“Fullmetal Alchemist” arrived on Japanese television in October 2003 with a problem it never solved and never needed to. Hiromu Arakawa’s manga was still being written. The show would run out of published story long before it ran out of episodes. So Bones, the studio behind it, made a choice that has followed the series for two decades: it invented its own ending.
The result is 51 episodes that start as an adaptation and finish as something else entirely. It is messier than the reboot that came later. It is also, at its best, stranger and sadder.
Trailer, via All the Anime.
Two Brothers and a Forbidden Act
The setup is the same one that made Arakawa’s manga a hit. Edward and Alphonse Elric are young alchemists who try to bring their dead mother back. The attempt fails. Edward loses limbs. Alphonse loses his entire body, his soul bound to a suit of armor. Their search for the Philosopher’s Stone — the one thing that might restore what they lost — drives everything that follows.
Directed by Seiji Mizushima, written by Shō Aikawa, and scored by Michiru Ōshima, the series aired on MBS and TBS and its affiliates from October 4, 2003, to October 2, 2004. It is loosely based on the manga, and that word is doing real work. Arakawa herself asked for a screenwriter-led original ending, since the manga was still in active publication. Around the first dozen episodes, the anime breaks away into its own story.
That break is the whole argument about this show.
What the Cast Carries
The voice work is the spine of it. Romi Park plays Edward, and Rie Kugimiya plays Alphonse — a performance that has to sell a boy’s warmth through a metal shell, and does. Megumi Toyoguchi is Winry Rockbell, the childhood friend and mechanic. Toru Okawa plays Roy Mustang. Ryotaro Okiayu voices Scar. Michiko Neya is Riza Hawkeye. Mayumi Yamaguchi is Envy, and Nana Mizuki plays Wrath.
- Romi Park as Edward Elric
- Rie Kugimiya as Alphonse Elric
- Megumi Toyoguchi as Winry Rockbell
- Toru Okawa as Roy Mustang
- Ryotaro Okiayu as Scar
- Michiko Neya as Riza Hawkeye
- Mayumi Yamaguchi as Envy
- Nana Mizuki as Wrath
The supporting bench runs deep: Naomi Wakabayashi as Sheska, Miyoko Aso as Pinako Rockbell, Houko Kuwashima as Rose Thomas, Masashi Ebara as Van Hoenheim.
Dante, Hohenheim, and the Stone
Here is where the 2003 series stops being a version of the manga and becomes its own thing. The first half adapts the first six volumes. The second half pulls plot points from volumes seven and eight and rebuilds them around a new antagonist: Dante.
Dante is a former lover of Hohenheim, the Elric brothers’ father, and a mentor to their teacher. Centuries earlier, she and Hohenheim perfected a way to make the Philosopher’s Stone and became immortal by moving their souls and minds into new bodies as they aged. Hohenheim eventually broke under the guilt of the lives sacrificed to make the Stone and left her.
Dante can still jump bodies using the last Stone the two of them made. She will not risk the rebound of making another. So she works through the homunculi, pushing Edward, Alphonse and other desperate alchemists toward creating a complete Stone for her.
It is a colder story than the reboot’s. The villain is not a grand cosmic force. She is an ex-lover who ran the numbers and decided other people’s lives were the cost of her continuing.
How It Ends
The finale does not flinch. Scar creates the Philosopher’s Stone at the cost of his own life and the lives of 7,000 soldiers, then fuses it into Alphonse’s armored body. Alphonse is kidnapped. Edward tries to rescue him and is killed by Envy.
Alphonse uses the Stone to bring his brother back. He vanishes in the process, and Envy goes with him, failing to stop him. Dante tries to escape and dies when the homunculus Gluttony — whose mind she had earlier destroyed — no longer recognizes her as his master.
Edward, revived, risks his life to bring his brother back and lands in Munich. Alphonse recovers his original body. Edward, set on reuniting with him, gets involved in rocketry research, hoping the technology can carry him back to his own world. The story finishes in the film “Conqueror of Shamballa,” which hit Japanese theaters in July 2005.
That is a genuine ending, not a stall. It is also bleak in a way that the manga’s own conclusion is not.
A Broadcast Run That Outlasted Its Own Canon
The series aired 51 episodes across a single season. Funimation licensed it for North America and ran an English dub on Adult Swim from November 2004 to March 2006. In July 2016, Funimation’s license expired and the series moved to Aniplex of America.
| Run | Dates |
|---|---|
| Original Japanese broadcast (MBS, TBS and affiliates) | October 4, 2003 – October 2, 2004 |
| English dub on Adult Swim (US) | November 2004 – March 2006 |
| Sequel film “Conqueror of Shamballa” (Japanese theaters) | July 2005 |
| North American license moves to Aniplex of America | July 2016 |
Two decades on, the licensing handoff matters less than the production decision behind it. Arakawa signed off on an original ending rather than let the anime tread water. That is rare. Most adaptations of an unfinished manga stall, pad, or invent filler arcs that go nowhere. This one committed to a destination and drove at it.
Where It Stands Against Brotherhood
The obvious comparison is “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood,” the reboot that followed the manga faithfully. Brotherhood is the more coherent work. It has the author’s actual ending, and it does not have to reconcile a first half built for one story with a second half built for another.
But the 2003 series has something Brotherhood cannot replicate: the feeling of a story written into the dark. Dante is a villain born of that condition. So is the decision to let Edward die and Alphonse pay for his return. The show earns its grief.
It is not a clean piece of television. The pivot around the first dozen episodes leaves seams. Characters and threads set up under the manga’s logic get reworked, and not every rework lands. The middle stretch can drag. Anyone watching for the first time should expect a series that changes its mind about what it is.
What holds it together is the brothers. Edward and Alphonse are the constant, and the show never loses sight of the simple engine underneath the alchemy, the homunculi and the philosophy: two kids who broke something and cannot stop trying to fix it.
The Score
“Fullmetal Alchemist” (2003) is the rare adaptation that chose an ending over an imitation. It is rougher than its successor, and it is the braver of the two for it. The original ending is not a compromise. It is the reason to watch this version at all.
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