Fullmetal Alchemist 03: Epic fail
Posted: April 22, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized 21 Comments »
Unarguably the best scene in the entire episode.
Okay, so I got halfway through the episode and then I made the previous post (which JR disproved… ┐(´ー｀)┌ ). Now, after watching the last ten minutes, I’ve found that this episode was HORRIBLE.
Instead of going down the list, point by point, I’ve decided to go through my files, screenshot by screenshot. This way, I probably won’t miss any of the epic failure that as present here.
Recurring jokes/gags turn me off. Five times an episode is five times the turn off.
OKAY, HE’S SHORT. I GET IT ALREADY.
In other news, there’s a MAL club called “Sympathy for Edward Elric.”
Because you always need random people flying across the screen when you’re describing something that has nothing to do with random shadow-face zombies. Oh wait, “the dead are resurrected” …maybe these random zombieface people are the resurrected dead people!
My, what an enormous chin you have!
“Girl” seen praying at altar.
What do you do?
- Strike up a conversation.
- Force conversation towards recurring joke.
- Talk as if you’ve known her for years.
- Use lots of split-screens
- All of the above and more.
The answer is obviously #5.
I can’t believe how rushed and awkward this conversation was. It’s like “Hey random person! I think I love you. Oranges are better than lampshades and Lelouch is dead, bitch! PLOT PLOX”
If K-ON! 03 was a drawn-out 4koma, then this episode was a ten-volume series condensed into one meaningless clip twenty-some minutes long.
SPLIT-SCREEN MANIA
I swear, there were at least ten different split-screens in this episode.
I don’t think a simple flashback needs to be condensed into half the screen.
Nor does a dialogue need to be split up to show who’s talking to whom.
Usually, this is used for emphasis.
The only thing that the split screens emphasized for me in here was that BONES is running out of ideas.
You look familiar…
Also, “Rose, fire it.”
I can’t stress how rushed this made the episode seem.
We just meet this girl, and nine minutes into the episode, we’re at the point where said girl is holding a gun at Ed at the command of chin-man. When I got here, I actually paused the file and stared at the 9 minute time. I just couldn’t believe how fast the plot advanced in nine minutes.
The holy priest comes out of a door in the wall that appeared out of nowhere with a huge gun in one hand.
Obviously, you shut up and chase after a kid and a guy in a suit of armor!
One guy is holding a handgun. One guy is holding a wooden pole.
I’m guessing that the latter was too poor to get a gun.
The guy on the far right isn’t even armed…
He looks the most Asian too. What a racist anime.
My, it’s windy up here!
“We want to get our bodies back. We might lose our lives in order to do that.”
Their true objective:
- Get bodies
- Get killed/commit suicide
Because it doesn’t matter if you die, as long as you get your body back (FYI: PARADOX ALERT MUCH?).
Pinkies up!
I don’t know what’s worse: this guy’s face, his chin, or his color changing eyes.
Oh, and building off of that second screenshot…
Because asking rhetorical-ish questions is a must for evil characters!
And what minor character development we have in her is predictable beyond belief. What, is she going to walk away whistling? OF COURSE NOT.
Can’t see why this is a messed up picture?
Here, I hope this makes it easier:
The shadows are enormous.
Too enormous.
Pratically “physically impossible” enormous.
I think I finally understand your blog name (“Shadows of Eternity”), Ayano!
Yay for a cliffhanger that nobody cares about because the audience either…
- Knows all about these two.
- Got so many random plot elements already that this slower-paced part was less of a cliffhanger than a less rushed part of the episode.
This episode failed hard.
Just a random disclaimer here:
You may have noticed that I didn’t mention the chibi and SD elements randomly inserted into this episode.
That’s because I forgot, and Chrome is being a hoar so I can’t edit this post ATM.
So… yeah. Too much chibi/SD in this episode, and placed at some of the worst times.
this episode was ALMOST as fail as shitty english dubbed lucky star bath scene. >insert video here<
i think from now on im going to start video responding to your posts. lately youtube has been doing an awesome job of mind reading for me.
oh shit! forgot the best part. my opinion on this post.
I agree, this episode was damn rushed. The Reole arc took two episodes in the 2004 version and it felt correct. I also have a problem with the pacing of Episode 2. Trisha, we barely knew you.
I suspect that Studio Bones decided to fast-forward the early episodes to reach sooner the part where the old tv series diverged from the manga. But they are not doing a good service to first-time viewers…
All down hill from the moment someone got the idea to continue FMA
@jerseyse410: BITCHIN’!
@Son Gohan: Actually, I’m a first-time viewer myself. I read some random volumes of the manga a few years ago, so the characters and overall plotline aren’t new to me, but… yeah. I don’t even know who “Trisha” is. The Elric mother? @__@
@Michael Flux: Hahah, maybe!
That translation seems a bit weird.”we might lose our lives to do that” =! “but we may die trying” I think the Chibi / SD scenes are taken straight from the manga. Not saying it isn’t a bad choice still at some points, but its more of the source material.
And yes. Trisha Elric is her name. Though, I think the rushing is probably due to how much ground they have to cover overall. They probably only want it to be about 52 episodes again, and at the current pace of about 2 chapters per episode, they’ll need all that they can get. Manga is at chapter 9x or so now, and is gonna take a few more volumes (4 chapters per) to wrap every thing up.
I hope there only rushing to get past the point where the first FMA diverged from the manga. but, still, they really are doing a shitty job with this series so far and need to fix their shit >:(
I’m having a hard time watching FMA too…but for other reasons. All of the character designs except for Al are various degrees of ugly. Unfortunately the character that gets the majority of screen time is also the most unpleasant to look at.
Well, anyway, I’m watching in hopes of Al being brought back as a loli imouto.
@Zaotsu: Indeed. I blame gSS’s muddled translation (I think I watched their release). Also, the chibi/SD may be straight from the source, but given the incredibly fast pace this episode went at, I don’t think there needed to be so many random comedic moments!
So will this entire series be this rushed to cover that much ground? If so, I don’t want to waste more time on it… x_x
@Gt_machine.exe: Yeah, seriously. I really hope the pace will slow down a bit!
@Roy Mustang: I think the character designs are okay… except when the chibi/SD shows up. Plus how can you go wrong (re-)drawing a suit of armor?
B-but… imouto means younger sister… (((゜д゜;)))!!!!
B-but… imouto means younger sister… (((゜д゜;)))!!!!
Exactly.
BTW, have you watched this season’s Hayate no Gotoku yet? It’s turning out to be much better than the 1st season at least in terms of plot continuality.
Anyway, sorry about the voltage discharge. But that’s what you get for calling Index a side character.
Yeah, Hayate S2 is better in plot… but I don’t like the humor as much. S1 had more random humor and such (and a lot of references, come to think of it).
Also, damn you, but I will not bow down to Index!
I’m not sure if the entire series will go this fast, they’ll probably cut out a few of the “filler” portions, as already seems evident. Only time will tell though.
As for subs, I’d suggest Eclipse. That’s where mine came from. Dunno if they release faster, but they usually have the ep up by Sunday evening – night sometime.
Well, Crunchyroll (and thus HorribleSubs) releases faster, and the quality isn’t that much worse than Eclipse.
It’s like CLANNAD AS for me: Aquastar-Sprocket-Wafflehouse-thistagistoolong released a few days ahead of Eclipse, and I couldn’t wait those few days…
yes, index=side character. shes like that little train that couldnt. the real characters were mikoto and touma. index had almost no real plot interaction after episode 4 or 5. god that show dissapointed me. and as for plot continuation, hayate is spot on really and that pleases me a lot but idk, the comedy is just as good as S1, its just not as NOVEL as it was back then. i remember laughing my ass off at just the narrarator alone going holy shit! i cant believe this, this is so cool. its still there its just lost its silver polish is all.
I disagree. It’s like saying the title character of ‘There’s Something About Mary’ is a side character because she does not get the majority of the screentime.
Like Mary, Index is the driving force of the plot. For example, look at the Fullmental Alchemist arch. All of his actions for the past 3 years were determined solely by Index.
Anyway, I really loved Index. It was a great show. Index’s voice was one of the most perfect, spot on voice overs I’ve heard. It almost had a musical quality to it. In the same respect, I really hated Misaka’s voice. It sounded way too old and out of character.
Anyway, there’s definitely something about Index.
Didn’t you forget that the title of the anime was To Aru Majutsu [NO INDEX]?
I personally think that Touma’s the only main character in the series. Index, Mikoto, and the rest of Touma’s harem don’t really do much beyond their arcs. True, Index drives much of the plot from behind the curtain, but that’s not to say that she’s actively doing something to make her the heroine of the series.
Anyway, let’s just stop arguing over this. I’m obviously not going to cave in (blog title much), so we could go on forever.
I think I stopped caring about the plot and concentrated more on the pseudoscience of alchemy and its consistencies. But yes…this episode was fail…didn’t even make my mind axplode..let alone my pants. ^_^
Hahah, yeah. Another thing strikes me as odd though… if this guy could create things like chimeras from nothing, can’t he just make a ton of them and take over the world?
Why does he need to stay around in a church when one chimera could help him control that entire town? D:
LOGICAL BAD GUYS IN AN ANIME? WHAT NONSENSE.
Srsly though, a “theoretical” reason would be something like, didn’t want to attract the attention of the state, and Ed / Al had found him out in the beginning stage of the plan. Since they probably needed enough materials to make them.