The cover of the first Japanese manga volume featuring Alphonse and Edward Elric.
Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, literally "Alchemist of Steel"), is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of
Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is one of the most advanced scientific techniques known to man, the story follows the brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, who want to restore their bodies after a disastrous failed attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy.
The manga was serialized in Square Enix's
Monthly Shōnen Gangan magazine (starting August 2001 and ending June 2010) and was collected in 27
tankōbon volumes. It was adapted into an animated television series of 51 episodes by Bones from October 4, 2003, to October 2, 2004, later followed by a film sequel that concluded the story of the anime.
Fullmetal Alchemist would later spawn a second series called
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which first premiered in Japan on April 5, 2009. Another feature film will follow the end of
Brotherhood. A multitude of spin-off novels, original video animations (OVAs), drama CDs, soundtracks, and video games have been adapted from the series. A collectible card game, multiple supplementary books, and a variety of action figures and other merchandise based on the characters of the series have also been released.
The manga has been licensed by Viz Media for publication in the United States, with twenty-three bound volumes released currently. Although there are no major differences with the Japanese version, some pages have been edited to avoid minor references to western theology. Funimation Entertainment has dubbed the anime episodes in the United States and Canada, and has also released them in all English-speaking DVD regions. The English version of the film premiered in a limited number of U.S. theaters on August 25, 2006, and was later released on DVD. Funimation and Destineer have also been releasing the video games from the series.
In Japan, the
Fullmetal Alchemist manga has enjoyed exceptional sales of 50 million volumes sold as of 2010. The English release of the manga's first volume was the top-selling graphic novel during the year 2005. In two TV Asahi web polls, the anime was voted #1 most popular anime of all time in Japan. It was nominated in six of the eight categories for which it was eligible at the American Anime Awards in February 2007, winning awards in five of them. Reviewers from several media generally had positive comments on the series.
Plot
Edward and Alphonse Elric are two alchemist brothers searching for the legendary catalyst called the Philosopher's Stone, a powerful object which would allow them to recover their bodies (which were lost in an attempt to bring their mother back to life through alchemy). Born in the village of Risembool from the country of Amestris
(アメストリス, Amesutorisu), the two brothers lived there with their mother. Their father, Van Hohenheim, left home for unknown reasons and years later, their mother Trisha Elric died of a terminal illness, leaving the Elric brothers alone. After their mother's death, Edward became determined to bring her back through the use of alchemy, an advanced science in which objects can be created from raw materials. They researched Human Transmutation, a forbidden art in which one attempts to create or modify a human being. However, this attempt failed, ultimately resulting in the loss of Edward's left leg, and Alphonse's entire body. In a desperate effort to save his brother, Edward sacrificed his right arm to affix Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor. Some days later, an alchemist named Roy Mustang visited the Elric brothers, and told Edward to become a member of the State Military of the country to find a way to recover their bodies. After that, Edward's left leg and right arm were replaced with automail, a type of advanced prosthetic limb, created for him by his close family friends Winry Rockbell and her grandmother Pinako.
Edward then became a State Alchemist
(国家錬金術師, Kokka Renkinjutsushi), an alchemist employed by the State Military of Amestris, which infamously annihilated most of the Ishbalan race (Ishbal) in the past decade. Becoming a State Alchemist enables Edward to use the extensive resources available to State Alchemists, but it also turns him into what many call a "dog of the military". His more friendly relationship with Mustang however, whom he reports to and who recruited him, allows the brothers freedom to search for the Philosopher's Stone as part of Edward's research, as each State Alchemist is expected to independently research new things which may be of a use to the State Military of Amestris. The brothers set off in search of the Philosopher's Stone as a means to restore their bodies. Throughout their journey, they meet many antagonists, including those who are willing to do anything to obtain the Philosopher's Stone; Scar, one of the few surviving Ishbalans, who seeks vengeance on the State Alchemists for the destruction of his race; and the homunculi, a group of human-like creatures who carry pieces of the Philosopher's Stone inside themselves, and from it derive the ability to survive almost any harm.
As the story progresses, Edward and Alphonse discover the vast expansion of Amestris was the result of the homunculi, who created and secretly control the State Military. The homunculi and much of the high-ranking military officers are commanded from behind the curtains by the creator of the homunculi, a man simply known as "Father", who gained immortality through a Philosopher's Stone, which he created by tricking Hohenheim centuries before the series' timeline. He plans to use Amestris as a gigantic transmutation circle in order to transmute the entire country for reasons unknown to the Elrics. When Edward and Alphonse discover Father's plans, they, along with other members of the State Military, set out to defeat him.
As the forces collide, one by one, the remaining homonculi are defeated and Central city's troops are enlightened about the truth of the situation. However, Father temporarily harvests all the souls in Amestris, numbering several million, and using that power traps "God" and gains immense power. However, due to Hohenheim's earlier actions, the souls are brought back to their bodies by their spirits, and Father becomes unstable. Everyone joins in to fight Father, forcing him to use more and more of his stone. He is finally defeated by Edward with his original arm, Al having sacrificed himself to bring it back. After Father is trapped within the Truth, revealed to be God, Ed sacrifices his ability to use alchemy to bring Al back in his original body. The Elrics return to Resembool, but two years later, they separate in order to repay the people who helped in their journey.
Differences in the first anime adaptation
The first half of the anime's plot basically follows that of the manga, but the plots severely diverge from each other near the middle of the story, when Ed and Al reunite with their teacher. A former lover of Hohenheim, the former mentor to their own teacher, Dante, acts as the series' main antagonist, appearing only in the anime. Centuries ago, the two perfected methods for making the Philosopher's Stone, achieving a sort of immortality by transferring their soul and intellect into others' bodies as they age. Hohenheim was eventually overcome by the guilt of sacrificing lives to make the Stone and left Dante. Although Dante is still able to jump from body to body with the last stone she and Hohenheim created, she does not possess the complete knowledge on how to make one. She uses the homunculi to spur Edward and Alphonse, along with other Alchemists equally desperate, into creating another complete Philosopher's Stone for her.
When Scar creates the Philosopher's Stone, he infuses the stone into Alphonse's metal body, making him the main focus of Dante's efforts leading to him being kidnapped. When Edward goes to rescue him, he is killed by the homunculus Envy. Alphonse uses the Philosopher's Stone to revive his brother but disappears in the process. Dante tries to escape, but she is killed when the homunculus Gluttony, whose mind she had earlier destroyed, fails to recognize his master. After being revived, Edward risks his life to bring back his brother in exchange. As a result, Edward ends up in a parallel world, while Alphonse recovers his original body. Determined to return to Alphonse, Edward becomes involved in rocketry research, with the intention to use that technology to try to get back to his home world.
The story is followed in the film
Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa situated two years after the end of the anime. While Edward is working in Germany to find a way to return to Amestris, Dietlinde Eckhart, a member from the Thule Society, discovers the existence of Ed's world and starts giving him hints to open a portal to Amestris. Alphonse, having been looking for his brother after two years, also discovers the portal and opens it at the same time as his father Hohenheim opens the one from Germany, allowing Dietlinde to enter Amestris and try to conquer it. Edward reunites with his brother and they join forces to defeat Dietlinde. Knowing the danger that both worlds are now connected through the portal, Edward returns to Germany to destroy that side of the portal, knowing that he would be trapped there forever. Alphonse secretly follows him, having decided to stay with Edward.
Production
After reading about the philosopher's stone, Arakawa said that she became attracted to the idea of using alchemy in the manga. She liked it so much that she started reading books relating to alchemy, which she found very complicated due to the fact that some books contradicted others. Arakawa was attracted more by the philosophical aspects than the practical aspects. For the Equivalent Exchange concept, she was inspired by the work of her parents who had a farm in Hokkaidō and always had to give all their effort in order to earn the money to eat.
Arakawa wanted to integrate social problems into the story. She gathered information watching news programs and talking to people, such as refugees, war veterans and former yakuza. Several plot elements expand on these themes, such as Pinako Rockbell caring for the Elric brothers after the death of their mother, and the brothers helping people all over the country, to gain an understanding of the meaning of family. When creating the fictional world of
Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa was inspired after reading about Europe during the Industrial Revolution period; she was amazed by how different the people from different countries were, in terms of their culture, architecture, and clothes. She was especially interested in England during this period and "added to it her own original flavor to turn it into a fantasy world."
When the manga began serialization, Arakawa had in mind how the story would end. As the plot continued, however, she felt some characters were maturing and decided to change some scenes, resulting in some sketches of the faces of the characters being improvised. In creating the characters' designs, she comments that the manga authors Suihō Tagawa and Hiroyuki Eto are her main inspirations, and describes her artwork as a mix of both of them. The easiest of the series characters for her to draw was Alex Louis Armstrong, as well as little animals. Due to the fact she likes dogs, Arakawa added several of them in the story. Arakawa made comedy central in the manga because she thinks it is intended for entertainment, and tried to minimalize focus on sad scenes.
When the number of manga chapters was around 40, Arakawa commented that as the series gets near the end, she will try to make story faster until getting to the conclusion. To avoid making chapters less entertaining than others, unnecessary details from each of them are removed and a climax is developed. The removal of minor information is also necessary since the number of pages that Arakawa has to work with in
Monthly Shōnen Gangan is not enough to cover all the storyline content she wants to add. For this, certain character's appearances were limited in some chapters.
During the development of the first anime, Arakawa allowed the anime staff to work independently from her, and requested having a different ending from the one in the manga. She said that she would not like to repeat the same ending in both media, as well as to make the manga longer to work more in the development of the characters. When watching the ending of the anime, she was amazed about how different the homunculi creatures were from the manga and enjoyed how the staff speculated about the origins of the villains. As Arakawa also helped the Bones staff in the making of the series, she was kept busy from focusing on the manga's cover illustrations and had little time to make them.
Media
Manga
Written and drawn by Hiromu Arakawa, the
Fullmetal Alchemist manga series is serialized in Square Enix's monthly manga magazine
Monthly Shōnen Gangan. It has been serialized since
Monthly Shōnen Gangan's August 2001 issue (published on July 12, 2001) and has been completed with chapter 108 marking an end to the series, as of June 2010. A side-story to the series will appear in the October issues of Monthly Shōnen Gangan on September 11, 2010. Square Enix collected in 28
tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on January 22, 2002, with the last one released on November 22, 2010. A few chapters have been rereleased in Japan in two "Extra number" magazines and
Fullmetal Alchemist, The First Attack, which features the first nine chapters of the manga as well as other side stories. Viz Media is releasing the manga in North America. The first volume was released on May 3, 2005, and the latest volume they have released is volume 23 in July 2010.
The content of the manga released by Viz in the United States were mostly consistent with the original material. As of August 2007, the only edits that have been made were to a set of twelve panels from volume 8, depicting the homunculus Greed tied to a cross-shaped stone slab in crucifixion style. In the U.S. version the stone was redesigned to become round in each panel, as commented by Viz to avoid references to Christianity. This change in the manga was made with the approval of Arakawa.
In Singapore, the manga is being published by Chuang Yi. Publishing in both English and Simplified Chinese, nineteen volumes have been released in English, while twenty-one volumes have been released in Simplified Chinese. In Poland, Japonica Polonica Fantastica is publishing the manga - as of January 2010, eighteen volumes have been released. In France, the manga is being released by Kurokawa. Volume eight, released in September 2006, was available also in a collector's edition, which consisted of the book packed with the original comedic novel
Flame Alchemist, focusing on Roy Mustang's schedule. Prior to this, this novel was only available with the limited edition of volume six in Japan. In Brazil, Editora JBC is publishing the manga with forty-four volumes equivalent to the first original twenty-two volumes having been released currently. In Italy, the manga is published by Panini Comics using the label "Planet Manga".
Anime series
Fullmetal Alchemist
The animation studio Bones adapted the manga into a 51-episode anime series. It was directed by Seiji Mizushima, written by Shō Aikawa and co-produced by Bones, Mainichi Broadcasting System and Aniplex. Character designs were handled by Yoshiyuki Itō. The anime was broadcast on Mainichi Broadcasting System, TBS, and Animax in Japan from October 4, 2003 to October 2, 2004, with a 6.8 percent television viewership rating. The English dubbed version of the anime was produced by Funimation and debuted on the Adult Swim block of the United States cable channel Cartoon Network on November 6, 2004. A year and a half later, Canada's YTV began airing it on March 3, 2006. The anime's later story and conclusion by Bones is different from the manga due to a request by Arakawa. During the making of the anime, Arakawa was present in meetings to give the staff insight into the world of
Fullmetal Alchemist, though she did not actively take part in any writing for the TV series.
The series has been released in a series of thirteen DVDs from December 17, 2003 to January 26, 2005 in Japan. Funimation Entertainment also released the same series of DVDs from February 8, 2005 to September 12, 2006 in the United States. MVM had released the first eight volumes in the United Kingdom; however, Funimation gave the rights over to Revelation Films.
A film sequel,
Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, was produced by the same studio, and premiered in Japanese theaters on July 23, 2005. A series of five original video animations (OVAs) were also released. The majority of these OVAs are side stories and do not expand on the plot. These OVAs also include a live action segment with Alphonse Elric travelling around a city. In March 2006 a DVD featuring these OVAs was released in Japan with the name of
Fullmetal Alchemist: Premium Collection. Funimation acquired and dubbed
Premium Collection during the end of 2008 for English release. The DVD was released in English on August 4, 2009. During January 2009, Bones released a "DVD box archives" of the anime. It includes the first anime of 51 episodes, the film, the CD soundtracks, and guidebooks from the series.
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
In the 20th volume of the manga, creator Arakawa announced that a second
Fullmetal Alchemist anime series was being produced. Bones produces the new series with Yasuhiro Irie as director and Hiroshi Ōnogi as writer. The title of the series is also
Fullmetal Alchemist in the Japanese version, although as
Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Furumetaru Arukemisuto, abbreviated as 鋼の錬金術師FA) to differentiate it from the 2003 series. The series premiered on April 5, 2009, on MBS-TBS's Sunday 5:00 pm JST anime timeblock, replacing
Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and voice actors Romi Park and Rie Kugimiya reprised their roles as main characters Edward and Alphonse Elric respectively. Unlike the first anime which had an original story, the second series follows the story of the manga. On March 20, 2009, it was announced that the English title of the series was
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and that it would receive its English language premiere on Animax Asia, with Japanese audio and English subtitles, on April 10, 2009, at 8:30 p.m, five days after its Japanese premiere. Aniplex started releasing the series in Blu-ray and DVD on August 26, 2009, with each of them containing two episodes.
On April 3, 2009, Funimation announced it would stream English subtitled episodes four days after they air in Japan. Madman Entertainment will also stream it "within days" of the episodes airing in Japan. Funimation later suspended the release of new episodes of the series for a few weeks due to an incident involving an episode of
One Piece being uploaded before it had aired in Japan. However, the episodes are now back on the Funimation website as well as on the official Funimation channel on Youtube. In September 2009, Funimation announced the cast for an English dub of the series. Starting February 13, 2010, the English dub of the series can now be seen on Adult Swim. Following the last episode's ending, an announcement was shown regarding a new
Fullmetal Alchemist film. A teaser trailer began streaming in November 2010 in the
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood official site, confirming that a movie entitled
Fullmetal Alchemist: Milos no Sei naru Hoshi (鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST 嘆きの丘(ミロス)の聖なる星, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Furumetaru Arukemisuto: Mirosu no Sei naru Hoshi) will be open throughout Japan next summer, July 2011. It will be directed by Kazuya Murata, while the script will be by Yūichi Shinpo.
Light novels
A series of six
Fullmetal Alchemist Japanese light novels, written by Makoto Inoue, have been published by Square Enix. The novels are licensed for an English-language release by Viz Media in North America, with translations by Alexander O. Smith. Although Arakawa did not write the novels, she did illustrations for them, including covers and frontispieces. The novels are spin-offs of the manga series and follow the Elric brothers on their continued quest for the Philosopher's Stone. The first novel,
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Land of Sand, was animated as the episodes eleven and twelve of the anime series. The fourth novel also contains an extra story about the military called "Roy's Holiday". Novelizations of three of the PlayStation 2 games,
Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel,
Curse of the Crimson Elixir, and
The Girl Who Surpasses God—have also been written. The first was authored by Makoto Inoue and the rest by Jun Eishima.
