Why Fullmetal Alchemist Keeps Me Coming Back

Thinking of a single manga or anime with a enough sentimental value for me to come back to again and again shouldn't be an easy task. I will almost always reread a manga that I really liked, out of sheer want to experience it again, and yet the one series I instantly thought of was Fullmetal Alchemist.



Yeah. those guys

When I was young (like elementary school young), Fullmetal and Eureka Seven were on Adult Swim, Toonami was going strong with shows like DBZ and Gundam Wing, and I was entranced by anime fairly quickly. I think the fluid characters going around and beating stuff up in epic style just got to my head (especially the mechas). But Fullmetal was special, I had to convince my parents to let me stay up to watch it, and that only worked on a few occasions, but yet it stuck in my memory, especially the first ending theme. Anyways, eventually I got older, and bedtimes disappeared, but so did my FMA, replaced by Cowboy Bebop reruns (and i was too young to get the show which would eventually become my all time favorite) and the internet became ridiculously popular, and I realized I could finally watch this Fullmetal Alchemist show I'd been waiting to see for years, in it's entirety, and it was great, better than my previous favorite Naruto.


Perhaps the haunting shots of the cemetery?

What sticks out in my mind, that keeps me returning to FMA again and again, is the first 10 episodes. The first ten episodes of Fullmetal are so well done, and such a testament to how far a unique plot design can go in manga and anime, it was like nothing done before, particularly the Father Cornello arc (one of my all time favorite anime moments period). The show excels in mixing the light and dark of the world, from the father who turned his child into a chimera, to a religious conman, the serious moments hit you hard, and yet the show manages to also maintain a light happy feel at times, which is no easy feat, but still, not enough of a reason for me to keep coming back.


Another FMA moment etched in my memory since childhood.

So now I'm in high school, there's another FMA series out, I've read the manga, and seen the movie, and yet I keep coming back to the original series! It's seriously remarkable that a show that basically throws out the source material for the second half could turn out that well, and honestly I like it more than Hiromu Arakawa's plot in the manga, which is a feat that I'm not sure how BONES pulled off, and honestly, it just might be because it was the first real seinen anime, I ever watched.


BONES have made several of my favorite anime, right up there with Shinichiro Watanabe

Another series deserves mention in this blog, and that series is Rurouni Kenshin, the Rurouni Kenshin opening theme (1) stands in my mind to this day, and I havent even watched the anime since I was around 8 ( I recently read the manga though). The part where Kenshin is fighting the guys with the chain sickles just struck me as so cool, even though the actual song is just absolutely terrible[/center]


Turn off the Volume and enjoy some well done fightscenes



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