Great to see all the Al love on this thread! The blasphemy I was referring to was actually preferring the Elrics apart than together, especially since this series is called, ya know, Brotherhood

As for the brothers separating at the end and Al leaving for Xing, I think that might make for an awesome, slightly bittersweet ending. But what would Al's motivation be for leaving? I think Almei has great potential, but I don't exactly see Al leaving the country at this point for her sake.

Or as I like to say, Edward needs someone to play the Hobbes to his Calvin, and Alphonse is just too nice for that sometimes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV37Kjo3kTg

And I will just leave it here. Priceless.

LOL, that part was so funny...

Oooh, you can add annotations! *chuckles evilly, rubs hands together and goes off to play with it...*

Whoa, lots of Al love here. Al's always been my favorite character from FMA, but I didn't expect he'd be everybody's favorite. XD;

Al going to live in a separate country from Ed is more realistic, but I'd still be pretty sad to see that happen, since Ed and Al complement each other perfectly. Although Ed and Ling together is interesting too. Ling is probably the only real friend he's made in four years, which makes Ling turning into Greed pretty...yeah. )':

Anyways about this episode...Ling's scream and Gluttony in the beginning made me cringe. There's something about this series that makes pain look...well, more painful than in other animes. Blood explosions don't help.

And the part that made me laugh the most in Mei's dream was the fantasy Ed laughing transitioning straight into regular, not-so-impressive Ed going, "Eh?"

I am also impressed with Al's seemingly large fan-base. Alphonse is typically a character who is constantly overshadowed by the actions of more imposing characters such as Ed, Ling, or even Mustang on occasions.

I have been under the impression that I was the only one who preferred Alphonse over popular characters such as Edward or Mustang. I guess being wrong is sometimes a good thing.

Alphonse is my favourite character as well (Ling is maybe second or third favourite). And I also enjoy the Elrics being separated at times - it brings up new sides of their personalities.


I need to rewatch this episode - I know that most of my dislike for it came from having imagined the scenes a bit differently, really. And... I think the animation was not as good as it could have been in the first half of the episode. It became better in the later half. (This has happened before, by the way - if one half of an episode of FMA:B is animated better than the other, it's almost always the second one! Episodes 7 and 23 for example.)

I didn't read the manga yet, so I didn't come in with any expectations. (Am I the only one?) I did find it neat to see more of what Father was like, but mainly it was fun having so many main characters all in one room.

Except it's kinda hard not to bump into spoilers about who all the homunculi are, so my main reaction to that transformation was "Wow, so soon?"

I'm also delighted to see the level of Al love, Al needs more love, he's an awesome character and he frequently gets overshadowed, it makes me happy that Mei is around for him XD

as for Al's motivation for leaving, I did think it out, Amestrias alchemy probably won't work at the end of the series, since its more than likely Father who powers it, Al tried to get Mei to teach him rendanshu before, and I thought maybe he'd go to Xing to research it properly and then return to Amestrias with his findings sometime in the future

That's a really cool idea ForsakenLove! Can I adopt it as my new favorite theory for the way the series ends ?

I'm glad you like it hee and of course ya can lulz

I don't get the AlxMei shipping. I mean how old is Mei? Like nine? Ten? Maaaybe eleven?

imo she's at least 12, she's short but if you look at her actual body shape she can't be younger than 12, also she crossed the desert by herself and has indeapth knowledge of rendanshu, I think she's about 13 and al is 14/15, heck a friend of mine is 16 and shes about 4ft9 and looks about 12 XD in anime and manga its frequent for their to be characters who look ridculously young but are actually old (such as honey from ouran)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's around 12 or 13...which makes her only a couple years younger than Al. So no, the pairing wouldn't make him a Jacob Black. xD

'Sides, Winry ships it. As do others.

http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/80/15/
http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/80/16/

Who says Al/Mei can't be canon someday?

Yeah, okay, maybe she's 13.

But I remember Al being really pissed off and going all "What did you do to that little girl!??" to Ed when Mei starts crying at how "ugly" (xD) Ed is and that he "took advantage of the naivity of a young girl". I always figured that Al thought Ed had molested hooked up with her. Or something. And that he was like "WTF, she's 12 you fuc*tard!"

Hrm... Anyway.

I like the idea of Al going back to Xing to learn Rentanjutsu. If the Amestrian alchemy stops to work, perhaps that will contribute to the army losing some authority. And maybe then things will become more peaceful?

I don't think Al would ever seriously consider his brother to be a molester. He just probably figured Ed had given the girl some sort of false impression of himself (I'm Ed, I'll save you 'cause I'm awesome), or done some other careless thing to offend her.
As for Almei, I ship them based on their awesome potential. Their personalities are very compatible. But that doesn't mean I think they will/should hook up anytime soon. Even if Mei IS nine (though I'd guess she's more like 12) that wouldn't be that weird when she's 20 and he's 25. For the whole thing to be pedophilia, there really has to be a sexual aspect anyway, and there isn't. It's just a cute crush on Mei's side and an admiration (that could someday become something more) on Al's. Which works fine by me, they're both young. They can wait 'til they're older to rock Xing with their skills and have three adorable kids + several cats.

@All you AlxMei shippers: Give this thread a bump

The episode didn't give me any strong lasting impressions, but it was decent and still better quality than the first couple of inconsistent eps. At least Greedling is finally here (though I kind of miss Ling's voice...)

Probably twelve or thirteen. And the shippers are mostly all about the cuteness of May's fantasies right now, they think of actual shipping five or six years down the line, when Al will make a trip to Xing and fall for the pretty heir of the Yang clan



No, it's May who said that, not Al Al asked Ed to excuse himself because he had no trouble at all imagining Ed being a jerk to a girl. Plus I think he brought Winry in the conversation too Like if he thought his brother went both ways



Scar is the only one who looks like "I want not part in that non-sense" Always the straight man. Except when it comes to cats and kitties. Then he becomes as silly as everyone else.

I'm a bit late on this one, I guess. ^^ (I'm trying to get back involved in my forums - there are others where my last post was over two years ago, but I'm trying ^^)

This episode had my favorite fight scene from the manga in it, and I'm happy to see BONES did it well. I know quite a few of you guys didn't quite like it, but the way I played it out in my mind was almost exactly the way BONES animated it.

The whole thing where they "rushed" it. In my mind, it was a pretty fast-paced battle, with everything overlapping each other. A few notes I had while watching:

o Did anyone else miss the part in the manga where Father checked Ed's antenna to see if it was alright? (http://pic.sky-fire.com/AllComic/Browser.h...p;v=054&p=7 at the bottom of the page)
o My thought when Father was patting Ed's body - "Anyone walking in on this would think he's molesting the poor child"
o They also cut out Ed's reaction to kicking the stone instead of Father (http://pic.sky-fire.com/AllComic/Browser.h...;v=054&p=17 it's a bit small, but the panel after he kicks the stone, Ed's in the background hopping around comedically)
o Father foot-tapping the cr@p out of Amestrian alchemy - I've imagined a white color instead of red, but this matches well with the theme of blood and philosopher's stone and whatnot.
o Seeing Hohenheim on the mountain, I've just realized they cut out the small scene at the beginning of Ch. 46 where Hohenheim gets shot several times to save the people in the caravan and tells a woman he's a "monster".
o Ed and Al have a lot of shared lines. A LOT.
o My first thought when Father extracted Greed from his eye-forehead: "This music sounds like the first few measures of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's main theme"
o Showing what Ling saw from his POV (including his bangs) was a good touch.

...and i have a few more notes regarding the rest of the episode, but everyone else basically mentioned them in their posts and I don't want to repeat. ^^

I like having the old Greed's voice. Yes, it helps to distinguish the internal conflict between the two, but also it helps to distinguish the two on the outside as well (someone online had noted that in the manga, the reader can tell when Ling breaks through to speak/move that his bangs move from blocking one eye to blocking the other eye, or his eyes close or something. Having his voice change would be phenomenally easier)

As for AlxMay, I also noticed it rather significant that Al left Ed to deal with Envy, Gluttony, GreeLing, and Father all on his own (well, with Scar too, but he soon followed) while he left to take May to safety. I would have thought Al would move May to an empty corner and told her to stay there and try to rest while he helped Ed, but this was an interesting break.

A weak ep actually, huge disappointment. No emotion, average action, no musical highlights, average humour, standard animation. I've expected it to be better.

Please add FMA:B English dubbed episode 28 (on CN on Adult Swim) talk-back/discussions here.

FMA:B will air 1:00 AM - 1: 30 AM and 5:00 AM - 5:30 AM eastern time.

WOW, superb voice acting in this one, at least in my opinion. LOVE Greed!

I like the fight scenes in this episode. And, finally, we have Greedling!

I wish Troy Baker had been Greed as far back as the original series. They could have gotten Chris Patton to play Frank Archer instead.

Baker brings out way more of Greed's personality than Patton ever did. This is the guy who should always have been Greed in the dub.

New Greed is awesome. Troy Baker really should have been Greed from the start.

The voice acting in this episode is really good. I didn't like Father's English voice at first, but he really seems to do a good job in this episode. As did Vic, who I normally consider inferior to Romi Park.

For anyone who missed this episode, it's on again on Adult Swim (U.S.) tonight.