Change Your Image
roninfire
Reviews
Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2003)
Change "free time" to "time well spent".
I finished watching this two weeks ago and I have been recommending it to other people even before I finished the series.
"Full Metal Alchemist" is a world populated with people who use technology and alchemy to achieve roughly the same powers as those found in North American comic books. Instead of their powers being based on a mutant gene or exposure to radiation or a refugee from another planet, alchemists get their abilities by altering the molecular structure of matter.
If you liked "Ninja Scroll" because of its story, unique characters and action; than you will be blown you away with the depth and constantly changing plots and subplots of Full Metal Alchemist.
I also have to mention I watched this from poorly subbed DVDs; it was so bad that in the last DVD one of the main characters had a different name in English subtitles but it was still the same in the Japanese audio. There are 51 episodes, I initially watched one or two episodes per day but in the end I watched the remaining 20 episodes in two days. From what little I could understand from the subtitles I still thought the Full Metal Alchemist is amazing and I look forward to watching it again with proper English dubbing.
It is very important to watch this series in a row.
This is not an anime for kids.
BTW: The 52nd episode in the series is the movie. Full Metal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa. The story is still open even after the movie ends.
+++++Spoilers Below+++++ If you are willing to give Full Metal Alchemist a chance than do not read the following. ++++++Spoilers Below+++++
The series is about love, loss/death, revenge, abandonment, loyalty and the mistakes people commit when trying to do the right things. With that in mind, the main bad guys are named after the Seven Deadly sins (Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth).
There are also "good" people, I am not sure if they are supposed to represent the Seven Virtues but some do have those qualities.
The main plot starts off with the two brothers needing to find the Philosophers stone so they can undo a mistake they made. So it starts off like any other story with the great never ending search but with Full Metal Alchemist they do find what they are looking for early on in the series. However there are shocking revelations surrounding the stone.
Yeopgijeogin geunyeo (2001)
My experience
Three years ago I was at a friends place, we couldn't figure out what to do so she "forced" me to watch "My sassy girl". From the look of the DVD cover I knew this was something I would not enjoy, the picture projected a film made of teen pop Hollywood garbage.
I reluctantly agreed to watch it for a while but I became interested after about 15 minutes. The first half I thought was pretty good, until I realized there was still a second half to this. The second half seemed to drag on and I was praying for it to end. The overtime made me frustrated because I thought this was becoming less of a movie and more of a TV series (in terms of length). And than it was over and I realized what an amazing film this was.
To keep this short I will tell you that I have directly "forced" about one hundred people to watch this film. The largest group I forced to watch "My sassy girl" occurred during two canceled lectures, students were sitting there bored so I popped this in. The class was made up of different social/racial/gender/whatever cross sections. Everyone watched the first half and they showed up and stayed for the final half the following week, some people even came up to tell me how much they liked it. Only 2 people have given bad responses, one person because he did not finish watching it and the other because she doesn't like watching a film with subtitles.
From the rating for this movie it is clear that there are people who hate this film, but if you belong to the other 85% of the population than you will love it.
Why did I like this movie? It was a "mystery" movie with clues throughout. They made an entire movie with (basically) two characters. There was no pointless tacked on sex, not even a kiss.
Watch the Directors Cut if you can. The movie was actually more enjoyable the second time around. 10/10