Fullmetal Alchemist Fullmetal Edition Vol. 1
Publisher: VIZ Media
Story & Art: Hiromu Arakawa
Touch Up Art & Lettering: Steve Dutro
Translation: Akira Watanabe
Seventeen years ago, Fullmetal Alchemist hit the scene and took the manga, and then anime world, by storm. The series ran for nine years telling the story of the Elric brothers and their quest to restore themselves for their past sins of forbidden alchemy. The series would go on to get two popular anime series adapting the manga. 27 volumes exist to collect the whole series, until now. The Fullmetal Edition that has just released its first volume which will take the beloved story and reprint in hardcover volumes that will collect what was once one and a half volumes worth from the series. Is it worth picking up? Let’s find out!
The quality of the book is top notch. This will look real nice on a book shelf and with the larger than original volumes you can minimize the number of books you have a little bit if you have and planned on collecting this series. The paper for the pages is very high quality and sturdier than most manga collections, this book feels like it’ll out last other books and age well. There are a few full color pages in the front of some of the chapter covers that look really nice and remind me of the anime, which is a high compliment. If you’re a fan of this series but never got to collect it yourself because maybe you borrowed them from a library or a good friend, like myself, this feels like a great way to collect the series if you want your shelves to have something real nice. The cover has a nice red metallic shine to all the text and alchemical symbols on it and when the book is opened you get to see Ed showing off his automail arm from front cover to back.
I will say that one issue with the new allotment of pages is that the ending is abrupt and ends on one of the more devastating early moments of the series which wasn’t intended when the series was paced out all those years ago. They’ll be releasing these a bit slowly so don’t expect to be able to grab the whole set any time soon. Having the whole series is still going to set you back a pretty penny in any format you go for it. If you want something that looks and feels nice in your hands though, you can’t really go wrong with this edition.
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
I’ve only seen the anime and thought it was the best thing ever! I might want to give this a look too depending on how expensive it is.
This series is too damn good! Can’t believe I found it on accident years ago