Most likely you have heard of Fullmetal Alchemist. It is also likely that you know the story is about two boys who are trying to find the Philosopher’s Stone to get their body and limbs back.While this is a relatively simple concept, FMA has become one of the most popular animes around the world as demonstrated by numerous sales and popularity charts. It is also often regarded as the #1 anime of all time. Does it really deserve all this hype? Finally finishing FMA a week ago after on hiatus for two years, my final answer is not really. Like many others, I found FMA to be a good series. But I don’t find it that great. There are many faults residing in FMA along with its strengths.

The biggest thing for me was the inconsistency of the interest level. The enjoyment value of an anime is the first and most important mark in my criteria. I don’t care how beautiful the artwork is, how unique the plot is, or how-OMG-insert-seiyuu-here-is-in-this-anime as much as it may help. If it doesn’t catch me I’m gone. With FMA, I sometimes found myself falling asleep in front of the computer. This mostly happened in the beginning where everything and everyone is introduced but I still found some episodes snore-worthy lurking in the middle and near-end of the series. While these snore-worthy episodes actually have an inkling of plot and character development, they are still boring nevertheless.

While I’m rattling off on this, I’ll point out something else. I noticed that all of these weak episodes occur whenever FMA tries to be LIGHT-HUMORED (exception is the Flame Alchemist episode with that cute doggie and Armstrong’s sister). If an epic show has light episodes, they better be entertaining. If the series can’t do that, they’re better off just staying dark throughout the whole time. This is exactly FMA’s problem. It can’t pull off being happy-go-lucky without dragging the audiences into dreamland.
The second thing that bugged me (along with like everyone else) was the weak ending. I know the manga was still going but that ending was completely unsatisfying in my book. I don’t get the fact that they’re defying the main theme that they’ve been shoving down our throats the past 50 episodes. Call this a plot twist or whatever but I found it a cheap way to try to get viewers re-interested in the show. I haven’t watched the movie to be honest but from what I heard from my friends at school it’s not worth watching. I’m under the impression that the story continued to recede under the ground and I have better things to do than watch train wrecks. So overall, bad ending.

The rest of the things that I didn’t like were really minor and were pretty much based on my own taste. I found that the background music and animation isn’t anything too extraordinary which further forces FMA to rely on its inconsistent plot. Not exactly the best sign when half the time I’m gazing at the computer screen while completely out of interest.

I know that this whole article has been pretty negative towards FMA so I’ll list some positives because FMA is certainly watch-worthy and way better than the other overhyped series that have no substance(i.e. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece). FMA at its prime is certainly revolutionary in the history of anime (or at least the ones that I watched). It has many plot twists that kept me off the edge of my seat. The characters are real enough and real enough for me to sympathize (and cry) with them. The opening and ending themes are great with the most outstanding being READY, STEADY, GO and Motherland to me. It may not sound like much but it’s just as important as everything else I have been mentioning in the article.

Overall, I give FMA a thumbs up and would recommend the anime to anyone just starting to enjoy anime (i.e. n00bs ). It didn’t make into my top five list of favorite animes but I had fun marathoning it. Now I’m finally done and we can all celebrate together =D.

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