[Anime] Episode 51: ...

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Originally Posted by johanath

Thank you for the reply! I had a quick browse through Youtube and thought the english voice actors weren't bad either - do you end up missing any 'Japanese jokes/puns', etc. through the english version that you'd normally expect through the Japanese ones?

I dont think so, but then again, I'm only up to Japanese III, so I probably missed any directly Japanese puns. However, I don't think there are that many, if any at all, given that it's not Japan that the location of the story depicts. Ever. And I don't remember anything like that, anyhow. Most jokes were either character-related or universally funny, the language not being important to understand the joke.

[Kristen]

So, I cannot find a "Overall Series Impressions" thread, so this is the closest thing to it.

After a week, I finished this anime. It did many of the things I like to see in an anime. No OP the first week, making the first ED the same as the OP, changing the songs around a couple of times, introducing major characters very late in the ball game, and making things that seemed to be trivial at the start vital at the end. I loved these elements in the anime.

However, just because this anime had good elements to it does not mean that it is a good anime. Rather, this is probably the worst anime I have ever seen in my life. To start with, the first like 20 episodes are so episodic, I felt like I was watching Sailor Moon again. They had individual plotlines, so that you could watch them any week and have a good idea of what was going on. I accidentally put 15 up after 13, and I only realized that I made a mistake after looking at the numbers about midway through.
Every dramatic point in the series completely failed for me. It was all forced by the writers of the series, making it seem almost random. It failed to get me all teary eyed or feeling for the characters at all. And considering that Alphonse had to make it even worse by saying "Nii-san..." every single time... I mean, when my sister says something strangely philisophical or dramatic, do I say her name? Granted, this ploy works in some animes, but at least they use it only once or twice the entire series. There were some episodes that I could swear had Alphonse's forced dramatics every five minutes.
Speaking of characters, I have more of a rant on that. Not a single character in my mind had any sort of development, save Scar. They were all just the same throughout, and maybe had a sudden change in the last 10. Edward remained exactly the same immature boy throughout, until without any motivation or explanation, he just suddenly changed into so mature adult. And considering that I cannot even describe Alphose's personality, it shows how much of characterization he had. Their Sensei was the same cold hearted person throughout, and she really annoyed me to the very end.
Oh, and what is with her never dying? I mean, they show her so desperately sick throughout as if she's never going to die, and then at the end she seems to be perfectly healthy. Considering that it's been at least 10 years since she tried Human Transmutation and failed, you would have figured she would have died or been close to death at this point.
Scar was the only character I liked, because he was genuine. They portrayed him as a cold hearted criminal at the start who only wanted revenge, and managed to slowly reveal him to be a man who just wanted to save his people.
Then we have good old Winry, who from the OP1, I thought was going to be like Misa-san in death note and play a much larger role than just a side character. Yet, it seems as if she had absolutely no point, just like that book worm.
So, with all the plot pieces in place, they tried to make a story for episode 20 on. Scar and the likes were very interesting, but those Homonculus just annoyed me. And then you had that kid, who seemingly had absolutely no motivation to do his work, he just wanted to blindly slash people. That bombing guy and that war crazy lieutenent were such plot devices that the entire story went to waste. And then making him into a robo-lieutenent? Just sick.
Then we get to the ending. Rather than slowly knocking off the enemies one by one, we still had like 5 left the last two episodes, making the sequence of deaths so rapid, it became rediculous. And then we had slave-gluttony? Such a rediculous ploy.
In a story with so many enemies, you need to kill them off slowly. Sailor Moon did it correctly in killing one off every five to thirteen episodes, so that we can at least see progression. Yet, they just kept on adding them in. I mean, when did Greed die? Like, thirty something? And at that time, we had the seven homonculous, Lyra, Scar, and the lieutenent/bomb man. Ten enemies at one time all operating as their own faction. It just became rediculous.
So, then it resolved with one brother sacraficing himself for another, and then the other again. Are you kidding me? This was the worst ending I have ever seen, as it was such an idiotic way. And again, they completely failed to make it seem teary or dramatic, considering how, even though it is shown as a sacrafice, they are still alive. When somebody gives themselves up and still survives, it's not a sacrafice!

Maybe some of you like it. But this show was not for me. I wasn't going to watch it to begin with, but a friend of mine made a deal with me. Regardless, I don't have to like it. It had a stupid plot, terrible characters, and just failed to speak to me. This deserves a 3/10 in my books, in other words, Bad.