Guys, when does this get better than FMA 2003?

Guys, when does this get better than FMA 2003?

I'm at the end of the 5th Lab arc and so far and it's all been pretty underwhelming in comparison. They cut out the hidden chimera scene on the Lior arc and made Rose a worthless character, the Nina arc felt rushed, the ending and aftermath of that were nowhere nearly as heartbreaking as 2003's. Also Hughes isn't getting that much screen time, even though he's supposed to be an important character who'll die later, and there's been a shit load of poorly-timed comedy moments that make the serious moments awkward to watch.

So far I feel like I'm watching a watered-down version of FMA instead of the "true" version like everyone says Brotherhood is. Am I being meme'd or something?

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it never does

At episode 2.

The first 10 or so episodes are rushed because they assumed most people already saw FMA 2003

They didn't cut out anything except a few unnecessary chapters in the beginning of the manga. You just feel like it because you've watched the 2003 version first. The 2003 ver had a lot of filler scenes even when it was still following the source material.

It doesn't get suddenly better, in a certain point. It'll gradually grow on you, trust me. It doesn't have 9.26 rating on MAL without a reason. But it's not like EVERYONE loves it.

You got trolled. Happens to the best of us. Now lurk more

The optimal viewing order is watch FMA through Episode 25, then immediately switch to FMA:B and start with Episode 1.

You have to put up with some fill and non-canon story bits in the original FMA, but it handles the character introductions and overall pacing up to a pivotal event much better than FMA:B (which condensed a lot of the story, assuming you'd seen FMA).

After ep. 25, FMA spins off into it's own original canon because the manga wasn't done and isn't worth watching.

Once FMA:B catches up to where you leave off FMA, it's pretty apparent that it's the better show overall.

Nope; the direction, music, and everything else was better in the first 25 episodes of FMA 2003 than in Brotherhood. This doesn't suddenly change after episode 25.

Alright, I just finished the Greed arc and it was a lot better than the previous ones. Though the main villain seems to be Hohenheim, or at least some dude who looks just like him.

I seriously hope that's not Hohenheim, this "evil father" thing has been done to death by this point.

>This doesn't suddenly change after episode 25.

Agreed. It's a slow build-up of nonsense as FMA's directionless plot keeps adding pieces of the real story without a cohesive ending in mind (or, at least, a terrible one). As I said, there are bit and pieces of their made-up story pre-25, but it starts to escalate from there with the introduction of Wrath.

25 is just the best cut-off. Makes for a great "series finale" and jumping-off point.

Thank you for saying 2003 is canon, at least. A lot of people don't understand that 2003 is just as canon as Brotherhood.

FMA '03 has a better first half while Brotherhood has a much better second half.

Both are worth watching, OP, keep going. Brotherhood really picks up and becomes god fucking tier from Greed's first appearance onwards.

Also worth noting that FMA:B's episode 10 is where it catches up to the events of FMA's episode 25 and immediately shifts gears from "recap speed" to slow down to more natural pacing.

>FMA's directionless plot keeps adding pieces

I thought you were taking about Brotherhood at first. There is no "real story" and unless you have an autistic interest in what the "real" work of complete fiction is Brotherhood doesn't have much to offer.

Yeah, it seems to be getting better. The last couple of episodes with Ed and Al's conflict and Hughes' death, even though he didn't have much presence in this show, were actually pretty good.

>There is no "real story"

The manga's story, which FMA closely adheres to until running out of material and spiraling off into OC Donut Steel Rose and Jew Alchemy.

Hughs is more relevant in Brotherhood after his death honestly.

Hohenheim is based dad.

It doesn't. 2003 was kino while BH was shounenshit trash. Women shouldn't be allowed to write.

>The manga's story

Didn't happen. Both Brotherhood and 2003 aren't any more real than the other. It's amazing how autists forget that and think that being "canon" automatically makes Brotherhood good.

One thing I loved about Brotherhood (all credit goes to the manga, of course, but props to them for doing it right) is the way they handled Bradley and his fights. Best fucking character and homunculus by a long shot.

Honestly the only arc of the 2003 anime I didn't like was the arc that introduced Izumi and Wrath. I felt it really slowed down there until the fight with Greed.

After that I felt it picked up again. I know a lot of people hated the big twist, but it didn't really bother me too much. Not saying it was great but I could live with it

Complete newfag,
I know that I will start a fight if I ask which one should I watch so instead I'm gonna ask whether should I watch both of them or not.

Watch both. They are both good for different reasons. The 03 version is more character focused with a darker storyline while Brotherhood is more epic in scope with bigger fights.

But if you only plan to watch brotherhood, watch the 2003 version up til ep 25 then switch over. Brotherhood is basically fastforward mode for the first 10 eps because it assumes you already watched the 03 version.

How about you just watch them before you get spoiled in this thread?
As the user earlier pointed out watch the OG FMA first till episode 25 then watch brotherhood from episode one to end.

This is horrible advice. Just one or the other or both. Watching half of both is retarded

Well I think his point is you miss out if you just watch brotherhood since as has been pointed out, the beginning of Brotherhood assumes you've already seen 03 and thus skips over/rushes through the stuff 03 covered before splitting off.

Honestly you should just watch both

Different user who's nearly finished Brotherhood, I had no problem with the pacing for the first few episodes. Perhaps it's only noticeable having seen 03 first?

I am planning on watching 03 next.

I recommend watching all of 03 first then watch brotherhood. Partially because of the aforementioned reasons but partially because Brotherhood has a happier ending than 03 so it may feel more satisfying to watch it second.

Its not that Brotherhood SKIPS stuff exactly, it just has a much faster pacing.
For instance, everything with Shou and Nina happens in like one episode in Brotherhood, while their story takes place over 3-4 episodes in the 03 version.

Perhaps because I knew what was going to happen, but I didn't mind that too much. I mean, surely everyone watching either version knows that Nina ends up as the chimera. The only new thing for me was finding out that she was killed by Scar pretty shortly afterwards. The Greed arc built up the impact of that for me, so I'm not sure how drawing out the arc could have changed for me.

But maybe my opinion will change once I watch 03.

HOLY SHIT MUSTANG KILLED ROSS WHAT THE FUCK

If you like characters, plot, and themes, you will prefer FMA 03.

If you like generic shounen garbage, you will like Brotherhood.

Neither one is necessarily better than the other.

This is just a subjective preference thing, but I thought the reveal scene was just better in the 03 version too.

But yeah, see for yourself

Also you and Do yourself a favor. Don't watch Conquerers of Shambala. It was pretty dumb IMO

It doesn't. Stop listening to literal 12 year olds at MAL and lurk more.
You fell for a meme friend.

The manga is the original story. The anime are just adaptations. Brotherhood is the true version of the story because it adapts the original plot. 2003 is non-canon past episode 25.

>It doesn't have 9.26 rating on MAL without a reason
>what is meme phenomenon

The taste of the plebians are shaped by consensus.

Oh, never mind.

>all this talk about plot and characters
>no one mentioning how the animation and art direction for 2003 mops the floor with FMAB

You'd think with a medium called "anime" you wouldn't have so many plebs not caring about the most basic of qualities of a visual medium.

Whether its "canon" doesn't really matter when its an different but official canon.

Both are canon. They are just separate canons.

You are trying to create a false equivalency between derivative works and their originals, and it just doesn't work that way. The manga was created first, it is the true story of FMA and the way the story was intended to be told by its creator. The anime adaptations were made to try to transfer that story into a different medium. 2003 anime ended up veering off and making its own original story that has nothing to do with Fullmetal Alchemist as written by its author. Hence it's not regarded as being relevant to the canon of FMA.

What are you even talking about
I mean thats just generally understood, not really much to debate about it unlike character interpretations.

Like the difference with THIS GUY between the two canons.

FMA 03 was actually created first (or finished first, rather), the manga was still a WIP at the time.
There is no fucking "true story". There are two stories. One is objectively better (FMA 03), one is preferred by retards like you with broken understandings of how storytelling works (manga).

Unless you are looking at religious texts, "canon" is a meaningless distinction.

It is its own canon. Its not canon to the manga or brotherhood, but it is a separate canon.

Sorta like the manga and the rebuild of evangelion are their own canons, but separate from the original anime. They are all "Canon" but they aren't a single canon.

I don't get what is so hard about this. Its not like the FMA author was against the 03 version. She encouraged it since she knew the manga was nowhere near finished and didn't want it to get bogged down by filler/canceled

Envy made Ross look like the one who killed Hughes, so she ended up getting arrested. Then Barry helped her get out of prison and while she was being chased around, she was eventually found by Mustang and apparently burned alive by him.

But that was actually a plan he came up with to fake her death in order to make the real murderer show himself.

>I mean thats just generally understood
Maybe I haven't being in these threads enough then, but I know at least MALfags and other places on the web almost never discuss animation and directing when talking about anime, especially when it comes to the Brotherhood camp in this debate. They have no problem with the bland pastel tones everywhere and utter lack of lighting and shading, as well as boring 1:1 adaptation of manga scenes.
Seriously every scene in Brotherhood has the same washed out look to it, in 2003 every scene has its own tones that match the situation at hand, this does wonders for emotional delivery.

And that fucking OST. I watched FMA2003 in 2009 just before Brotherhood started airing, and the visual/tone differences were staggering. I never got over it and rewatches of both shows did nothing to change my mind.

Oh, right right

Though you probably should have spoilered that since we have newfriends in the thread.

Yeah, I think its just generally accepted that the 03 version's animation and OST blow brotherhood out of the water, regardless of any other feelings between the two.

>FMA 03 was actually created first
You are retarded. Fullmetal Alchemist is a manga written by Hiromu Arakawa, it was not created by Bones. Are you literally this stupid? Bones adapted her manga. She is the author, it is her story. Anything not created by her is not actually true to the story and ergo not canon. That's how it works.

>There is no fucking "true story"
Yes there is. The one written by the person who created the story is the real one because it is her intellectual property. The one cobbled together by some anime script writers is derivative.

When people talk about FMA's setting and the events in it and how stuff works (like Alchemy) they refer to the manga's story, because only Arakawa's ideas matter when it comes to these things.

It's a derivative canon and not relevant to discussions of FMA proper.

I'll admit as a Brotherhood-basher, I've only ever read the manga and seen 03. After seeing how garbage the manga was I never felt inclined to watch the direct anime adaptation.

Brotherhood has a lot better animation overall actually.

Explain pls. I wanna know why you think that.

>Fullmetal Alchemist is a manga written by Hiromu Arakawa, it was not created by Bones. Are you literally this stupid?

FMA is a manga and two different anime series. Are YOU this fucking stupid.

> She is the author, it is her story.

She wrote a story, Bones wrote another, better story.

>the real one because it is her intellectual property.

And the FMA 03 is Bones' intellectual property. Who gives a shit.

In terms of total highly animated action sequences, Brotherhood has more. A lot more.

Don't bother, mangafags like that are delusional. Same with bookfags and other instances of the same phenomenon in other media.
To them, quality doesn't matter, being "faithful to the source material" is some holy grail of a goal that justifies itself above any other aspect of an adaptation.

Shonenfags, everyone.

Eh, at least comparing the the transmutations of their mom, I feel the 03 version was animated better
youtube.com/watch?v=B_dw1Rzaing
Or the Nina scenes
>Brotherhood
youtube.com/watch?v=tZVF5DTQbts&t=192s
>03
youtube.com/watch?v=IdTzcp1YLY8&t=2s
Brotherhood had more action scenes in general. It was more actiony.

Though I'd disagree that the scenes themselves were better animated. And theres more to animation than just action scenes. I'd even argue that better animation in slower scenes is a general hint as to who has better animation.

Yeah, just let it go
It ain't worth it

Why do people discuss whether FMA 03 is canon or not? It's not canon to Brotherhood or the manga, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its own canon.

That's like saying Ultimate Spider-Man isn't canon because it's not The Amazing Spider-Man. They're just two different series based on the same source material, their canons are separate and should lead to separate discussions regarding each.

FMA is a manga. It has two anime adaptations (derivative media). The story is the one written by Hiromu Arakawa. It was adapted by Bones, twice. The first time they ran out of story to adapt and had to improvise their own story. That story they improvised is not FMA, it's a derivative version of FMA. Because FMA is something created by Hiromu Arakawa, and only she can change its canon. What bones created in 2003 was not FMA but a derivative canon that doesn't really matter to the actual story.

>Though I'd disagree that the scenes themselves were better animated
Then you don't know much about animation.

>Why do people discuss whether FMA 03 is canon or not?
Shitposters.

Arakawa already said she gave it her blessing and considers it a complete story in its own right.

Because nobody cares about derivative canon. The title Fullmetal Alchemist is a well respected one, and 2003fags are eternally butthurt that nobody considers their knockoff part of it officially.

Those are some hot opinions you got there

It got better the instant it was made since it wasn't a divergent fan fiction version not based off the original manga

Just looking at those thumbnails of the Nina scene it's already striking to me how bland and lifeless Brotherhood looks, indeed no lighting or shading or even tone. Playing them side by size there isn't even a contest, jesus fuck.

Brotherhood has more focus on fights by the way so of course they'd be better choreographed (not necessarily animated as a whole). It's a battle shonen more than anything while 2003 is character/drama focused.

You don't represent everybody

The author herself blessed the adaptation. Its just as valid as her manga

I read the manga and watched both, and I have to say that the manga finale is very...plain. It's standard shonen antics, down to the final boss fight. I couldn't care less about the characters from notChina and the power of friendship uniting everyone.

2003 had a terrible final episode and that's it. The entire build up, the darker plot, characters (well most of them), everything is better in 2003, fuck the original plot. And I'm not even talking about the superb production.

No it isn't. Because the title "Fullmetal Alchemist" can only pertain to one story, and that is the original story written by Hiromu Arakawa. If you were to look up the entry for a story by that name, the manga is what you would find. The 2003 anime will never, ever own that name because they diverged from the manga's story. It will forever be counted as a separate canon not relevant to "Fullmetal Alchemist". Which is the whole reason they made Brotherhood, actually. I'm amazed I have to explain this when the very existence of Brotherhood proves that nobody considers 2003 the real FMA.

@157420168
You didn't work hard enough to earn this (You).

I think you're pretty retarded

>canon
>officially

Who the fuck cares about this kind of autism, when we got the objectively better show? Go masturbate to your "canon" as if that somehow means anything when it comes to the final quality of the show.
>It's good because it's faithful to the manga
Do the people who say this know how retarded they look? That their argument has no meaning at all beyond some arbitrary concept of a "canon" and NOT the quality of the work?

Watch Brotherhood or read the manga. That's when it gets good.

You do, apparently, since you're trying so hard to prove your shitty derivative work is somehow "the original story" or whatever. If it didn't matter then you wouldn't care about 2003 being classified as non-canon and a minor derivative work. But you do care, hence your butthurt.

>Because nobody cares about derivative canon

Sure they do. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Gungrave, Trigun, The Shining; every single superhero adaptation ever made. Though each one invites autists who obsess over what's canon even though neither the adaptation or the book its based on actually happened.

Stop responding to the autistic manga fag. Just let it go

2003 was full of plotholes and completely trashed the character arcs of major characters.

I'm doing no such thing. I was about to say I'm proving it's the superior work, not the "original" because that doesn't hold any value whatsoever, but I quickly realized that this is already pretty self-evident by anyone with two brain cells to hold together and the time to sit down and watch both.

You're arguing with two people by the way, or more.

Everything you listed just proves you have no clue what you're talking about. Original works are canon, anything derived from them is "secondary" meaning wherever they contradict the source material they are wrong, and if they contradict the source material hard enough they are non-canon.

I bet you hated fight club for not being accurate to the book

Yes. Those are all derivatives that people care about. Brotherhoodfags are so dumb that if the Gungrave game was more mainstream they'd try to argue that it's better than the anime because "muh canon."

I thought fightclub was a fine movie. I dont' really care about its canon though because it's not that interesting of a movie to talk about. For constructed settings like FMA, LotR, Witcher, whatever, keeping straight what is and is not accurate requires a canon hierarchy.

Dude

You are dumb I'm sorry

>Those are all derivatives that people care about.
Nobody cares about their "canon" though. Because when you start talking about the canon of a derivative source work it just gets conflicted by the fact that it is itself contradicting the canon of its source material. Hence, fans of constructed settings, actual fans, don't care about derivative canon. They only care about source canon.

Define "canon" you weirdo.

You act like whether its the original canon is the be all and end all for the quality of a story. Honestly its probably one of the least relevant parts of whether a story is good or not.

You could make multiple reasoned arguments that the 03 adaptation is inferior to the manga/brotherhood.

But saying its bad because its not completely faithful to a work that was incomplete at the time of the making is probably the worst argument you could make.

Anyone that seriously thinks that the 03 adaptation is anything but a steaming pile of shit compared to BH is fucking retarded. The shitty lackluster ending of the 03 series alone should be enough to keep people fro, ever re-watching it.

>all the faggots that pretended they never liked fma 2003 until brotherhood after they found out it didn't follow the manga to a t

Things that are true according to the work itself (i.e. facts you can back up with examples from the work). The highest priority of canon is work created by the original author. Because derivative works are based on his ideas, the original author's ideas are present in multiple derivative versions of their work. Whereas derivative canon only pertain to themselves. You can't apply the logic or reasoning within a derivative work to everything else in the franchise the way you can with the original author's ideas.

Example: FMA's manga says alchemy requires a transmutation circle, but if you see the Truth you don't need to use it. This is canon that applies to every single version of FMA derived from her work. Yet the 2003 anime has it own canon that says Alchemy is powered by the souls of the dead from an alternate dimension. This isn't relevant to anything but the 2003 series, it's non-canon for the manga and pretty much every other derivative version of FMA.

That is the hierarchy.

I never mentioned quality at all. I actually like a lot of things about the 2003 anime. But it's still just a derivative work and isn't really canon.

Brotherhood isn't good because it's canon, it's good because it's satisfying. Giving the ending the "Now it's MY turn to sacrifice myself for my brother" treatment twice in a row (more if you slog through the movie) is a particularly large middle finger for those of us who put up with the nonsense that preceeded it.

Brotherhood reached nearly the same level of ridiculousness towards the end, but had a more satisfying conclusion that resulted in less hand-waving and plot conveniences.

>Things that are true according to the work itself (i.e. facts you can back up with examples from the work).

So by """"the work itself"""" you are referring to the FMA manga and just the manga? Because all those other things are works too.

>. Yet the 2003 anime has it own canon
Yep seems like you get it. Manga has its canon, 03 anime has its canon. 2 stories, 2 canons. One story/"canon" (03 anime) is better than the other. Easy peasy pie.

...

This is the dumbest argument I've had this week. If you like the 03 version, why do you care this much?

Care about what? From the start I only jumped in because people are saying stupid shit like the 2003 anime is canon when it isn't. That's not an opinion, it's fact.

2003's canon isn't FMA canon. It's a derivative canon which is irrelevant to Fullmetal Alchemist as a whole.

Nobody was even talking about how canon the 03 version was til someone, likely you, started bitching about how it wasn't canon.

It's not canon.

see First post where somebody started erroneously asserting there's "no real story" which is just plain incorrect.

You troll

>Now it's MY turn to sacrifice myself for my brother

Done in a different thematic context, adding to the point introduced by Dante earlier about how equivalent exchange does not properly describe reality. Ed was forced to accept this and rather than simply sacrifice himself, attempted to bring back Al knowing that the results may not be so clear cut either way, topping off a general loss of innocence and maturation that had been going on ever since he offed Greed. Brotherhood was thematically vacuous, starts with equivalent exchange and never forces Ed to grow in anyway.