Being the geek that I am, I’m a big fan of anime. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that the liking anime automatically qualifies you as a geek, but it is a certainly a compelling factor in the comparison. Being a fan of anime can often have its difficulties. For example; you find yourself explaining almost constantly that despite it being animated its target audience isn’t children.
There is also the awkward issue of when mentioning you like anime, to those that don’t really understand it, they give you a weird look. You know the look. Their brain immediate associates the word with tentacles. Something which if you don’t understand, I will not put 2 and 2 together for you here.
Anyway, I digress. The point is, as a massive fan of anime one of the stand out series in recent years has been Full Metal Alchemist. While the series has many fans, some of them are perhaps unaware that a live-action film is on the way. Well, not only is it on the way, but we also have our first major trailer.
Originally starting life as a manga, Full Metal Alchemist tells the story of two brothers who lose both of their parents at a very young age. Left to their own devices, they learn Alchemy (the mythological art of turning one substance into another). Showing a unique ability even as children, they attempt to bring their dead mother back to life. It’s at this point that things go very wrong.
In the process, one brother loses his leg and the other loses his whole body. To regain his younger brother’s body, the one (already without an arm) offers himself as the materials. In the process, he loses his arm (on top of the aforementioned leg) but does regain his brothers soul. The issue here though is that he has only regained his soul, which has been imbued in a suit of armour.
Following this, the plot of Full Metal Alchemist as a whole is quite straightforward. You follow the brothers on their journey to recover his body.
At this point, I’m reluctant to go on any further for fear of spoiling it for you. It should, however, go without saying that the brother’s story, while an underlying theme throughout the story, it merely a small part of a much bigger drama. The live-action film does seem so far to be an excellent portrayal of the story. If you are not familiar with the story, there may be part of the trailer you find confusing, but don’t let that put you off.
If you are new to the anime and plan to visit it, you might be confused to find 2 different versions exist. Full Metal Alchemist and FMA Brotherhood. While the first 16 or so episodes of the anime are more or less the same, after this point, they branch off into very contrasting endings. The latter of which, in my opinion, was significantly superior to the original.
It is, therefore, a matter of curiosity which road the live-action film will go down. Ultimately, I suspect it may choose the first, simply because the ending is a lot easier to make. In addition, Brotherhood is notably more complex in the plot. Unless this is going to be released as 2 films (which isn’t unusual for Netflix) then they have a lot to cram into one singular film.
There are of course some causes for concern here. Most recently we saw a live-action release of Deathnote. In my opinion, that was an awful experience. Some fans of the series are therefore concerned that this might equally be poor.
Either way though, you should all check out the anime. Seriously. It has everything. All you need to do is get over the fact that it’s animated. If you can, trust me, by episode 4 you will be hooked and that might mean, with myself, you can’t wait to see how the live action movie turns out.
Although no release date is confirmed, a release in 2018 is expected.
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