despite that i do admire the screenplay of the FMA series and have been touched so many times--there is nothing perfect tho-just discovered a minor flaw:

in the episode in which ed killed greed: before ed came, al and izumi were fighting greed. then a chimera knocked off greed's head in front of al--then greed brought his head back and complained the blow was too hard. then, after a while, ed just came in. i assume he did not see all of the show.

then after ed killed greed. looking at his body, ed cried: why should u die? isn't that true that you can still survive when ur head was blown off? how did he know all of these? i don't think al and izumi had time to tell him~~

just my 2 cents

Odd. I haven't seen the episode, but I'll keep a lookout for that little flaw. Thanks for the heads up, Cutewitch.

Hmm, good point. The only thing that bugged me in the series was when [SPOILER]Al went and touched Ed's face after he died and said, "See, his body's still warm." I thought Al couldn't feel anything in that body.[/SPOILER]

for this point i would say that it is an artistic rendering~~just like the automail arm streched into the sky in the end.

another thing is that--the blood seal in al's armour. i remember in the end of the series ed said that al should not swim/or go into the river?? yet in the beginning of the series when the two are practising kong fu thing--ed did beat al into the water~~

BONES admitted that they had messed up here and there for the series. They corrected some of the stuff that they can correct in the DVDs, like how Ed punched his fist into his palm then accidentedly heated up the tub of water in the TV series now becoming Ed 'clapping' his palms in the DVD.

The clapping thing was the mess up there. You don't clap when you're angry, you'd punch your hand.

BONES said the punch was the mess-up since they said the alchemy can only be done by clapping hands.

but really... there shouldn't be a different between clapping and punching hands because it's still a "circle" made with the alchemist's body >.>;; (if it can only be achieved with clapping, then Wrath is already the biggest mess up because he did it to trap Al or something in Jack Island only by touching his arm and leg with the ground)

cutewitch: oh yea... O-O I better rewatch...

BONES even wrote Winry's name wrong somewhere in the anime (spelled the katakana wrong) I think... == *stabs BONES*

Hey, who says " u dont clap ur hands when ur angry" ? Well, I do. And he wasn't angry, he's frustrated. If I was him, I probably clap my hands too and slap my head.

Oh. How stupid. It shouldn't really matter to anyone because that wasn't stated in the series.

The Greed thing can easily be explained. Ed said, in essence, that he thought Greed would live even if his head were severed. This doesn't imply that he saw Greed's head grow back in the previous episode, it was merely a coincidence that Ed used a decapitation example when what he meant was merely, "I thought you guys were immortal" because he didn't understand the purpose of the Transmutation circle below his feet.

Do you see what I'm saying?

As for Al feeling his brothers warmth--I don't think he was perceiving it tactiley.

i understand that ed was gonna say" i thought you were immortal," but i would say that if ed used another example, such as "even the body is pierced/stabbed etc," it will not be considered as a "flaw"--the crucial part here is that--the decapitation thing happened only on greed and not on other homunculi. how can ed come to this observation? others might say that he came to this line by deduction/speculation etc., yet based on the whole story and other characters performance, i would say that almost all of them make deduction based on some observation/examples

I don't think I explained myself well.

I'm saying that what he was saying was entirely generic and had no connection to Greed's prior decapitation at all.

Or hell, maybe he saw Greed's head on the floor when he went to rescue Al and put two and two together.

maybe i did not express myself better--i understand your point that ed was just using some example of their immortality--but i don't think in that episode it is a generic use: ed's original words are that "even your head is bumped off..." which perfectly correlates with the scene in episode 33. the two episodes are consecutive and there are good reasons for audience to link the two together; even ed wanted to make a generic use of that, he should have some basis for his imagination even if it is just a small clue--yet till then we did not see any. besides, i don't think ed has time to see the "putting the head together thing" if you re-watch the episode 33. this is a rough temporal sequence:

greed's head was bumped off and brought back-- izumi and her husband jumped into the fight--ed asked armstrong about the location--when izumi was beaten by greed, ed came--he was gasping then--therefore, he should have run to the devil's nest rather than lurking around the place to observe everything from the beginning.

What??? I am sooo confused right now...

Tell that to BONES, the animators for the anime. The ones that know what they are truly doing for the anime are them, not you, since we the watchers are only second guessing their motivations and purposes.

I think you're trying too hard to make errors appear. And the head thing IS the easiest example to make- if you just stabbed someone, you wouldn't use it as an analogy to say they were immortal... that'll just be wrong. Does this mistake really matter that much? Its only teeny tiny, compared to say, Scar exploding things with his left hand (which I'm pretty sure didn't happen, lol).

A mistake is a mistake. There are many mistakes BONES did when they made this series. Looks like some people are trying to "oh that is no mistake" when it is one to save their beloved "perfect" series instead of facing the truth that it's flawed.

Thank you, "guest" for that astonishing bit of insight. You've enriched all of our lives with your astute observational skills!

The only flaw anyone has pointed out to me so far that I've found truly valid is the one about Al not being able to get his bloodseal wet.

I am sure, if I were to rewatch all FMA after my finals I will pick out a lot of flaws... hahaha

Wrath itself is a screw up -.-

Also, there is confusion with Ed's age and all...


anyways, I do agree with someone up there that "A mistake is A mistake." It's like how Japan shouldn't deny what they did in WWII (ok I will shut up now xD)

A mistake is a mistake and I'm not saying the series is flawless. All I'm saying is that I don't think either of the flaws mentioned here are flaws at all.

P.S. Okay, the series is flawless, despite its flaws.

i agree with the "a mistake is a mistake" thing: anime is different from the traditional sat morning show in that it is more mature and complicated in narration and it deals with some heavy themes not touched by disney et al--that is one of "the" reasons for people to be "picky". since the whole FMA series is made with a lot of attention to details (one example i am impressed is the Band-Aid thing--not a lot of anime attend to this detail), we need a critical eye to make this series more meticulous.

Yo guys, just enjoy the show, the anime is perfect but has its tiny flaws... but who cares, you are supposed to enjoy and understand the complexity of the show, not pick on the tiny flaws.

"不要挑剔別人的錯誤。" " Do not be picky on other's mistakes."

Ya, mistakes are mistakes, but just accept ur mistakes and accept others mistakes! Gez, picking and arguing over tiny things.

About al's bloodseal not getting wet, i read it somewhere that the water level was not high enough to reach the bloodseal to wash it off.

About Greed's death, i also read it somewhere that before his fight with ed, he bumped into Dante ( or someone else) and vomitted out the fake philosopher stone. And after his death, when ed met with Martha, she said that she did not blame ed for Greed's death and said something about him not wanting to be sealed...

And about Al being able to feel that ed is warm, I also read it somewhere that it is because of the philosopher stone that he is able to feel the warm

(don't ask me where is the somewhere 'cause i can't remeber and i also notice that i used a lot of somewhere, some... ect)

The name's Kim by the way forgot to add in

i remember that too, but i guess it doesn't really matter now because of the whole body thing

Us picking out the mistakes won't make BONES redo the series. All it does is upset people (like me). Nothing is ever perfect, but so what? You did enjoy FMA, didn't you? That's all that matters.

And all you read somewhere is all in this forum from people guessing, no one gave a fact here. It is a fact however that in the Japanese DVDs, the director of the show laughed and said that the water level thing was a mistake! He told people to just forgive that and treat that only prolonged contact with water will wipe the seal off.

Then again he forgot how long Al was standing in rain for episode 13, just as how when they corrected Ed to clap his hands instead of punching his fist in the DVDs, they forgot that Ed will not be able to clap during the fight with Wrath much later.

Bones make mistakes but some people refuse to accept it. They just take other people's guesses as facts just because they hope to make the show flawless in their eyes and kept pushing onto other people who can recognise the flaws, regardless of the quality of the show.

it is JUST out of the love for FMA that some people become picky about the minute details and it is also out of the love for the series that people accept it as a great art work.

of course they are able to redo it some time later probably when the movie is a hit and thus they can have a complete set just like EVA. gainax redid quite a few animation in EVA when they release the collection version.

anyway, i would welcome people to utilize their imagination to expand the narrative space in the anime rather that indulging in some self-gratifying illusions~~

I finally knew the answer to my long un-answered question. My friend gave me a kind of "preview" she made from Eppie 6, with Ed punching his fist into his palm, but on TV, it was Ed clapping hands together.

ed was probly just trying out the best way to use alchemy quickly and efficiently

On Japanese TV, it was Ed punching. On the DVDs (Japanese or American) and American TV, it was Ed clapping. Simply put, they messed up in the original broadcast (Japanese) and changed it for future versions.

I am not saying that having mistakes is a bad thing... in fact, it's good that BONES admitted that they did make those mistakes... I love to find those flaws in FMA not because I hate it, but because I still love it and want to see if everything makes sense. Found a flaw? ask whether it really is a flaw. If it IS, then I know I didn't just confuse myself further about the plot. Finding its flaw can be an "enjoyable" part of watching anime too. (If I don't love FMA I won't even bother with rewatching + digging out flaws)

i might re-watch FMA again after done with the exams~~hopefully i'll see some more interesting spots:)

anyway, sometimes i'd even wonder: am i too "hard" on this series ? XD

You'll see that Ed is left-handed in episode 6 when he writes a letter to Winry. But in episode 1, when Ed writes down the transmution circle, you can see that he is right-handed. Which means he cannot write with his auto-mail arm.

In hte last episode I realized that Ed's arm was different.

how so..
Please illiterate..

Ed's arm was different when he was in the room with his father...wasn't it?

It's supposed to be since automail doesn't exist in "our" world so someone (minor movie spoiler) made him a prosthetic arm to replace it, ... Also, he had to transmute automail for himself to when he had it ripped off and when he transmuted it to sodium to make Sloth explode so it was different from the one Winry made him a good 3-4 episodes ago.

Oh, I have one! Something you only spot the second time around... in the first part of episode 44(I think) Edo is wearing his normal outfit, ya know with his metal claspy thing holding his jacket togeather, then like half way through it changes to his new one with the jacket open, i personally like that one the best!

When Ed recieves the title of State Alchemist, he gets a letter from King Bradley. Stop the picture and read it -beginning makes sense (bestowing the title of "Fullmetal" to Ed) but rest of it is actually from an old Alechemical textbook and makes no sense as a letter.

I was watching episode 6 today, and I relized at the point where Ed joins his hands when Gracia is in labor. In the sub, Ed makes a fist with his right hand and claps it with his open left. But in the dub, Ed just claps without making a fist with his figures sightly bended. I guess FUNimation thought claping hands with a fist in one hand and a open in another didn't count as claping to do alchemy...

BONES changed it, not FUNimation

BONES made the original fma, not FUNimation >.>

Yes, they did and they changed the scene, you got a big problem with that? FMA has mistakes which BONES admit to, and which they try to correct in the DVD release.

I know that Bones made FMA. What I'm trying to say is~ The Japanese version of that scene was different from the Eng dub scence. I'm just saying that it was different. Okay? I don't have a problem with it. When I was watching, I just relized it. That's all. Geez~! Don't be all aggressive about it. I just a made a mistake, that's all. Cause usually FUNimation do this a lot.

That whole episode was screwy. Why was Ed eating ramen in the first place, when the whole setting of the series is Western? And why was the sign for when all the buildings got demolished in kanji? Stupid BONES, can't maintain consistency.

Good point!!

Haha, I hadn't noticed the kanji. I think Ed was eating dango in the beginning of that one, too. Alot of Japanese stuff kind of snuck into that episode.

Oh, yes, dango!!

(That's the round thingies on a skewer Ed was eating on a train while talking about reporting to Mustang. It's a traditional Japanese sweet. Just where Ed found dango in Amestris, I have no idea. )