Sorry about lack of a post yesterday, I was drowning in work AND not feeling well. But still, I should have tried to have SOMETHING. Even something really easy, like, say, the thing I have for you today.
Anyway, for today, I found this amusing. For those unfamiliar with it, Mark Watches is a website where Mark Oshiro watches TV shows (suggested by readers) that he's never seen before, one episode at a time, knowing nothing about them in advance, and posts a review of each episode before moving to the next. It is highly amusing, sort of a communal version of showing a friend something they've never seen before and watching their reaction.
He provides a one-line synopsis of each episode at the top of the review, and I thought the way his synopses of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (of which he has now watched the first season) changed over time (episodes not listed have actual synopses that briefly summarize the events of the episode):
Episode 1: "I understand very little of what I’ve just seen."
Episode 5: "I will not forget what y’all have made me watch."
Episode 10: "I am not going to forgive y’all for this."
Episode 14: "I am done with all of you. Just put that on my gravestone: MARK IS DONE WITH THE FMA:B FANDOM."
Episode 17: "I can’t even explain to y’all what happened because absolutely nothing about this makes any sense."
Episode 19: "It should be illegal to put this many plot twists in a single episode."
Episode 23: "WOW, EVERYTHING IS SUPER MESSED UP."
Episode 25: "The most discomforting part about all this is that there are so many
episodes left, which only means that this somehow gets worse."
Episode 26: "No."
I fully expect that by episode 45 or so he'll just be mashing the keyboard or spewing strings of curse words. Needless to say, he is enjoying the show quite a bit, and all of us are taking sadistic glee in his suffering.
I should give Brotherhood another try. I remember actually being disappointed in it after watching the "original" FMA anime, even though Brotherhood was more faithful to the manga. Then I watched the non-Brotherhood movie "Conquerors of Shamballa" and walked away from the entire franchise out of disgust.
ReplyDeleteHow far did you get when you watched the first time? Because the first half-season or so is a compressed retelling of the same events as the first season of the first anime, but then it goes off in a completely different (and in my opinion, vastly superior) direction after that. In particular I think it's got MUCH stronger characterization, and its treatment of women is much better (especially Winry).
DeleteI probably just didn't give it a fair chance. I'd read a couple spoilers, and was disappointed that my favorite plot twist from the original (the one about how homunculi are created) was going to be different... and I mistakenly assumed that the villain being called "father" was clumsy foreshadowing that he was going to turn out to be Hohenheim.
DeleteOf course, the fact that "Conquerors of Shamballa" doesn't happen in the Brotherhood timeline will probably make it better by default.