In history, the “Magnum Opus” or “Great Work” was a term for the alchemical pursuit of the protoscience’s greatest goals, particularly the Philosopher’s Stone and the process it would make capable, turning base metal into gold. It was thought to be a process of iterative refinement, not just for the raw materials that would be worked into higher forms, but spiritually for the alchemist himself, becoming a purer being closer to the divine with each step, the creation of the stone and the betterment of the self inexorably intertwined with the causal link unclear.
Take what you will from that factoid, it’s time to look at Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Now, be aware – I’m just going to assume that if you haven’t seen the original Fullmetal Alchemist, you’ve at least read my review from last week, since unlike then, when I tried to avoid too many references, I will be referring freely back to the original in order to compare and contrast the two.
The show starts with a one-off episode where Roy Mustang (and his team, like his love interest and long-suffering subordinate Riza Hawkeye) take on a rogue Alchemist who is trying to bring down the seat of the government. After that we leap into basically the same opening as FMA, albeit in a slightly different order and without the one-off incident episodes; we get our first view of the history of the brothers, how Ed lost his limbs and Al his body and how Mustang convinced them to start down the State Alchemist path. Then we get the city with the corrupt church (introducing Lust, Gluttony, and Envy) and that time with Shou Tucker (also introducing Scar), before leaping into the point where Scar is battled for the first proper time, Ed and Al are partially wrecked, and they learn about Tim Marcoh. They meet him before getting fixed up in more of a chance encounter, and get a clue as to how to track down his research.
From there, they get back to the capital, find and decrypt Marcoh’s notes (learning the dark secret about his Philosopher’s Stone) and in Episode 8 rather than 19 enter Lab 5. In the following episodes they resolve the encounter with the homunculi there, though they don’t spring Greed here (we’ll meet him differently) and no one tries to force Ed to make a Philosopher’s Stone (the goals of the baddies are quite different). Once their fat is pulled out of that fire (this time by forces lower on the military totem pole), they end up heading off to meet their old alchemy teacher, Izumi Curtis, meaning they’re out of town for the assassination of Maes Hughes.
This is probably the biggest point of contention to be had in comparing Brotherhood to the original FMA. FMA took its time with the opening acts. Hughes dies in episode 25, and by then we’d spent quite a lot of time with him. We’d met the family he so eagerly talks about and gotten used to his habit of showing off his daughter’s picture all the time so it registered as a quirk that was annoying to other characters and not a death flag. We’d seen him in his serious mode, and his background with Mustang, how they arranged to work together to root out the corruption in the military rotting the heart of their nation. At 25 episodes as a secondary character, longer than most shows even run, he felt important and we knew him and he felt safe enough that his death was shocking and traumatic.
Here, Hughes dies in episode 10. Now, ten episodes is a fairly long time to have a character around in the grand scheme of things. Mami Tomoe only got three episodes before losing her head, and her demise was plenty impactful and traumatic. But the structure and pacing of the story is different in that case. Brotherhood is still quite logically paced as a marathon show, and it has an expansive, even sprawling cast that you come to know over a long time. In terms of Brotherhood’s structure, for a character like Hughes who is frankly tertiary (Ed and Al are our mains, Mustang is a solid secondary character, and Hughes is a lesser-focused character attached to Mustang) ten episodes does not entail a great deal of screen time, and because the plot is much tighter here in Brotherhood than it was in FMA, there was less time dedicated to characters down the list like Hughes even relative to the total run time of the show so far. Point being, as much time as he got, his death didn’t land as hard as it did in the original, not by a long shot. The equivalent episode to Night of the Chimera’s Cry suffered in a similar way, but that’s less critical to the story going forward.
To that end, I do think there’s something of a “perfect cut” of FMA that would weave episodes from Brotherhood and the original together. It would go something like Brotherhood 1, FMA 1-2, Brotherhood 2, FMA 4-9, FMA 13-17, and then Brotherhood 7 and onward. It would still miss some great moments, but I think it would maximize the value of 2003’s early phase while minimizing continuity errors for later. Even that, though, isn’t perfect. Perhaps it’s just best to accept that each version has both strengths and weaknesses.
In any case, the story goes on from there. They meet up with Izumi, she realizes they did Human Transmutation and reveals her own shame in that regard, ultimately coming to regard the boys as equals rather than students given the lines they’ve both crossed. Greed and his gang of human-chimeras kidnap Al to try to make a deal with Ed, who has none of it, and Greed ends up captured by his fellow homunculi and taken to the true villain of Brotherhood, a being named Father, who looks eerily like Hoenheim and melts Greed down when he refuses to cooperate.
At this point, we introduce a new element with no parallel in the 2003 version. Scar ends up picking up Yoki (remember him? Yeah, they forgot to introduce him this time) and with him, a little girl called May Chang. Ed and Al, meanwhile, meet an eccentric young man named Ling Yao. Both of these characters are from the nation of Xing, which lies east of Amestris across a particularly terrible desert wasteland that means there’s little in the way of contact between the two nations. They’re in competition for the title of heir to the throne, and the task set before them (and other hopefuls we don’t see) is to return with information on the Philosopher’s Stone. They came to Amestris because their nation’s version of Alchemy was taught by “The Western Sage”, who came out of the west ages ago to do so. Funny, because Amestris has a figure in its history known as “The Eastern Sage”, which much of the same credits…
That will have to wait, though. Bothered by Mustang’s investigation, the Homunculi (particularly Envy) arrange a plan to frame one of the lesser military members who had been particularly kind to the brothers for the murder of Hughes. At first it seems like Mustang takes it hook, line, and sinker, and turns her into a charcoal briquette when she tries to flee. However, on being escorted back to their home town, Ed and Al find that she’s alive and well, and that Mustang faked her death in an attempt to put the real perpetrators off their guard. While there, they view some ruins from a nation that once sat between Amestris and Xing, called Xerxes, and the accused young lady prepares to go to Xing to lay low, promising to return if she’s needed.
Meanwhile, Mustang is very much on the scent, and ends up in a conflict with Gluttony, Lust, and Barry the Chopper. He gets torn up real good, to the point where Hawkeye goes a little berserk thinking he’s dead, but he ultimately rallies and ends up burning Lust until the Philosopher’s Stone that makes up her core runs out of souls to regenerate her body with, and she dies for good.
This is… a little different from how things went in 2003. Lust, frankly, gets very little development, and while Greed technically goes out first, she’s really the first Homunculus to be destroyed in earnest. This as opposed to getting a huge redemption arc and wanting to become human. It underscores, to an extent, how the Homunculi are different in Brotherhood than they were in 2003.
In 2003’s FMA, the Homunculi were born from failed Human Transmutations. Their core pathos is that they each, essentially, represent someones fervent wish to bring back someone precious to them, an aspect that’s explored fairly well with Envy, Wrath, Sloth, and especially Lust. They ultimately try to make a human connection, which is usually a good call even for what are essentially human-shaped immortal monsters. However, the connection between the Homunculi and their names is pretty weak. There’s not a lot about Goo Trisha that reads strongly as “Sloth”. I guess Wrath is kind of angry, but it’s a real surface take. You get the feeling that the first three came out the way they did and Dante just slapped the names on the others because the pattern was too good to give up.
In Brotherhood, the Homunculi eschew making too much of a human link, at least in most cases, in favor of really embodying their theme of sin, often getting into deeper readings of the nature of their sin, giving interesting takes, and going through motions that are symbolically appropriate. For instance, Lust’s death at the hands of Roy Mustang, who burns her over and over, could be seen as tied to the Purgatorio chapter of the Divine Comedy, where the Lustful must pass through walls of flame. I don’t think it’s an accident that Lust in particular went out this specific way.
I feel that which resonates more with a particular viewer is largely going to be down to what they tend to get out of it. Neither way is wrong, per say, and while I love the way the classical philosophies and symbology are woven into Brotherhood, I have to admit that I did connect better to at least some of the Homunculi in 2003 FMA… even if others I really wanted to just go.
And, speaking of things I wanted to get out of the way in the first version, it’s also time to meet Hoenheim (van Hoenheim, technically, short for a much longer name). This time the brothers find him kneeling at their mother’s grave, sad and lost in thought. Though he presses on (actually moved by the death of his wife though he is) he gives some hints about the past and future to Winry’s grandmother: something terrible is likely to happen in Amestris, and the body that resulted from the failed human transmutation may not have been properly Trisha. The latter part is confirmed by the brothers when they exhume the grave and find that even the hair color is wrong. Putting together their data with Izumi, they realize both that their aim was never possible, and to their relief that they didn’t cause their loved ones (the brothers their mother or Izumi her child) to suffer a second death.
After this, Scar is still making a mess of State Alchemists, so an attempt is made to catch him that ends up biting off far more. Ed acts as bait, luring Scar out, with the help of Ling and his retainer (possibly with a crush) Lan Fan. They successfully draw out Scar, but Gluttony appears as well, as does Fuhrer Bradley, who Mustang already suspected of having dealings with the homunculi and is, after this incident, confirmed to the crew as being one. Specifically, he’s not Pride this time, he’s Wrath, his fury barely held in check by his immense will. He’s also unique among the Homunculi in that he has only one life – a human implanted with the raw material for Philosopher’s Stones, the maelstrom of souls infused with the essence of Wrath were unable to cooperate, and battled inside him until only one, the one we know as Fuhrer Bradley, remains. He’s as mortal as any human, but given his powers that doesn’t mean he’s actually any easier to kill than the others.
The battle results in Gluttony transforming into a much more hostile state, later explained as Father’s attempt to create a false version of the Gate of Truth that appears for Human Transmutation and the like. In this state, Gluttony “swallows” Ed, Ling, and Envy, who find themselves in a dark and sealed-off conceptual space. Ed spars partially with Envy over all the evil things Envy’s done, but since they’re in this pickle together, they ultimately have to cooperate in order to escape. Ed uses the Philosopher’s Stone at Envy’s core, using some of the souls that make it up to open the real Gate of Truth and provide a bypass, by which he, Envy, and Ling escape. At the gate, he sees Al’s body, but isn’t able to take it back with him, vowing to one day return.
This manages the output into realspace where Gluttony is. That’s also where Al happens to be. And where Father is located, for that matter. Father can prevent Ed and Al’s Alchemy (though the Xing-style alchemy May uses isn’t blocked), and is surprisingly affable towards the brothers. Ling is captured, and Father decides it’s time to make a new Homunculus, or rather a new edition of Greed.
In this, we see that the Homunculi are literally Father’s sin – he believes himself to be pure because he as taken the sinful parts of himself, along with some of the Philosopher’s Stone that makes him up and the souls therein, and has separated it from himself, refining himself into a more perfect being through the practice of Alchemy. This is, to an extent, what I was alluding to with the opening factoid. Greed isn’t (re)made wholecloth, though – the essence of Father’s greed, along with the souls that made him up before he was melted back down for his insolence, are implanted into Ling. Greed addresses Ling, expecting them to have to battle to the death like Wrath did… but Ling is greedy in his own right, and chooses instead to accept Greed and everything about the Homunculus core, resulting in the second Greed being a Greed-Ling hybrid, with the identity and personality quirks of both the homunculus and his host.
At first, though, he’s Father’s minion, and fights with Ed. Eventually, the humans manage to escape (largely because Father has no intent of killing Ed and Al, and Scar is formidable enough to get the others out), Ed remains a State Alchemist because Bradly says he’ll kill Winry if Ed deserts, and we go on. Mustang’s team is separated and reassigned. Scar picks up Doctor Marcoh, insisting the latter atone for his crimes by helping fight the Homunculi rather than by being killed, faking his death to the world.
Marcoh, however, ends up traveling with May and learning her variant of Alchemy that’s capable of healing human bodies, while Ed heads the same way, looking for information on the same. Scar and Yoki travel their own way. Ed’s path brings him to Briggs Fortress, where he’s placed under then command of Alex Louis Armstrong’s little sister, Olivier A. Armstrong, who despite not being an Alchemist is by far the more terrifying of the two (in a later fairly irrelevant note, they’re actually forced to spar over a disagreement by their father, and the result is mostly Alex begging for mercy as he’s thrown through walls). She has command over Briggs Fortress, in the extreme north of Amestris, a cold and inhospitable mountain stronghold that reflects her personality and demeanor fairly well.
There, they end up encountering the homunculus Sloth, who appears to be digging a massive tunnel that just happens to break into the basement of Briggs, and who is at least temporarily stopped with some quick thinking. Olivier grills Ed hard, forcing him to divulge some of the truth of the situation.
As a side note, the character and behavior of Sloth once again alludes to some traditional philosophy and literature. In Purgatorio, the Slothful are made to run endlessly, circling the terrace, as Sloth works endlessly in his own circular pursuit. Similarly, Sloth the homunculus is actually capable of incredible speed, but is characterized by finding any effort to be a bother, fitting a classical definition of the sin of sloth as failure to utilize great potential more than mere idleness. This is probably the most pointed single contrast between the 2003 Homunculi and the Brotherhood Homunculi. In 2003, Sloth was the remnant of Trisha Elric, and facing her was in many ways the ultimate trial for the brothers, who had to own up to what they did trying to bring their mother back to life and also deal with now, as older and presumably wiser people, ensuring her death. It was an emotional roller coaster, especially since the final conflict with Sloth comes after they’re already pals with Lust and so know that Homunculi in that version can regain some human decency and even want to be human. But there wasn’t really much if anything about Homunculus Trisha that justified dubbing her “Sloth”. In Brothernood, Sloth is kind of a non-character, a big shambling monster with a couple cool powers and one catchphrase to groan… but as an expression of the sin of Sloth as an anime monster? It’s a really good take.
Speaking of Sloth’s task being circular, that’s what the group soon realizes – the work done there was is part of a system to etch a transmutation circle that covers the entire country of Amestris – a circle that, when completed and activated, will convert every soul of an entire massive nation into a Philosopher’s Stone of nearly unimaginable scale.
The gang gets together at Briggs (including Scar, Yoki, May, and a couple of human Chimeras who were formerly working for a psycho alchemist on the homunculus team named Solf J. Kimblee), and between it all we get the real backstory of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Many, many years ago, a nameless slave worked with the Alchemists of Xerxes. The slave was charged with the care of a Homunculus. This Homunculus, however, was different than the modern ones, fitting more with the classical alchemical depiction: it’s a small creature, little more than a blob of soot (or just blackness) with an eye and a smile, that can only live in its specially prepared flask. The Homunculus, however, does possess great wisdom (it’s implied to be a being snatched from the Gate of Truth) and the King of Xerxes hopes that it can teach him a path to immortality.
The Homunculus takes a shine to its keeper, bestowing a name onto the slave (a very long, bombastic name that is ultimately shortened for use to Van Hoenheim). It also provides all the information the King wants, instructing him to create a vast transmutation circle that will encompass the whole of the nation and empower it with vast bloodshed at specific points for the ritual. The King complies – all the tyranny and sacrifices are worth it to him if it means eternal life. However, the Homunculus distorts the truth just a little at the very end: the focal point of the vast ritual is actually a few feet away from the throne, so that when it’s activated, the king is consumed with all his citizens, and the power goes to exactly where Hoenheim is standing, holding the dwarf in the flask.
The Homunculus, taking on the name Father, uses the vastness of a philosopher’s stone made out of an entire kingdom to grant itself a “perfect” body, the aesthetics in imitation of its good friend Hoenheim, as well as theoretically eternal life. Hoenheim was completely ignorant of the ruse, but Father likes him, and so half of the Xerxes Philosopher’s Stone is his, making Hoenheim immortal as well, thanks to his body now possessing over half a million souls to use as fuel.
Hoenheim was horrified by the devastation, and he and Father went their separate ways: Father traveled to Amestris, becoming the Eastern Sage who founded all of the nation’s Alchemy (hence why he has hacks to disable it from being used against him) while Hoenheim went to Xing and became known as the Western Sage, the founder of Xingese Alchemy.
It’s unclear how long after Hoenheim crossed the desert that was left of Xerxes again and showed up to fall for Trisha Elric, have two kids, and then have things he needed to do as well as massive shame about his immortal body and the inevitability that he would leave the people he loved behind, but now he’s back (again). He runs into a dying Izumi Curtis and uses his alchemy to fix her up, as her insides were scrambled by her losses to attempted human transmutation. He doesn’t restore what she lost, but he does make sure what’s left is working alright and she should be able to live a long life. He also introduces himself properly to her and seems to want to team up.
So, to this… Hoenheim is night and day from his 2003 version. In that show, he was a bodysnatching cad who was even more evil than that in the past, and the villain is his jilted lover. Here, he’s a decent person grappling with an immortality predicated on a genocide-tier bodycount (we even learn later that in the time since, he has meditated to know the names and attain the willing help of every soul that makes up his Stone, as part of his repentance for his part in this) and the villain is an otherworldly being that kind of regarded him as a friend in the past.
Father and Van Hoenheim rather than Dante and Hoenheim of Light is, in my opinion, one of the most major and critical upgrades to Brotherhood over the 2003 series. Dante, in particular, was never a great villain. She was evil, don’t get me wrong, but for something as sprawling as FMA wanted to be she thought small and she acted small, or at least smaller than you’d want out of the big villain of a big story. Father has no such problems.
The remainder of the show is all about Father’s “promised day” (on which he plans to force open the Gate of Truth and seize true ultimate godhood) and the efforts to undermine it, but it’s a long road to get there, seeing as the concept and direction are made clear in episode 45 of 64.
In the meantime, Greed ends up breaking with Father as Ling’s personality asserts itself more in the gestalt and Greed starts to recover some memories of its last incarnation. Ed and Al, on the run, end up working for Greed-Ling (as that’s how he’ll accept them. Greed takes care of its things).
In the next movements, as the promised day approaches, Mustang assembles his underground resistance while Ed and Al continue to fight Father’s minions, including Pride (who has the cover identity of Selim Bradley, the Fuhrer’s son, and a true form that exists as a shadow and can control other shadows and physical objects through them) and Gluttony, the latter of which is devoured by the former when they’re both on the ropes. It’s not a Dante-style take down, but Gluttony being eaten has a certain poetic irony to it. Envy is also fought, and reduced from its supreme form of a gigantic horrid beast to its true form, a small parasitic worm that it’s trapped as with its core reduced to a single soul.
The showdown at the capital begins in earnest in episode 50, and will last for essentially the rest of the show, being just as intricate and epic as you would hope. Mustang leads his coup. Ed, Al, Scar, Yoki, Marcoh, May, Greed-Ling, Ling’s old retainers… they all contribute and push onward through layer after layer of Bradley and Father deploying what bull they have. Envy absorbs some alchemical puppet soldiers to regain his full power, but ultimately ends up against Mustang, who finally gets revenge for the death of Hughes, burning out Envy’s eyes (probably another reference to Purgatorio, where the envious have their eyes sewn shut for their repentance), ultimately reducing him back to worm form with the help of Hawkeye, at which point Mustang is able to hold back and Envy self-destructs. Bradley fights off just about everyone, proving he doesn’t need more than one life to be a terror, and is ultimately only taken down by the sacrifice of almost everyone who dared fight against him, including Ling’s old mentor-retainer.
Ed. Al, Izumi, and Hoenheim are all captured by Father, who needs five humans who have seen the Truth to complete his ritual. The fifth is set to be Mustang, who Pride burns himself out forcing to commit Human Transmutation.
Though Father at first seems to complete his ritual, it turns out that Hoenheim was away from home all those years for a darn good reason, as he seeded the circle design with souls from his own internal Philosopher’s Stone, which rise up and, with the help of Scar and May activating an additional layer of counter-formula, undo most of Father’s work. However, Father is still unspeakably powerful and dangerous, so the final battle is on. In it, Father re-absorbs Greed from Ling, but Greed spites him one last time and instead of granting him an invincible defense turns him physically weak, skin of graphite instead of diamond in essence. The Homunculus Greed is then finished off by Father, but goes out with a smile believing itself to have been truly rich in that it had friends.
As in the 2003 version, we’re not getting out of the endgame without a couple visits to the Gate. With Ed on the ropes, Al trades his soul for the restoration of Ed’s arm (which in the circumstance would allow Ed to do Alchemy again, since he needs both hands for his no-circle Transmutation). This is where Greed’s betrayal comes in clutch, as Ed is able to punch right through Father, knocking out his Philosopher’s Stone core and sending the true form of Father back to the Gate from whence it came.
Then, Ed decides to do one last human transmutation, bringing himself before Truth (which takes the form of a stark white shadow of whoever it’s talking to) in order to offer a fair trade for Al back. After a discussion with Truth, Ed decides that with friends like his, he doesn’t really need Alchemy, and offers up his version of the Gate, divine truth itself, as an equivalent exchange for Al’s body and soul. Truth accepts, proclaiming that Ed has won, and the brothers are once again reunited.
In the aftermath, Ed (now incapable of Alchemy) proposes to Winry in the most adorably nerdy way, which she accepts in a similarly dorky fashion, and they settle down and start a family. Al travels to Xing with Ling (set to be the new Emperor) and May (who developed something of a crush on him when he was still just armor and is not displeased with his human form) to learn more about their form of Alchemy. Hoenheim, down to a single soul, comes to rest at Trisha’s grave and quietly passes away as he mourns her. Mustang, who lost his sight to his Human Transmutation, is healed by Marcoh in order to allow him to realize his vision of a better Amestris, and it’s strongly implied he’ll make Fuhrer some day.
And then we are well and truly at the end of FMA: Brotherhood.
And the big question is, as it has perhaps always been, which is better: 2003 FMA or Brotherhood?
I think, in a lot of ways, there’s not going to be a satisfying answer to that. They both have their strengths. 2003 is an emotional roller coaster with an absolutely brilliant opening arc marred by a mess of an ending. Brotherhood starts out with a more standard feel to it, but ultimately tells the massive, sprawling tale you want to see, a feat that has rarely if ever been replicated in such a grand fashion.
Brotherhood does have an advantage in how well it uses its coding and symbolism. I’ve mentioned the Homunculi and their sins in detail, but did you notice how everyone seems to lose something random to Human Transmutation? It’s not random, it’s based on what motivated their transgression. Ed loses one leg (at first) because what he wanted most was to stand on his own. Al loses his body proper because he wanted to feel the warmth of his mother’s love. Izumi lost her reproductive organs because she desired a child of her own above all else. Mustang was blinded because he was brought to that end by his vision for the nation. It’s something you slowly come to understand over the course of the show, that there are no coincidences or random effects, the things that happen do so for a good reason.
So which do you prefer? A strong start that stumbles, or a product that has to spend some time gaining steam in order to become truly special?
For my part, barring the gormless non-answer of some sort of machete order, I have to pick Brotherhood. 2003’s version, while it does have some good emotional play even deep into the show, ends up feeling more superficial. So what if the death of Hughes was done better? Mustang’s arc is barely able to go anywhere, his clash with Bradley (and never Envy, the real killer) an afterthought to the whole Dante mess. The show doesn’t use it. Tucker I suppose comes back in that version, but did he need to? Night of the Chimera’s Cry was complete on its own, a tale of the horror alchemy was capable of against the wonder of what we normally see as functional magic. We didn’t need Tucker back as a monstrous mad scientist the way we needed a compelling endgame like the one Brotherhood gives us from the backstory of Xerxes to the Promised Day.
And while Brotherhood has a weaker start, that is purely a comparative rating: it starts weaker than 2003’s FMA; that doesn’t mean it actually starts weak compared to the body of anime as a whole. I think if we didn’t have 2003 that my only complaint about the early stages of Brotherhood that would be sustained would be that Yoki isn’t properly introduced before we need him to resent the brothers, team up with Scar, and ultimately contribute to saving the world by being a surprisingly good driver.
While Brotherhood’s beginning is a little weaker than 2003’s, everything after the divergence point at the death of Hughes is stronger. We get better characters, new characters that are fun, a villain that actually matters, an threat to the entire nation or perhaps the world, all the esoteric mumbo-jumbo you could want in a package where it all still fits and works even when you look more deeply, that’s powerfully symbolic drawing on the historical themes of alchemy and religion without simply turning pretentious in idiotic imitation like so many other shows that spout philosophy they can’t understand.
If you only see one FMA – and I don’t blame you given the length of either – make it Brotherhood. It’s the better complete show.
And to that, I give Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood the A+ Ranking. What flaws it has in comparison to the prior version pale in comparison to the quality it holds on the whole. Brotherhood was and is one of the best respected shows in Anime, and it’s for good reason. It was good then, when a faithful remake started almost on the heels of an already beloved rendition, and it’s good now, when we’ve had a plethora of shows come along that try to capture the same grandeur but that can’t really come close. The Great Work is finally done.