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FMA remake's rockin' it out

Or is it?

--Mild Spoilers--

The point of the remake is to basically make an anime that follows the manga, or so it is currently shaping up to be, even though the first fan-service packed episode never happened in the manga... ever.

My impressions on the show can be split into its visual aspects, audio aspects, and story aspects.

Visually, the animation (the moving of the characters) is high-quality, and the fight scene in the first episode on top of the ice wave was cool... Until Isaac fell off. I facepalmed at the unimaginative animation there. Anyhow, while the movement of the characters is top-notch, the drawings themselves seem less stunning. The lines aren't as well drawn, and I cannot STAND that stupid "Lines in the hair are yellow!! " shit. Proportion also seems to vary too much, and I mean in a bad, unprofessional way, not in a funny, chibi way. Armstrong isn't as intimidatingly MASSIVE in the episode as he is in the original series, or the manga. It's purely average visually, which I suppose I can stand.

Audio-wise, the music is good, and I loved the first FMA's music. The voices? I like them all (It's a good thing they got the same actors to reprise the Elrics, it would suck without it. Even though the whole first episode was fan service, when I first heard the voices again even I was like "OMG AWESOME") EXCEPT... Except. Mustang's. It's so similar it's almost hard to miss, but it's missing that authoritative and staccato -presence- that the original mustang had. The fact that his eyes are also too prominent (a thing I'm noticing in most of the animation, period. It's annoying.) may contribute. I'm on the fence on Hawkeye and Winry - we'll see.

Story-wise, the first episode was HORRID - it was purely fanservice. Thus, I'm going to pretend it didn't happen. Everything was rushed and crazy and scatter-brained. There's a reason the manga and the original series started with the Lior incident. It's the perfect beginning to a story - intruiging, with a hint of mystery, introducing many, many themes that play out through the rest of the story, and framing the main characters very well. When the first serious prominent lines out of Ed's mouth are him eerily describing the human body and venerating science in his cocky slouch in a church, you really feel the gut of the character. That's missing in this new series. Now, since I already KNOW the character, I'm not missing out, but anyone who watched this first would be. The second episode was also rushed, and I feel that their backstory should not be revealed this much until later... It's just like when you get to know a person. You see who they are through their actions now, and later they tell you their past, and their hopes for the future. It's very personal - when you meet a character like that in a story, they seem more real.

I'm currently watching the third episode, where they finally get to Lior. We'll see how they handle it.

As a final note, I'm not an anime or manga-hater, I like BOTH storylines, I think the first anime was a resounding success, and I keep up with the manga as well. I hope this anime isn't run into the ground by shoddy visuals or writing.