Quote:
Originally Posted by aorta
Chapter 39 was the last chapter published before Episode 51 of the first anime series. They covered about as much as possible of what had been written at the time. This is what happens when a weekly show tries to cover a monthly series. Only 14 new chapters were published while the series aired. The last chapter published before the start of the show was chapter 25, so it's not surprising that the show only covered about that much material.
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It's not surprising but they also decided to make the series with so little material available at the time. Thus they knew this would happen and planned in the very beginning to make the first FMA series go in a different direction than the manga.
Even in the early episodes (that are more similar to the manga) you can see plot lines/characters not in the manga that would play a part in later parts of the first series. For example the appearance of Lyra in the coal mine episode.