GIVE ME SOME MAES X ROY PLEASE. (Hughues x Mustang, whatever...) Anyway, here are thoughts up to episode 32. I watched these episodes in as many hours Friday to Saturday, maybe even thirty hours. Regardless, I watched a helluva lot in a stupidly short time. Then I had to take a break, as I spent all of Sunday writing a paper and all of today at school (and I couldn't bring my computer because it was raining...)

( Spoilers up to episode 32 )

There really aren't any spoilers past the first few episodes here, so I'm not cutting it.

I think what's really captivating about FMA though, is not so much the angst or the characters. It's more the questions you end up asking yourself as you watch it. It really shows all sides of things, and you end up questioning your own morals, what you believe in, and you wonder what you would do in that situation. Ed KNOWS what he's doing is wrong, but he's determined to do it anyway, to right another wrong he committed years ago. He's not going after the Philosopher's Stone for himself. He's going after it so his brother can have a body again, because he blames himself for what happened (which he clearly does, considering the question of Al blaming him plagued him for years). And you realize that Al IS gradually fading, and if Ed doesn't right things soon, Al may be lost. Ed inadvertantly ruined the life of someone he loved more than anything in the world, and now he must commit a horrible sin to right things again. So what is right? No matter what he does, people are going to suffer, and if he can choose between a stranger suffering and his brother suffering, he'll choose the stranger. As anyone would.

Scar is your typical "You killed my family, die" vengeance-seeker at first glance (which is still a very troubling question), but the more you learn about him, the more you realize much of what he is doing is because of his religion. Alchemists ARE going against God, after all, as they are, through their work, admitting that God's creation is insufficient, and man must step in and modify the world to better suit him. And considering that most of the alchemists in the series seem to use it for very crude means (attempting to make a super-human, an immortal soldier, using it for warfare, etc), you realize that Scar really does seem to be in the right. But is killing random people the right way to go about things? You immediately want to say no, and maybe that's morally proper, but it's not something most humans would do in that situation. Ed despises him for killing Nina, but when he killed Nina, she was basically begging to die. Her father had used her as an experiment and turned her into a monster, and she was in agony. When he killed her, Scar knew this, and it was really a mercy killing. The other major character he killed was Brigs, who was in charge of the human experimentations.

The Homonculi may be the bad guys, and they may run around crazily killing people and wreaking havoc on the world, but their reason behind everything isn't vengeance, as it first appears. They want to be human. And after you see what Wrath went through to become the half-human creature that he is, you come to love them as well. And it isn't even exactly a pity.

I also find it interesting that the series DOES distinguish between body-and-mind and soul. Humans can create humans via alchemy, but they lack a soul, and are therefore not fully human. They are not simply zombies, as they have a body AND a mind, but they still lack a soul. The soul seems to be the one thing in the world man can not create, which is one of arguments against the purists of the evolution theory, and I like to see that shown in a series as popular as this. FMA may show the folly of God, but it shows it through the eyes of man, who can not fully understand things (and is not meant to, it seems). I don't think it's exactly a religious/spiritual series, but there are very strong elements in it. (Scar and his Ishbalans/Jews aside).

So. Yea. Hrm. AND HOLY CRAP Greed reminds me of my Romanticism teacher like crazy. It's very...eerie.

I'll post another rant about it when I finish the series, which should be sometime this week. I realize I'm doing the same thing here that I did with AS earlier this month. I tend to babble on...XD If anything I say here is later disproved, don't tell me. I'll find out soon enough, and discuss it after I finish the series.

I'm actually watching all the Full Metal Alchemist DVDs I have now.... Twenty episodes in (in two days pleasegetalife) and I admit to totally loving it. XD

FMA came out in a year that I wasn't really following anime, so by the time I heard about it a year and a half ago, it was the Big Thing in anime in America, and in most places, I think. I was really sick of all the twelve-year-old fangirls running around squealing about it, so I decided to just never watch it. I bought all the DVDs last spring, figuring I'd finally watch it, but only watched 8 episodes. I plan to actually finish it this time? I sort of wish I had gotten in on it when it was first being released in Japan, way back when, but nooooo. Pika has to get in on everything STUPIDLY ABSURDLY LATE.

But yes. I love it (so far). I think it's all the angsty emotional stuff that's really getting me, because I'm hooked on series like that...and there's already been quite a few episodes that have made me teary-eyed. Depending on how it ends, this may end up being one of my secondary fandoms, like Kingdom Hearts, and random fics for it may pop up from time to time. There's definitely a lot I could write about it. I KNOW IT IS TOTALLY CLICHE but too bad.

Love Al. And wanna rape Roy.

Please don't say anything spoiler-ish! I have somehow evaded all spoilers for this show. I don't know who dies or what happens at the end. I'll probably have it done in a week, as I'm blowing right through it, but don't say anything until then.