Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episode 8 Discussion/Poll

[White Manju Bun]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Episode 8.

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[jp_zer0]

I hope there will be a lot of action. It's kind of boring when you know the story.

Well either action or more stuff from the manga.

[Vicious108]

Well they managed to cover a lot in this episode...

Spoiler:

It ended with Kimblee's (rare) appearance.

Guess that was to be expected though since those were action packed chapters.

[Mystique]

Originally Posted by jp_zer0

I hope there will be a lot of action. It's kind of boring when you know the story.

Well either action or more stuff from the manga.

"Edward moves like a monkey"
It was a fair bit going on, next weeks is 'family time' between the brothers, so you won't be disappointed on the action front for this weeks ep

The only thing that still screws me over with this, is this 5pm sunday evening airing (typically family time), with the level of violence in this 'darker' version.
(Damn that Western TV censorship brainwashing!!)
It got a few flinches from me today x.x
(Though seeing as its the highest rated show nationally for 2 weeks in a row, i guess it's a smart move from their marketing dept)

Anyways, another 7 days to go~

[duckroll]

The action was pretty solid this week. They didn't mirror the manga's movements exactly, especially for Ed's fight, so that made the fight more interesting for me. Overall a pretty solid episode, paving the way for what should be a more interesting character episode next week.

Interesting enough, they used another post-ED scene this week. I guess they want to keep the audience from turning off at the credits, so now we won't know for sure if there'll be a post-ED scene each week and we have to keep watching after the credits.

Originally Posted by Mystique

(Though seeing as its the highest rated show nationally for 2 weeks in a row, i guess it's a smart move from their marketing dept)

What are you talking about? The FMA ratings aren't that great at all. They're nowhere close to being "highest rated" for any chart.

[Mystique]

Originally Posted by duckroll

What are you talking about? The FMA ratings aren't that great at all. They're nowhere close to being "highest rated" for any chart.

Figured someone would say that:
http://www.tvguide.or.jp/

I dunno what basis they use their numbers for this chart, but it's been #1 for quite a few times over the last few weeks, almost every week, it's in the top 5 though.
Unless I'm reading the kanji wrong:
録画率ランキング = recording rankings
(by pple taping it, or digitally capturing it, or just by watching it, I'm not sure)
It indicates some high level of popularity with TV viewers as far as I can tell.
I just use this site to keep tabs of programs to watch during the week, so can't say I totally distrust their findings.

*Mystie hops about to go look for national 視聴率(ratings) outta curiosity tho*

Edit:
(after milling around for a bit)
Okay, Duckroll called it as for it not being national TV viewing ratings, but it's #1 for something or other on a national TV guide, so now I'm curious. *ponders*
Anyways, without going too tangent, leaving this thread for the 5th Laboratory discussion stuffs

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by Mystique

Figured someone would say that:
http://www.tvguide.or.jp/

I dunno what basis they use their numbers for this chart, but it's been #1 for quite a few times over the last few weeks, almost every week, it's in the top 5 though.
Unless I'm reading the kanji wrong:
録画率ランキング = recording rankings
(by pple taping it, or digitally capturing it, or just by watching it, I'm not sure)
It indicates some high level of popularity with TV viewers as far as I can tell.
I just use this site to keep tabs of programs to watch during the week, so can't say I totally distrust their findings.

Recording ratings are completely different from actual TV ratings which track how many people actually watch the show as it airs. Something being recorded doesn't do sponsors or advertisers much good at all, since people generally delete the ads or skip through them when watching a pre-recorded program. People that record a program are also a smaller subset of people who would be watching it in the first place. While FMA might be #1 in recording ratings, a simple ranking also tells us nothing. An actual number sample would be much more helpful in determining how popular it really is.

In terms of actual TV ratings, for people actually watching the show every week life, FMA's ratings are surprisingly low. It's in the mid-3% range, which is significantly down from the first FMA series' average of about 5% back when it ran at 6pm on Saturdays. After Blood+ and Ayakashi Ayashi totally ruined that time slot's ratings, they switched Geass R2 and Gundam 00 S2 over to the 5pm Sunday slot, which still suffered from lower ratings than expected so that's not totally surprising.

The big new ratings hit this season is definitely Eden of the East, with the latest episode scoring a record high of 5% for the past-midnight timeslot on FujiTV. In comparison with more popular anime shows though, like DB Kai (~9%), Conan (~7-8%), One Piece (~10%), Crayon Shin-chan (~11%) and Sazae-san (16%) though, it's still far from "popular" with the mainstream.

[Mystique]

Originally Posted by duckroll

In comparison with more popular anime shows though, like DB Kai (~9%), Conan (~7-8%), One Piece (~10%), Crayon Shin-chan (~11%) and Sazae-san (16%) though, it's still far from "popular" with the mainstream.

So I just saw, esp with sazae-san and chibi mariko-chan, most of the 'mainstream' stuff have been running on air for years and years without much of a break.

Originally Posted by duckroll

Recording ratings are completely different from actual TV ratings which track how many people actually watch the show as it airs. Something being recorded doesn't do sponsors or advertisers much good at all, since people generally delete the ads or skip through them when watching a pre-recorded program. People that record a program are also a smaller subset of people who would be watching it in the first place. While FMA might be #1 in recording ratings, a simple ranking also tells us nothing. An actual number sample would be much more helpful in determining how popular it really is.

Which then makes me wonder, 1: How they sense/know that people are taping it in the first place and 2: For what reason are they keeping track of that, if it's not live ratings which usually are for pretty stats for the PR/marketing department. x.x
(Ironically, just found something here http://netallica.yahoo.co.jp/news/78711 - gonna go read that later so I can try to figure that out)
National recording ratings vs national 'live viewing' ratings, eh.
Learn something new and plain random everyday, thanks for clearing that up

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by Mystique

Which then makes me wonder, 1: How they sense/know that people are taping it in the first place and 2: For what reason are they keeping track of that, if it's not live ratings which usually are for pretty stats for the PR/marketing department. x.x

I would imagine they keep track of it the same way they get normal ratings for shows. Companies that handle the tracking would get a decent sample of families to participate in the tracking in each region. For these participants, their viewing habits will be monitored by a set-top device which tracks who in the family is watching what at a given time based on user input on the set-top. With this sample they will extrapolate the results for the population of that region.

For recording, they probably do the same thing but with a set-top recorder of some sort. The reason they started tracking recording numbers is to study the belief that many people in today's busy society tend to want to record stuff to watch later. It's definitely an important part of market research to know what people are interested in recording, and what people would rather watch live without recording, etc. Like all market research, it would certainly factor into how well the show is doing in attracting the desired type of viewers.

Again, I'm not totally familiar with the sampling that TV Guide does for their recording ratings, and since it's just a ranking instead of more detailed numbers there's not much I can comment on other than, yes obviously FMA is still popular and there are people watching it. ^^;

[Kirarakim]

I have not seen the episode yet but I have to thank Mystique for posting that. So although the ratings when the series airs are not very good however are you saying its the number one recorded series?

That makes me feel a bit better. That would indicate that the low ratings have more to do with the time the series is on not the series itself since people are still watching it later.

edit: Just saw the episode wow that was really good. They pretty much adapted the manga material perfectly. So to me this was the best adapted episode since the Nina one. Maybe the fight with the 2nd Slicer brother was a little quick but that worked fine. The animation also was well done in this episode (although they did cut corners from time to time).

Barry the Chopper <3 (but I am angry at him for being mean to Al)

Also they moved Hughes and Roy's phone conversation up to this episode instead of the next one which I think was a smart move. Don't miss that there is a scene after the end credits again.

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

(although they did cut corners from time to time)

Yeah, I think we all noticed the 30 second still of Ed and Slicer "talking".

The action was pretty good though, can't fault them for that this week, thankfully.

[Kirarakim]

Okay although I still love this episode after watching this episode again I did notice one stupid mistake. For some reason at the end of the episode they have Al panting.

Now I know they did it to add dramatic effect because Al is thinking of what Barry said but yeah Al shouldn't be panting. He is a suit of armor.

Oh well other than this minor glitch the episode was still very well done.

[Shiroth]

I just love how twisted Kimbley's scene came across in this episode, especially with the close-up smile at the end of it. I couldn't stop smiling myself during that whole scene.

Also really liked how they handled Barry's mini background story. Visuals were very BONES, so i was expecting something like this.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Don't miss that there is a scene after the end credits again.

What do you mean by "again"? I just checked all the other episodes, and couldn't find another one that had a post credit segment.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by GDB

What do you mean by "again"? I just checked all the other episodes, and couldn't find another one that had a post credit segment.

Episode 6, and now episode 8 have scenes after the ED. Episode 6's scene was Winry finding the missing piece from Ed's automail.

[GDB]

Oh, right. It's so short it's hard to catch it when just flipping through.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by GDB

Oh, right. It's so short it's hard to catch it when just flipping through.

Isn't it obvious that you're not going to see it if you just flip past it?

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Shiroth

I just love how twisted Kimbley's scene came across in this episode, especially with the close-up smile at the end of it. I couldn't stop smiling myself during that whole scene.

Good, so I wasn't the only one.

And man, I already thought he sounded good in the first episode, but Hiroyuki Yoshino was totally awesome as Kimblee in this episode. He sounded creepy as hell. Too bad we won't get to hear him again for a while, eh.

The music at that part also set the mood perfectly. In fact the music was good all episode, especially the song that played when the homunculi appeared. It'd be cool if that ends up being their recurring theme song, cause it fits them well.

Anyways, as expected, two chapters work well when they're action packed ones, so this episode was overall quite good.

Still, minor nitpickings of the week:
- No Kimblee humming a happy tune with the explosion. (I wanted to actually hear it!)
- Guard didn't call him "Mad Bomber Kimblee"
- No fun interaction between Lust and Envy:
Envy: *to Slicer* Say something! Huh!?
Lust: Envy... he's already dead.
Envy: Ah? Oh... what a wimp.

But yeah, those're such just minor complaints that didn't make the episode any less awesome. Definitely one of the best so far, along with 4 and 5.

Though I just remembered the last nitpicking is a little important since it's when Ed hears Envy's name which would be in his report next episode... but eh.

[SirWence]

Well Twilight you did .. all the nitpicking I was really going to do.. so that leaves me to say a generally all around very good episode - aside from said nit pickings (though I would have greatly liked them) 8/10 from me (but in general most of the episodes have been very good to me 6 was done especially well)

[Jays]

Ohhhhh!!

Sounds like this is going to be a good episode! Can't wait to watch.