Reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist Metal Edition 02 by Hiromu Arakawa

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eesh25's review against another edition

4.0

Considering Scar's face is on the cover, I thought one of the volumes in the omnibus would be about him. Turns out, not really. I do know he's an important character in the series though since a) they put him on a cover and b) my brother told me.

The last omnibus ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, so in this one, we start right where we left off—with Ed and Al in trouble. Of course, they're the main characters, so they out of trouble (barely). But their hopes, of learning of the evil plans of the mysterious villains, are dashed. In fact, we don't learn much about the villain beyond what we already know. Though we do get another demonstration of just how powerful, and dangerous, this villain is.

Now, the three volumes in this omnibus have pretty distinct stories, so I'm going to talk about them individually in as spoiler-free a manner as possible.

The first volume in the book is a continuation of volume 3, as I said. And then it's the Elric brothers dealing with the consequences of their ill-advised showdown. It's a two-part-er, in a way, with the first part action-packed and the second one heavier on emotion.

Volume two is more of a side-story. Ed and Al are still there, but the focus is on a different character, who's accompanying them. It's lighter in tone and sets up that character's journey. This journey, I think, will lead to what their role will be in the series as a whole; how they'll contribute, directly or indirectly, to defeating whoever the villain turns out to be. We also meet some new characters in the volume, though I'm not sure if they're someone we'll see again.

The third volume is Ed and Al's reunion with someone from their past. It's someone who's been mentioned in the first three volumes. But it's the first time we, the reader, meet them. They were a bit different from how I expected them to be, but I liked them.

The reunion though is but a small part of the volume. Mainly, it's Ed and Al recalling how they got to this point in their lives. We see them as kids who love Alchemy. We see what happens when they lose their mom, how they learn to be better at Alchemy. We witness the incident when they attempt to resurrect their mom, and even how Ed becomes a State Alchemist. Basically, it's a backstory volume, but a really good one. And by the end, we know Edward and Alphonse's history pretty well.

I'm hoping that this was the author cementing character motivations and that, from the next volume, the story will move forward.

I really enjoyed these volumes. They're very well-balanced between the action, the emotion, the world-building, and the character introductions. They also have healthy doses of humour to round everything off. So if you've read the first three volumes and are wondering if you should continue, I'd definitely recommend that you do.