Most of the anime series currently in release, let's be honest, are basically toy commercials. The characters are just kids playing with toys, showing the viewers how the games work, showing how much fun the game is, and whipping in repetitious plugs for game expansion packs.
This magical adventure is a rare exception and a rare gem. The complex fictional frame has no other purpose than to provide a background for a brilliant and moving tale that combines the fantastic with dark human tragedy and indomitable brotherly love. Two teenage brothers, prodigies in the 'science' of alchemy, travel in the name of the state, looking for the philosopher's stone. The stone can amplify an alchemist's power, making it the object of both evil and noble ambitions. The brothers themselves want the stone to restore their bodies, one damaged, the other lost - his soul now inhabits an empty suit of armor - in an ill- advised effort to employ alchemy to raise their dead mother. Along the way, they meet an assortment of practitioners who use and more often abuse their power. This first instalment in the series was so interesting, so emotionally involving and so just plain different from so much current anime that I could not wait to get to the next disc.
Highly recommended.
This magical adventure is a rare exception and a rare gem. The complex fictional frame has no other purpose than to provide a background for a brilliant and moving tale that combines the fantastic with dark human tragedy and indomitable brotherly love. Two teenage brothers, prodigies in the 'science' of alchemy, travel in the name of the state, looking for the philosopher's stone. The stone can amplify an alchemist's power, making it the object of both evil and noble ambitions. The brothers themselves want the stone to restore their bodies, one damaged, the other lost - his soul now inhabits an empty suit of armor - in an ill- advised effort to employ alchemy to raise their dead mother. Along the way, they meet an assortment of practitioners who use and more often abuse their power. This first instalment in the series was so interesting, so emotionally involving and so just plain different from so much current anime that I could not wait to get to the next disc.
Highly recommended.