[LunarMoon]

Originally Posted by wisteria233

Gantz is a horrible series, because like the 2003 its only trying to shock not tell a story. And like the 2003 if it fails to shock you and get that knee-jerk reaction, then the story itself fails. Any series that is more preoccupied with doing this is not good series, its childish.

Gantz is an action anime with one mindless-violence filled battle after another, and it never examines any of its grotesqueries. Full Metal Alchemist is a drama, or as Endless Twilight put it, a "melodrama". It doesn't seem fair to compare FMA 2003 to something like Gantz, if only due to the genre.

Also, though I agree with you about Gantz, I don't dislike it because it's childish. The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, and Chronicles of Narnia are childish, because, well, all of them were originally written for children, but they're still better than the overwhelming majority of fictional works. No, I dislike Gantz, and works similar to it, because it’s a mindless gore fest that fails to inspire any sort of emotional response for me. Art's purpose is to inspire an emotional response in its audience; that emotional response may vary from happiness, to sadness, to disgust, but if it inspires nothing, then in fails as an artistic work. Mindless violence, which FMA 2003 isn't, inspires nothing but apathy in me.

Originally Posted by wisteria233

Also the 2003 series did just introduce those dark elements to shock you, otherwise tell me what was the point to Rose's character, and everything they did to her? What ultimately was the point to Dante? What the the point of having Mustang be the one who killed Winry's parents? Heck, what the point to the entire later half of the series?-- all of these dark elements had nothing to do with the story that themes that they had set up previously, heck pursuing some of these elements lead to the 2003 outright abandoning some of those themes. That is what I am talking about the dark elements in the 2003 version didn't serve a purpose, they were just there.

Dark elements isn't just gore and porn, it also includes things like matricide, ,filicide, patricide, and rape (which is what happened to Rose), and things you can't really define like Dante's entire character, etc.

Spoiler for Multiple Spoilers For Full Metal Alchemist 2003:

Rose's circumstances were the same as what happened to the rest of Lior, which of course had been largely slaughtered by the military, in that it exemplifies how Ed's childish naivety and careless stupidity at leaving a political vacuum, had affected the city. The scene in which Scar explained what had occurred after removing Cornello hit me, if only because it was the only scene in which Scar could claim moral superiority over Edward.

As for Dante, I vastly preferred her as a villain to Father. Dante's motivation were far more human than Father's. I haven't watched past episode 40 of Brotherhood, yet, but based upon what I've seen and upon what I've heard about the end of the Brotherhood, Father has these generic motivations that relate to becoming an all-powerful god. Dante's motivations were more complex. Sure, she claimed to want to extend her life in order to protect humanity from itself, but it was obvious that her real motivation lay in her fear of death, contrasted with Hohenheim's graceful acceptance of it. That's far more relatable. The rotting of her body was made to illustrate the price that she paid for performing an act that no human being supposedly has any right to perform. I never agreeded with that last theme, since I'm a science and technology enthusiast, but I can see where the writers were going with it.

As for Mustang's killing of Winry's parents, I prefer what occurred in FMA 2003, since Mustang, from the get-go, is established as a fundamentally good person, which forces Winry to confront the fact that "fundamentally good people" are capable of doing horrible things. It also continues to hammer home Mustang's motivation to become the Fuhrer, since doing so would prevent him from ever having to "just follow orders" ever again.