-Episode #1: Those Who Challenge.-
In this episode we have a brief flashback to Edward, and Alphonse Elric's past. We see them attempt to resurrect their dead mother back to life, with human transmutation. This episode starts with this flashback, and already, there's something wrong with the episode. When observing their human transmutation, the colour of the transmutation was mainly yellow, and had purple around the elements of the human being. From my knowledge, any transmutation, except when amplified with a Philosopher's Stone (red transmutation), should be blue. When Alphonse's body was being taken away, and Edward's left leg, they weren't being taken away by anything. There was no Eye Of Truth, that appeared during the transmutation either, and no small hands of truth. They didn't show Truth itself either, wearing Edward's leg like an old sock. They just imply, that both of his limbs are just gone. The entire house was glowing purple during the transmutation as well, for some strange reason. When all of the horror is over, a piece of the floor was gone. What? Truth needed to renovate his house or something? Scenario: "Honey, while you're out terrorizing our next victims, can you please get some Mahogany hard-wood flooring?". Roy Mustang is watching all of this happen, with a hat that looks strangely like a Pirate's hat. I'm assuming now, no, it's proof that Roy Mustang is a pirate! But why was he watching in the first place, he wasn't there that night. Anyways, enough of the flashback. Finally, we get to present day, we reach Edward, and Alphonse, frolicking through the desert. Which sadly never happened, in the manga they were already at the outdoor refreshment bar. This is their next destination regardless, they meet Lust here, which never happened. Rose then comes by running errands for Father Cornello, but why is here colour palette so wrong? She is not supposed to be tanned with pink, and brown hair. She is supposed to have a pale complexion, with Red and Black hair (more kick-ass, in my opinion). Instantly taking an interest to Ed, and Al. She takes them to see the "miracles" that Father Cornello performs, which he brings a dead bird back to life. WHOA! HOLD ON NOW! In this universe, people can't be resurrected, and animals too. Ignoring the laws of alchemy much? Later on, in the confrontation between the Elric brothers, and Cornello. He has the green bird attack them, and transmutes that bird in midair. Mind you this never happened, and the only thing that attacks Edward, is a chimera made of a lizard, and a lion, which was used in this episode also. Cue credits, episode 1 now finished.
-Episode #2: Body Of The Sanctioned.-
This episode continues the fight that they left off on. Ed, and Al escape in the cross-fire. We come to a scene where we are in a bedroom, with a silhouette behind the bed-sheets. This silhouette is supposedly Rose's "boyfriend". He may have promised Rose the resurrection of her dead boyfriend, but we never got to see an actual figure, or persona, keeping her in a suspension of disbelief (whole scene is not in manga). The next scene, the Elrics are being rioted by the townspeople, and are then thwarted by giant Leto statues, the result has Edward in jail (all of this never happened). We are now back to the room where Rose was peeking to see her "boyfriend", she then starts to doubt certain things, Father Cornello feels that she has seen too much, and orders the giant bird posing as her "boyfriend" to kill her, Cornello then leaves, locking the door behind him. Alphonse steps in, and saves Rose. Ed in jail has Cornello confess his plans to make the whole town of Liore his followers, which the whole town heard, because of a device Alphonse made. This scene was supposed to happen in Cornello's office, because Edward was not imprisoned, in the first place. Ed defeats Cornello in battle, and the Elrics leave the church, ready to depart from Liore. Rose confronts them, and seems angry, but in the manga she has a breakdown, cries and seemed pretty weak and defeated. They then leave Liore, and the townspeople are confused and angry, in the manga, they were supposed to riot, and ruin the town, but Envy quelled the fighting quite quickly in this anime. He was still supposed to be posing as Cornello, but telling certain people to fight, who were still in disbelief. One last small detail, is that Lust's dress was green in the anime, but is clearly pitch-black in the manga.
-Episode #3: Mother.-
This whole episode is a flashback, but a more in-depth one. They show the human transmutation again, so I'm not going to analyze that. As a gift for Winry, Ed, and Al made her a doll, using a transmutation circle. Normally, it takes a few seconds to make something using a transmutation, but for this one, IT WAS TAKING FOREVER! And since it was taking forever, the looks of the doll was slowly changing, scaring the crap out of Winry. After this fiasco, they have a mini time skip, and go to the part where the Rockbells were informed of the death of Winry's parents. She totally bitches Ed and Al out, which didn't happen. She was supposed to be sad, but still holding it together. Another mini time skip, we reach the point where Trisha Elric is very ill, and doesn't have much time left. They had her in bed lying down, sweaty, and pathetic. I was a little annoyed that they depicted her this way. She was supposed to put on a strong-front for her family, in order to not scare them, or worry them, for example, she would try to sit-up with a smile on her face. This was very brave of her, but they failed to depict her in this fashion. The next scene is human transmutation time, but like I said, since I already explained it in the first episode, you can refer to that. After ALL of that, we reach the scene where Roy Mustang comes to Pinako's house, where Ed, and Al now live. He came here on reports that the Elric brothers have performed a human transmutation, and feels that either of them have talent to become State Alchemists. This was a very harsh, and abrupt meeting, and in a way rude. Mustang should have had Riza Hawkeye with him, but they decided not to have her in this scene. I didn't like how they handled this scene, since it makes Mustang look like a cocky bastard, and they depict that Pinako hates Mustang. Also, Ed wasn't supposed to be asleep in this scene, he was in a wheelchair, in shock, concious, for the manga. It was supposed to be an intimate meeting with Hawkeye, and Mustang talking to the whole family, implying the start of new friendships, and new beginnings. After Roy left, Edward, and Al spar with their new bodies (Al's soul attached to a suit of armor, and Ed has an automail right arm, and left leg) the next day. During their little sparring match, Al states that he wants to become a State Alchemist, which is not true in the manga. At the end of the fight, Ed kicks Al into the water, which would never happen in the manga, because of the risk of his blood-seal washing off, way too careless in my opinion. You'd think that flash-back episodes would be off limits for adding artistic interpretation, but I guess not.
This is only the first 3 episodes that I've analyzed so far. As you can see, I'm comparing the Old FMA anime to the manga. I'm doing this in order to get rid of the confusion of why they're making Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. They made the old series super-inaccurate after about the first season of the old series, compared to the manga. I want you to watch and support Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, not just because it's more "manga accurate", but because it has better action, more humorous, and the real homunculi.
I thank my sister, for being my stenographer, when watching the old anime.
Also, please comment, and add suggestions to these posts. Thank You!
