Please post the discussions on episode 4 "A Forger's Love" here.


Pretty good episode.

Now.. it could be just me.. but I thought they didn't reveal that... crud.. I forget her name, but that girl was indeed a girl until the end in the Japanese version.
I'm probably wrong, as I haven't seen the episode in more over a year.
But it chewed on me throughout the entire episode =p.

I loved Ed and Al's reactions "Garbage can?" then he gets his face..

And also.. it said that Majhal had tried and failed at human transmutation before.
.. does that meanHe created one of the sins? Which one did he create?

I think I'm finally used to the dubbing voices
The Majhal guy had a familiar voice, but I couldn't place who it was.

This episode was really good.

I liked last week's though because I was able to get a glimpse of the first episode sort of .
I missed the first one, so I hope they'll re-run it.

I was thrown at first because Ed kept drawing transmutation circles, and I still find it hard to believe that he drew the one in the grass to save Clause by transmuting ice down the hill and freezing the stream.
That one, and the one where he tansmuted the rose into a ribbon...
Also, having never seen this particular episode before, I almost dropped one when Majhal's sword went right through his gut.
And then Edward didn't seem to care >_>



Nope, he didn't create one of those guys.
Majhal failed the human transmutation because he couldn't bring back the soul of Karin.
The reason was because she was alive all this time.
Because he couldn't transmute her soul, he decided on creating a replica of her body instead, and carved all those dolls, filling them with the souls of the women in the village.
At least, this was all that I've figured out so far.

As for the episode itself, this being Fullmetal Alchemist's supposed weakest episode, it was still pretty good, I found.
I had already gotten used to Edward and Al's dubbed voices by episode two, so this episode was pretty smooth for me.
Funimation is doing a great job with the dub, and next week will be the test for the dub, but I'm sure all will be well.

This did seem a little off....
in an earlier episode... I think it was the episode two weeks ago, he didn't use a transmutation circle for his arm to change......

@jarrylyathealchemist - About that....
That was when he was 15, this is when he was 11.
The episodes went and took a look at their past.
He hasn't "learned" how to do it without a circle yet.



Hm. It did seem like he didn't care.. Oh well.
He starts caring later on and he reflects back on that incident.
Then he starts feeling sorry he did those things. >_<

wooo, adult swim already got to eps 4??, thats damn fast

I'm really confused, people.
In episode 2 he's 15?
But in episodes 3 and 4 he's 11?
I'm so very confused!!

@jarrylyathealchemist - Yeah, the beginning of the series is like that, it goes back and forth from the "present" to the "past"..

based on my memory, it goes something like this.. (is probably not accurate, but is pretty close)
Episode 1-2 ~ Ed: 15, Al: 14 (you get the picture, I'm just gonna use Ed's age)
Episode 3 ~ Ed: 5-11
Episode 4-5 ~Ed: 11
Episode 6-10 ~ Ed: 12
Episode 11-22 ~ Ed: 15
Episode 23-end ~ Ed: 16

I think Ed was 15 in episode 11.. I'm not sure about that one.. (wasn't there a clip of Ed and Al going to Riore at the end of 10, which implies that he's 15 then).. but when Mustang talks about Aquroya in episode 13, it doesn't seem like it was such a long time ago.. so around episode 10-11 I'm not completely sure, I could be wrong.. Then I'm not sure for the end of episode 51
I have to go back and watch the eps again..

Hopefully this helps a little ^_^

I think episode 4 was the best I've seen yet (so far) ...and it's only the 4th ep!!


Every time I finish watching this show it makes me more and more excited for the next episode! I can hardly wait until saturday!

That's kind of the downside of this anime.
I was confused when I first watched it, too.
Never before I watched a flashback that lasted for some 5+ episodes.
Plus in the beginning 15-yr-old Ed looks just as young as 11-yr-old Ed.
I finally learned to tell which Ed is which from his clothes.
When he was younger it was fully zipped.

Yeah, ep 4 was pretty much was the worst episode that the series has to offer
(I personally hate this episode... because, in my opinion, this episode pretty much has nothing to do with anything)

If you liked this weeks episode, then next weeks will be awesome..

LOOOOLLLL, man just wait your gonna be in for the time of you life, just wait until this one particualar character appears, then it most smooth sailings from then on in

(the people who saw the orig. jap should know what this means "X" ) (You guys should know what that means)

Why did they go from ed being 15 to him being 11???

The story is in flashback mode now.
Remember in episode 3 how it went back and showed how they failed at human transmutation?
At the end of that episode, Ed was 11 and Al was 10.
Episode 4 continued right where episode 3 left off.
It does as such until around episode 10 or 11 when it brings events to after the incident in the town of Lior, which was episodes 1 and 2.

I was trying to get through here without posting, but I feel that I just have to.

I want to say, first off, that FMA is my all time favorite anime, and even though I've only been watching anime a few years, it looks like it will stay that way. Every time I watch DMA (the Dubbed Metal Alchemist, as I call it), I get this bizarre feeling like I'm about to get blood drawn, or charge in front of speeding traffic. But it's actually quite enjoyable! Sure, I still think the sub is better, and some things really annoy me about the dub, but over all it's pretty good, and I can laugh over most of the things that I don't like (like the fact that Ed had the same voice at 6 as at 15?) so it's enjoyable.

As for episode 4 itself, I first want to point out that it isn't REALLY a useless episode, as it is often accused of being. If it hadn't been for this episode, all us FMA fans would be asking "Wait, WHY did Ed recognize Lust? When did he see her? Who the heck was talking with their father about human alchemy??" This answers the questions satisfactorily (Ed saw Lust when she was "checking up" on Majihal, who had been writing to their father about transmuting Karin...though sometimes I wonder how Ed recognized her...he only saw her for about a second, so he'd have to be some kind of...oh, supergenius. Right. ) and we get to see one of Ed's first "adventures" on the road to becoming the Fullmetal Alchemist. Not a bad deal. But still, not my favorite. (I think...36 is my least favorite? It's one or two before the "Flame Alchemist" ep...)

Anyway, my opinion of DMA #4:

--Liked: The translation was pretty good overall! I mean, yeesh, some people would have you think they were planning to rewrite the entire script before the series came out, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how close most of the lines have been. Some of the "new lines" I enjoyed immensly! (I have an away message that makes note of the fact that Al is a GIANT ROBOT FROM THE FUTURE) I've also gotten used to the voices...somewhat...I'm no longer reaching for the band-aids to stop my bleeding ears whenever Ed talks. That's a plus. And...well...as usual, the words matched the mouths perfectly. (If nothing else, I can ALWAYS say that about an episode!)

--Didn't like: Ok, I'm going to try really hard not to be too nit-picky here. I don't like Ed's voice. I guess some people do, but I just don't think it sounds like him at all, by which I mean the voice does not make me think of an "Ed-type" character. Al's voice is good...but I think his voice acting is poor. I can stand the fact that he sounds too young (I've always thought Al should sound old for his age, since that's how he acts) but I noticed, and I swear this is true, Al shows more expression in his face than in his voice. And he's a suit of armor, people! That just ain't right! I really noticed for the first time that the minor characters keep re-using voice actors. That shouldn't bug me, but it really does. It also bothered me that the tomboy sounded...um...not like a tomboy? (Same thing bugged me about Winry, but I'll not go into that since she's not in this ep) But, ok, enough about that. Most important, I feel that they are very subtly re-interpreting the characters. Lines like, "You're back to your depressed self"; personally, I never thought of Al as a depressed character: he's often reserved, less emotional than Ed, more logical and thoughtful, ridiculously friendly, and he's also very naive at times, and even cheerful, though not always, and when he is depressed, he keeps it to himself. Ed, on the other hand, hits all the extremes of happiness, anger, angsty depression...I dunno. It's not really a specific complaint (I can't point to any particular scene and say "this PROVES Al is not always depressed!") but I feel that the line is misleading. That does sound nit-picky (I apologize profusely!) but I just feel that a lot of little things like that have been slowly building up...

Ok, I'll move away from that, since I'm starting to sound quite negative. Even if a lot of little things bother me, I still feel that I can enjoy DMA, if not as well as FMA, and I look forward to seeing more! I'm a tad disappointed that I'll miss the next...three episodes, but I'm sure there will be reruns or something.

Ok, about Ed's age, I know it's been explained before, but what the hey, I'll say it again. He's 15 at the start, but then they go back in ep 3 to when he's 6 (not 5), then 8, then 10, and he leaves home when he's 11. The flashback continues (his 12th birthday is in episode 6) until the end of episode 9, which ends with a quick flash-forward to just before the start of the series. (Back when I first downloaded, I discovered this convenient loop, and kept re-watching those episodes without moving on...it was a good way to keep myself from flunking all my finals, since it meant that I wasn't obsessively watching new episodes but casually watching a "mini-series" whenever I found time...so I know them quite well!) Ed's 16th hits on episode 24. There are more flash backs, but they're all contained within "normal" episodes (so you watch modern Ed and Al, then you see a little bit of younger Ed and Al, then you go back to modern again...not too complicated) so it will be less confusing. Plus, they're easy to tell apart! 11-12 Ed has a comically large zipper! (Ok...so MAYBE you have to have seen the eps a million times like me to notice that...)

Anyway, those thinking this is the "best" so far...I know how you feel, I was watching this for the first time once myself. Each ep is the "best so far"! But the quality will improve dramatically very soon with the edition of a few o' my favorite characters!!!

Also, someone mentioned (either here or somewhere else...?) that Ed didn't seem bothered by the fact that he'd killed Majihal. Ed doesn't always show his emotions on the surface, but he does bring it up once later, and I think it's on his mind more than we know. I certainly notice a lot in re-watching that I hadn't seen before, much of it related to Ed's emotional state. Oh, and he didn't draw an array in the GRASS to freeze the river. Don't be silly. It was drawn in the dirt with a stick, which is MUCH more logical!! You know that training they mentioned in the third episode? Well, a lot of it probably involved learning to draw arrays REALLY fast using bizarre materials...("You have two minutes to carve an array on this piece of wood using only your fingernails and a feather. Go!") ...or not...

I think that's all I have to say. I reccomend you all see the Sub who haven't already, since I do believe it is superior. However, this isn't too bad...I'll certainly keep watching when I can. And get the DVD.

Later!

This episode was pretty good too, but i'm ready for some @$$-kicking !

I've been hearing a lot of really good things about the upcoming episode,
i hope its as good as everyone says it is.