Fullmetal Alchemist

Edward Elric, a young, brilliant alchemist, has lost much in his twelve-year life: when he and his brother Alphonse try to resurrect their dead mother through the forbidden act of human transmutation, Edward loses his brother as well as two of his limbs. With his supreme alchemy skills, Edward binds Alphonse's soul to a large suit of armor.

A year later, Edward, now promoted to the fullmetal alchemist of the state, embarks on a journey with his younger brother to obtain the Philosopher's Stone. The fabled mythical object is rumored to be capable of amplifying an alchemist's abilities by leaps and bounds, thus allowing them to override the fundamental law of alchemy: to gain something, an alchemist must sacrifice something of equal value. Edward hopes to draw into the military's resources to find the fabled stone and restore his and Alphonse's bodies to normal. However, the Elric brothers soon discover that there is more to the legendary stone than meets the eye, as they are led to the epicenter of a far darker battle than they could have ever imagined.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Elric, Edward Main

Park, Romi Japanese

Elric, Alphonse Main

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Mustang, Roy Supporting

Ookawa, Tooru Japanese

Hughes, Maes Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Greed Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Hawkeye, Riza Supporting

Neya, Michiko Japanese

Armstrong, Alex Louis Supporting

Utsumi, Kenji Japanese

Rockbell, Winry Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Envy Supporting

Yamaguchi, Mayumi Japanese

Hohenheim, Van Supporting

Ebara, Masashi Japanese

Minami, Masahiko Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Ooyama, Ryou Producer

Kurosu, Reo Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jun 15, 2026

simonanimeman

Recommended

I’ve heard so much good things about FMA and now that I’ve watched it I can say it deserves SOME of the glaze. I’m going to try and not compare it to Brotherhood but I have to highlight how it handles its first chunk of episodes way better than FMA Brotherhood. Some characters are fleshed out more like Hughes.

The Tucker episodes were also handled better here. The story here was also interesting and kept me hooked, it had the main villains, the himmonculi play a more “evil human” threat, something very different from Brotherhood. Here it really hammers down the idea of human sin and ... what it can create. I also enjoy the darker tone here, another contrast to Brotherhood.

Another thing I have to praise is some of the hommonculi like Lust who ended up being a very intriguing character and was always entertained while she was on screen.

While there are a lot of positives here, I have to mention the negatives, while I enjoy the premise of the story, the execution of it really falls flat in the second half. One of the main issues is with the two main characters, Edward and Alphonse. Edward works fine, but Alphonse has no character, especially in the second half, he doesn’t have his own moments, he is always in his brothers shadow which is odd since Edward is tiny. Winry is another character who I felt didn’t do much especially regarding her own personal story in this anime, there comes a point where she doesn’t really do anything sitting on the sideline for a lot of the story.

Characters as a whole is just weaker here, but an even bigger issue is the ending, I like the idea of it, but again it’s the EXECUTION. It was extremely rushed and didn’t have any time to breathe. At a point a character named Kimblee, presumed to be dead comes back as a literal cyborg. The ending just wasn’t good.

I would definitely recommend this, but I have to say it could have been better. A really good anime, scratching the rank of a great anime.

Overall Score: 74% on the moist meter

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 12, 2026

shizukusno1gf

Mixed Feelings

The biggest reason why people could not stand this anime was due to a huge amount of the audience watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood prior to watching Fullmetal Alchemist. FMA03 holds the stark contrast due to being made whilst the manga was also unreleased, hence the writers had to make the narrative up occasionally.

There's no denying the flaws within the show, but overall it was a wonderful experience. The show is a beautiful showcase about the qualities of humanity and a slightly more absurd expression of real world politics. The constant reuse of characters gave it more depth, and each of them contained such profoundness ... even when they've been gone for more than 10 episodes. Some of the characters felt unnecessary or undeveloped at times other than to add some dialogue or be an annoying obstacles, so you could sort of tell they were just bullshitting their way through. Undeveloped characters refer to the villain, (who won't be name) who will go on to play such a big role at the end, only it feels lackluster due to the timing of the production. We barely get anytime to explore them as a character and that brings it down by one point, soley for bad character writing on a big character. The brother's significant person also show up barely at the end, says some shit, leaves, then comes back at the end. Raises so many questions but I am yet to watch the movie yet, so uhhh, yeah. It gives us a glimpse of his face BARELY in every episode, but they could've definitely written a handful of characters better. Poor Al + Winry as well, iykyk.

They also wrote Roy in an okish way, I have to say. I wouldn't say it's worth bringing up, but nevertheless it's bothersome. His crimes are mentioned in a severe tone, which I appreciated it, as it reminds us that the atrocities he committed are still needed to repent for. Only he doesn't really. He has a couple of scenes that are beautiful and then his character goes CRASHING down. It's not good to dumb down characters to a single message, but he could've been a greater reminder to the show, in showing us that in where if you choose to learn from your mistakes rather than to run from it, you're already in your path to redemption.

Ed and Al explore beautiful themes, but the presentation was rather poor in the way they were searching for fillers. I adore them completely so I might be biased in the ranking as well. The witness of the Elric's terrible and grave mistake as children and the way they carry the burden onto the very next day and so on was an interesting way to drive the plot forward, and it did well to remind the audience of their situtation, not that the show failed to tell about their goals. If there was really meant to be some other message then "better not try and revive your mom lol" I couldn't really tell, but it didn't bring any points down at all, as the perseverance and brother love Ed and Al shared made up for all of the frustrating questions I had regarding the plot.

(If you have already read the manga, don't watch this. You'll probably hate it. I personally adore it!!)

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 11, 2026

chumchummaru

Not Recommended

Funny

Another botched adaptation—it’s a waste of time to even watch it. I just don’t get people who say there’s something more to be found in this adaptation when it doesn’t stick to the source material at all, but I get that most of them haven’t even read it and just watched the anime.

Out of a total of 51 episodes, only 21 stick to the manga (1-3, 5-7, 9, 13–15, 17–20, 23, 25–28, 33–34), of which 3 episodes (4, 10, 37) are filler, and the remaining episodes (8, 11–12, 16, 21–22, 24, 29–32, 35-36, 38-51) are the studio’s own figments of imagination. Personally, I only ... watched the 21 episodes that stick to the manga (vols. 1-7), though I’d say they’re a mix of both the manga and the studio’s own figments of imagination, designed to tie into their own storylines, so I mostly skipped half of it, which frustrated me while watching and further confirmed just how bad this first adaptation is, since they weren’t afraid to skip entire chapters. Personally, I recommend reading the manga first and then, at your own risk, watching this anime. I’ll see how the 2009 remake holds up.

The only thing I like about this anime—and really, about any anime from that era—is the artwork and animation, and the 4:3 aspect ratio, which always warms my heart whenever I see it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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