Fullmetal Alchemist Vs. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

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sanji no 1

Vampire Ninja
Im surprised no one has does this so far. If so, oh well.

So I just finished watching FMA brotherhood i thought it was fantastic. When i finished it, the one thing that i kept thinking was: Is it better than the original series? TBH i cant exactly decide. Both have their strong and weak points. The Original series was alot darker and serious but didnt have many fight scenes. Brotherhood felt more like a typical Shonen show but had supirior animation.

So which do you think is better? Fullmetal Alchemist or Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood?
 
Ouch, tough one.

Personally, I prefer Brotherhood. I feel the only aspect that the 2003 anime did better was the origin of the homunculi - in the manga (and Brotherhood) we still have no idea how the hell they actually came to be, just that "Father made them".

Brotherhood also wins major points on the fact that Ed actually matured through that series.
 
Joshawott said:
Ouch, tough one.

Personally, I prefer Brotherhood. I feel the only aspect that the 2003 anime did better was the origin of the homunculi - in the manga (and Brotherhood) we still have no idea how the hell they actually came to be, just that "Father made them".

Brotherhood also wins major points on the fact that Ed actually matured through that series.
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Totally agree. The whole homunculi thing was pretty half-arsed.
 
As I guess was the case for many a viewer, I found the first ~13 episodes of Brotherhood pretty naff, rushing through what the original series went into far more depth with. I think I even stalled for a while. Then finally when it moved into new stuff it picked up the pace and dragged me in just like the first season did (watching FMA DVDs instead of revising for exams :lol: ).

A few things such as the brief Tucker arc were handled much better in the first season, but FMA:B just managed to totally eclipse it in terms of "epicness" and I don't know if I could now watch a FMA series without Olivia Armstrong.

But Lust was a far far better character in the original.
 
My favourite is FMA Brotherhood because fight was epic, their character is so brilliant and storyline of end is perfect. We seen King Bradley is more fight battles in brotherhood than Fullmetal Alchemist. Roy mustang is badass in brotherhood ! My favourite episode is 19 because it is so perfect. Personally I think homunculi is more scary in brotherhood than Fullmetal alchemist.

Selim Bradley (Pride) is a creepy kid and really scare to people. I not sure i like Kimble in brotherhood because he look different to Fullmetal Alchemist. Envy is evil (i not sure envy is man or woman :?) Envy is excellent because he made Roy Mustang is so madder. I not happy with Lust in brotherhood because she is interesting character in Fullmetal alchemist). Father is really better villian than dante(2003).


Fullmetal alchemist is good but their storyline is not good because their end is confused. It not make sense. Ed and Al just not mature kid and emo all time (you know what i mean). But their episode is good example Ed is going to alchemist exam and ed vs roy battle. I like see Hughes involed long episode than brotherhood. I am HATE shou tucker and he make me so sick.

So my option is their shows have strongest and weakness point.
 
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well so far iv watched 13 episodes of brother hood and i think it was a good thing they rushed the first 13 episodes cause we all know what happened in the 2003 series in each episode iv got to the part where al is kidnapped by greed on episode 13 but in the original series it would be episode 33 so yeah the creators made a good decision to rush it so we can have more story after we get past of what we saw in the original

i like the original because it was more emotional about a lot of things-

major hughes death, the back story of ed and al( mothers death, how they tried to bring her back,) mayumis baby,ninas death ect they were all emotional to me

to be honest * this might be nostalgia talking but* the original took the story seriously, yeah there were a few toony moments for a laugh but the original was dark and you could almost cry at a few things. but BH has a load a laughs so far i love the BH series but il give a full report when i finish it
 
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@sanji no 1 i think the reason why no one did the 2003 vs 2009 of FMA is cause maybe we was waiting for everyone to watched them both. like i said iv only watched 13 episodes but before i watched BH i was watching the original and movie and OVAs so its perfect timing. BHs * so far * loads of laughs
original more emotional

the backgrounds look like portraits in brotherhood
the 2003 backgrounds doesn't look like portraits
 
In regards to the first 13 episodes; I do agree that for most of them, the original got it right - as the anime had to rush through them (there were slight changes in the 2003 anime though, such as Shou Tucker surviving and being moved to the 5th laboratory, whereas in the manga and Brotherhood, he was killed by Scar). On the up side though, the fact that we had Hughes in the story for such a long time gave his death more impact for the viewer in the 2003 series. However, it is fantastic how even 40 episodes on, Brotherhood still kept it relevant.

Some moments in Brotherhood will always stay with me. Such as Ed giving up his alchemic gate and the final confrontation with Truth in the penultimate episode. One thing I didn't like about the English dub though, was how they cast Luci Christian as Truth - in the Japanese version, Truth's part was played by the actor of whichever character was seeing Truth at the time - a really awesome effect.

Also, Brotherhood had a really fecking creepy Pride.

animefreak17 said:
to be honest * this might be nostalgia talking but* the original took the story seriously, yeah there were a few toony moments for a laugh but the original was dark and you could almost cry at a few things. but BH has a load a laughs so far i love the BH series but il give a full report when i finish it
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One thing I loved about Brotherhood was its ability to go from comedy to really dark and vice versa and make it seem like a perfectly natural transition.
 
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animefreak17 said:
@sanji no 1 i think the reason why no one did the 2003 vs 2009 of FMA is cause maybe we was waiting for everyone to watched them both. like i said iv only watched 13 episodes but before i watched BH i was watching the original and movie and OVAs so its perfect timing. BHs * so far * loads of laughs
original more emotional

the backgrounds look like portraits in brotherhood
the 2003 backgrounds doesn't look like portraits
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I spose so. Or maybe i could of said "for those who have seen both" in the title
 
I've not got round to watching more than a few tiny bits of Brotherhood, but everyone I know, everything I've read and the clips I've seen suggest the earlier chonological material in the story is done far more justice in the original series.

From what I've seen the familial motivations are glossed over heavily by Brotherhood, as though it expects you to have seen the original series, whilst really the situation with family was the catalyst for the entire story in the sense that Brotherhood doesn't really give a sense of how important thier mother is to Ed or Al, or how driven they are to get her back, and this what drove them to break the fundamental laws of alchemy in an attempt to bring her back, inadvertenly losing themselves at the same time, naively not realising just what they were doing despite realising it was deeply taboo and could carry deep penalties.

When I get round to watching Brotherhood properly I'm strongly debating watching the first 10 or so episodes of the original version FIRST to ensure that element of the story is covered well before I move onto Brotherhood's retelling/reenvisioning.
 
I have to say Brotherhood, and I really would not have expected to say so before watching it. I didn't see the need for it, I didn't see the point of it. But the plot is so much better tied together. Everything works better; the back stories, the motivations of (and relationships between) the characters, the political intrigue. Both the world of Brotherhood and its inhabitants seem so much more real.

sanji no 1 said:
The Original series was alot darker and serious...
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You think so? I'm not so sure. There were some pretty shocking and verging on disturbing moments in Brotherhood, and generally the darker things get the more enthralled I am by them. I'm still disappointed that Barry the Chopper's plot twist in episode 20 of the original series (that Al was entirely a construct of Ed's imagination) didn't turn out to be true. It would have been incredibly cruel and changed the feel of the show entirely, but people being really f*cked up in the head is a favourite topic of mine. The kind of stories I imagine make Evangelion characters look well adjusted.
 
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sanji no 1 said:
Joshawott said:
Ouch, tough one.

Personally, I prefer Brotherhood. I feel the only aspect that the 2003 anime did better was the origin of the homunculi - in the manga (and Brotherhood) we still have no idea how the hell they actually came to be, just that "Father made them".

Brotherhood also wins major points on the fact that Ed actually matured through that series.
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Totally agree. The whole homunculi thing was pretty half-arsed.
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well i think the people who made brotherhood knew that fans got the general idea what happened in the original so in a way the first 13 episode from brotherhood are like summarises and if you think about it it wouldn't make any sense redoing explaining everything again when we all know from the original ( i know the past half way the series wasn't from the manga but if you look at the first half of the series it is part of the series, if you watch the original first then brotherhood you'd understand what happened clearly
 
animefreak17 said:
well i think the people who made brotherhood knew that fans got the general idea what happened in the original so in a way the first 13 episode from brotherhood are like summarises and if you think about it it wouldn't make any sense redoing explaining everything again when we all know from the original ( i know the past half way the series wasn't from the manga but if you look at the first half of the series it is part of the series, if you watch the original first then brotherhood you'd understand what happened clearly
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Exactly. Out of the original series, before the major split in episode 29, only episodes 4, 10, 11, 12, and 13 aren't based on the manga. (11 and 12 were adapted from the first FMA novel, and 13 was from an omake). Also, Basque Grand was in 2003 anime, where in the manga, he was dead from the start. There were slight changes here and there, to include Grand and to foreshadow future anime events (like Shou Tucker being in laboratory 5).

So when you think about it; if they had repeated the first 28 episodes (well, 23 when you exclude the non-manga canon material), it would have been booooring.
 
The first few episodes of Brotherhood where rushed, yes, but they where done that way so that they could cover the stuff done in the First series again in a swift a fashion as they could. It still had variances on the original version, but it was mostly the same. So yeah, it may have felt a little too rushed, but i think it was justified a little.

Overall, i prefer Brotherhood. I always had this tie to the manga so that may have given my opinion a bit of bias, but overall, the story felt better, the characters where great, etc etc. It never came across as too hard a decision in the end. I just, couldn't enjoy the first series' story as much, and i doubt i ever really could.
 
Drat! I wish I'd made a response to this question a while back--because I have forgotten much of what my arguments were at the time Brotherhood ended--but I just want to factor in as one who prefers the original series to Brotherhood by an astronomical margin! I don't know if I'll ever become as emotionally attached to a show as I did to the original series! I love it to bits, and where other series that I once loved continue to lapse in my memory, Fullmetal Alchemist endures. I love it more than tree-ripened mangos.

I wish I had the gumption to round up my thoughts on the subject and do this post some justice with an explanation--but o' my lack of verve does so undercut my capacity to do things like flex even the muscles that are presumably in my fingers.
 
i watched the 3rd disc of brotherhood and i swear i haven't been this hyped since i first watched gurren largann its so good- im not giving spoilers but to those who haven't watched brotherhood make sure to put you seatbelts on your in for a wild raid.

to be honest i cant compare them both the original and brotherhood ( so far ) *im on episode 21- 26 tomorrow*. I mean the original was one of my first animes and it bring good memoirs and i love the character and the story and even the ending to the original was great considering it wasn't based on the manga. im not even half-way though the series but iv fallen in love with brotherhood.

but think about it the first 13 episodes of brotherhood are up to episode 33 - 34 original they did a rush job on the first 13 episodes of brotherhood but in the original they take there time, if you take out the characters who aren't part of the manga from original and watch the original up to episode 34 and watch brotherhood from there you have your self a slow pace story.
 
I'm quite torn on this one. The original was one of my first anime series and I'm still very keen on it but I did prefer the Manga/Brotherhood story after it finished rushing through the bit covered the first time round.

The thing I'm quite curious about is how well Brotherhood holds up to people who didn't see the previous version. For example The death of Hughes still works for me in Brotherhood as I've known him from both the manga and the original anime series but he doesn't feature as much in Brotherhood.
 
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There is an unavoidable lack of cohesion to the first series, when compared to the progression of story and characters in Brotherhood. The first stands as one of the better examples of a series made under the conditions that it was, but it can't quite stand up to the "real" FMA.
 
I watched the original first and was a big fanboy of it back in the day, then I read the manga and found it to be superior in most ways for obvious reasons. I eventually stopped following the manga after they went to that Snow Fortress, it just got dull, it's never gonna beat being inside Gluttony's gate. Watched FMA: Brotherhood because I liked the manga only to find the manga had been **** on pretty bad.

Manga>Original>Brotherhood

BONES have become shittier and shittier over the years. Oh and FMA in general fails at comedy, the "lol ur small" jokes get older after a few episodes.

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So good.
 
Lupus said:
I watched the original first and was a big fanboy of it back in the day, then I read the manga and found it to be superior in most ways for obvious reasons. I eventually stopped following the manga after they went to that Snow Fortress, it just got dull, it's never gonna beat being inside Gluttony's gate. Watched FMA: Brotherhood because I liked the manga only to find the manga had been **** on pretty bad.

Manga>Original>Brotherhood

BONES have become shittier and shittier over the years. Oh and FMA in general fails at comedy, the "lol ur small" jokes get older after a few episodes.

<object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RMHqmlv7NiQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RMHqmlv7NiQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

So good.
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A lil harsh. Bones are probably the best when it comes to animation
 
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