Introduction/About me

Hello welcome to my blog. Please go to the table of contents page to see links to all my blog posts.

I’m Zeta, I’m your standard fangirl who happens to love everything about the Fullmetal Alchemist anime. One day I decided to write a short analysis on some minor thing and to my surprise I found I quite enjoyed it. More analysis posts soon followed.

Writing them on tumblr is nice but the archiving there is impossible so I decided to set up this little site for convenience. I cross-post all of my longer tumblr posts to this blog so they can be easily viewed.

When did I get into FMA? I first watched the anime several years ago. I had recently discovered anime and I don’t really remember how I heard about this series. I haven’t watched all that many anime and it was probably one of the first I’d seen. I do know that I went into the series knowing absolutely nothing about it. When I say nothing I mean nothing. I didn’t know Ed’s arm was automail until he revealed it at the end of the first episode and I was surprised by it.

Before watching it, I did try to work out what version to watch, as there did seem to be two. I read that Brotherhood was made later and just decided to go with the original. Anyway, I absolutely loved the series. It was episode 3 that really hooked me into the show but I did enjoy the first two episodes as well. I watched the entire thing very quickly. It’s hard to remember all my intial impressions of everything as it was happening. I do know that I very quickly loved Edward and Alphonse. I think I was taken aback by the ending but not too much. I think it made me really appreciate the show more somehow. I don’t fully remember.

I did end up rewatching a couple of the early episodes again. Then, there was this Brotherhood thing. Stuff online was saying it was really good as well but suffered from a bad start. I didn’t really want to watch it though. I liked the version I watched a great deal and I wasn’t ready to see the new, glossier version. I think I did get as far as turning on the first episode but I didn’t make it through the entire episode before deciding I just wasn’t interested. I also looked into Conqueror of Shamballa but I wasn’t interested in watching that either. I read some fanfiction though it was kind of irritating to see that there was so much Brotherhood stuff, or so it initially felt. I couldn’t help but get some spoilers for the Brotherhood series around this time though I wasn’t actively looking for them. I read some nice fics before moving on to other stuff after a while.

A few years past, I noticed Brotherhood was on Netflix but not the Original and was sorely disappointed. My feelings towards Brotherhood were essentially disappointed that it was stealing attention away from the version that I knew. Then one day, I noticed the original had appeared on Netflix. I watched the entire series again. Then I introduced the series to my sister and watched the whole thing with her.

By this point I decided I was properly interested in the series and began looking on the internet and everything. I decided I was bored of avoiding Brotherhood spoilers and began reading more about it as well. I had already informed my sister on the existence of Brotherhood and shortly after watching the original, she began watching Brotherhood. So, I decided to finally watch Brotherhood for the first time (with my sister). I dutifully watched it from start to finish.

It should come as no surprise to anyone to hear it did not end up impressing me. I’d watched the original at least three times by this point. Most of the major twists were already spoiled for me. Brotherhood was watchable but severely underwhelming. I know I’m biased, it’s inevitable. But my strong love of the original means that I can only consider it to be the true version, the characters they showed were the true interpretation.

Couldn’t I consider both version to be true? I wish I could. But ultimately, I’m a fanfiction reader who loves the show mostly for the characters and their struggle. I have no problem with Brotherhood’s plot. It’s entertaining, as are the fight scenes and world and such. But it never challenged the characters and pushed them to extremes the way the original did for me. I believe that Brotherhood Ed and 03 Ed are simply different characters and I’m only interested in reading stories about 03 Ed. He’s just my favourite. I can’t control who my favourites are. Because Brotherhood wasn’t incredibly gripping to me, I noticed flaws in it while watching. If you ask me about Brotherhood’s ending I can explain in great detail how I found it disappointing. I greatly missed elements from 03 that weren’t there such as 03!Lust. I know that the 03 series is also imperfect and it has been heavily criticised for it’s ending and characters and elements that from Brotherhood that weren’t there. But when I watch it, it is still incredibly gripping so it’s flaws seem to melt away or don’t detract from my enjoyment. That’s just how it is and how I am.

Enough about that! Please feel free to say hello and ask me any questions. This blog is mostly going to stick to the analysis posts but I will include other stuff such as my fanfic recs. I welcome any advice or suggestions you might have. Thank you for reading.

Oh, shipping. I like reading stories with romantic relationships in sure. I generally only read stories where Ed is a main character. But yeah, I’d say I’m okay with a variety of ships but gen fics are my preference.