Forum - View topicFullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood -[adult swim] (w/index).
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drdr48
Posts: 360 |
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But not entirely though. |
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amarielah
 Posts: 178 |
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Yeah, it's a matter of proportion. The first anime starts out with less of it, and tones it down still further as the story becomes darker. Brotherhood starts out with a ton of it, and tones it down somewhat as the story as the story becomes darker. |
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drdr48
Posts: 360 |
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I guess something is wrong with my hearing, because, unlike most of you, all i hear is a dry-grown-man voice trying to sound like a 14-year-old-kid and doesn't do it too well 
It's like that with most of the dub cast in most of the Anime-English-dub shows i've watched, actually
The problem in most of the Anime-English-dub shows is that most of the time, most of the dub cast is unfit for their roles and sound out-of-place. That much that i can not not picture them in their booth traying to voice their roles... and when something like that happen, it's not a good sign 
And i'm sorry, but the FMA-English-dub (and now the FMA:BH-English-dub) is one of those cases as much as i heard from it. And that's a shame because i heard so many people here who said that this English-dub is different. It's a shame to see it isn't
Last edited by drdr48 on Sun Feb 28, 2010 1:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the way this series is going. Everything seems so bland and cheaply done this time around, nothing is being fleshed out at all. It seems like they're just speeding through everything for no reason and it's starting to get annoying. They even go so far as to condense what was two important episodes into one really dry episode. I'm just not getting the same feeling I got from the first series. And it doesn't help that they are abusing the use of bad comedy to an ungodly amount. I mean sure the early parts of the first series would use comedy at inappropriate times too, but this is just taking it to a whole new level. If it doesn't get better soon I might just abandon Brotherhood all together.
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mglittlerobin
 Posts: 1071 |
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Hang in there, Mushi-Man, I've been watching the subs on Funimation and it gets WAY better after episode 14 and then the manga plot takes off, but yes, the condensing feels too rushed because they actually took their time to flesh characters out in the first series but you won't be disappointed when the story changes. |
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amarielah
Posts: 178 |
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That depends, mglittlerobin. I didn't find that it became much more palatable after episode 14. The pacing was slowed down somewhat, but still felt rushed; the humor was toned down somewhat, but still not enough to stop bothering me.
Then again, I'm giving the dub a try, since they're making a lot of the dialogue better, so maybe I'll change my mind. But it's a little much to expect people to sit through several hours of content that they don't find entertaining on the off-chance they may find it entertaining later. |
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drdr48
Posts: 360 |
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One last thing:
I notice that this time around when Ed enter the gate he have a face to face meeting with a God-like-figure who actually declare God as "one of his many names", and Ed still think of himself as "Not a religious type"?!?!?! I mean, is he dumb?!
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Lets run them down then Winry: Never really grows as a character, and frankly is just their, and goes on some useless adventures. The story where she grows as an automail mechanic, with the growth of her romantic feelings, and the massive amounts of courage to do what she did with Scar are all absent. Alphonse: The problems is that Alphonse is treated not as a teenager in a suit of armor but more like a ten year old. Yes he has more flaws, but flaws don't automatically make someone a better character. Simply put in the first series, Al's flaws are so great that his removed as a main character and reduced to being just a side character. I can't remember a single really great scene from first anime Al. All you need to do to see how bad Al is written is just to look at his character design from the movie. Mizushima clearly never liked Al so he pushed him to the side to make Ed the only competent Elric brother. Riza Hawkeye: Do you honestly want me to compare first anime Hawkeye with manga Hawkeye? A fully fleshed out character compared to the first anime character whose sole duty is to be Roy Mustang's glorified nanny. Jean Havoc: I could post spoilers but I am just going to say that even if Havoc had only got a little character development than it would still be greater than first anime Havoc. Vato Falman: Once again a character who gains some character development and shows his intense loyalty to Mustang compared to a guy who barely even appears in the series. The rest of Roy Mustang's men: Competent people which showed they where a reason Roy Mustang hand picked them, in the anime their pretty much just used for comedy. Scar: While he does receive a lot of character development I still give the edge to manga/Brotherhood Scar. Alex Louis Armstrong: Probably one of the most misused characters in the anime. His turned from a man whose trying to repent for the time he ran away into a man whose only use is to remove his shirt and be comedic. Hohenheim: This guy makes Alex Louis Armstrong look well used. This guy simply brings nothing other than wasted potential to the first anime. His sole purpose is to make Dante look intelligent for one moment before Mizushima basically makes it clear that Dante's a complete moron. I am stopping right now because frankly I think I have gotten my point across. The only characters better developed in the first anime where most of the Homunculi (Greed is a much more well rounded character in the manga), and frankly while they are more developed they are also worst villains due to the fact that their mostly easily defeated by Ed. Simply put because of the fact that Arakawa heavily developed Fullmetal Alchemist before she wrote it, nearly every character has a point to them, and shows why they where created. When it was adapted into an anime, most of the characters lost that point, in particular Hohenheim, Hawkeye, and Alex Louis Armstrong became a shell of their former self. The first anime throws everything it got into the first half, and sacrifices character development for the rest of the cast to make Ed look better. It's slow, it's frequently boring, and the philosophy debates simply are not that well written. Seiji Mizushima is nowhere as smart as he thinks he is.
That is easily the worst written line in the series. It's made even worse in the anime version simply because it's revealed that Ed has already met God before this. At no point in time should Ed be acting like science explains everything when God has one of his arms and a leg. |
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amarielah
Posts: 178 |
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She does grow as a character. Period. Not in the same way, no, but she becomes more mature, less reactive, and more forgiving. She does get less screen-time, but that has very little bearing on actual character development. So, sorry, you're wrong.
Bull. Alphonse was always just as much of a main character as Ed. Secondly, yes, he is a ten-year-old trapped in a suit of armor. This is obviously the intention of the writers, since they showed Alphonse Heidrich--who was never trapped in a suit of armor before puberty--to be far more worldly. anime!Al is limited in how he can mature because he lacks a human body, but he does change as a character. He may be less memorable for you (not for me, since he had some of my favorite scenes in the later episodes), but he is a better-developed character than his manga counterpart. Perhaps less likable to some, but more well developed. Competence has no bearing on a character's development from the perspective of characterization. And this isn't a discussion about how well-written the characters are, since that's largely subjective and almost impossible to really prove. This is a discussion about how well developed they are. A well-written character can be flat, two-dimensional, or three-dimensional, and vice-versa.
She gets some more back story, but back story =/= character depth. She remains two dimensional in both versions. How is she not Roy's glorified nanny in the manga? I mean, her entire character in both versions is defined by her relationship with Roy.
He is no more well-developed as a character in the manga. He just has more screen time. Not the same thing.
Yes, he was somewhat more well developed in the manga. He was two-dimensional instead of one-dimensional.
What does competence have to do with how well a character is developed?
That sort of undermines your previous arguments, dude. If you like him more in the manga, fine, but likability is not the same thing as character depth. He is far better developed in the first anime.
Oh crap--you're the guy who wrote the original entry in the Character Exaggeration page of TV Tropes, aren't you? 'Cause I've seen these complaints before. Anyway, the way a character is used is not the same thing as character depth. So that has no bearing on your argument.
Now you're just going off on a tangent. To go back on-topic: I'll happily concede that Hohenheim is more well-developed in the manga, but that I prefer him in the first anime. He was such a douchebag and I love him for it.
Not really. Your arguments are usually based on a character's screen time or competence, not on the aspects of their characters that are or are not well developed. There are also a host of manga-only characters that are two-dimensional at best, making the cast of the first anime more well developed proportionally. But, again, that doesn't make the first anime better. It makes it different. You obviously did not like the differences.
A character's "point" has nothing to do with how well-developed they are. A character can have absolutely no bearing on the story at all and still be considered a well-developed character. See: slice-of-life anime, where there may be no plot at all, but often a cast of very well-developed characters. |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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I did write the original Character Exaggeration at TV tropes, but I didn't write the part about Armstrong because that came later, I only wrote about how Ed was constantly whining, and how Al was turned from an optimistic, and intelligent teenager, to a naive child. Though I do agree with the fact that Armstrong was a weeping loser.
Al isn't a 10 year trapped in a suit of armor, his a 14 year old trapped in a suit of Armor and he turns 15 during the course of the series. He may lack a body but that doesn't mean he can't process the information and have his view points change by events. He may look like a robot but his certainly not one. Competency is a form of development, the characters I mentioned as being more competent are generally characters whose sole purpose in the first series was comedy relief like Jean Havoc. If you are honestly telling me that Jean Havoc in the first series is as developed as Jean Havoc in the manga and Brotherhood than it is arguing with a person who refuses to believe that the ocean is full of water. The thing with Alphons just show you how Mizushima never understood that Arakawa was trying to get across that Al is still a human being and so acts just like a human being would, he changes, he matures, and his not the Alphonse he was when he tried to transmute his mother. |
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SoandSo
 Posts: 204 |
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LOL Ok, let's run them down again.
Winry was handled much better in the first series than in the manga/Brotherhood; her character growth is pretty much the same in both; feels left out of the loop, has unrequited romantic feelings, and shows strong character when she eventually comes to grips with and forgives the murderer of her parents, whether it be Scar or Mustang. Except in the anime, she didn't constantly get in the Elric's way with her little pissyfits. Manga Winry's just....annoying. Honey, you're a side character. An important one, yes, but just let the heroes do their jobs. They know what they're doing. Your statement about Al doesn't even begin to make sense. Character's shouldn't have flaws? And how does that reduce him as a main character? If anything, his idealism and naivete make him stand ut more from Manga Al he may as well just be a second Ed until several volumes in. Honestly, it seems like Arukawa started taking storytelling tips from Bones after awhile; what I've seen of those first volumes was pretty blase. The manga is not without flaw, people. Anime Hawkeye was less developed? How? Because she cried during the Lust fight? Again, this just comes down to the different styles of the two plots; the manga's scope is such that it reveals certain things earlier and skips around a lot between so many different characters to keep up. This doesn't neccesarily make certain characters better developed than others, God no(Case in point, contrary to popular opinion, I HATEHATEHATE what the manga did with Bradley, to the point where it affected my opinion of the plot divergance in general for a loooong time, but loltangents), it just means you see more of them. Some of them are worse for the treatment; Manga Lust and Gluttony and...well, pretty much all of the homunculi are just stereotypical villains, whereas the anime's reason for having them seacrh for the stone gave them much more depth and motivation, especially Lust, Wrath and even Envy. And HAH on that whole "worse villians" bit: Lust > Wrath, Gluttony > Wrath(in the movie), Envy > well...never, Greed > Ed, Sloth > Ed, Wrath > Gluttony and Pride > Mustang. Ed hardly offed any of them, and they were hardly "easy" takedowns. Or did you forget all that time he spent getting used, beaten down and chased. Or that Ed doesn't beat ANY of them in the manga? All but two or three of their deaths are much less satisfying. Havoc, Falman and the rest are barely worth mentioning in any iteration, but I'll let you in on a secret; they're C-level side characters. They can get away with that because their just their to support the big players. I never "bought" Manga Scar, for a variety of reasons, but mainly that he just turns "good" after awhile thanks to one of those worthless Xing characters. Plus, the anime took him to task about his reprehensible acts a lot more before expecting us to except him working with the good guys. Neither Armstrong or Hoenheim are "misused" in the anime, just reduced a little in importance. It was clear that Louis felt more than a bit of his own pain from Ishbal, cutting one or two scenes from the manga doesn't diminish that one bit. And he's no less likeable; he's comic relief, sure, but he's also a warm, concerned father figure for the boys, even if to their own chagrin. And Hoenhiem was always fascinating in his own right, and his part definitely impacted and made the Elrics who they were. You can't blame the anime for not giving him the same level of importance or meaning that the manga's plot gave him. It wasn't bad writing, their parts are just different by default. And I always lol when people ignore the sheer dearth of pointless, barely-developed characters the manga has; the Xingese, the Briggs Chimeras, those creepy doctors; when slamming the first anime. Not that I hate the manga or that it doesn't compensate for it in many other ways, it's just funny to me how so many people feel the comic is beyond reproach. About Mizushima, I'm always a bit wary when the reviewers here credit him as if he were some huge get for a show that tells of its quality, like he's the Yoko Kanno of directors, or the Scorsece of anime. As much as I love the first FMA, I've never been able to even tolerate a single other show he's ever helmed. I've always credited FMA's amazing storytelling on writer Shou Aikawa, but maybe that's just me.
Again, for the world-building, for the insight into how the military and state alchemists work without being spoon-fed exposition, because it's interesting, because attempring human transmutation isn't that great a reccomendation considering A. it's forbidden and B. look how well it turned out, and because the manga/Brotherhood's take on it looks lazy and boring by comparison. "Oooh, he made a staff and nearly assasinated our leader. He's in." Whoopdyshit. They have guys who can decimate entire cities with firebombs out of thin air and pound mortar cannons out of the very ground. Again, Arukawa was clearly taking tips from Bones' hat. |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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You haven't read the manga have you? |
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amarielah
Posts: 178 |
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Oh, that was you too? Well, I corrected some of your factual errors, so no harm done.
People's brains change considerably during puberty. Much of what we consider "maturity" is in fact changes wrought due to the development of secondary sex characteristics. Alphonse' brain never went through these changes, so he continues to see the world as a child would. It may not be a fact that you like in your fiction, but I thought it gave the anime's portrayal of Al a nice touch. His body was the only way that he would be able to truly become the "him" that he was supposed to be. It may not appeal to you, but it wasn't an example of bad writing. Not by a long shot.
Nope. Competency is a personality trait, which can contribute to a character's depth. Often, a character acquires competency as a form of character development, but it's not something that has to happen in order for a character to be well developed.
By all means, show me how Jean Havoc has a more fleshed-out personality in the manga. If your points are valid, I'll concede them. Even if he is, it doesn't really contradict my point.
Alphonse in the anime is a human being trapped as a child, and is only able to change within that framework. I don't really see how that undermines what Arakawa was trying to "get across"--it just gives it another dimension. |
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SoandSo
Posts: 204 |
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DURR Yeah, did you? You mentioned it. Also, best you can do, huh?
Developed: methinks this word doesn't mean what you think it means. There's a difference between character development and dynamic development, and honestly, Havoc doesn't really have either, but let's use him as an example. Yeah, more important, plot-related stuff happens to him, which I won't spoil, but as a character he's still pretty flat and unimportant. You don't really know much more about him than you ever did from any iteration of the story other than he's a soldier and a woefully-wannabe womanizer. It's definitely a better use of his character, yes, noone's arguing against that. Is he better written? I'd say so, yeah, a little; He clearly suffers from the situation he's left in, and this in turn gives Mustang and his actions a little more pathos and meaning. But is he better developed? No. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8461 Location: Penguinopolis |
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Shouldn't we avoid long, drawn-out debates on the superiority of one incarnation of FMA over the others in a thread meant mostly for initial reactions to folks who are likely watching this for the first time or just checking out the dub?
There is another thread for the Japanese broadcast which is already full of said debates. Can't we keep it there? |
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