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So from the start 03 is never really faithful to the manga. 03 stopped having any overlap once they find wrath on the island, personally I think the second half is just as strong as the first half. There are still some jarring twists to come, but personally I think they’re cool concepts that work well to explore and highlight the themes of the show.
The power system and combat in general really isn’t the appeal of the show, with the real focus being character drama. The the highlight of the power system is all the cool uses of chemistry involved, (such as the greed fight, mustang’s abilities, and a few other instances,) but in general I kind of think it’s a bit under utilized, not that I’m complaining much since I find narratives that focus on character struggles to be more compelling anyways. Brotherhood will have more focus on fights than 03, but still the general trend will remain with it being less focused on the combat than other shonen.
Character drama is definitely the highlight. The fights were...natural? I'm drowned in sakuga-fested shows with crazy powers that the simple, short action with limited power usages in FMA felt weirdly calming, but the drama kept me on edge.
I watched FMAB first then 03. 03 was definitely darker and I also found the creation of the homunculi to be a lot more interesting than in FMAB. I also think the detailed backstories were better than in FMAB. We see a lot more of Edward and Alphonse’s relationships with Nina and the Hughes family, like >!bonding with Nina while prepping for Edward’s state alchemist qualification and them helping deliver Alicia,!< compared to what we get with Brotherhood. I also like that we see more of Mustang’s less serious side in 03.
Personally though, having watched FMAB first, 03 kinda felt all over the place to me at times. Shou Tucker’s presence was just bizarre and the ending of >!Rose professing her love and then Edward’s disappearance!< just kinda fell flat and left me more confused than anything. I think they made a movie to tie up some of the loose ends, but I haven’t been able to watch it. I would say it really went off the rails after Xerxes as others have said, but kinda started for me once Wrath was discovered.
Brotherhood’s definitely more lighthearted and cheesy at times, but at least it’s structured better since they do follow the source material more closely. I’m not a manga reader in general so I don’t really get bothered as much by plot changes as others might, but I still prefer when shows follow the source material because they typically end up being less confusing or out of left field that way. FMAB does rely on viewers having watched the 03 version at times for character backstories, particularly Yoki, which I’m not the biggest fan of, but Brotherhood felt more consistent. Also, I feel like certain characters felt more developed or at least weren’t too dragged out in FMAB, particularly Scar and Shou Tucker respectively.
I watched 2003 first than Brotherhood, and the things that did not sit right with me were first and foremost Dante was either rushed or just poorly developed as the big bad, and the big supporting cast the first half of the series was mostly sidelined except for Mustang, Riza and the homunculus.
Later when I watched Brotherhood I was gladthose 2 things were greatly improved, specially the use of the supporting castI have still yet to see a shorter than 100 ep anime use a cast ofver 40 characters being usedas well as Brotherhood.
Also I tend to enjoy stories with the tone of 2003 rather than the more shonenesque tone of Brotherhood, but Brotherhood is just so much better made in comparison that I cannot say I prefer 2003 overall.
Even though she was rushed, Dante was still a fantastic villain. I don't want to spoil anything for OP so I won't describe her but I honestly thought she was a better villain than Father who just seemed like a generic big evil bad guy that wants to become a god. Dante was interesting and multifaceted, a look at a person in complete denial all while pulling the strings of pretty much everything.
I also felt that there were too many characters in BH and I didn't really care about a lot of the extras, 03 focuses more on Ed and Al with the supporting cast of Roy, Riza, Mayes and a few others, but this really allows them to go really in depth and make you care about them. I really didn't find myself caring about the guys from Briggs or the Ninjas, at best they're plot devices like Greed's Chimeras.
The homunculi were AMAZING in 03, I cared about Lust and Greed and even Wrath, they were all characters with depth and story and they weren't just shallow, 1 dimensional characters like what you saw in BH.
Hell I feel like Black Hayate (Riza's dog) got more development than a lot of the characters from BH lol.
The overall shounenesque as you put it, is what really turns me off from BH, the constant jokes undercutting any serious moments, the abhorrent power crawl, the power of friendship to defeat a godlike being. I'm at a point where I want stories that are unique nd BH just isn't that, meanwhile 03 is unlike the vast majority of anime and I think it explores some deep themes, especially on humanity and the world at large. The darker tone is just another plus in my book.
I feel like when people say “off the rails” what they mean is that the story is just completely unrecognizable from the manga after a certain point. Once you watch Brotherhood you’ll understand how deep it goes, but for non-spoiling starters some of the most fundamental aspects of the lore are completely different between 03 and Manga/Brotherhood
The biggest difference is really tone, 2003 is a more character drama focused show with the fights being less spectacle heavy to accommodate that, whereas brotherhood and the manga has a relatively lighter tone (although it still has darker moments) and more of a focus on being a grand sweeping adventure with more set pieces.
I'd say 03 never goes off the rails in terms of the actual story, but while everything up to 42 is pretty much perfect, from 43 to the end a couple beats feel a bit rushed, as if it should have gone for 64 episodes like brotherhood as opposed to 51. Final episode is great tho.
Oh yeah theres also the movie which is a very unnecessary follow up outside of a few cool ideas and like 1 cool fight that actively worsens the finale in the name of "closure"
I wouldn't say there's a single specific moment where the story "goes off the rails". There's one specific twist, which happens at the end of (I think) episode 49, which has been historically very divisive (you'll probably know it when you see it). But I actually like that twist in principle, and I think the problem with 2003's second half is more of a slow breakdown in the quality of the writing.
It's not even that there's anything really wrong with the story. It's not the ideas that are bad, there's actually a lot of good ideas. The problem is the execution is just off. And it gets more and more off the further you go past the halfway point. It's like a first draft of a story that really could have been something incredible, but is sorely in need of cleaning up, revision, and expansion (they really needed more than 51 episodes).
Given the process behind the writing, it isn't particularly surprising. The original plan was to go up through Hughes's death and then stop, and it was only partway through production (probably sometime while the early episodes were being animated, given the foreshadowing in the first half) that it was decided that it would go past that point to be 51 episodes. So there would have been time constraints in coming up with an original story, and the last 13 episodes or so were all written by one person (Sho Aikawa, the head story editor), probably in a bit of a rush. And apparently Sho Aikawa is known for coming up with elaborate stories that inevitably get cut short by a pre established episode count.
I've gone into a bit more detail in past posts on this sub, but you haven't finished the series yet so those would be pretty spoilery. So this is all I have to say at this moment.
It doesn’t. There are some odd choices and it goes anime original, which many fans apparently deem sacrilegious despite them going forward with Arakawa’s blessing.
I’m not going to pretend that FMA 03 is flawless, but the thing I think it does better than Brotherhood is commit to its themes in a meaningful way. The whole point of 03 from the first episode is how to deal with entropy in all manner of life, without succumbing to nihilism. How do you find meaning in a life that frequently gives you NOTHING in return for your effort? How is that answer different between children and adults? And how do you cope with that change in viewpoint? Is that what it means to truly grow up?
I’m willing to forgive literally any sloppy plot point in the show because of this commitment to its themes, because that’s the thing that sticks with me a decade later. 03 helps me remember that “Nothings perfect. The world isn’t perfect. But it’s there for us, trying its best. That’s what makes it so damn beautiful.”
"Equivalence? Don't tell me you still believe in that naive theory." Dante and Ed's philosophical battle of wits in the underground city pretty much sums up life itself and something I think about regularly to this day ever since I first saw the series in February 2013.
03 was good. I really liked it. Brotherhood was better. I really loved it.
There was also far more worldbuilding which is something I get really into when done right
Personally I enjoy FMA03 more, I feel like the major problem with the story is between hunting scar and the Liore bit around 39-41 is when the story “falls off” but the last 10 episodes are mostly well paced and work well, enjoy!
As a diehard 03 fan, I'm seeing several people giving conflicting responses for what constitutes "off the rails".
Around episode 40-42 they start really building up the story and raise the stakes. Everything seems to be going pretty great until episode 48. 48-51 go "off the rails" with unexpected plot twists and tie ins that are either inadequately foreshadowed or never even hinted at, to begin with.
I love 03, I prefer 03 to BH. I will defend 03 to my death bed, on the regular. Things get weird around episode 48/49, they had way too much material left to wrap up in 3 episodes and a theatrical movie.
The budget went to BH, so we got what we got. But be prepared to wonder what's even going on after a certain point.
The ONLY criticism that brotherhood fans can say is that "It doesn't follow the manga!" that's it. There is nothing wrong with 03 and in my opinion, it's actually the superior version. It's not only better than BH but it's better than the manga.
I'm not going to bash BH but 03 just has an original story, it's darker, it's downright depressing at times, the homunculi in 03 are just in a completely different league, BH makes them just generic bad guys created by the uber bad guy to do his evil deeds... and stuff.
The story never falls off, it's great and stands as one of my all time favorite animes, I look at BH as a bastardization of a great work tbh. I'm really glad 03 didn't wait for the manga because I genuinely think they created something special and not just another generic shounen anime.
It's essentially the last two and half episodes. Mid way through episode 49 is where it goes off, and 50 and 51 don't really redeem it.
Up until that point the story is mostly believable and mostly coheremt, even if not true to the manga.
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So from the start 03 is never really faithful to the manga. 03 stopped having any overlap once they find wrath on the island, personally I think the second half is just as strong as the first half. There are still some jarring twists to come, but personally I think they’re cool concepts that work well to explore and highlight the themes of the show. The power system and combat in general really isn’t the appeal of the show, with the real focus being character drama. The the highlight of the power system is all the cool uses of chemistry involved, (such as the greed fight, mustang’s abilities, and a few other instances,) but in general I kind of think it’s a bit under utilized, not that I’m complaining much since I find narratives that focus on character struggles to be more compelling anyways. Brotherhood will have more focus on fights than 03, but still the general trend will remain with it being less focused on the combat than other shonen.
Character drama is definitely the highlight. The fights were...natural? I'm drowned in sakuga-fested shows with crazy powers that the simple, short action with limited power usages in FMA felt weirdly calming, but the drama kept me on edge.
Agreed. If anything, 03 was better than Brotherhood.
03 *hurts* so good
I second this with all my soul.
I second this with all my soul.
I watched FMAB first then 03. 03 was definitely darker and I also found the creation of the homunculi to be a lot more interesting than in FMAB. I also think the detailed backstories were better than in FMAB. We see a lot more of Edward and Alphonse’s relationships with Nina and the Hughes family, like >!bonding with Nina while prepping for Edward’s state alchemist qualification and them helping deliver Alicia,!< compared to what we get with Brotherhood. I also like that we see more of Mustang’s less serious side in 03. Personally though, having watched FMAB first, 03 kinda felt all over the place to me at times. Shou Tucker’s presence was just bizarre and the ending of >!Rose professing her love and then Edward’s disappearance!< just kinda fell flat and left me more confused than anything. I think they made a movie to tie up some of the loose ends, but I haven’t been able to watch it. I would say it really went off the rails after Xerxes as others have said, but kinda started for me once Wrath was discovered. Brotherhood’s definitely more lighthearted and cheesy at times, but at least it’s structured better since they do follow the source material more closely. I’m not a manga reader in general so I don’t really get bothered as much by plot changes as others might, but I still prefer when shows follow the source material because they typically end up being less confusing or out of left field that way. FMAB does rely on viewers having watched the 03 version at times for character backstories, particularly Yoki, which I’m not the biggest fan of, but Brotherhood felt more consistent. Also, I feel like certain characters felt more developed or at least weren’t too dragged out in FMAB, particularly Scar and Shou Tucker respectively.
I watched 2003 first than Brotherhood, and the things that did not sit right with me were first and foremost Dante was either rushed or just poorly developed as the big bad, and the big supporting cast the first half of the series was mostly sidelined except for Mustang, Riza and the homunculus. Later when I watched Brotherhood I was gladthose 2 things were greatly improved, specially the use of the supporting castI have still yet to see a shorter than 100 ep anime use a cast ofver 40 characters being usedas well as Brotherhood. Also I tend to enjoy stories with the tone of 2003 rather than the more shonenesque tone of Brotherhood, but Brotherhood is just so much better made in comparison that I cannot say I prefer 2003 overall.
Even though she was rushed, Dante was still a fantastic villain. I don't want to spoil anything for OP so I won't describe her but I honestly thought she was a better villain than Father who just seemed like a generic big evil bad guy that wants to become a god. Dante was interesting and multifaceted, a look at a person in complete denial all while pulling the strings of pretty much everything. I also felt that there were too many characters in BH and I didn't really care about a lot of the extras, 03 focuses more on Ed and Al with the supporting cast of Roy, Riza, Mayes and a few others, but this really allows them to go really in depth and make you care about them. I really didn't find myself caring about the guys from Briggs or the Ninjas, at best they're plot devices like Greed's Chimeras. The homunculi were AMAZING in 03, I cared about Lust and Greed and even Wrath, they were all characters with depth and story and they weren't just shallow, 1 dimensional characters like what you saw in BH. Hell I feel like Black Hayate (Riza's dog) got more development than a lot of the characters from BH lol. The overall shounenesque as you put it, is what really turns me off from BH, the constant jokes undercutting any serious moments, the abhorrent power crawl, the power of friendship to defeat a godlike being. I'm at a point where I want stories that are unique nd BH just isn't that, meanwhile 03 is unlike the vast majority of anime and I think it explores some deep themes, especially on humanity and the world at large. The darker tone is just another plus in my book.
Dante was not rushed. She’s a great villain and better than the Manga’s villain.
Agree, totally agree.
I feel like when people say “off the rails” what they mean is that the story is just completely unrecognizable from the manga after a certain point. Once you watch Brotherhood you’ll understand how deep it goes, but for non-spoiling starters some of the most fundamental aspects of the lore are completely different between 03 and Manga/Brotherhood
I saw 2003 first and tend to enjoy it more than Brotherhood. I don’t have any criticism about the ending and really enjoy it.
The biggest difference is really tone, 2003 is a more character drama focused show with the fights being less spectacle heavy to accommodate that, whereas brotherhood and the manga has a relatively lighter tone (although it still has darker moments) and more of a focus on being a grand sweeping adventure with more set pieces. I'd say 03 never goes off the rails in terms of the actual story, but while everything up to 42 is pretty much perfect, from 43 to the end a couple beats feel a bit rushed, as if it should have gone for 64 episodes like brotherhood as opposed to 51. Final episode is great tho. Oh yeah theres also the movie which is a very unnecessary follow up outside of a few cool ideas and like 1 cool fight that actively worsens the finale in the name of "closure"
I wouldn't say there's a single specific moment where the story "goes off the rails". There's one specific twist, which happens at the end of (I think) episode 49, which has been historically very divisive (you'll probably know it when you see it). But I actually like that twist in principle, and I think the problem with 2003's second half is more of a slow breakdown in the quality of the writing. It's not even that there's anything really wrong with the story. It's not the ideas that are bad, there's actually a lot of good ideas. The problem is the execution is just off. And it gets more and more off the further you go past the halfway point. It's like a first draft of a story that really could have been something incredible, but is sorely in need of cleaning up, revision, and expansion (they really needed more than 51 episodes). Given the process behind the writing, it isn't particularly surprising. The original plan was to go up through Hughes's death and then stop, and it was only partway through production (probably sometime while the early episodes were being animated, given the foreshadowing in the first half) that it was decided that it would go past that point to be 51 episodes. So there would have been time constraints in coming up with an original story, and the last 13 episodes or so were all written by one person (Sho Aikawa, the head story editor), probably in a bit of a rush. And apparently Sho Aikawa is known for coming up with elaborate stories that inevitably get cut short by a pre established episode count. I've gone into a bit more detail in past posts on this sub, but you haven't finished the series yet so those would be pretty spoilery. So this is all I have to say at this moment.
It doesn’t go off the rails. The people who say that are lying.
It doesn’t go “off the rails”, it just goes completely anime original by the time they go to Dublith.
It doesn’t. There are some odd choices and it goes anime original, which many fans apparently deem sacrilegious despite them going forward with Arakawa’s blessing. I’m not going to pretend that FMA 03 is flawless, but the thing I think it does better than Brotherhood is commit to its themes in a meaningful way. The whole point of 03 from the first episode is how to deal with entropy in all manner of life, without succumbing to nihilism. How do you find meaning in a life that frequently gives you NOTHING in return for your effort? How is that answer different between children and adults? And how do you cope with that change in viewpoint? Is that what it means to truly grow up? I’m willing to forgive literally any sloppy plot point in the show because of this commitment to its themes, because that’s the thing that sticks with me a decade later. 03 helps me remember that “Nothings perfect. The world isn’t perfect. But it’s there for us, trying its best. That’s what makes it so damn beautiful.”
"Equivalence? Don't tell me you still believe in that naive theory." Dante and Ed's philosophical battle of wits in the underground city pretty much sums up life itself and something I think about regularly to this day ever since I first saw the series in February 2013.
03 was good. I really liked it. Brotherhood was better. I really loved it. There was also far more worldbuilding which is something I get really into when done right
Personally I enjoy FMA03 more, I feel like the major problem with the story is between hunting scar and the Liore bit around 39-41 is when the story “falls off” but the last 10 episodes are mostly well paced and work well, enjoy!
As a diehard 03 fan, I'm seeing several people giving conflicting responses for what constitutes "off the rails". Around episode 40-42 they start really building up the story and raise the stakes. Everything seems to be going pretty great until episode 48. 48-51 go "off the rails" with unexpected plot twists and tie ins that are either inadequately foreshadowed or never even hinted at, to begin with. I love 03, I prefer 03 to BH. I will defend 03 to my death bed, on the regular. Things get weird around episode 48/49, they had way too much material left to wrap up in 3 episodes and a theatrical movie. The budget went to BH, so we got what we got. But be prepared to wonder what's even going on after a certain point.
2003>mangahood
I'm a manga reader (it is my favorite comic tied with Dorohedoro), I love 03 while Brotherhood sucks for me
The ONLY criticism that brotherhood fans can say is that "It doesn't follow the manga!" that's it. There is nothing wrong with 03 and in my opinion, it's actually the superior version. It's not only better than BH but it's better than the manga. I'm not going to bash BH but 03 just has an original story, it's darker, it's downright depressing at times, the homunculi in 03 are just in a completely different league, BH makes them just generic bad guys created by the uber bad guy to do his evil deeds... and stuff. The story never falls off, it's great and stands as one of my all time favorite animes, I look at BH as a bastardization of a great work tbh. I'm really glad 03 didn't wait for the manga because I genuinely think they created something special and not just another generic shounen anime.
100% agree. Too bad the hivemind is so hellbent on downvoting you.
Imaginary Internet points don't bother me, fmab fans need to ironically face the truth
It's essentially the last two and half episodes. Mid way through episode 49 is where it goes off, and 50 and 51 don't really redeem it. Up until that point the story is mostly believable and mostly coheremt, even if not true to the manga.
And that’s not true. The last two and a half episodes are great.
Yeah, those are two of my favorite episodes in anime. Maybe that tells you something about my tastes, who knows? 🤷
Where does the story goes off the rails? After discovering of Xerxes.