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Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set (2011)

by Hiromu Arakawa(Favorite Author)

4.71 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1421541955 (ISBN13: 9781421541952)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

VIZ Media LLC

review 1: Fullmetal Alchemist just ate up the first two months of 2014 for me.I did read other stuff in there, for sure -- I fell into a pattern of reserving the next 3-6 volumes of this at the library then reading another book until they came in -- but since the Christmas party where a friend gave me the first three entries, a not-insignificant portion of my life has been set up around tackling this series. I finished the final three volumes in one breathless sitting Saturday night, staying up irresponsibly late with no perception of time passing around me. It was so very good.First, the (few) negatives. I have never really read a manga before so I admit that I'm not sure which of these criticisms are of Hiromu Arakawa's work and which are just tropes of the genre. The battle scene... mores were sometimes hard for me to follow -- many fights would erupt into several pages of bewildering motion and "SWISH"/"BZOOM" onomatopoeias, and I'd have to wait til the dust settled to figure out what happened. Also, the humor didn't always click for me, and some of the character's reactions were overdone and hammy. I would sometimes experience mood whiplash as the book shifted from a tense, dramatic scene thrumming with mystery and elegantly crafted character development, into a scene where someone refers to protagonist Edward Elric as "short" and he jumps around the room having a cartoon tantrum like one of the Animaniacs. I have watched this in anime before and so maybe it's just a thing they do in this style, but I found it cheesy and distracting.That said, the only reason I found this jarring is that it's clear Arakawa can do better. The exchanges between the Elric brothers are understated and well written, and the deep, powerful bond between Ed and Al is profoundly moving. Likewise, the devotion of the taciturn Lieutenant Hawkeye (possibly my favorite character) to her superior officer and friend Roy Mustang is communicated almost entirely in actions and in quiet character moments, without ever really being spelled out, and I loved every scene between the two. There are a million characters in this 27-volume epic, and it's a testament to the author's writing and illustrating skill that each one is memorable and I almost never got them confused. I found myself emotionally invested in everyone from the random masked bodyguard lady of a foreign prince that turns up halfway through, to Central City soldier #3 that winds up bed-ridden and disabled but loses none of his dedication to the cause. Fullmetal Alchemist reminded me of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in the way that there are no "extras" -- the greedy mine owner that gets chased out of town in volume two; the soldiers that are assigned to guard the Elrics on one of their early missions; the generic shape-shifting henchmen of the bad guys -- these are all key players that come back to fulfill vital roles throughout the series.At its heart, as the back-cover summary will tell you, Fullmetal Alchemist is the story of two brothers who lost nearly everything in a ritual gone wrong (and the flashback to this moment is one of the most gut wrenching things I've ever read, in any genre) trying to restore their bodies and protect their friends. But the true magic of this story is that this quest is only a drop in the bucket of what is going on here. The most devastating scenes (the first chimera that we meet is seared in everyone's memory that I've spoken to about this) sometimes revolve around side characters and branches in the plot line. There are no extraneous character kill-offs -- the first major death in the series is a friend of the Elrics and Mustang, but far from being one of those generic inspirations to fight that mobilizes the "real" characters and then is never mentioned again, the series continues to follow his widow and child, continues to show his comrades' grief all the way to the end. The villains are immediately memorable (I adored Lust and Gluttony, and was terrified of Sloth) and the stakes are (of course) the highest. This is one of those perfect examples of a series that, left to my own devices, I would probably never have read, that I now cannot imagine not having experienced. That Christmas book exchange really did me a favor.
review 2: Fantastic set of anime books - I loved the anime so much I bought the books too even thought they were very expensive.The only down side is (like most manga) they are black & white, I watch a lot of anime but don't usually buy the manga too, this is a great set, nicely presented in a large box, but the quality of the paper is not as good as it could have been & only the first 3 have glossy covers - a minor point but worth noting.An inspiring plot & some of the best characters in any story :) less

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