honestly i think he had the gloves made so that he didn't have to draw transmutation circles..i didn't question it

I reckon he was being a wannabe.
He was trying to make himself look as cool as Ed. But he never will be
I love Edward! lol

^*urge to kill rising*

al did it too look cool which he more than suceeded in ^^

(mods I was kidding about the urge to kill, k?)

He's obviously just done , what roy's done . . It would be a nuisance to draw the transmutation circle over and over again while he's in battle . . . .

um, al remembered seeing the gate.
he said that!
I think the transmutations were just for decoration.
or maybe he can't transmute without a circle, and he was just like, "LOL IM MY BROTHER NOW!! ^^ I GOTS THE OUTFIT AND EVERYTHING!!!!!!"
lol

and you shouldn't have watched the movie before the rest of the series. the movie concludes the whole thing, its like a long last episode.

I think that we are not sure exactly what Al's circles are capable of.

But, I like to think that he created a circle for each hand that layered over one another and from different angles could make different arrangements of the symbols and therefore different alchemical reactions.

NOTE: Even in actual Alchemy exist symbols for the twelve alchemical processes.: (Source: wiki:Alchemical symbol ..although the page is missing citations and hence the content's factual accuracy may be in question. ^^)
(Each of these processes is "dominated" or "ruled" by one of the 12 Zodiac signs.)
* Decomposition through Calcination (Dominated by Aries)
* Decomposition through Digestion (Dominated by Leo)
* Decomposition through Fermentation/Putrefaction (Dominated by Capricorn)
----------------------------------------------
* Modification through Congelation/Coagulation (Dominated byTaurus)
* Modification through Fixation (Dominated byGemini)
* Modification through Ceration (Dominated by Sagittarius)
----------------------------------------------
* Separation through Distillation (Dominated by Virgo)
* Separation through Sublimation (Dominated by Libra)
* Separation through Filtration (Dominated by Scorpio)
----------------------------------------------
* Union through Solution (Dominated by Cancer)
* Union through Multiplication (Dominated by Aquarius)
* Union through Projection (Dominated by Pisces)

He would just have to rearrange where the energy is going.

<Welcome to our board, NESTO! Edited your post a bit to make the information a little easier to find. Hope you don't mind. ^^ ~ Board Staff >

ETA: ^ awsome

Guys, Guys, GUYS?!?!?

*Spoiler alert*
Has everyone except xHearter forgotten that you can perform alchemy without a transmutation circle once you have seen the GATE?!?! And Al obviously did, he said so - Edward brought back his body from behind that gate, right? So that explains Als alchemy without a circle. After all, their teacher could do it too, she was at the gate because of her baby.

I think the circles on his gloves are just some sort of symbol or something. Maybe he just wears them because they remind him of his brother (Ed always wore some, right? To hide his metal hand...?)

As for Roy Mustang: He doesn't perform alchemy like you or I (haha -.-'). He snaps his fingers, and because of the synthetic fibres in his gloves, a spark appears. (Nothing to do with alchemy yet.) Then he changes the air around him in order to make the spark bigger. That spark isn't alchemy, anyone could do it with gloves like that. what makes Roy an alchemist is the changing of air - whatever he does with it. Maybe he is able to do that because of circles in his gloves, or maybe, he, too, has seen the gate. That, I don't know. But I do believe that Al doesn't need transmutation circles on his gloves to perform alchemy.

And as for Al being a state alchemist - I don't think he is one. Firstly, he never wanted to become a "dog of the military", as Ed put it. He wanted to be free. And secondly - in the movie, when Ed is finally back in their world and they're fighting on that aircraft - Mustang shows up and keeps calling Ed "Full Metal", his title. Then, when Al runs after his brother, Mustang doesn't say anything. One could read between the lines here that Al doesn't have a title at all. That would make sense, since Mustang says "Full Metal" (with an emphesis on it!) three times in total in that short time - and nothing at all to Al. Of course, you could argue that he doesn't say "Alphonse" either - he just doesn't call Al anything - but if Al were a state alchemist Mustang would definitely have said something to him. That's why I doubt that Al is in fact a state alchemist.

Well, that's just my opinion - hate me for it if you must ^^