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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1585 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 25, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood : Closer to 8 than it is to 7

A show that frustrated me. Too tropey, too many characters being retarded. I find it hard to articulate my dissatisfaction in a satisfactory way.

FMAB represents everything that's simultaneously right and wrong with shounen storytelling. The worldbuilding is genuinely excellent: alchemy as magic system with consistent rules and costs, political intrigue that feels like actual statecraft, character motivations that make sense within their contexts.

But the show consistently undermines itself with genre conventions that feel obligatory rather than organic. The power of friendship speeches, the reluctance to actually kill major characters, the way complex moral situations get resolved through superior firepower, it all feels like the show is checking boxes rather than exploring the implications of its own premise.

You should really try the original Fullmetal Alchemist.

First of all, if you only watched Brotherhood, you completely missed the setup, because Brotherhood speeds through the early episodes on the assumption that you have watched the 2003 version. Second, it is a much darker, cerebral, and emotional story. It's not filled with fights and comedy and friendship speeches the way Brotherhood is. 2003 avoids the standard battle shonen cliches in favor of telling a more dramatic and philosophical story using the exact same setting and characters.

It's like Fullmetal Alchemist for grownups.

My own recommendations:

Erased (AKA The Town Without Me) is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever had the privilege of experiencing. It's also only one cour long.

The Promised Neverland. The first season is incredible, and ends at a very natural stopping point, but definitely leaves room to continue the story. The second season is legendary for how bad it was, and most fans pretend that it doesn't exist. It works really well if you choose to treat it is as a single-cour anime. I wrote a longer review on /r/rational.

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