Tune in on Saturday night for the American premier of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Adult Swim will begin airing the new series late February 13th, if you’re in central America, early February 14th if you’re on the east coast (for those of you bad with numbers, that’s 12 am est/11 pm central, right before Bleach). FUNimation is helming this series, as they did the original Fullmetal Alchemist series, and has brought back most of the original cast, including Vic Mignogna as Edward Elric. The notable exception to the cast is the voice of Alphonse Elric, who will now be voiced by Maxey Whitehead. When the original series came out, FUNimation chose a young boy named Aaron Dismuke (around the character’s age) to voice Al. While I have nothing against casting younger actors (Nadia: Secret of Blue Water succeeded with this too), especially when they’re as good as he was, there’s an obvious downside. When a show runs very long, or there is a sizable gap between seasons, often a young actor with a perfect voice for a part will hit puberty during the interim, and is no longer able to voice the role. It’s very unfortunate, and it will likely affect how fans feel about Maxey’s portrayal, so I wish her luck.
The original Fullmetal Alchemist split from the manga about halfway through, and the story deviated widely. Brotherhood follows the manga more closely. It’s basically a reboot, or a do-over even. Studio Bones is back to animate the series, so expect the same high quality animation.
Fullmetal Alchemist is the story of Edward and Alphonse Elric, two young alchemists on a journey to find the Philosopher’s Stone. Edward joins the State Alchemists to gain access to their vast libraries of information, and to gain the authority and funds to track down the Stone. Before joining the military, the two brothers lived with their mother. When she died from an illness, they used forbidden alchemy to attempt to bring her back to life, which resulted in the loss of one of Ed’s legs, and Al’s entire body. To save his brother, Ed sacrificed one of his arms to bind Al’s soul with a large suit of metal armor. Edward hopes the Stone will restore Al’s body, along with own his missing limbs. But their quest to find the Philosopher’s Stone will be filled with even more grief and sacrifice than they could have imagined.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has also been available with subtitles online, streaming from FUNimation’s site, and on Hulu, since it began airing in Japan.
So tune in this Saturday night to the American premier of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, only on Adult Swim.
Kris
kristin@comicattack.net
I’m so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!
setting the DVR!
Nice, although I admittedly stopped watching brotherhood at around 20 for whatever reason, I am still looking forward to it.
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I always see FMA on and it looks good but I’ve never stopped to watch it. Maybe I’ll DVR it like Speech.
Well you already missed the first episode, Billy! You’ll have to catch it online, and DVR them from now on. It’s a really great show.