodes can feel like a summary. That is a small tax on a large return.

The Verdict on Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

This is a 10 out of 10. “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood” is a complete work. It sets a goal in the first act, keeps the brothers’ bond fixed while everything around them moves, and pays off the conspiracy it spends 64 episodes building. The direction, the writing and Akira Senju’s score serve the story rather than decorate it. The cast makes a suit of armor into a person.

The show’s standing is not a matter of nostalgia. It is a matter of construction. The 2003 series had to guess. “Brotherhood” got to know, and it used that advantage on every episode. Rotten Tomatoes puts it at 100%, and a 10.0 out of 10 is the right score to match it.

anime review · Bones · Edward Elric · Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood · Hiromu Arakawa · shonen anime