Talk-back/content discussion for English dubbed episode on Adult Swim starts on page 2.


Please post the discussions on the content of episode 32 here.
This thread is declared as a Spoiler zone for the content of the first 32 episodes.


* Episode Preview from FMA-2 official JP site:
(Thank you, Winry Chan for PMing me the following content, in Japanese, on the site. ^^)

Episode 32: "The Fuhrer's Son"
(The episode title is from official sub, the preview part is translation by Tombow)

Roy is secretly meeting with General Grumman at the Hughes' grave. Roy tells what he learned so far to Grumman and asks for Grumman's help. Meantime, Ed is still searching for May, but he has no idea on her whereabouts. Then, Alex visits Roy and tells the info that May and the company have headed North. As Ed becomes anxious to follow then to North, Alex hands Ed a letter of introduction penned by Alex himself, and instructs Ed to find a General called "Briggs' North Cliff" as soon as he arrives at the Briggs fort. Meantime, Al is also having an unexpected visitor.....







I'll be back later and fill out the rest of the first post. ^^

My initial thoughts:

- Fake Xaio Mei!
- Grumman in drag is many lulz
- Kimbley filler scene? I guess more Kimbley can't be bad, right?
- Oh hey, I haven't seen that same scene of somebody smashing a window in Ishbal a million times, let's see it again! I mean, really, weren't there OTHER windows smashed in Ishbal, or was that the only one?
- I love Ed's reaction to seeing Major Armstrong in the library... I think I'd freak out, too
- Yay, Olivia Armstrong!
- Another filler scene!
- Does it freak anyone else out watching scenes like this with Selim, knowing about future events?
- Stretching out the library portion with a visit from the Fuhrer... how unnecessary.
- Riza's already working with Bradley, huh?
- Sure is stretching out a little material out here.

So, the Ishbal flashback had to be one episode, but it's okay to add a lot of filler to this part to stretch it out? Eff you in the ay, Bones. If you continue doing this, I'm dropping this show.

Liked the Grumman eyecatch. Did not like the filler Scar police chasing and the extremely slow pace.

Oh, Ed&Al in a train after the ending. Okay.

At least they should encounter Buccaneer and end at Briggs next episode, according to the preview.

- We got some anime original scenes in this episode, like the fake Shao May, Scar escaping and Ed and Al’s talk with Bradley.
- Old lady Grumman is win
- Roy is still handsome in his civilian clothes
- Olivier!
- Selim is still too cute.
- So we’ll see the Scar vs. Kimbley fight and Olivier in the next episode.
Nothing much happened in this ep, it looks like they’re really slowing down. Why weren't they that slow during the Ishbal flashbacks?

EDIT: The screenshots are up:
http://randomc.animeblogger.net/2009/11/15...brotherhood-32/

awesum episode...and i dont think one should drop this series for one not so bad episode..........

not so bad episode is the ishbal flashback episode......

Do you think maybe the studio suddenly decided they needed to slow down the show for some reason after episode 30 was made, and they made episode 27 afterwards to help accomplish that?

I suspect that Bones kept the Ishbal flashback to one episode because they were afraid of losing non-manga viewers and figured that trimming out "non-essential" material would be more beneficial to plot progression. The Ishbal flashback is one of the greatest character development arcs, and its impact was enormous for manga fans when the chapters were first published; however, considering that the manga is released on a monthly serial and had been going on for years at this point, it was only appropriate that Arakawa write and draw out enough chapters to compile a tankoban.

On the other hand, the newest TV anime has a few things going against it that Arakawa doesn't:
- budget
no one's going to say the world economy is any better at this point, and Japan is definitely not exempt from this effect. It's likely that Bones is trying to maximize its viewership so it can continue receiving money to make future episodes. That means that they are more than likely to cut out manga material that would either cost too much to animate or potentially lose non-manga viewership (eg. omission of the Ling and Lanfan vs. Gluttony and Envy, removal of Mei Chan's intro at the Youswell mines, trimming the Ishbal Annihilation campaign into a mere flashback).

- number of planned episode
According to amber1003 on DA in September 26th of this year (http://amber1003.deviantart.com/journal/27402435/), the series is planned for 63 episodes. However, this announcement (if correct) is relatively recent, considering that the series was relaunched back in April 5th. This may be some speculation, but it's possible that Bones didn't actually have a number of episodes planned during pre-production since the manga has yet to finish. Unlike the first series where everything was planned from the start, the production team for FMA:B probably had a lot more trouble guessing most much money they should invest in episodes, promotions, etc. Again, this leads to material getting cut from production in lieu of staying on television air.

- fanbase and viewership
with the first series, Bones created an enormous FMA fanbase that spread to international acclaim, arguably an even bigger fanbase than solely FMA manga fans. This popularity was both a benefit and bane to the second FMA anime production team: they now had to revamp the anime without looking like a complete repetition of the first series (less they lose viewership from anime-1 only fans) and they had to remain loyal enough to the original manga to please FMA manga readers and keep viewers interested in the next plot development after material from the first and second FMA anime series ceased to overlap. In order to maximize viewership and keep money rolling in for production, Bones had to cut just enough so FMA-1 anime fans would not cry boredom or draw "___ was better than ___" comparisons, manga fans would continue to watch the series for the favorite scenes to be animated, and viewers with no prior knowledge/interest in the FMA canon would continue watching to see what happened next plot wise.


In short, I think there are numerous reasons why episode 27 exists solely as a recap episode with little or no plot relevance, but I'm guessing budget issues stemming from viewership and pre-production planning are likely the core of the series' odd pacing up until now. Episode 27 might be indicative of a budget and/or production issue that Bones has not (and probably won't) released to the public, and episode 30 might be indicative of their budget loss from CGing Envy's second form in episode 25, 26 and 28 (it's possible that Bones felt that it was only worthwhile to animate the Ishbal annihilation campaign if they had more money to do more artistic justice to the scenes, and ended up scrapping the whole flashback in favor of plot progression over character development).

Thank you for the explanation splinterend.


That said, I still think it's weird that they would end up dragging out this part of the story instead of just trimming it down to the bare essentials like they did with other episodes. And this in-between part of the story isn't as interesting as what's coming up next, TBH, so they could have sped it up.

- Yay "Mrs." Grumman, lmao.
- Scar and Yoki being chased by the police.. soooo unnecessary. That and you're not going to be almost slightly surprised when Kimblee finds it's Yoki and not Marcoh with him. I liked they hopped onto the train though, but it was pointless since it looks like they're not running into Kimblee on that train. :/
- Added scene with Bradley... meh. I'll have to watch with subs, but it basically looks like he was only there to threaten them about Winry and Pinako, but he already did that, so it wasn't needed.
- Also, big YAY for Olivia. Next week. And possibly Sloth, if not the week after. But still, Briggs is finally here. =D

That was way too slow. Did we really need to see Scar escape from the guards three different times?

Bradley's filler appearance was rather intriguing though, I'm curious to see that scene with subs.

- Grumman in drag is great. (He's very good at walking in high-heeled shoes. Wonder if he practiced?)
- Roy is looking quite dapper, as usual.
- Return of the weird pacing! Hurray. -____-
- Why do they insist on cutting out stuff crucial to character development, and then suddenly stretch things out with weird fillers? It seems like a lot of the time the pace slows down when it needs to speed up, and vice versa.
- lol @ Ed and Armstrong
- The seal on Armstrong's letter looks like a curly hair and a mustache xD Awesome.
- Gah, Selim! Stop being so darn cute, you little stinker! D<
- Does Bradley's wife look younger to anybody else?

@splinterend: Great first post! And your points seems really plausible too. Now that I've read your post it feels like those must be the reasons.

Despite what everyone is saying, I'm looking forward to seeing this.

I still miss Ishbal at the moment but at least the plot is now moving on, but at a slower pace. (And I thought that would be a good thing...) Anyways, the animation is showing no signs of failing on us now, and that makes us fans very happy. (And Roy in civilian clothes makes us Mustang fan-girls very happy ) I'm glad Ed is starting to look mature as well.

There were some small but awesome funny moments, like Grumman in drag (Did anyone else lol at his still manly voice?) and Armstrong scaring Edward. And damn, if I didn't know Selim was an incredibly powerful and evil homunculus who wishes to destroy Amestris he might actually be kinda cute. Why does he get such an adorable voice! And yet I am scared to hear his creepy voice...
Scar escaping from the military brought some well-needed action to this episode. Escaping on a train? Now that's badass.
OMG did Bradley have a rug made of white tiger fur?! Now we have another reason to want to beat him up.
And wow, the Briggs arc is here just in time for winter! Was that not timed perfectly or what?

The series is moving too fast, too slow, too fast, too slow. Don't you guys ever stop whining!

The eyecatch with "Mrs (?) Grumman" was HILARIOUS!

Also enjoyed the continuing ambiguity of "father" with Selim.

The guards sure do seem hesitant to shoot Scar though! "Oh my god, he's standing right in front of us! Should we shoot him or wait until he makes a move? Let's just wait, maybe he'll trip on a banana peel during his 10th escape in the last half hour."

OMG!!! HOW DARE THEY TEASE US WITH OLIVIER/VIA???!!! I was elated when I saw the one scene of her on her throne!!! awesome!!!

And shouldn't it be "The Northern CLIFF of Briggs"???? Not "Northern Wall"????

I felt like the library scene was pretty useless. But whatever. They extended that whole bit too much. I was getting antsy hoping they would at least get to Briggs!!! Oh well.

I love Roy even more when he is NOT in uniform! So dashing!

Btw has anyone noticed that the eyes in this episode were a little dead with Roy??? I remember in the first anime, he had black eyes with a hint of blue obsidian. Maybe it's just me??

Anyways, I still enjoyed this ep! But I CANNOT WAIT for the next one!!!

I thought this episode was awesum Enjoyed every bit. Close to perfect pacing, (this is how the general pace of some previous rushed episodes should have been like, imo) good animation, some funny scenes, good placement of music and also some original Scar and Kimblee scenes. The only thing that bugs me is that they make room for these sort of things, not as a bonus, but as a replacement (?) for some of the great manga material that is dismissed and left out.

Still, some poor direction choises aside, this show is growing on me.

A pretty good episode, I definatly perfer the slower pace, allthough I wish if they wern't going to do this with the whole anime, they could at least do this with more interesting parts of the story and didnt scrap manga material, but owell it was enjoyable none the less and its nice to have a relaxing episode. I thought it was a bit un-nesscary for the poilce to keep chasing scar but it was ok, armstrong in the libary made me lol XD oh how intimidating and ed's reaction to 'tiny' alchemist was really funny XD xiao mei was so cute at the train station! and i loved ed's expression right at the begining when looking for xiao mei, can't wait for next week, Briggs is one of my favourite parts of the manga, and how fitting Ed will be wearing his 'santa' coat, as i call it, on the run up to christmas =3

Haha, agreed :3 The pacing of these episodes has went just in a right time, it seems!

Anyways, yeah. Another well-done episode. The animation was nice for the most of the time, the scenes were lovely and.. well, I just can't find any real complaint in particular.

Though I have to admit, those scenes with Selim rather annoyed me than made me go 'aww' on him. D< That darn thing tries so hard to be cute. But I know it was just me, and had nothing to do with Bones and their job on this scene. Because it was still brilliantly done.

Thinking about it, the episode doesn't bother me as much now as it did when I first saw it.

Of course, I would rather Bones have spent the extra space they feel they have on two Ishbal episodes instead of one. It frustrates me to no end that they've paced the show like this, and used all this needless filler material. There's plenty of material in the manga. I suppose I'm being hypocritical, though, because I enjoyed most of the fillers in the first series.

Perhaps the filler isn't so bad on its own, though I dislike how it makes the Amestris soldiers look like complete incompetents when they have Scar right in front of them and nobody thinks to shoot him to disable him, or out of frustration. There's no damn way he wouldn't have been shot several times by now. Why do the soldiers always pause while he's deconstructing things? Are they not trained?

I did like the bits with Kimbley, though. More Kimbley cannot be a bad thing, ever. That guy exudes wickedness whenever he's on screen. You can tell how nervous the other soldiers are around him. It's great.

Did they really use the scene of Ishbal to describe what was going on in Lior? You know, the one with the window being broken (honestly, stock footage?)? I know they're similar situations, but this isn't the first series.

Love Grumman.

About incompetent soldiers/police. It was like this in series one too, I remember. No one ever seemed to be able just shoot the guy. They always let him do his showy moves before even acting on him, and when they did, it felt sort of half-heartedly. If four - five MP's are aiming at him with guns ready, how hard can it be to hit the guy? It's like they purposely fire at the spot next to him. So clumsy police is not a new thing xP Maybe they want Scar alive, and that's why they hesitate to fire at him.

Or maybe they're just complete idiots. Anyway.

I felt the scene where Kimblee was trying to predict Scar's movements on the map, and asking if it could be possible to jump of a speeding train, added some suspense to the whole Kimblee/Scar chase. It also made it feel he was more personally involved in it than in the manga.

-Ed's reaction to Armstrong was hilarious.

-Crossdressing Grumman was very lolworthy, as was the Mrs Grumman eyecatch

-Mustang looks very hot in his civvies. I had to say it.

-Yay Olivia!

-Stop being so damn cute, Selim, I know what you are.

-Dragging things out, much? The pacing of Brotherhood continues to be screwy. They're rushing through things that they should be spending time on, and slowing down when they can afford to speed up.

-Seeing Scar and Yoki getting chased around was kinda cool, but felt really unnecessary, as did the extra scenes with Bradley. I can understand why BONES did it, but it seemed a little excessive.

I won't say anything on the pacing thing. Sure, I was disappointed by Ishabl episode but I try very hard to forget it and treat the other episodes objectively.

Loved Mrs (?) Grumman. I liked her deep voice and I kept wondering: did general Grumman shave off his moustache or is the moustache fake the whole time? Lol at Roy's expression. And Kimbley recognizing him! Man, he's clever! Didn't understand why it was Roy telling him about happening in Lior. Doesn't Grumman command Eastern Headquarters? He should've known about Central forces taking matters in their hands? Maybe, Mustang was just putting things into perspective.

For some reason I liked May slowing down when she was passing soldiers.

Fake Shao May! How could I forget!This is what I like about fillers - they give you something you're not prepared for (when lucky, it's a good thing)

Ed and Armstrong scene in the library was well done. Selim was as cute an sweet as a little boy can be, I kept smiling and snickering the whole time. The added footage in Fuhrer's house was nice as well, especially with Bradley himself showing just for the fun of it.

Chasing Scar - nice Kimbley in nice suit. Liked Scar embraced by train smoke but the whole chase was pointless. How hard it is to telegraph or call the next station to stop and search the train?

Not a bad episode, I'd say. Not as good as the last one (but that was very high in my standard) and not much happened but at least we have some time to catch our brath before North stuff takes place.
BTW - I was a little afraid wat the name 'The Fuhrer's Son' meant. Better to make this material longer than the other option - to reveal more about Selim.

Now I think the reasoning might have been that their viewership would be more likely to tolerate more events happening in the present rather than multiple episodes full of flashbacks.


Hmm, maybe they meant to put some new piece of animation there, but ran out of time to finish it and used the "breaking a window, riot" scene as a placeholder for something we might see on a DVD release.

Or they were just lazy, and that stock footage has become a way to get the idea of anything from a riot to a civil war across without any extra work.

But then, I noticed how fluidly Ed moved in a couple of comedic scenes, so maybe that's where all the effort went.

The stock footage shot of a window breaking is from Lior/Reole/howeveryouspellthat, not from Ishbal.

I actually rather liked episode 32; not a lot went on, but you do get an opportunity to catch your breath before the next major arc starts up.



I agree in retrospect; one of the reasons why the arc worked for me in the manga was that I read it as one solid volume all at once and splitting it into two episodes may have overextended it for some viewers. The best way to handle it may have been as an hour long (or longer) special.

Please add FMA:B English dubbed episode 32 (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.

I always liked this ep. For the one fact of Mrs. Bradley talking about her and the Fuhrer met I've always been a big fan of those two.