Poll: FMA vs. FMA: Brotherhood

[mitchell271]

I recently watched the JesuOtaku review of Fullmetal Alchemist. Good review, she raised a few good points and brought up something I had never really though of before: the debate about which version of the series is best. That's not to say any of them are bad. I love both the dub/sub of both series and the manga is one of most prized collections.

I personally think Brotherhood was best. I grew up reading the manga and loved it to death so seeing the exact story in anime and animated so beautifully was like a dream come true for me. I also preferred the opening music in Brotherhood; it had more music I liked and I think it fit the series better but the music in the actual show was superior in the original series. And even though I usually prefer the subbed version of anime, Funimation is consistently good with both versions of FMA being their crowning jewels.

That's about is really. Which anime (and language) do you think is best or do you think everyone should just start with the manga and why?

 

[Shadowstar38]

I think Brother just had an overall better story than the original, as well as a larger cast of interesting supporting characters. The original spun out of control as far as conherency goes once they introduced Dante.

Oh, and I always prefer the dub for just about anything.

 

[Random Argument Man]

For the anime, I like the original for its pacing which brotherhood did too fast. However, brotherhood had a better story. Although, it's always fun to re-read the manga every now and then.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

I thought the original anime was good in that it had better pacing and focused on developing a smaller cast of characters and making them more interesting, while I think Brotherhood overall had the better story, even though it did tend to inject humor at some of the worst times. The original really fell apart near the end.

And don't even get me started on the sequel movie.

 

[Erttheking]

I only ever watched the brotherhood anime, so I put that down. It had some weird aspects, such as Father making a couple of goofy faces in a fight that was supposed to be dramatic, and how they seemed to be making some things up as they went along (Ed is turning himself into a philosopher's stone because...he can do that now) but overall, I really enjoyed it and the pros outweigh the cons. I really liked overall emotional feel of it. Not to mention the humor was freaking hilarious.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Of the lot? Manga's the best, mostly because of the extras... those silly, poignant bonus chapters and yonkoma.

Regarding the anime, I enjoyed them both (original audio, of course... never dubbed). The first had a better voice cast (rather, I got used to them and watching the first few eps of Brotherhood left me a bit peeved), but as the second one followed the manga more closely, it was bound to receive better critical responses. The first had its issues with the original story, but it wasn't a bad effort at all.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I haven't watched much of either anime, but have read the manga. Honestly, if JO's opinion is to be believed (and I do regard her's highly) all the versions are good and your should just pick the version you want to see.

 

[madwarper]

I prefer manga to anime in general. And, the FMA manga over the FMA anime.
I haven't seen all of Brotherhood, but since it stuck closer to the manga, I'd bet I would have also preferred it over FMA anime.

However, speaking of Hiromu Arakawa (the writer/illustrator of FMA), anyone else reading Silver Spoon [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Spoon_%28manga%29]?

 

[DoPo]

I like both animes. But Brotherhood, I like a bit more, not sure on the exact reason. Probably has something to do with the story being "darker" there, as opposed to the slightly lighter one in FMA. Also, I really love Pride from Brotherhood. And it has Major General Olivier Armstrong.

I haven't read the manga, though.

 

[rwllay]

prefered Brotherhood for the most part, that said the begining of FMA is stronger. it takes it's time to introduce some of the characters a little better (Maes Hughes, Shao Tucker,etc), along with a few other minor pluses(Basque Grand, Armstrong's introduction,Slicer brothers,etc). Shortly thereafter FMA goes ireversibly crazy, where as Brotherhood just gets stronger.

 

[Fuhrlock]

The story in the first anime is just overall unsatisfying and fails to do justice to certain characters (like making Kimblee a completely one dimentional villian or never giving Mustang the chance for revenge). Brotherhood gets a definite mark of approval for following the story line of the manga (I don't mind sub or dub, both are get the job done well), but the reason I prefer the manga above all else is simply due to the fact that Brotherhood compresses/abridges too much. Most people look at the beginning (everything upto lab 5) when they launch this complaint, but personally my problem is the abridging of the Ishval flashback, where even an entire subplot the general fessler one, was cut (you know the one main character defining one for Basque Grand plus it gives us some more of Hughes).

To people who don't like reading manga I always say to watch Brotherhood but ultimately I look at the manga as the definitive version of FMA

 

[TheIronRuler]

The story in the first anime is just overall unsatisfying and fails to do justice to certain characters (like making Kimblee a completely one dimentional villian or never giving Mustang the chance for revenge). Brotherhood gets a definite mark of approval for following the story line of the manga (I don't mind sub or dub, both are get the job done well), but the reason I prefer the manga above all else is simply due to the fact that Brotherhood compresses/abridges too much. Most people look at the beginning (everything upto lab 5) when they launch this complaint, but personally my problem is the abridging of the Ishval flashback, where even an entire subplot the general fessler one, was cut (you know the one main character defining one for Basque Grand plus it gives us some more of Hughes).

To people who don't like reading manga I always say to watch Brotherhood but ultimately I look at the manga as the definitive version of FMA

.
As a general rule of thumb watch the first 13 episodes of FMA and then carry on in FMA:Brotherhood and you got the best of two worlds.

 

[madwarper]

prefered Brotherhood for the most part, that said the begining of FMA is stronger. it takes it's time to introduce some of the characters a little better (Maes Hughes, Shao Tucker,etc), along with a few other minor pluses(Basque Grand, Armstrong's introduction,Slicer brothers,etc).

a) Can you really fault Brotherhood for not trying to reinvent the wheel?

b) Shou Tucker and Basque Grand were insignificant characters. The only reason FMA gave them more attention is because FMA retconned them into being more important than they actually were.

 

[Nopodop]

I''ve never been able to get my hands on brotherhood, but I love the original. Also, I've only read the first two manga books.

 

[Ryotknife]

overall i would say brotherhood.

The original FMA was kinda drawn out and lengthy. Granted this did give FMA some powerful scenes that either werent in brotherhood or were kinda shortened.

The scenes with Hughes or Greed at the end of their ark was much more emotional in the original than in Brotherhood.

still, the overall package goes to brotherhood.

 

[Vausch]

I have such a hard time with this one. I love both of them, I like the story for the manga/brotherhood best, but Brotherhood had some very terrible pacing issues. I mean they seemed to think "well this was in the first one, can't repeat now can we?". Fans wouldn't have cared, it would have gone just as well!

I have to go with the manga. Story I like at the pacing that it deserved. I'm unsure if it got better after I stopped watching because I didn't keep going after the escape from Father.

 

[rwllay]

preferred Brotherhood for the most part, that said the beginning of FMA is stronger. it takes it's time to introduce some of the characters a little better (Maes Hughes, Shao Tucker,etc), along with a few other minor pluses(Basque Grand, Armstrong's introduction,Slicer brothers,etc).

a) Can you really fault Brotherhood for not trying to reinvent the wheel?

b) Shou Tucker and Basque Grand were insignificant characters. The only reason FMA gave them more attention is because FMA retconned them into being more important than they actually were.

As I said, i overall prefer Brotherhood, I just think FMA has the strongest beginning, Brotherhood rushes it's first act, doesn't give the time needed to make Tucker & Hughes' fates as impactful as they were in FMA (I'm referring to Tucker before Laboratory 5, as then it just gets a little crazy). And whilst Grand and Tucker aren't major characters or even all that significant to the overall story, I applaud anything willing to give a little extra love to a side character (though Grand's shining moment was cut from both versions). Besides those were just a few examples of little things i liked in FMA.

As a general rule I'd say Brotherhood has the better story but FMA tells it's story in a slightly better way

 

[Fuhrlock]

[As a general rule of thumb watch the first 13 episodes of FMA and then carry on in FMA:Brotherhood and you got the best of two worlds.

I am more than aware of this but my point is that at the end of the day the manga by itself gets this correct. Also FMA brotherhood abridging later in the series is also a problem for me, particularly trying to make the Ishvalan civil war one episode at the price of cutting alot of the not necessarily important content but content that increased empathy with certain characters and really set the correct tone for the war.