Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (TV Series) Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2009) User Reviews

The Start of the Journey

[injury-65447 · 8/10 · 3 June 2020]

I don't watch anime really but I wanted to give this a go based on the high rating.

At first I was confused thinking this couldn't possibly be the first episode. It feels more like a climactic finale. We are shown a bunch of characters and a system of alchemy that seems pretty fully formed already. There is plenty of action and a potentially city destroying frozen alchemical ice mass. It's all extremely epic in scope.

There are little bits of exposition here and there but I still feel pretty confused about what is actually going on. I know I'm missing many details about how things came to be this way. I have to say I'm intrigued and I don't know if this first episode is just designed to throw you in the deep end (for excitement) and then following episodes will give the backstory or if every episode will be this crazy. At the moment I just feel breathless and scratching my head.

I love the mix of humour and action - comedy and drama - but we get it, he doesn't like being called little, that was a bit overdone.

Anyway - I'm definitely intrigued and the animation is glorious so it has piqued my interest!

Decent beginning

[miguelweidlich · 7/10 · 4 December 2018]

A perfectly decent episode. It got great action, good humor and introduces most of the characters in a good way, but what makes this episode not be that great it's the fact that is made whit assuming that you watched the original series. So we got a overload of informations for newcomers, and that makes things a little confusing, but it still got all the good characters that made this series popular, so it's a good enough beginning

Not a good start, but a good episode.

[nucleus-24718 · 7/10 · 19 March 2022]

I just started watching this show cause I was bored and I decided to review every episode cause.... idk. This show is highly addicting for me now.

Now this episode is a bad opener, but like me it got me excited to see how this world and characters worked. It doesn't explain much no matter how much exposition it has. It doesn't really hook me with the characters only makes me interested.

On superficial elements its really good. The intro is a banger, the character designs look really good, and the animation is just good maybe great.

This episode suceeds at making me interested, but is just generic. It spends most of its time on setting up plot threads for future episodes. Its funni tho

Good 7.5/10.

Fullmetal action

[Ali-hamza-re · 10/10 · 21 October 2014]

This episode start with no boring detail of villain past history. Start with action and thriller which make the episode great and great villain entry all episode is so amazing you never get bored for one second. Well you may get confuse for moment what is happening you have to watch first 3 episode of Fullmetal Alchemist and then watch the brotherhood you will understand clearly. The all series is amazing. With awesome animation and character and the voice of dub version is so good. It has GOD material in it(Religious). Which is awesome and you change your view point of Religious. It is the best show and if you love anime than watch this little masterpiece and learn something about your point of view seeing the world. Thanks for Reading

A good season2episode1, A bad beginner

[babkevich_andrey · 6/10 · 28 July 2020]

This episode is beautifully animated, the alley scene with Bradley and the black&white was incredible, and the score is perfect. Lapis philosophorum and Trisha's lullaby are the most beautiful Latin songs I've ever heard on TV. But the problem is that the show doesn't want to spend time explaining what alchemy is, explain the setting or the characters. It wants you to love the characters beforehand (watch original FMA y'all, it was great, though a bit poorly animated). But if you didn't watch the original show, you will not get anything. This episode is just a bunch of strangers doing some kind of magic (for people who haven't watched the original obviously). I personally did watch, and I loved this episode because I love the original, but yesterday I showed THIS to my mum (She likes anime, Guess she's a lady of culture:)). And you guess what - she didn't get anything, overloaded with information and characters, she already wanted to drop the show on the first episode, but luckily she liked the second one (but it was rushed too, again, original was better in character introduction). Overall, it's good for a fan, but cruel with new audience, and it won't get better, unfortunately. This show does as many things in 10 episodes as the original did in 20, and did them better, so if you Do want to enjoy The Fullmetal alchemist as an idea, philosophy and just the best anime ever created, watch FMA 2003 first, and then come back to Brotherhood.

Poorly disguised infodump

[kallelandell · 1/10 · 30 September 2018]

I wrote some stuff here that I have learned later to be a misunderstanding. Brotherhood is not the continuation of the 2003 anime. It's more of a remake, and it's based on the Manga, which wasn't finished when they made the 2003 version.

That being said, I much prefer the 2003 version this far. The first episode still feel like an infodump. 2003 started out much better, with actual story and not just infodumping.

Brotherhood is highly rated by many though, so I will continue watching as I anticipate it will get a lot better.