FMA: Brotherhood Series (spoilers within)Follow

I know I'm a bit late to the party here (since the last episode aired in July) but I just finished watching the entire series and I have to say I was pretty pleased.

Granted, I haven't read the manga, so I can't speak as to how closely they followed the plot, but the series as a whole made a lot more sense this time around. Things were better explained overall, even though there seemed to be more twists.

I really enjoyed getting more of a background on Wrath and how he came about becoming Fuhrer, as well as the level of corruption in the government and how Father had been manipulating them all for hundreds of years. It was also nice to see all of the homunculi actually show traits for the sins they were named for. I was confused when watching the original series as to why Sloth was named such when she showed absolutely no slothlike behavior, not to mention that Pride didn't seem to be all that prideful. Also, Sloth in Brotherhood is hysterical. Everything is a "bother" even living and dying. Envy's actual form was pretty amusing as well.

I also liked that they spent a lot more time telling us about Hohenheim's background and how he and Father came to exist. I didn't really care for the whole Dante crap in the original anime. The whole Xerses idea was a lot more interesting I thought, as well as Hohenheim living for so long because of the Philosopher's Stone being inside him, instead of body jumping.

The ending in particular was a lot more pleasing too. Al still got his body back, but without the consequence of Ed ending up in pre WWII Germany, which never made any sense. I also enjoyed the bit of angst with Ed and Winry's relationship. Their way of telling each other that they loved each other was really funny. "Equivalent exchange! If I give you half of your life will you give me half of mine!?" "You idiot! I'll give you all of mine! Wait, no not quite all... 90, no, 80, no 85%!" So cute. ^^

Did anyone else finish watching this? What did you think?

Yeah, that was definitely a great episode.

The actual scenes of the deaths, sure I'll give you that. But I much more enjoyed the lead up to their deaths and the explanations of why SpoilerHughes in particular died in this series than the original. I was relieved to see Shau killed by Scar instead of getting turned into a freak show experiment.

I disagree with you that the original series was better though. For one, it was rather stupid to leave the ending so ambiguous and then have a movie expound upon that ending, plus I didn't care for the whole Germany alternate universe thing. I also found a lot of the filler episodes in the original series to be rather annoying. The final day where the eclipse happens in Brotherhood was drawn out over a lot of episodes though, almost to the point of feeling excessive, which I think could have been remedied if there weren't so many different fights going on in different places.

I don't know if you could call Dante human. She certainly seemed to think herself something other than human, and vastly superior, an opinion she passed on to the homunculi. And I never understood why Dante taught Izumi alchemy when she had such a disdain for humans, they never explained that. In comparison, i just don't think the idea that she and Hohenheim were really good alchemists from many years past who obtained immortality by jumping from body to body as all plausible, especially when Dante has a more difficult time with her bodies breaking down faster than Hohenheim does. A lot of the explanations in the series just seem very scattered and not well thought out. I do admit though, that I liked the idea of homunculi being the result of failed human transmutations.

He didn't say that the original series was better, he said that for the material the they both covered, the first series was better. And most should agree with him. If I was to recommend this to someone I'd tell them to watch the original first, and then like a month later watch brotherhood.

He said he liked it more, so it's not much of a stretch to say that he thinks it's better.

I also was a bit disappointed in the smaller role that Rose had in Brotherhood. She was a really neat character, although I really wish they would have done a better job of explaining where her baby came from. I just assumed that maybe one of the soldiers raped her or something since they didn't talk about it. I also was sad that the fake Elric brothers didn't make it into Brotherhood. I rather enjoyed their little story arch.

I'd rather you let me say what I think about the series, if it's not too much trouble.

I used two diminutive adverb modifying like; that should show my degree of certainty. I also don't conflate personal taste with objectively measured merit.

I also said it was a tough comparison, as the series begin within the same elements and then take highly divergent paths.

Aside from dressing her in a "I was raped" sandwich board, it couldn't have been more obvious. Soldiers converge on her in a scene where there is an extreme look of fear in her eyes, and then a year later she has a baby and is selectively mute.