Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)/YMMV

Manga and Brotherhood

• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Number 48, Number 66 (Barry The Chopper), Gluttony, Kimblee, Envy, Sloth and Bradley.
  • Hohenheim invokes this on Father in the Brotherhood adaptation, standing solemnly at the site of the battle and reflecting on how Father always used to talk about how he just wanted to be free from his flask.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Bradley's last words show that he really did care about his family or that he was a Complete Monster who didn't give a shit about them at all? It's actually fairly obvious (see Alas, Poor Villain) but people love to argue.
  • And then there's Truth. God Is Evil? Good Is Not Nice? Divine distributor of ironic punishment or just does it For the Evulz? It's up for debate.
  • 4 Koma Theater. Scar. Winry’s Parents. Will never be able to look at Scar the same way again. We need a “Crowning Moment of Ridiculous” page, but “Funny” will do for now.
• And the Fandom Rejoiced:
  • The announcement of a new anime series that would follow the manga's storyline much closer.
  • In the Latin American dub, Most (if not all) of the main cast of the first anime returned back for Brotherhood.
• Anvilicious: The flashbacks of the extermination of Ishbal have a distinct 'war is bad' vibe to them.
• Broken Base:
  • Is the 2003 anime adaptation a very well done Pragmatic Adaptation or a completely unnaceptable mess that perverts the original source material?
  • Is Brotherhood's animation style bold, crisp, and original, or ugly, washed out, and far too cartoony?
  • Was the manga's ending incredible or did it feel like fanfiction?
  • Envy: Lovable gender-confused palm tree with a completely acceptable excuse for his/her psychopathy or Complete Monster who doesn't deserve a bit of the fandom? Moreover, was Roy justified in his actions when half-fighting, half-brutally torturing him/her or was it absolutely horrific and unethical?
  • Edward Elric: Obnoxious Bratty Half-Pint or total Mr. Fanservice?
  • Along the same lines, is Al a good foil for Ed, or just really, really annoying?
  • Is Brotherhood a better adaptation of the manga or not?
  • Are Roy and Riza 'obviously' in love with each other or just platonic?
  • Elricest. That is all.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Has its own page.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • We dare you to say Rose's name in an EdWin forum.
  • This doesn't count for all of them, but there seems to be a tendency for RoyAi and RoyEd fans to...rub each other the wrong way.
  • On top of Rose, Winry has also been on the receiving end of anger from Yaoi Fangirls because of this trope.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Envy, Kimblee and Lust in particular.
• Ear Worm: Basically any of the Brotherhood openings, especially #3, Golden Time Lover.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Though the series is full of likeable people, Lan Fan is very popular among the Brotherhood fandom, despite only being a secondary character.
  • Ditto Sheska, who many fans lament the disappearance of in the manga, where she simply goes "poof" plotwise.
  • Being an Ensemble Darkhorse has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations!! Both the Major and his sister are definite favorites of the fandom.
  • Amongst the bara fans, Scar is a big time example. Darius and Heinkle were also popular enough in fanart to get a doujinshi.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Envy is a bastard/bitch in every sense. S/he's just so damn awesome at it that the fans tend to find him/her amusing anyway. Kimblee also fits. Greed also seems to lampshade this trope as he alternates between Cool Evil and Cool Good at massive Face Heel Turn and Heel Face Turn speed.
  • And of course, there's Wrath. A guy who can do all those feats of implausible awesome should have been here by default. He took down a tank. With a sword.
  • Heck, most of the Homunculi, then.
• Fan Disservice: Al's severely malnourished real body from beyond the gate.
• Fashion Victim Villain: Envy.
• Genius Bonus: Van Hohenheim is named after Paracelsus, a.k.a. Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. In-story, the dwarf in the flask i.e. Father names him Van Hohenheim but initially suggests he take on the name Theophrastus Bombastus.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Maes Hughes is very popular with the American fanbase, much to the surprise of the Japanese creators.
  • Why is that a surprise? He's a Bunny Ears Badass Normal Knife Nut who LOVES his family. Why wouldn't we like that?
    • Because he participated in a genocide.
      • More than half the cast did.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The scene in Brotherhood where Ed and Al see Bradley while talking with his wife and son is already quite unsettling for them because they know that he’s a homunculus, but it gets even worse if you know that his son is a homunculus, too. One has to feel sorry for Mrs. Bradley.
  • In a flashback to Xerxes, the king ordered a "waterway" to be dug around the kingdom. One of the workers comments "Nothing less to be expected from the King of Xerxes, he even thinks about commoners like us!" Eeeeugh.
• Hell Is That Noise: When the mannequin soldiers are awakened during the Promised Day. If that first scream from one of the mannequins was from a character in any series being tortured by Satan in Hell, it would've been among the more terrifying examples. Which, considering their very state of existence as well as the Big Bad of the series, well…
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ed mentions that if he ever went to see God, he'd probably get sent right back to earth. Guess what he does twice; once to escape certain doom, and again to save Alphonse in the final chapter. And that's without accounting for the very start of the story in the first place, meaning he's secretly speaking from experience and then it happens again.
  • Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey, who are the dub voices of Roy Mustang and Lust respectively, are now married. With that knowledge, just try to watch episode 19 without laughing at some point.
  • Years ago, Vic and Cait did a funny/adorable marriage proposal skit at a con. We all know the last scene of the manga.
• Ho Yay Shipping: There are some subtle events here and there that might be suggestive, such as Roy Mustang's take on Hughes' death.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Alphonse, Edward, Izumi, Lan Fan, Alex Armstrong, Hawkeye, Mustang... oh, hell, almost every good guy.
  • The trope might as well be called "Fullmetal Woobie".
  • Armony from the first PS2 video game.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Lust
• Level Breaker: The final fight pretty much had every character being as hammy and taking as much screentime as possible.
• Magnificent Bastard: Kimblee and Father straddle the line between this and Complete Monster.
  • Roy Mustang always has a plan when he is involved. He is also considered a favourite character by many fans of the manga.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Regarding everything that happens once Father successfully activates the national transmutation circle:

I know, I know I've let you down I've been a fool to myself...

• • Roy Mustang loves dogs.
  • Roy Mustang has a dream once he becomes Fuhrer. It involves female officers and tiny miniskirts. [1].
• Memetic Loser: Both Nina Tucker and Alexander will never, EVER catch a break after being transmutated into a Chimera by her father., to the point where they're bought up when someone discusses about dogs in Anime.
• Moe:
  • May Chang. Small and cute. Also badass, but that's another story...
  • Also Nina, Elysia, and any cat that finds its way into Alphonse's armor...
  • Also complained about in one volume's opening pages.

Hiromu Arakawa: MOE, MOE, MOE! Everything's coming up MOE! Enough already!

• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Yes, they might be on the heroes side, but it's hard to ignore the fact that several of Ed's allies in the military participated in the genocide of the Ishvalan people. You can't really atone for something like that.
  • Heck, throughout the series Mustang talks about wanting to become the Fuhrer specifically so something like that never happens again.
  • Bradley not only headed Amestris during the rebellion, but rejected Loug Lowe's proposal to sacrifice his own life to end the violence, saying one life is only equivalent to one life (and presumably intending to kill all the Ishvalans).
  • Also, Shou Tucker turning his daughter and the family dog into a chimera. Some even believe him to have already been past the MEH back when we first met him, as he had already done the same thing to his wife.
  • Envy killing Hughes and almost getting Maria Ross executed for it, and starting the Ishval rebellion by killing a child and framing an innocent soldier for it (who got court-martialed and presumably executed).
  • Arguably Pride crosses one when he eats Gluttony. Given the reactions of everyone else involved in the incident.
  • Homunculus Father crossed his in his backstory when he manipulated Hohenheim, the King of Xerxes, and the King's Alchemists into making Philosopher's Stone bodies for both himself and Hohenheim out of every single soul in the country. Seeing the MO of this guy's Satan-based objective in action is truly horrifying.
• Narm Charm:
  • After Father swallows Hohenheim, he looks like he's pregnant. This is offset by the fact that Father's One-Winged Angel is absolutely terrifying.
  • Father's appearance before swallowing a god also qualifies. How ridiculous it looks only makes the shit that much crazier.
  • The aforementioned eyecatches actually manage to come off as pretty badass in episode 44, where they're played just after the title character's triumphant and unquestionably awesome reentry into the series after being missing for an entire episode.
  • The ham-tastic delivery Father's dub voice actor does as he pulls God down to earth would normally induce huge spiels of laughter in any other scenario. In this one, it induces that nervous, Oh-my-god-I-feel-my-brain-breaking-MAKE-IT-STOP sort of laughter.
• Never Live It Down: One of the things the fans will remember about the series is Shou Tucker's actions of trasnmutating BOTH Nina and her dog Alexander into a chimera.
• Nightmare Retardant: If something terrified you in a volume, chances are the omake will make fun of it in a such a way you'll never be able to take it seriously again.
• Off-Model:
  • In the Manga, Riza's pupils ocasionally tend to change from completely black to with an iris from scene to scene (sometimes even from panel to panel). They became brown in the Anime however. Done intentionally with Al's armor though (Going from detailed to a blob), a trait carried over to the Anime.
  • In Brotherhood, Alphonse is a very frequent victim of this trope. It borders on They Just Didn't Care at times.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Royai for Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye, Edwin for Edward/Winry, LingFan for Ling/Lan Fan and AruMei or AluMei for Alphonse/May Chang.
• The Scrappy:
  • Shou Tucker, for transmuting his daughter into a chimera.
  • The gold-toothed doctor is also not well liked, often being referred to as a "bastard"
  • Both happen to be Complete Monsters, but unlike Father and Kimblee, lack the charm and badass appearances.
• They Just Didn't Care: A criticism frequently leveled at Brotherhood, mostly on account of the rushed early episodes.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Envy's chibi true form is guaranteed to make you giggle or want to huggle him/her even when s/he's being broiled alive. Perhaps even more in that case. Also, Gluttony.
  • Slicer could count, when he's reduced to just a helmet.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • The cyclops army.
  • Then there's the reincarnated Xerxians. Even the characters got a bad vibe when they showed up.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: 'The Military Festival' gaiden.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: The Ishvalan genocide has been noted by many people to be essentially the 2003 invasion of Iraq taken Up to Eleven. Word of God, however, says it's really based on the plight of the Japan-native Ainu people.
• The Woobie: Basically half of the sympathetic portion of the cast need hugs.
• Wilder Over Depp: Despite Brotherhood being truer to the manga, it's nowhere near as beloved as the 2003 anime. 
• Woolseyism: Xing's answer to alchemy (renkinjutsu) is rentanjutsu. This word refers to Chinese alchemy, but actually using something like "Oriental alchemy" or "Xingese alchemy" would get pretty stale and unwieldy after a while. The rentan refers to the goal of Chinese alchemy, the elixir of life. Drawing off of this, Funimation renamed it "alkahestry", after alkahest. As a universal solvent, alkahest was another hypothetical goal of alchemy and would have had valuable medicinal applications; if you understand the reference, "alkahestry" manages to convey Chinese alchemy's greater concern with medicine than with gold and sounds exotic next to "alchemy". Not to mention, the substance was supposedly invented by Paracelsus, whose birth name was Von Hohenheim, and the fictional Von Hohenheim was the inventor of Xingese alchemy.

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2003 Anime

• Adaptation Displacement:
  • Before the Brotherhood adaptation, this was probably what many western fans immediately thought of when someone mentioned "Fullmetal Alchemist" rather than the original manga.
  • And for many, it still is.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Greed, Scar, Lust, Sloth
• Angst? What Angst?: Being kidnapped and nearly killed by a serial murderer would traumatize most people for life, but Winry seems to bounce back pretty quickly.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Hohenheim gets a lot more of it here than he did in Brotherhood, where he's seen as more unambiguously benevolent: is he a wise atoner who feels bad for all the BodySurfing he's done or a suicidal Jerkass whose excuse to abandon his children and wife Trisha doesn't cut the test and who unintentionally helped the Nazis.
• Base Breaker: Envy and Wrath are two of the most polarizing characters.
• Contested Sequel:
  • Some fans view The Movie as a touching send off to the characters that ties together most of the loose ends left over from the series. Others see it as a kick in the junk that resolves nothing and simply screws everyone over worse than they were screwed in the series.
  • Mention the Brotherhood adaptation on any anime forum and you'll get a combination of wholehearted praise and brutal scorn, the latter coming mostly from fans of the first adaptation who think that Brotherhood is a disgrace to the original anime series.
  • The reverse is true as well. Hardcore fans of the manga have a tendency to treat this anime very harshly because of the alternative storyline that it presents.
• Crowning Soundtrack Of Awesome:
  • Michiru Oshima's score is considered to be a masterpiece. The openings and endings aren't anything to sneeze at either.
  • Several tracks stand out in particular, such as Bratja and Dante's various themes.
  • the Kelas
  • "Regret", the song played entirely on the harmonica that plays during Mustang's flashback of the Ishval war in Episode 13.
  • "YOU'RE IN GERMANY, HAVE SOME BEETHOVEN".
• Cult Classic: For many of its fans.
• Die for Our Ship: Rose gets it a lot here, too, from some EdWin shippers and Yaoi Fangirls. Even with all the horrible things that happened to her, getting an expanded role in this version did not help her with shippers. Winry also gets this from the latter group.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Envy and Kimblee, in particular, have a large fanbase.
• Evil Is Sexy: Lust, so much that she's the picture of the trope article.
• Fashion Victim Villain: Envy and Wrath.
• Foe Yay: Because Greed is the incarnation of one of Dante's lovers, he involuntarily feels affection towards her and is drawn to her home, despite the horrible things she does to him.
• Gateway Series: Love it or hate it, this series was one of the driving forces behind the big Anime boom of the early-mid 2000's.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Maes Hughes is very popular with the American fanbase, much to the surprise of the Japanese creators.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Selim Bradley. A human boy in the first anime and King Bradley (Pride)'s adoptive son. Bradley kills him in a fit of rage in the finale. In the manga and the second anime, Selim turns out to be Pride (Bradley is the manga's Wrath), oldest and deadliest of the Homunculi, and Bradley works for him.
  • In one of the flashbacks, a young Ling Yao can be seen, wearing sunglasses similar to Greed; while he has no important role in this anime, he becomes the new Greed in Brotherhood and the manga.
  • At the end of the (non-canonical) OVA "Kids", there is a prominently displayed photograph of an elderly Ed shaking hands with an important-looking, formally dressed man who bears a moderate resemblance to Barack Obama. (The OVA was made more than three years before he was elected President of the United States.)
• Iron Woobie: Ed, Al, Izumi, Mustang, Hawkeye, honestly, most of the good guys.
• Jerkass Woobie: Wrath and Scar.
• Memetic Sex God: Everyone wants Lust, no exceptions. Sloth also fares well in this department.
• Moe: Wrath, pre-awakening, even if he occasionally falls under Creepy Cute.
• Moral Event Horizon: Crossed by both Scar (YMMV on that, though) and the Homunculi. Envy crosses it with the murder of Hughes enjoys dancing over it again and again. Depending on who you ask, Bradley's came with either Marta or Selim's murder.
• No Yay:
  • Dante hitting on Ed. It gets even worse when you consider that she's mainly doing it to "be loved by the son of Hohenheim."
  • There's also a bit of Les Yay between Dante, in Lyra's body, and Rose...which wouldn't have been that bad, were it not for the fact that Lyra's body was rotting
  • And then there's the fangirls who ship Kimblee with Archer. As if the fact that they're both psychopaths wasn't bad enough, one of them is a half-mechanical Cyborg!
  • Anybody who is paired with Envy can instantly be subject to this, with a good example being Wrath, who he corrupted, then treated like an Annoying Younger Sibling, especially when Sloth dies.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Has sadly suffered from this, as a result of Brotherhood overtaking it in popularity.
• Stoic Woobie: Lust.
• Values Dissonance: Izumi's domestic violence against the Elric brothers (which is even lampshaded once); Ed and Al basically abusing each other.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Envy. Wrath's also a contender, and the way his voice sounds before being fed red stones can easily bring Pikachu to mind.
• What an Idiot!: Wrath takes Ed's sample of Mrs. Elric's remains into himself to deny Ed using them on Sloth. Wrath fuses with Sloth. Ed and Sloth figure out what is very stupid about this, pretty much immediately.
• The Woobie: The Elric brothers, many times. Wrath, Winry, Rose, Izumi, even Jerkass Woobie Scar and Stoic Woobie Lust.