New episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood have resumed airing on Adult Swim. I missed a couple of episodes the last few weeks, then last week I missed the second half when my cable signal crapped out. I saw this week's episode though!
Episode 29, Struggle of the Fool. Not a lot going on in this episode on the surface, but there's a lot of new information being built up and there's some really great character moments. There really aren't a lot of action shonen anime like this that can have whole episodes devoted mostly to characters just sitting around and talking to each other and have it work so well, on the strength of the characters.
There's humor, pathos, drama, tension. Very little action but it still works. How many characters do we learn something new about in this episode alone? There's Ed, Al, Mustang, Armstrong, Hawkeye, Ling, Ran Fan, Mei Ling, Wrath, Greed, Marcoh, Winry. All these characters get great little moments. Even the relatively minor Dr. Knox gets a lot of development. All in 24 minutes.
Brotherhood really does start out pretty weak, but by this point it's simply fantastic.
They're also showing Big O. I'm really only half watching it. When I'm not really focusing on it I can almost mistake it for Cowboy Bebop because Spike and Faye's voice actors from that show (Steven Blum and Wendee Lee) are in Big O, too. Then again Blum and Lee are in practically everything when it comes to anime. There's some good animation that I've never noticed before in this show. Lots of the usual pans and stills, yes, but some nice subtle changes in expressions and fluid motion and more complex stuff too. Nice music, too. It's totally anime Batman in the future with giant robots.
Episode 29, Struggle of the Fool. Not a lot going on in this episode on the surface, but there's a lot of new information being built up and there's some really great character moments. There really aren't a lot of action shonen anime like this that can have whole episodes devoted mostly to characters just sitting around and talking to each other and have it work so well, on the strength of the characters.
There's humor, pathos, drama, tension. Very little action but it still works. How many characters do we learn something new about in this episode alone? There's Ed, Al, Mustang, Armstrong, Hawkeye, Ling, Ran Fan, Mei Ling, Wrath, Greed, Marcoh, Winry. All these characters get great little moments. Even the relatively minor Dr. Knox gets a lot of development. All in 24 minutes.
Brotherhood really does start out pretty weak, but by this point it's simply fantastic.
They're also showing Big O. I'm really only half watching it. When I'm not really focusing on it I can almost mistake it for Cowboy Bebop because Spike and Faye's voice actors from that show (Steven Blum and Wendee Lee) are in Big O, too. Then again Blum and Lee are in practically everything when it comes to anime. There's some good animation that I've never noticed before in this show. Lots of the usual pans and stills, yes, but some nice subtle changes in expressions and fluid motion and more complex stuff too. Nice music, too. It's totally anime Batman in the future with giant robots.
