I dunno if there's already a topic I coulda put this in, so sorry if there is. xD;

Recently, I bought the entire anime1 series so I could watch it all again (I prefer having DVDs to watching things on the computer; an expensive quirk! >:U) and it brought up some old feelings that I felt like discussing.

I was exposed to the manga when there were only about 9 volumes in English and I started reading scanlations around chapter 50 or so, so anime1 was the first COMPLETE FMA that I got through. I'm very familiar with it. I watched every episode several times, made hundreds of AMVs, and developed opinions of characters. And I HATED Winry, but I never really had a reason.

Now, I've gotten through all the manga, all of Brotherhood, and I found a lot of characters I disliked before- particularly Winry, Hohenheim and Al- I love.

Rewatching anime1, I find that every time Winry shows up, I can't stand her again. She's always talking about automail. Even in dangerous, serious situations (for example, fighting Wrath in the forest), all she seems to be concerned about it automail. If someone insults her automail, the mood has to come to a stop so she can overreact. I especially noticed this in episode 26, where she freaks out because Ed 'doesn't appreciate her automail' and conspires with Paninya to teach him a lesson. I never get the feeling that Winry cares about Ed, and when the show tries to develop their relationship, it either seems forced or the conversation goes back to automail. She's actually upset he wants his body back, as if it's insulting her work.

Am I missing something, or do other people get this, too? Is it just the dub, or does the sub give the same impression?

In the manga, it was very clear Winry cared about Ed, and it was subtle and realistic, at least in my opinion. She genuinely worried about him, not his automail, and wanted him to be happy. It wasn't even always romance- they had a deep, friendship bond from the beginning. Besides that, she was a strong, independent character who had her own goals and desires, and her life didn't revolve around automail- it revolved around helping others. I loved this Winry. I didn't love her for the sake of EdWin, I loved her for her.

Does anyone else have thoughts on these differences? Or maybe someone sees something I missed?

One must remember Anime 1 and Manga were two different stories. Anime 1 was more of a psychological story with the focus on the brothers. Manga is more of a traditional hero story with characters from different countries and the girl next door/love interest.

So yeah, Anime 1 Winry wasn't really developed. By the time they did the series, Manga!Winry was also underdeveloped so they didn't have much to do about it. But she has good qualities also. She's a smart character making friends easily. Yes, she is a loudmouth and fights with Ed a lot but I can clearly see she cares for him. There is even hinted love for one another, at least on Winry's part, she just never declares her love for him like she does in the manga. Remember how in CoS she said something like: "He doesn't want me to wait for him anymore."
Yet, Winry was NEVER the focus of the first show; it was all about the Brothers and their struggle and journey. Sometimes I think the 2003 show should be called Brotherhood.
I think the main problem with Winry was that the Manga!Winry wasn't developed enough when they wrote the story. Afterall, the show was Fullmetal Alchemist and it needed to follow the original series up to a point.
I can't really say whether I hated her. I hated many woman characters in FMA in general at that point, like Hawkeye. Winry didn't actually strike to me as annoying, she was more of a pointless character, leading to nothing but romance .

Manga!Winry on the other hand. Well, she confronts the murderer of her parents and does some other stuff I can't remember since I haven't even glanced at the original FMA for over a year. But yeah, she developed as an individual character but she was meant to be an important character from the very beginning. Though, in my opinion, her role was a bit cliche, with the teenage romance and all that. But hey, Edward was meant to have a happy ending so who am I to complain?

Overall, she is a bearable character. I would be lying if I said I was completely satisfied with the Anime!Winry, I think there were things she should have done, or at least she was never shown doing them. But, she wasn't the protagonist, she was the childhood friend in the first show, and I think that role was okay for her. As I said, it was the brother's psychological journey that was the main focus in the first anime.
Yeah, in Anime 1 you have to read between the lines to notice the character change. It's never explained, you have to realize it yourself. This is probably one of the reasons many fans have turned away from the first show. You have to read into the expressions, music, scenery, just about everything to get the right idea.

Now, about the dub (sorry, I just noticed that part of the post ). I have only seen the sub version so I'll go with what I remember.
The thing about automails: I see it as a quarrel between friends. Sure, Winry is worried about her creation she spent days doing. I don't blame her for hitting him with a wrench to try to make him more careful. Underneath, I think it is her way to show her concern for him. I see Winry as a tough girl who has hard time talking about her feelings straight-forward so she has to use different ways of approach.
But, about her not wanting the brothers to have their original bodies back, I can't agree on that. In fact, this same conversation was in the manga. Winry wants them to have their bodies back, who wouldn't, but she doesn't want them to get hurt. If she had to choose between them getting their bodies back or coming back home, she would choose the latter option. Yet, she wants them to be happy and knows that it isn't possible in their current position.
It's complicated but it is explained.
Also, the complaint that getting Ed's body back would insult her work: this was in the manga too. It's just bickering to lighten the mood. Sure, Winry admires automails and doesn't understand why Edward doesn't share her interest but is instead so keen on alchemy. Just a harmless quarrel.

Hope you understood what I meant.

Yeah, I can see how it would've been harder to develop Winry when she hadn't been developed in the manga at that point. It's easy for me to forget that the first anime mostly revolved around the Elrics and their heads instead of having a huge cast of very important, individual characters. I usually don't compare the manga and the first anime for this reason; it's easier for me to appreciate both of them if I consider them two separate things.

I finished rewatching the first series since I first posted this, and towards the end Winry became more bearable to me and seemed to have grown more into just the mechanic, so I'll say it gets better. I wish that her character hadn't been so much of what I see as generalized and clumsily put together, but yeah, she really wasn't an important character.

To be fair, she was a bit of a cliche character in the manga. She was the designated love interest. But what I do like about the manga and FMA in general is that the romance in it never seemed very cliche to me, because it all seems subtle, rather than a major or even a minor plot, really.

I had a lot of problems with CoS in general, but I'm not so opposed to it that I'd try and explain my issues. ^^; It would probably end up sounding like too much whining.

I can agree that perhaps Winry's overreact was her way of expressing worry and concern, but at least in the dub, it still seemed clumsy and unbelievable to me. I haven't read the entire manga in a long time, so I don't remember her jesting about not wanting Ed to get his body back so he could have her automail, but I'll take your word for it. I've been rewatching Brotherhood recently and I haven't heard anything like that from her in that, but it could've been in the manga. I'd have to look at it. I would have preferred it though, if in the first anime they made it seem more like lightening the mood. To me it sounded like she genuinely felt insulted, and she continued to act like it was so awful that Ed never appreciated her automail, though I never really got the impression that he didn't in the first place. (Again, just from watching the dub; I haven't seen the sub in years)

All of that just came across to me as forced and awkward, as did the rest of her character throughout the series. She does become more bearable, but I just like the manga version of her a lot more.

On that note, I love all three versions, even if I prefer the manga and Brotherhood to the first anime. But I don't mean to sound like I don't like the first anime at all. Like I said- I usually try to keep them separate to avoid this kind of comparing and bias, but Winry's character just particularly bothered me this time around. Dx

The episode about "Winry not wanting Ed to get his body back" is 17 from Brotherhood.

Thanks, I just watched it. The line is (in the dub) "I do want you to get your bodies back, but I also want you to stay alive and safe."

I also looked up the exact same conversation in the manga, where she says something similar: "I wanted you to regain your original bodies, but I also want you to stop this dangerous journey...and...uh...I'm sorry. I guess I don't know what I really want."

The conversations have nothing to do with automail or Winry not wanting them to get their bodies ever, it's just that she doesn't want them to get hurt. Whereas in anime-1 she says things like "Aren't you satisfied with my automail? Isn't that good enough for you?" and doesn't say anything about not wanting them to get hurt. She may have MEANT the same thing, but it doesn't sound the same to me. It sounds more selfish, and again, automail-obsessed. That's what bothers me.

Yes, I remember this scene. It does mean that she wants them to stay home since she can't bear the thought of losing them. So yeah, you have to read into the scene. She starts crying after she says that, if I remember right. It was ep 26 of the 1st Anime, right?
But I defend her again; I see her as a tough girl and maybe she thinks it is no use to tell them she wants them home since she knows there's no way they're going to do so.
Again, it is complicated

I do agree she grows more as a mechanic than as an individual character and, if I remember correctly, she was also VERY automail obsessed in the manga early on, the time they made the anime.
I admit, I have never watched the show in dub, only the first ten eps or so, so I really can't give a fair opinion of how I saw Winry's character in it. But, as I have watched both shows, humor was also portrayed very differently in BH and Anime1. In BH, there are a lot of chibis, funny faces etc. so you can really tell the humor. In Anime1, everything is a lot more serious, and so the humor is said with a straight face and normal tone, and it seems like an actual conversation.
But I haven't seen the show in years so I might be wrong.

I took no insult or anything. I could tell you don't hate any of the stories. I have to admit, Winry's character has always been a problem to me. I don't think she was ever perfectly portrayed in any of the universes. All Winrys had merits and faults but she has never been my favorite character, in fact, she was on the hate-list for a pretty long time. It was only last week I took her off it.

Yeah, it was episode 26 and she started crying. I can see how they could have meant to portray it that way, but they really could have done a better job, in my opinion.

Winry has never been one of my favorite characters- but anime1 is the medium where she is actually on my hate list. I guess I'll just have to try and look at her from a different angle and try to understand how she handles herself differently in anime1.

I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed by Winry in the first anime.

Seriously, what sort of person convinces someone to steal from their friend? Expecally considering that she knew about how important it was to him.
I loved her to death in the manga though. It felt like she 'belonged there' if you know what I mean... In the first anime it felt like she (and the bookworm lady) were shoehorned into the plot where they didn't belong. It was irritating to see them taking screen time from the more interesting characters.