FMA Brotherhood Official Art collection

Hey, I’ve decided to make another FMA official art collection to go with my one for FMA 03 art which I’m pretty happy about. However, I don’t have as much Brotherhood stuff saved, so this one is going to be a bit shorter. (If you have anything or have any comments for improvements. please let me know – here or on my tumblr.)

Again, I grabbed stuff from all over so I don’t have any sources saved for this – sorry! Quality of the images may be a little variable as well. I do try to only have one version of each image. And I don’t own any physical copies of anything myself either, this is all stuff I found scans of online. That said, please enjoy! Again, some notes from me in sets I’ve arbitrarily arranged for your viewing pleasure.

Click on images to view them more fully. Official art, merch, etc. Enjoy!

These are all the original DVD covers, in order. They’re all pretty lovely of course. (okay that one with Riza on her own is a little boring but the rest are great.) Hard to choose a favourite.

These are the OST (Original Sound Track) covers. Aren’t they gorgeous? I especially love the one with Ed playing the piano. I’m not actually sure what’s on that one as the full OST is covered in the first 3 CDs.

More music. Chraracter theme covers, I guess. Nice, if pretty simple.

All part of the 2010 calendar, I believe. Really likeable images here!

Awesome set, right? These are all scenes, big horizontal images with backgrounds and something going on. I just arranged them myself so it’s not an official grouping. Some of the images aren’t clean, sadly but they’re still pretty awesome and many feel like shots from a particular episode. (Though one looks suspiciously like Fullmetal versus Flame, as if there wasn’t already plenty of 03 art on that fight. Seriously there’s loads of Ed and Roy fighting in 03 official art.) My favourite is probably the one with Young Hohenheim and Ed.

Like the previous set, in that they feel like awesome scenes except that these images don’t have backgrounds. Still pretty great though. My favourite is probably the very simple Hughes/Roy image.

More images of scenes, this time in portrait orientation. I adore the one with Ed fighting Father while human!Al watches from the gate.

So, these are collectable cards from a complete set of 55, I believe. The majority of the other images from this collection are actually already in other sets (the images I have saved of them are just versions without numbers.) Some official art pieces are just used for a lot of stuff so you get a lot of versions of them. Anyway, these are very pretty, I quite like the one with Mei.

A few more cards, this time all landscape. Err, I feel like I should have all these images at a normal angle, but apparently not? Definitely some of the other images from other sets also exist in this tilted angle set.

Bizarre images that don’t seem like they’re in the canon world, but some sort of Modern!AU or something. Yeah, I love them. Especially that water gun one.

More from a modern!AU or something – this time portrait – only have a few of these. All the bizarre stuff you love from official art, that wedding one with the bouquet is gorgeous.

Some character cards, I guess. I only have four so that’s probably not all of them? Who knows. Ed’s my favourite here anyway.

Hey here’s some sacred star of Milos art! I think it has the cutest art style! Ed’s hair is spiky. I think I definitely prefer it to Brotherhood’s art style. Whereas I found tons of art for Conqueror of Shamballa in the 03 collection, I’ve seen only a little for Sacred Star of Milos which is such a shame when visually its so appealing.

Quality of images her is definitely variable.

These are a few really cool posters, each one for a specific episode. (I hope they are in fact official art – I’m not compltely certain). They’re great though I’m sure there must be more out there.

Just some main characters against a white background. Winry looks so nice when she’s laughing.

More cards. I think this is a complete set with 15 common cards and six special. I really like this set, the Lust is great and also the Ed showing off his back just looks majestic.

A different set of collectable cards and this one might actually be my bane… there’s two sets of them. As you can see on the latter half, it looks like I only have 4-8 but 1-3 don’t really match with the rest of the set. 1 and 3 are images of Edward without the words and in different style so they’re with the other Edward images further below. 2 is an image of Roy and Ed together, also somewhere below. Anyway, I can’t help but really like the Lust card. Maes is also pretty nice!

Just some other set of cards of some sort, sorry about the variable quality – I really struggled to find these! They’re clearly a set anyway. I might be missing some…

Here’s this set of extremely narrow official art posters. Don’t have a good better version of the Envy one, sadly. Ed and Al together is lovely as always.

The columns aren’t related to each other here – these are some pairs of images that go together. The Winry/Riza ones are the same, just flipped upside down. The bottom two, the silhouettes are just the backs of some of the collectable cards above. There’s actually a lot more, but they’re not too interesting so I’ve only saved the Ed and Al ones.

So, these images are all very square and I’m going to assume they’re all song covers. I know the last one is the image cover for Again, by Yui for instance. Err some other images might be for music as well mixed in with other groups, sorry.

Just images of Ed on his own. (That’s not already part of another set!) Some of them are a bit heavyhanded with fanservice…. My favourite is Ed holding an Al trophy.

These are images of Ed and Al together! There’s quite a few but I love the one with Ed with his hair in a ponytail – it just looks really nice.

Some chibi-style badge pins!!!!! They’re really cute, especially Envy. (I love when he’s drawn with greenish hair).

(Sorry they don’t all match…)Here’s some really cute merch made for a Fullmetal alchemist café. As you can see all the characters are dressed up like they’re running some sort of Café in a delightful chibi style. I adore the smiling Envy and Lust. (And this makes me imagine there’s some rival cafés all competing with each other.)

More merch. Some pretty nice Badges, hard to choose a favourite – maybe Greed?

These are just images with a pair of characters in it (and that don’t clearly belong in another set.) Lots of Roy. Okay, one is just two forms of Envy but whatever!

I like this set, it’s pretty nice. Olivier Armstrong is my favourite here.

I think these might be from a game or something like that? They all look pretty cool but especially Lan Fan, I think.

Again these cards seem like they’re part of some sort of game. Very nice with the backgrounds and everything. It’s hard to choose a favourite but I’ll go for the Ed and Al one – I can’t get enough of them even when there’s loads of it.

More collectible cards. Why do they all seem to have different backgrounds and styles? I don’t know. Roy’s got his glove in his mouth again!

Characters on their own, who aren’t Ed. Ling looks pretty cool dressed up as an emperor.

Here’s some group shots of exactly 3 people (though that one with Ed, Ling and Roy holding little pictures is kind of crossing the line…) Briggs group is my favourite here.

And now here’s group shots of more than 3 people – sometimes quite a bit more. My favourite is the one with the girls. Love how they’re holding a mini-Ed and Roy, while looking grumpy. Plus Lust looks great.

And these are all from the Prince of Dawn and Daughter of Dusk games. Both promo art and some screenshots from the actual game, I believe. There’s many more bizarre screenshots originating from these! Yeah, just imagine all the silly fanservicey stuff from typical anime injected into these games.

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And that’s the end of my collection. Thanks for viewing! As you can see, it’s still pretty incomplete but there’s a decent amount of nice art here too. If you know of any more official art pieces, do tell me! I’d love to add to this. That said, I don’t think I’ll add any stuff from anymore mobile games that may materialise. It’s not really Brotherhood.

If you’d like to see all the eyecatchers (The images that show between commercial breaks) then there’s a full set here: http://deetersthebrotherhoodfangirl.blogspot.com/2010/04/eyecatches-ep-1-10.html

If you’re looking to see more art, please also consider checking out my FMA 03 official art collection.

And, feel completely free to make use of any of this art for your own purposes – it’s all official art so obviously there’s no need to credit me, I merely compiled it.

Cheers,

-Zetalial

FMA Survey – notes for future improvements.

The survey was done on the 16th of January, 2020. I shared it via tumblr and it got a good response with plenty of participants.

The First question asked what versions of FMA each participant had seen. The purpose of this question was to both get an idea of the relative popularity of each media and to lead into the next question. Additionally, its useful to see what exposure they’ve had to the franchise when considering the results from the other question.

In future, it may be worth considering further questions about how much they rewatched (or reread in the case of the manga) each series. Additionally, perhaps questions on how much they’ve seen, in order to record partial watches.

Assuming they’ve seen more than one version, asking which they saw first may also be illuminating.

The next question is the ever controversial fandom dividing question. Which version do you prefer? Brotherhood or FMA 2003?

I chose to avoid the option of considering both equal – the reason for this is because even those who say they love them equally will frequently still answer this question. And that means, if forced to make a choice, they do carry some sort of preference. All questions on this survey are completely optional, so if there’s really no preference, then the question can simply be skipped if they’d truly like to remain neutral.

I did include the option of having only seen one version. This is because without this option, they would be inclined to say the one they’ve seen is their favourite. This leads to a bias towards the more widely seen version. This way, only those who have seen both are stating their preference, while the others tell you about relative popularity. (Which you can read from the first question but this makes it clearer.) People could, of course, lie but putting this right after the first question hopefully helps to discourages this.

Next I asked about favourite characters. I don’t consider this an especially interesting question, because people often have a hard time choosing their favourites and will usually go for the main characters anyway. And besides that, there’s such a massive amount of characters to choose from so you’d need a lot of participants to get a real idea which ones are more popular than others outside the top few. (When there’s only one or two votes between a dozen different characters they’re on pretty much the same but with enough votes, the gaps are more likely to widen.)

But I wouldn’t want this survey to be too short so it’s a pretty obvious question to ask. And it’s still data. I decided to list popular characters and let the choose from there, adding in an other for ones I missed.

In future, I would perhaps break down this question more. Rather than being all lumped together, asking questions such as favourite heroes, favourite villains, favourite side-character, favourite male, favourite female, favourite animal etc, would provide a better range of results and also lower the numbers of options, which were really far too many.

I did break this down between canons – Brotherhood and 03 and I think this was a good idea as people frequently chose different options for each.

Originally, I next moved straight on to asking about fanfiction, but after about twentyish responses? -I added two more questions. Long answer questions asking for further thoughts on Brotherhood and further thoughts on FMA 2003. These were excellent as they allowed people to express their opinions properly – which they had had the option for the films and it seemed silly not to include it for the series as well. My question was very vague here, allowing them to type pretty much whatever so responses were very varied. Some were only one or two words, some were rants, some were very long measured responses. Very interesting to read, if a little disorganised.

Perhaps it might be worth mulitple questions in the future eg asking what they liked, what they disliked, what made them feel emotional. This will make the survey much longer however and you might miss out on the less filtered thoughts.

It would be a good idea to include a question specifically for the FMA Manga though – that remains left out. Further thoughts on the manga is currently the only one missing. I’ve preferences between 03 and Brotherhood, it may also be useful to consider a question about preferences between the Manga and Brotherhood (not a simple which you like better perhaps, but another long answer where the participants can express thoughts on each.)

Speaking of other media, I have currently not included anything on any of the FMA games. A question on them, simply asking which they’ve played, if any, might be a good idea.

Anyway, next I asked about fanfiction. A simple question of whether they read fanfiction or not – with the options: Yes, no or A little. The reason for having “A little” as an option is because many people would struggle to commit to saying yes or no if they don’t habitually read fanfiction. I could have perhaps asked more questions about fanfiction reading habits: would you read 100k+ stories, have you read more than 20 (that a good number?) pieces of fma fanfic. Do you read shipping fics? I don’t know, there’s a variety of possible questions but its not really the focus of the survey.

Another good question would be asking if theyve written any FMA fanfiction. And also if they’ve produced any FMA fanart. Simple yes or Nos should suffice. There may be other possiblities to ask relating to fandom participation but I’m not sure what sort of things would be worth asking. This would become its own section of the quiz at this point – on fandom participation.

Anyway, my true aim with the fanfiction question was to have a good lead-in for the next, more interesting question. Asking if they’d like to recommend anything. I suggested just a link to a single rec to encourage them to participate – though maybe also suggesting just a name would also be a good idea. The majority of people who responded usually did offer a single link – it may be worth saying they’re allowed to send in more in case anyone thought otherwise.

I organised the fanfiction into a better formatted rec list after the fact which took some time but a list with more than 50 suggestions is a great one. Recs list are really annoying to make usually.

Next I inquired about the movies, first CoS, asking whether they liked it, Yes or No and then giving space for further thoughts.

Yes or No is a very simple way to gauge opinion of course. CoS is clearly a film with ups and downs and its hard to express your true opinions with a simple yes or no. But it still shows whether it is overall positive or negative and I’m not sure there’s really a better way. Frrther thoughts proved illuminating. Maybe a question about rating it on a scale of 10 would be better?

Anyway, same for the live action film and Sacred star of Milos. A lot of people who hadn’t seen it answered these questions, which is annoying. Perhaps adding the option of not having seen it would help? It makes the pie chart less satisfying to read though….

Err, my survey order seems weird, fanfiction would probably be better after movies, not before. Fanfiction leads quite nicely onto asking about shipping after all.

Anyway, next I asked the question I’d really been wanting to ask – about shipping. Some of the other questions were partially about padding the survey out because this was the thing I created the survey for. Ironically, the answers to these questions were far more interesting than the shipping stuff ended up being. I found I really liked learning about what the general opinions on the films were. But yes, I was really curious about the relative popularity of each ship.

I tried to include a good list of ships, the popular ones and the less well-known was that hopefully have some following. It’s hard to know. I tried to be generous with the list anyway though I did miss a few. Lan Fan/Winry Olivier/Riza, Winry/Roy and Greed/Envy are all ones I’d include next time.

I think I’d also split the canons again. A list for Brotherhood and a list for 03 on shipping. Even if everyone does ship the same ships, assuming people didn’t reply to the one they hadn’t seen, this might still better show the differences in shipping. It would also make the lists shorter as some characters are exclusive to each canon. And people might have different preferences between canons.

I did exclude married couples from the start of canon and I still think that makes sense, it’d be weird to ask if you ship an established pairing like that, I think.

But the data I actually received regarding shipping is okay, but it’s hard to really say much about. For one thing, there’s no distinction between casual shipping and serious shipping. The Winry ships are a great example here – I think. I included several femslash ships, WinPan, Sheswin and RoseWin (and Winai but it’s not so popular.) These all got pretty good results – supposedly nearly 40% of fans ship WinPan? Rosewin got 10%? It doesn’t even have a tag on tumblr – I searched winrose, rosewin rosewinry winryrose and in total found 4 posts about the ship. (One of which was mine.) That’s nothing. I checked a03 and found 9 – 3 in French by the same person – one a secondary pairing and the others all pretty short. Almost nothing basically.

WinPan is a little better with 90 fics on A03. But in contrast, RoyEd, which got 25% of votes has 3074 fics on a03. Okay, but they’re both main characters. And the RoyEd fandom is just massive. Still, even EdHei, which is unique to CoS and the characters got like 10 minutes of screentime have 114 fics for 28% of votes. (And BH fics are more popular on A03 with 7507 fics to 03’s 2588 and WinPan can exist in either.)

The point is that people casually ship WinPan, not actively. So these numbers are interesting but not as useful as I’d really like.

I’m thinking of keeping this question as I still like it but additionally asking another where the person is forced to choose their favourite ship – meaning they can only pick one. And I guess I could do this for each canon. I don’t like that they can only select one but I don’t currently have a better idea for differentiating casual shipping.

Originally when I was making this survey I also had this idea of asking them to choose a ship they disliked. I’d have only included the more popular ships as asking after rarepairs would have been cruel. But, I then decided I didn’t really want to do this – it’ll mostly just anger people even if it’s an interesting idea.

Then I asked about openings. I wasn’t quite sure how best to approach this so I linked all the opening and ending themes first (but I assume basically everyone skipped right to the question. So 10 options of opening themes and you choose your favourite. Personally I really struggle to choose and wanted to put in a second choice, so I added that as the next question. I feel like this is a little odd as it’s the only place where I offered it in the survey. (Why not ask for second-favourite character too?) But… I stand by it anyway. Again was overwhelmingly popular and asking their second favourite helped to highlight fondness for some of the other openings. Theoretically, I could divide this question into each series and maybe I’ll do it next-time but you can directly compare all the openings across series so it makes sense to keep them together too.

(I’m also happy about including the CoS opening with the other options.)

Next was endings and I decided not to ask for second favourite as endings aren’t usually as listened to. Anyway, I consider both these questions to be pretty obvious ones. A decent addition I guess but there’s not much to read from the information – all the openings and endings are really good. A nice simple question.

And that was the final questions save for one more for any extra thoughts about FMA. I think its good to give people a space to write their thoughts and plenty of lovely comments came from it. With so many long answer questions, this survey became an opportunity for fans to express their thoughts and many had a lot to say.

Still there’s probably room for further questions. I was considering something on plot arcs – choosing your favourite plot arc for each series. I could probably summarise it into about twelve choices for each series.

For a more directed wordy question I could ask something like what is one thing you’d like to change?

Another simple one – how long have you been a fan?

For a quick meta question, I could ask if they have any suggestions for improvements for this survey. Not a bad idea.

The other thing I think was important for this survey was to have plenty of pictures – it helps to have an image of each movie before asking about it. Helps to start and finish with some official art. I personally have an awful lot of 03 official art saved so I used more of it but I think it helps to improve the enjoyment of taking the survey even if it doesn’t technically affect the questions. Extra text describing what’s happening is also good. Simply saying that next I’m asking about shipping and clarifying what I mean is good, even if it can easily be skipped over. This is obvious stuff but its worth considering.

On 03!Wrath’s character

Wrath is neither my favourite or least favourite. He’s an odd character as he can be kind of annoying and I can see why a lot of fans don’t really like him. I’d rate the Untainted Child, Wrath’s introductory episode, as one of the weaker episodes in fma 03 (though the gate scene is good.)

But I also really appreciate Wrath as he is kind of powerless and didn’t exactly choose to be a villain – it was forced on him. That’s true to a lesser extent with the other homunculi but it’s especially true with poor Wrath, the titular untainted child.

Wrath’s only real memory is of his creation where Izumi creates him using her dead child’s remains and upon seeing her monstrous creation, throws him back into the gate where he is trapped within the dark abyss for years before stealing Ed’s limbs and gaining enough power to finally escape.

Harrowing as that is, Wrath intially can’t remember and is an innocent creature who just wants to have fun and doesn’t really understand humans. However, he immediately faces rejection from Ed and Al, then gets attacked by the military before finally regaining his memories just in time for Izumi to take him to the island and choke him to death (though she does change her mind).

It’s Envy who offers him acceptance and a real identity, then Sloth who takes care of him, giving him some level of motherly affection. Yeah, It’s no wonder that he chooses to stay with the other homunculi.

So Wrath poses the question of whether the homunculi are evil, if it’s just in their nature. And the answer isn’t quite straightforward. Wrath isn’t really evil so much as confused, and yet he craves red stones, which are made of human lives. At one point, Hohenheim speaks to Al, saying something along the lines of how the homunculi may start off like innocent children but overtime their desires inevitably corrrupt them. He’s not quite an unbiased speaker, of course, but the idea that their existence is literally a crime against nature, much like human chimeras are abominations, is certainly there. Nina’s existence seemed so hopeless to Scar that he considered destroying her to be a mercy kill, no act of cruelty. Indeed, Wrath’s death scene in CoS suggests he was somewhat suicidal. (I won’t discuss that any further now.)

Mostly though, Wrath’s actions are borne of rage and frustration and a desire for attention, not malice, (though he does seem to enjoy fighting Ed and Al). Izumi is a confusing mess of conflicting emotions for Wrath. Let’s say there’s a great amount of anger and hurt from her abandonment, hatred for how he was created mixed with a craving for affection and fear of her. And some jealousy over her relationship with Ed and Al. He doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings and literally just runs away when she confronts him.

I described Envy as a ball of emotion but I really should have reserved that description for Wrath because oh my this kid will fight anything. He’s like a wrecking ball that somehow manages to mess with everyone’s plans, causing everyone trouble – including himself.

When Lust decides to ally herself with the Elrics, Wrath takes it upon himself to fight her and ends up killing her. Then he is reckless enough to merge himself with Sloth – leading to her demise. Then he’s annoying Dante and Envy beats him up and then he actually ends up helping Ed while he’s fighting Envy. At no point does he consciously consider switching sides or anything, he’s always reacting in the moment.

The sheer number of characters he manages to upset just by existing and acting on his emotions is actually impressive. It’s seriously a wonder that he ends up as practically the lone survivor who gets the fairytale ending of going to Risembool to reunite with Al where Winry makes a pair of automail limbs for him.

He was forced into the role of villain but by the end, he doesn’t want to have the role anymore and becomes just a loose end.

All in all, Wrath’s story is not a satisfying one, it’s a messy kind of story that this anime seems to specialise in where not everything ties off nicely at the end. Wrath lives though. He’s lost interest in being a monster with all the other homunculi dead and he gets to continue living. It’s an optimistic end.

Wrath, like the other homunculi, was not evil, but continually manipulated and used because he was unnaturally powerful but emotionally vulnerable as a result of his creation. I like how CoS shows him having mellowed out, he’s not really happy but he’s now nice to Al and it’s implied he gets a happy end with Izumi, which is nice. He’s one of the good guys in CoS.

Al is Ed’s morality chain

(That’s a TVtropes term.)

Death is a pretty large theme in FMA 03. Ed and Al both see a lot of death – they see their mother die, they see Nina’s remains, they get captured by a serial killer who just enjoys killing for the sheer pleasure, they almost get killed by Scar, etc.

We first see Ed tempted to take a life in Lab 5 – the Slicer brothers tried to kill him and succeed in seriously injuring him in a brutal fight. Ed emphasises with them instead, refusing their requests to ‘destroy them’ saying he sees value in human life and couldn’t abide taking a life as it’s against his moral code.

It’s the reminder of how the Slicer brothers are like Al that gets Ed to feel this empathy – it’s also what encouraged him to get serious enough to win the fight – not letting himself lose when he feels like Al is counting on him – and Al is also what prevents him from taking a life. (Contrast someone like Envy, he doesn’t have an Al – it’s one of the key things that keep Ed good and unlike the hateful, bitter Envy despite all he’s seen.)

But then Ed gets tempted to take a life if it’s Al on the line. The Homunculi threaten Al and so Ed is seriously tempted to make a stone for them, even if it means killing a group of prisoners. His love for Al is what helps him to care but his devotion is also a bit dangerous.

Ultimately Ed can’t go through with killing at Lab 5 and he later confesses to Winry that he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not while Al was watching him. (At least in the dub, I haven’t checked the sub).

But later, when Al has been kidnapped by Greed (or so Ed believes) he decides to use lethal force and ends up killing Greed to save his brother. This time, no one was watching him. When he realises what he’s done, he’s really broken up about it and it takes him some time to come to terms with it.

That said, it’s not the last time Ed kills someone. He kills Sloth, who did push him towards it with her commitment to killing the both of them. Ed’s remarkably in control about it though – it seems that killing has gotten easier for him after he’s prepared himself for it.

It an interesting development, he feels that destroying Sloth is ultimately his responsibility and accepts that, rather than running from his problems. We see him becoming a hero who can kill if circumstances demand it. He still values human life a great deal. See how he chooses to let Shou Tucker live, after observing that he’s unlikely to do much more damage. Edward is not someone who ever enjoys taking a life and he’s never done it out of anger or revenge. Mostly, he is willing to kill to protect Al.

I adore Edward’s character. He’s complex and I feel that how much he struggles really serves to humanise him. He has his flaws and I like how even his biggest strengths – such as how much he cares about Al – can also be his greatest weakness. FMA 03 in general has a lot of moral ambiguity so Edward’s actions can’t easily be placed into right or wrong but I find it encouraging how Edward always tries to be the best possible person, if only for his brother.

Roy’s role in FMA 03

Roy serves as a deuteragonist to Ed and Al, being the other main viewpoint in the series. Roy is part of the military, part of the system – which is evil because the homunculi have been secretly pulling the strings and using the military state as a way to cause wars in order to sow as much despair as possible in order to obtain a Philosopher’s stone.

Roy is a man who intends to do good, as do all of his team who are very loyal to him. Unfortunately, his choices, to join the military to make a difference, led him to Ishval where he participated in a genocide.

It’s interesting to think how Ishval was presented to people such as Roy – early in the series we hear Ed’s beliefs about the Ishval massacre just being a riot which the Ishvalan people started and the Military responded. What Ed doesn’t realise is that he was being fed military propaganda. Roy would’ve been receiving lies as well to motivate his actions.

It’s perhaps a bit telling that it’s the murder of a pair of Amestrian doctors that were so clearly not monstrous enemies that really shook Roy. He has nightmares about the Ishvalans he’s killed as well but he was able to justify all his actions up to that point as just being in service to a greater cause and making a positive difference by quelling the rebellion. This act against two Amestrians helps him to realise that the whole thing was wrong and he couldn’t justify his actions any longer.

So he wants to make changes but and he believes that comes from remaining in the military to change it from within. But ultimately, he can’t make real change – the Ishvalans continue to be mistreated by the military and he’s forced to continue quelling their attempts at resistance. The situation in Liore really highlights how little has changed despite Roy’s great efforts.

Learning that the Fuhrer is a homunculus only confirms everything he feared – about how little power he has in his position despite the rank and respect. So he tries something new.

Armstrong, Fuery, Havoc, his whole team are happy to help him stage a coup while his most trusted companion Riza joins him to take on the Fuhrer directly. They are all loyal soldiers who believe in doing the right thing and they believe in Roy. That’s the one thing he has truly gained. And it makes all the difference.

Wrath and Envy’s first meeting

Hey there, I’ve always considered this scene to be great but it seems like it’s something of an underrated gem.

(Wrath does not yet have his name at this point in the series, but I’ll still refer to him as such for clarity).

In southern HQ, a range of different groups are all after the same thing: this strange new homunculus kid. Ed and Al want to interrogate him and find out more about how he acquired Ed’s missing limbs, Izumi wants to take care of the boy she believes is her son, Archer wants to use Wrath to advance his military career, Greed wants to use Wrath as an ally against Dante and the other homunculi but it’s Envy who wins the kid over.

The reason Envy wants Wrath is because he’s a homunculus, like him. I suppose you could suggest he wants to use Wrath for his powers so Dante has another willing minion (and I believe that’s certainly a significant factor) but truthfully I’ve always preferred a different interpretation. That Envy genuinely wants to help the kid because he feels a sort of kinship with him.

The homunculi are already in a position of power, we see them dealing with Greed without too much trouble and Wrath is honestly a burden to their group with how emotional and unreliable he ends up being. Dante doesn’t take all that long to become impatient with him and rip off his human limbs, rendering him practically useless. They can’t know what Wrath will be like, but he’s nevertheless a real spanner in the works they really didn’t need. And Envy freely offers him some red stones, despite their value. Beyond that though, the homunculi are a group who have all experienced abandonment from their creators and Wrath is practically screaming for attention. It’s so easy for them to emphasise with him.

But I digress. This episode (31) is known as Sin and this scene is quite a dark one. We see Envy’s confident yet patient smile as he talks down to the lost boy, feeding him information he’s been lacking as he offers him a sort of forbidden fruit. Envy is very much like a snake, isn’t he? Well if he’s the serpent then Wrath is being offered the knowledge of good and evil. Wrath reluctantly takes them and finds they taste good. As Envy reveals their cursed properties – that they’re made of human lives, he spits them out, knowing they must be Wrong.

But as Envy begins to withdraw the offer, Wrath becomes desperate and strikes out.

Even Envy seems a bit surprised, though he’s quickly back to smirking as Wrath grimly eats them:

He calmly tells Wrath that he (Envy) is not human; he is a homunculus and reveals to Wrath that he’s the same (and for the first time in this scene, Wrath’s Ouroboros can be seen while Envy’s has been prominently visible for the entire scene. We also get a close up shot of Envy’s face with his slitted purple eyes. I adore the atmosphere and lighting and cinematography of this scene.)

Wrath collapses and he starts to go through some sort of transformation; we see his eyes changing shape and memories of the Gateway resurfacing in his mind. He starting to remember who and what he is. And then the scene shifts.

I’ll touch on the next part as well. It really completes it.

Izumi is leaning against the wall, exhausted from fighting but still looking for her child. Last she saw, he was taken by the Fuhrer. Suddenly, Wrath runs out of the room and immediately clings to Izumi, though we don’t get to see his face. What soon becomes apparent is how his clothes have changed as well – now they bear a large resemblance to Envy’s outfit.

Izumi ever so cautiously hugs him before picking him up – noting the changes and looking saddened and thoughtful. Then she looks into the room Wrath’s emerged from.

Death. It looks like Wrath has murdered the Fuhrer and revealed his true nature.

Izumi flees, gripping Wrath tightly.

Lust in Reunion of the Fallen

FMA 03: Episode 35

In FMA, the homunculi are named after the seven deadly sins. However, the homunculus Lust never really displays any lustful behaviour. That’s fine of course – she does display many strong non-sexual desires. Her character is all about a search for her own identity, reclaiming the humanity that she’s lost.

That said, another way to embody the sin is in how she can invoke feelings of lust in others. Her character design as a dark beauty reflects this.

So there’s this episode where she encounters a young man and he falls in love with her. It’s a tragic story because she seems quite unaware of his growing feelings for her and she never intends to hurt him. I love this episode and how it clearly demonstrates her inhumanity, her heartless cruelty that has been prominent up until now in the series, but now its juxtaposed with her own dissatisfaction, her longing for answers and her (so far) unspoken wish of regaining her humanity.

When Lust walks into his life, the young man, Lujon, is already engaged to be married to a nice girl who desperately cares for him. But he quickly grows close to Lust. His fiancé, Lydia, is growing sick and she’s aware she’s losing Lujon just as she’s aware she’s losing her life.

She even confronts Lust about it, though coughing and crippled she nevertheless begs Lust to let her have Lujon. Lust is entirely unaffected. I like the contrast between the two – Lydia is this sweet girl who feels helpless against this exotic beauty.

On the day Lydia and Lujon are going to be married, Lujon goes into the woods to see Lust instead. That’s when he attempts to confess his feelings, hugging Lust tightly. (Again you can contrast Lydia in her white dress and white veil – a white wedding dress traditionally indicates purity – with lust in her black.)

I think this is a seemingly very classical example of the sin of Lust. Lust herself isn’t even aware of the turmoil she’s causing but her mere presence has caused these two great pain, leading to heartbreak and separation. Without her in the picture, the two of them would have been happily married.

And yet, it’s not so simple because Lust is presented in this episode to both be very knowledgeable and yet very naive. She’s shown to know a lot of alchemy and she and Envy are scheming; using this village and this illness they manufactured for their own goals. Yet she also seems unaware that Lujon has fallen for her. Lydia is fully aware of it, hence her earlier confrontation but Lust didn’t seem to get it and when Lujon hugs her, she’s completely surprised and caught off-guard. These feelings are all new to her.

As Lujon hugs her, faded memories of being held like this suddenly resurface. In this scenario, she is the sickly, dying girl while her love is a man considering forbidden alchemy to save her.

That’s the thing with Lust, she appears to be this perfect immortal creature, the dark destructive beauty bringing ruin. Ed even questions her about it later:

But, at her core, she’s more like the sickly dying girl who wants to be truly alive (or is ready to accept death?). Up until this point in the series, Lust has appeared plenty and she’s always been ruthless, cruel and a bit mysterious. This episode show’s more of that, as she and Envy show no remorse at the awful disease they spread and the many lives they’re ruining. But it also shows her wanting to be human. She’s very thoughtful but scared of her feelings as they confuse her.

So after Lujon hugs her, Lust runs away. Two years later, Lydia has come to terms with the way things are. She confesses that as much as she loved Lujon, there was someone else he loved more. But Lust is still feeling lost.

She is still looking for answers. This episode immediately follows Greed’s demise and her own mortality weighs heavily on her. Upon meeting Lujon again, he is happy to see her. He was sad that she disappeared and regrets that things ended the way they did but confesses that he’s been hoping to find her again.

So, Lujon embraces her again, making his feelings clear. She is startled by the memories once more and still doesn’t know how to deal with them. So she tries to run once more. This time though, she stabs him through the heart and he dies. A dying Lydia stumbles upon his corpse and it seems they are at least together in death.

Lust is left feeling only bereft as she leaves with Envy. It’s a cruel irony that she has been looking so hard for answers only to be scared once she starts to find them. Not unlike Ed and Al’s own hopeless quest in that regard. She killed Lujon but it doesn’t end the inner turmoil. Her search for answers continues.

Ep 8 – Ed can get really emotional and act irrationally

There’s plenty of emotion in FMA 03, really. It’s why it’s my favourite. I’m talking about episode 8 for now anyway.

So it’s the episode after Nina died and Ed is really distraught about it. And Ed encounters a serial killer! Interestingly, 03 decides to follow the Nina incident with Ed getting into a fight and almost getting killed just like the Manga but decides to hold back on the Scar fight. Events are shuffled around quite a bit really, but plenty of similarities remain.

But one big difference is that Ed wasn’t looking for the Scar fight, he was feeling sad and depressed about what’s just happened and then he’s attacked.

In 03 however?

Ed decides to leave the military (which he just joined) and hunt down the serial killer.

You can see why. He’s feeling helpless and wants to do something about it. He’s informed that Tucker’s been executed already and he can’t bring Nina back. The only other option open to him is to find who killed her and find some sort of justice for what happened. He needs some sort of obsession to focus on.

And the military is cold and uncaring. They want him to get to work. (And someone has a seriously sick sense of humour in ordering him to go through Tucker’s research.) Mustang is unsympathetic. Even Al just wants to move past the tragedy but Ed just cannot.

But Ed’s also acting completely irrationally. He heard about a serial killer in Central a little while ago and decides that it must be him behind Nina’s death. Even though it’s so obviously not. This guy goes after young women and likes to slash them up. The cause of death is completely different. But Ed’s basically clinging to whatever cause he can find.

Al’s trying to be reasonable. He’s like: “We don’t catch criminals, we’re alchemists, we do research. Maybe we can find a way to prevent another Nina from happening.” And Ed literally runs away. So he’s run away not just from the Military but from Al as well. So, Al gets on with research while Ed pursues his pointless mission.

Ironically enough, Ed actually does run into the culprit by sheer coincidence.

And he has no idea that it’s him and they wander away with no confrontation at all. (Aww, Ed’s so little.) Is he smiling? He hardly smiles at all this episode…

Well Ed still can’t do much alone so he goes to the one person who will help him out: Hughes. He’s kind enough to share his case files with Ed and give him a chance to focus on trying to solve this case. Ed’s still kind of snappish with Hughes and practically blows up when he suggests maybe an alchemist was behind the killings. Ed takes it very personally.

(Sorry Ed, but most alchemists are indeed killers.)

Well, Ed finally gets the fight he’s been after and it’s nothing like he imagined. It’s not him defeating the bad guy – instead his friend is in danger and Ed’s nearly rendered helpless.

When Al appears, Ed so relieved. He now talks about his feelings, how he felt extremely scared and vulnerable. And he’s crying even as Al comforts him and suggests a new goal in the form of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Is he starting to be more rational as he works through his feelings, or is it just something new to cling to to stop him from feeling so helpless? Earlier in the episode he dismissed the stone as just a fairytale and only listens now when Al’s just saved him.

03 Envy = BH Father

(Don’t take this post too seriously, it was fun to write is all.)

Hey, so I think 03 Envy has a lot in common with Father from Brotherhood. They’re like counterparts!

Like, they’re both homunculi created by Hohenheim, right? And Hohenheim also fled from them, regretting his mistakes. And they’re both 400 years old. And they both look down on humans, seeing them as lesser creatures.

Also, they’re both secretly golden-eyed blonds.

Father is literally a father to his homunculi. Envy is the oldest homunculi in 03 and sort of acts like an older brother to the other homunculi when he’s in a good mood. Father provides them with their philosopher’s stone’s and we see Envy providing 03!Wrath with red stones too.

And how does FMA: Brotherhood end? With Ed punching Father in the face. FMA 03? Ed punches Envy in the face.

See! Similarities everywhere! And there’s even a part when they both put a hand through someone’s chest. (Which happens in the second-last episode of each series.)

And then there’s what happened after that.

They both have a scene at their respective gateways and both get dragged in to the other side. See all these parallels?

…

You’ll notice, of course, that one stark difference in all these images is that Envy is always grinning where Father never is. That is because they have this one big key difference in that Envy embraced all his evil feelings and vices while Father attempts to separate all his vices out into the Sins. So Envy is filled with emotion channelled in the worst ways possible while Father became empty, channelling it in the worst ways possible. Father’s goal in life is to make himself into a god where Envy has no aspirations at all, and just amuses himself with causing humans to suffer.

How did they turn out different? Well, Envy had the manipulative Dante while Father had the loyal Pride. Dante likes to remind the homunculi that they’re worthless and uses them as tools for her own ends. No doubt Envy was being regularly compared to her dead son and to Hohenheim and so there’s a lot of hatred there. Father, meanwhile, had Pride who was literally a part of him and always served Father’s goals and respected him and this served to heighten his god complex. Essentially the two extremes. Shame Hohenheim didn’t stick around in either version.

Now there’s obviously also Brotherhood!Envy who is literally a part of Father. They represent Father’s envy and they can look however they want and choose to look like that. I say that Envy’s look is secretly Father’s preferred form. And Envy’s look is definitely 03!Envy’s preferred form.

(Okay I think that’s enough reaching and making spurious connections for one day.)

Wrath and Ed and the homunculi’s deaths

Wrath and Ed are always paralleling each other in FMA 03. One striking instance of this comes from episode 47: Sealing the Homunculus. We see Wrath turn his arm into a blade to stab Lust, killing her.

This is Wrath’s first kill. The method is quite similar to Ed’s kill of Greed. Lust is super sympathetic in these episodes given how she’s allied herself with Ed and everything but from Wrath’s perspective she’s as monstrous as ever with her brutal beat down plus the way she was slicing up Sloth earlier.

Just like how Greed’s really sympathetic, rebelling against the other homunculi, but from Ed’s perspective he was a monster who had kidnapped his brother and kill a (supposedly) nice old woman. Both fights take place around the same sealing circle as well. (it’s the anti-homunculus one so it’s only logical but I wanted to mention it anyway.)

But Wrath’s really quite different from Ed here, he knew exactly what he was doing as he ended her life and only stares at her dissolving corpse impassively. A far cry from how Ed collapses in despair, not having expected to actually kill someone.

But episode 47 also features Ed’s second kill and this time he knew exactly what he was doing. He planned for the scenario in advance and was ready. After it’s over he doesn’t collapse or start crying, mostly keeping hold of his emotions.

Except it wasn’t just Ed who destroyed Sloth – it was Wrath as well. He didn’t intend it but by recklessly fusing with her, he completely paralysed her and left her vulnerable for Ed to destroy. And Wrath collapses in despair and starts sobbing at what’s happened.

…

And here’s Ed after killing Sloth and Wrath after killing Lust. Both kinda sad and contemplative but reasonably composed and both probably questioning life and death and existence etc.

Wow this is a dark analysis. Eh, one final similarity? Lust, Sloth and Greed were all at peace as they were dying:

(Yes I think those are all meant to be little peaceful smiles. Wrath is also pretty content with his death in CoS.) …That addition just made this even more depressing, didn’t it?