Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Episode 30 Discussion/Poll

[Sackett]

Originally Posted by Shiroth

Not nearly as good as it could have been, though i still enjoyed it. Then again it was just worth it for Kimbley, seeing Hughes again, and the two very fitting eyecatches.

I broke down during Armstrong's scene, like i did in the manga. The whole Ishbal flashback arc in the manga was one very powerful, emotional experience, though i find with this episode that the Armstrong scene was the only one that captured that. A shame really. There's no excuse as to why anime only watchers can't go pick up volume 15, and read the Ishbal arc.

I guess cutting up the Ishbal arc did effect it.

Like what they tried to do with the epilogue, though it kinda fails because of the preview for episode 31.

Armstrong's scene was very powerful. And I thought Hawkeye's too- if understated and driven more by her tone and words combined with the images.

Roy's and Hughes was basically just implied enough that we could extrapolate from Hawkeye and Armstrong

[Madvil]

As an anime-only fan, I approve of this episode.

[Vicious108]

Originally Posted by Haladflire65

I didn't expect all that much. Sure enough, it was a little disappointing. They cut out a lot of my favourite scenes, such as Roy looking up at Bradley and Bradley commenting that Roy's already looking ahead of him

The sad thing is that they've already shown that scene twice, yet both times they failed to include Bradley's thoughts, which are vital to the scene. Way to fail.

Now I'm suddenly wondering why the OP was covered with Ishbal glory...

Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

Unless they plan to show more of it later on, but I really doubt it.

[GaimeGuy]

fucking awful.

Are we absolutely SURE that they're planning on doing 63 episodes? Because at the pace things are going, the only way I can see that is if they do a very slow paced Briggs (think like the pace from episodes 21-26), and if they do a heavy expansion on the final arc (everything from chapter 85 onward )

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Haladflire65

Now I'm suddenly wondering why the OP was covered with Ishbal glory...

Probably to cover up what they planned to do with this episode.

[kitten320]

Originally Posted by GaimeGuy

fucking awful.

Are we absolutely SURE that they're planning on doing 63 episodes? Because at the pace things are going, the only way I can see that is if they do a very slow paced Briggs (think like the pace from episodes 21-26), and if they do a heavy expansion on the final arc (everything from chapter 85 onward )

I really don't know how they plan to do 63 episodes when manga isn't even finished

Well haven't seen episode yet, will say my opinion after watching it.

[Krazzy Angel]

poor episode. There were too many cuts of awesome dialogue and scenes. I really hope they include some more ishval flashback in future episodes.

[Haladflire65]

But it seems like non-manga readers liked the episode, which means that it wasn't so bad. It's just us manga readers that are complaining like this - now that I think about it, cut scenes don't necessarily mean that the episode's bad. Probably we're all just really disappointed. Ishbal's such an amazing arc in the manga that this doesn't do it justice, but to people who haven't read it I suppose it wasn't as bad as we felt it was.

But yeah, I'm really sad about this episode. It wasn't terrible, though, if you just see it as a standalone thing and not compare it to the manga...

[Ghostfriendly]

I'm pretty annoyed with all the cuts, but they did restrict themselves to what Hawkeye/Marco had experienced, and could actually have told Ed/Scar about. Thankfully the explanation for the burn scars obscuring Riza's tatoo will have to be included later; Dr Knox's conversation with Marco, and Kimbley's experience with regard to the Rockbells' and his own arrest, will also probably turn up when those characters appear again (Knox is so brilliantly crusty here, I'm really looking forward to his later appearance).

The shooting of Fessler probably won't turn up, since none the characters involved are around any more, but I admit I'd rather have that scene cut than lose Mei's squeeing over Alphonse-Sama.

Overall though, this part of the manga felt like a complete and powerful story rather than an insertion. Seeing Scar's side of the story earlier was nice, but I really don't see why they couldn't have taken another episode. Hope that Mustang's drink with his squad turns up as well, since the squad reappear in the closing manga chapters.

[Rika24]

I’ve been looking forward to this just as much as I did the Roy vs Lust part. Sadly, unlike that episode that impressed me, this episode really disappointed me. They left out most of my favorite scenes as well as some of the parts that made the scenes more powerful.

Spoiler for manga stuff the ep left out:

- Armstrong helping two Ishbalans (a woman and an old lady) escape, only to watch them get blown up my Kimbley (that was the part where Armstrong was on his knees in the episode)

- the high priest coming to Hughes and giving himself up (what made it powerful was Hughes’ reaction, him removing his hat and looking down, showing what i feel is both respect for the man and shame as Hughes knows what'll happen)

- Gran killing the higher ranked officer (can't remember exactly) because he wants to get the priest to Bradley so the war can end.

- Again, Hughes' reaction when Bradley turns down the offer to spare the Ishbalan people, you could see the pain clearly on Hughes' face.

- Hughes and Roy getting ambushed by an Ishbalan only for Hawkeye to shoot the guy just before he can stab one of them and Hughes saying they have the "hawk's eye" watching over them.

- And of course the part where mustang's men come to him to thank him for protecting them (he doesn't even know their names). Thus how he became known as the hero of Ishbal. He reflects on what they said about him protecting them and feels that it wasn't enough, saying that after all that, he was only able to protect a hand full of them. This is what leads to the talk between Roy and Maes about aiming for the top and about each subordinate looking out for the one below them.

- And again, a very important part, Riza asking Roy to burn her back to prevent the "birth" of a new Flame Alchemist.

I’m sure I left other things out, but it's been a while since I read it so those were the only parts I remember that weren't animated. you anime-only fans should do yourselves a favor and at least read volume 15 (chapters 58-61) to get the full impact of this arc.

[Haladflire65]

@Rika: Most of us manga readers know what's been left out, so I don't feel that you have to state all the cut scenes again. It's making the episode sound much worse than it actually was.

But I do agree that anime-only watchers should read the 15th volume, since it doesn't require any pre-reading, and it'll give you a lot of backstory on many of the characters. Highly recommended!

[germanturkey]

from an anime only point of view, it was okay. from a manga reader point of view, it was rather bad...

i think the exclusion of

Spoiler for manga:

Gran killing the general and blaming it on friendly fire, because even the alchemists were sickened by the killing

leaves out a very large slice of the emotional pie that was this episode.

[DragoZERO]

Pretty good episode. Knew most of and saw most of it already too, especially with the older series too. I didn't realize what they did was pretty much state-ordered genocide though. Don't know how I didn't catch that in the beginning, but yeah.

And this was the best part of the whole episode.

Originally Posted by Haladflire65

But I do agree that anime-only watchers should read the 15th volume, since it doesn't require any pre-reading, and it'll give you a lot of backstory on many of the characters. Highly recommended!

Once the anime finishes I'll read the whole manga, for sure.

[mellomarie]

uh wow they realllly compressed things. i don't get why the OP basically implied that the Ishbal War would be a focus? I don't really understand the rush either because if they're going to bother with a filler, then why not animate this stuff in its entirety? A lot of my favourite scenes were either shortened or simply not mentioned.

Anyway, the scenes they did do were done really well--I especially enjoyed the Armstrong scene.

[Reckoner]

The anime is very well constructed... If you only watch the anime you can't really tell that you are missing very much. Again, manga readers fault something for not owning up to the source material instead of just treating the anime as its own separate entity. It's OK to be disappointed that you didn't get to see "XYZ" animated, but to call something badly made because of omissions is stupid.

I'm sure we'll see some more Ishbalan stuff in the future.

[orangejuicetang]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The anime is very well constructed... If you only watch the anime you can't really tell that you are missing very much. Again, manga readers fault something for not owning up to the source material instead of just treating the anime as its own separate entity. It's OK to be disappointed that you didn't get to see "XYZ" animated, but to call something badly made because of omissions is stupid.

I'm sure we'll see some more Ishbalan stuff in the future.

I actually agree with this. It's sometimes gets really annoying when people moan about every change that an adaptation takes. Even though I've been disappointed with some cuts, unless it's something that's really important/doesn't make sense, it doesn't really make much difference.

I can't really think of another time to put more Ishbalan stuff in future episodes though.

[Freya]

Can anyone tell me the chapters this episode was on?

Spoiler for manga:

Don't remember reading the Mustang/Hawkeye part where she asks him to burn her back.

Pretty okay episode overall though. Nothing too big or anything.

[ChronoReverse]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The anime is very well constructed... If you only watch the anime you can't really tell that you are missing very much. Again, manga readers fault something for not owning up to the source material instead of just treating the anime as its own separate entity. It's OK to be disappointed that you didn't get to see "XYZ" animated, but to call something badly made because of omissions is stupid.

++

I've read the manga but it's rather amusing how mountains are being made out of molehills with "XYZ is SUPREMELY important and they LEFT IT OUT".

It's too bad that parts are left out (and many of them rather poignant) but construction-wise, as Reckoner said, it's done well. Frankly, if they had broken it up into two episodes (as would be required to stuff everything in), anime-only viewers would probably think it overly long and approaching narm.

[Shiroth]

Originally Posted by Freya

Can anyone tell me the chapters this episode was on?

Chapters 58, 59, 60 and 61.

[Kristen]

I love these types of episodes that explain everything. I think it was the best episode of the series thus far. 10/10