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Reviewed by Park Cooper If I explained the concept behind FullMetal Alchemist to you, you’d be super-impressed. In a mix of magic and science that Roger Bacon would doubtless be proud of, two brothers who are super-gifted at alchemy (especially the older one) decide, “Hey, let’s use alchemy to bring Mom back from the dead! Wouldn’t that be great?” Well, it wasn’t great, because to conjure up anything with alchemy, you’ve got to give a little, and the brothers sort of forgot that, and so it all went wrong. The older brother lost his left leg, and the younger brother’s whole body was just gone. Also, they summoned up some terrible inhuman thing that doubtless got loosed upon the earth, but they kind of gloss over that part. I would too if I was them. Later, the remaining brother gave up his right arm to summon back the soul of his lost brother—but the soul was all he could get, so he stuck it in a big suit of armor that was handy. So now, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist (so called because he’s got a robotic prosthetic arm and leg) and his brother Alphonse the walking suit of empty armor (you’d think he’d be the Even More Fully-Metal Alchemist, but no), quest around the land for the Philosopher’s Stone, which makes Alchemy work with super-maximum efficiency, hoping to use it to fix their metallic-body/body parts situation back the way it used to be. But it seems like the Philosopher’s Stone is in the hands of the bad guys. The ones we meet call themselves after two of the seven sins, Lust and Gluttony, because this is a very moral-and-interested-in-religion-and-the-role-of-God-in-a-world-where-magic-kinda-sorta-exists type of series. Sounds super-phenomenal, right? So what’s the catch? Is it the art? No, the art’s fine... it’s just... it (amazingly) needs even more energy, even more momentum. It’s a little too slow and just barely had enough gumption to propel me to order volume 2 sent to the library. The first story was pretty okay, but the rest of the volume was laborious. I have a very strong feeling I’m not going to make it to volume 16... I tried the anime a year or two ago and found the same problem. Good concepts, good characterization, even, but too slow-moving, and never tried it again. The Complete Guide to Manga felt Fullmetal Alchemist was quite good, so I’ve tried the manga, but... I’m giving this volume a B- because while it almost makes it to a mid-B grade, it’s made me kind of sad about my hopes for the future volumes. If someone can mess up the pacing on such a great concept as this one... can said creator be trusted to ever do anything right ever again? [Editor's Note: Actually, I just read volume 2, and it got better, so we'll see... more on this topic later...] Comment on this review of FullMetal Alchemist v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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