The Ed vs. Greed Fight

  When it comes to my issues with the plot of the 2003 version of FMA, there are 5 categories that I’d like to talk about:

1. The Greed vs. Ed Fight

2. The Liore Conflict (More Specifically Scar’s Death)

3. The Sloth Fight

4. The Mustang vs. Bradley Fight

5. Dante’s Stupid Plan &The Ending

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The Greed vs. Ed Fight

In this version of FMA Greed gets into a fight with Ed, which results in Ed killing Greed. It’s supposed to be a big moment since Ed actually kills someone in combat. While many FMA fans praise this fight as glorious, I’ve always disliked this fight since Greed’s actions never made any sense to me. Before I discuss the problems with the fight, I thought I’d start by recapping the fight first:

Before this fight happens, Greed runs up to Dante’s mansion. Dante, the main villain of the show, stabs Greed in the back by showing his remains and creating a transmutation array where Greed has to vomit up the pieces of the Philosopher’s Stone inside his body. This makes it so that Greed can’t use his Philosopher’s Stone to regenerate. Dante leaves and Ed walks in. Ed sees Dante’s old body torn apart and bloody with Greed right there. Ed asks for an explanation on what happened, believing that Greed killed Dante. Greed doesn’t say anything, and attacks Ed. Ed and Greed fight. Ed kills Greed. Before Greed dies, he tells Ed how to kill a homunculus. According to 2003 FMA fans, Greed wanted to die, so he essentially committed suicide by Ed. This is important for reasons that I’ll get into. 

So with that recap out of the way, let’s get into my problems with this fight. 

1. Why didn’t Greed tell Ed that he didn’t kill Dante? 

 I don’t blame Ed for thinking that Greed killed Dante. He walks in on Greed standing next to Dante’s first body, which is torn up and bloody. Greed never bothers to explain himself either, which would look really suspicious from Ed’s point of view. What I’m wondering is why Greed never bothered to explain to Ed that he didn’t kill Dante. It feels like he’s randomly withholding information from Ed so that the plot can happen. 

2003 FMA Fan Counter Argument: Well actually, Greed wants Ed to think it was him so that Ed would want to kill him.

Me: Since we’re on that topic, this leads me to my next problem with this fight.

2. Why does Greed want to die?

Just like in Mangahood, this version of Greed tries to find out how to bond a soul with a suit of armor. This version of Greed wants immortality. If a character wants to live forever that would obviously mean that they don’t want to die, and that they’re not suicidal. It seems like a massive character overhaul to go from “I want to live forever” to “I don’t want to live at all anymore”.

        What prompted this radical overhaul in Greed’s character? There doesn’t seem to be any explanation given in the show. The best explanation I can think of is that Dante’s array made him super close to dying...so therefore that would make him want to die? It’s not a good explanation, but I can’t think of any other reason that would explain Greed’s massive character overhaul. If any 2003 FMA fan reads this and has a better explanation I’m willing to listen. As it stands, it just feels like Greed does a complete 360 in his character motivation for seemingly no reason. 

3. Why doesn’t Greed team up with Edward in this version?

            I realize that this point can come across as a Mangahood fan complaining about this show not being faithful to the manga, but that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is this: 

            “Based on what transpires in the plot of the 2003 version of FMA, Greed has a more compelling incentive to team up with Ed and Al than he does to commit suicide. Dante just stabbed him in the back, and the other homunculi, Lust and Gluttony, killed his chimeras. He has plenty of reasons to take revenge on Dante and the other homunculi.” 

Greed also has access to two important pieces of information that Ed would be interested in: Alphonse’s location, and the information on how to kill homunculi. It’s possible that Greed could have tried to strike a deal with Edward if he actually tried. After Ed kills him in the show, he tells Ed how to kill the other homunculi. Ed believes him too, so there’s no reason to think that this couldn’t be used as an important bargaining chip.

2003 FMA Counter Argument: “But Ed doesn’t trust Greed. The deal wouldn’t work.”

Me: And yet he thought Ed would trust his information on the homunculi after getting killed. So why would getting killed make his information more reliable than if he volunteered it in exchange for Al’s location and teaming up with them? 

4. Why didn’t Dante tap Greed’s tattoo and turn him mindless like she did with Gluttony? 

In the final episode of the show, Dante taps on Gluttony’s ouroboros tattoo. This ability strips Gluttony of his free will, and turns him into a mindless eating machine. There’s an implication here that she’s always had this ability. My question here is this: 

Why didn’t Dante simply tap Greed’s tattoo like she did with Gluttony? If she wanted Ed to kill Greed, this would have made it easier for him to want to do so. 

5) Why did Lust and Gluttony let Greed and Alphonse escape? 

Before the Ed vs. Greed fight, Greed's chimeras give a speech before Lust and Gluttony easily kill them. My question is why didn't Lust and Gluttony destroy Greed's chimeras and then capture them? As it stands, it looks like Lust and Gluttony just stand around and let Greed and Alphonse escape while they could have done something about that.

The Reddit Arguments

There are two arguments that were made by other people on reddit that I agree with, and felt would be great to add to this blog. I did not come up with these ideas, but I agree with them. I’ve left links below that you can click on so you can see the full context yourself.

Reddit Point # 1: “Suicide by Ed” is extremely messed up, and also questionable from the viewpoint of logic 

Here’s an exchange on reddit that sums this point up:                 

2003 Fan Comment: “In the fact that he has to kill, Greed, the first "person" he officially kills”

Brotherhood Fan Counter Argument: “Besides Majhal? And no, Greed is essentially using Ed to commit suicide. Not only is that pretty fucked up in a way that's never called out or even brought up, but I utterly fail to see how that would "inspire" Ed to be willing to apply deadly force in the future. If anything, the shock and trauma would move him in the opposite direction. Plus, I don't see how a teenager intentionally aiming to kill is in any way "mature", outside of being edgy. If anything, it's the opposite.”

Source https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/comments/gamzwa/my_issues_with_fmab/fp1yywk/

My Additional Commentary: I would like to add that Greed’s calculated suicide also contradicts a major theme in FMA: “The Importance of Valuing Yourself”. This link is to an article written in the Mary Sue that talks about the themes of the FMA Manga. Say what you will about The Mary Sue, but this article is spot on. One important passage here talks about “The Importance of Valuing Yourself”:

     “Much of fiction encourages the idea of sacrificing your life as being inherently noble and also promotes the idea that if you’re in a bad situation, you need to always face that head-on. This is an especially common thing to see in action-oriented shonen.

Al yells at his brother for trying to sacrifice himself

Arakawa’s work challenges that idea and examines the consequences of self sacrifice. The characters in her work are confronted with the fact that their lives have value to the people they love. In Fullmetal, the consequences of ending your life, even to protect another, are fully explored. It’s acknowledged that such an action will inevitably leave your loved ones in a lot of guilt and pain and sometimes rob them of their only family. It stresses that it’s not just important to consider the safety of your loved ones, but to respect their feelings and wishes, which is why when Al and Winry urge Ed not to ever accept death and sacrifice himself for them, Ed takes them seriously. It’s also stressed that ending one’s life means destroying all the potential good you could have gone on to accomplish. It’s more important to live for the world than to die for it. Self-sacrifice should be a last resort, not a first one, because every life has value. With suicide such a pervasive tragedy worldwide—and a huge social issue particularly in Japan, which has a relatively high suicide rage—this is an important to stress to young people.”

Source: https://www.themarysue.com/hiromu-arakawas-fma-part-2/

The obvious counter argument is that 2003 FMA has different themes from Brotherhood and is trying to tell a different story. So it wouldn’t be fair to claim that it contradicted a theme from a different story.

     While it is true that these are 2 different stories with two different themes, I would like to point out that the manga scene in the quoted article also exists in the 2003 version. Yep, the scene where Al yells at Ed for sacrificing himself to Scar exists in the 2003 version too. So it still looks contradictory for Alphonse to yell at Ed for sacrificing himself in one episode, but then to not have the show do something similar to Greed when Greed’s suicide was calculated and messed up. 

Reddit Point # 2: The show’s views on Edward killing people is wishy-washy

  “I don't get why Ed's moral choice to not prioritize his goals over the lives of people who have nothing to do with his and Alphonse's lives is "childish." Honestly, I admire that Ed and Al have moral convictions and stand by them successfully. I think it's valid and I see it as narratively more sound than how in FMA03 the Brothers never feel particularly decided on how they feel about the weight of a human life....

And 03!Ed killed that deranged old man in the filler without feeling any remorse or being upset at having killed a human. But then they have Ed have a panic attack over killing Greed, despite Greed's death essentially being a calculated suicide on Greed's part. And later Ed and Al brood about "maybe we'll become killers" to Winry and all I can do is laugh because they have been so wishy-washy about whether they care about taking a life or not the entire time. Hell, at one point I think one of the brothers mused about taking Wrath's limbs by force. Say what you will but FMA03 would have their morals hinge on the convenience of the plot points they were pushing at any given moment rather than having the characters have strong convictions.”

Source

https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/comments/gamzwa/my_issues_with_fmab/ See “Rockabore1” 

My Additional Commentary

Am I the only one who thinks that there’s something odd about the idea that sticking by one’s convictions is viewed as bad writing and “childish” while giving up one’s moral convictions is seen as “mature” and good writing? 

A lot of 2003 FMA fans seem obsessed with the supposed “maturity” of their show. They often hold Brotherhood’s idealism against it. I’ve seen 2003 FMA fans claim that Brotherhood is “for younger audiences”. Their preoccupation with childishness and maturity reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s quote about this mentality: 

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Responding to 2003 FMA Counter Arguments

 Responding to Counter Arguments

As much as I’d like to say otherwise, I am not the first person who’s made these points about the 2003 version of FMA. Naturally, 2003 fans have tried to come up with counter arguments so I feel like it’s only fitting that I respond to their response. The best counterarguments to this came from TVTropes.org:

Counter Argument # 1

“Telling the audience that Mustang was responsible for killing innocent people, but having all of those innocent people be nameless characters only briefly, if at all glimpsed, makes his crimes seem far more abstract. By making Mustang responsible for the deaths of the family of a major, sympathetic character, the audience HAS to deal with what he's done, on an emotional level. It's a much more poignant and appropriately disturbing way to communicate the discomforting truth that otherwise decent people may be forced to do atrocious things during wartime, and it also sets up anime!Roy as a much more psychologically complex character than his manga and Brotherhood counterpart.”

Me: I find it subtly condescending to assume that the reader / viewer can’t grasp the horror of genocide simply because it didn’t happen to a named character. No fan of Brotherhood / the manga thinks of Roy’s crimes as “abstract”. We all know that what he did was wrong. Nobody harbors any illusion that he’s not a war criminal. Neither Brotherhood nor the manga whitewash what he did in Ishval either. The gravity of his crimes is made abundantly clear.

Second, I also disagree that making Roy kill Winry’s parents makes his crimes “more poignant and appropriately disturbing”. I’ve yet to see an FMA fan mention how shocked / horrified they were at the deaths of Winry’s parents. Her parents don’t have that much focus outside of their deaths, so it’s not like either fandom gets emotionally attached to them as characters. In both versions of the story, their deaths are there to serve the narrative of a major character. This counter argument would have had more weight if we the audience got to know them more as people first. As it stands, the deaths of the Rockbells feels thematically redundant in the 2003 version.

Usually the hard-hitting moments are Nina Tucker’s chimerification, the death of Maes Hughes, or the deaths of Envy / Greedling / Hoheinheim in Brotherhood. I’ve lurked a lot of different forums online, and I haven’t seen a 2003 fan bring this event up as one that made them cry, or had some kind of impact on them.

One particular point that’s worthy of being addressed here is this: “It's a much more poignant and appropriately disturbing way to communicate the discomforting truth that otherwise decent people may be forced to do atrocious things during wartime,” 

This point had already been responded to on that TVTropes page, so I’ll copy / paste it here: “It bothered me for different reasons: namely that it seemed so pointless. Roy already had the deaths of thousands of innocent Ishvalan civilians on his conscience in both versions, which meant the point about good people committing war crimes had already been made. “

        (Notice how this individual calls Roy’s actions “war crimes”? That reinforces my point that the horror of Roy’s crimes in Ishval was already effectively communicated in Mangahood. Plenty of FMA fans already got the point without needing Roy to kill the family member of a sympathetic character)

  I would also like to add that the point of “decent people may be forced to do atrocious things during wartime” was further made in Mangahood by Scar. Think about it: Scar killed Winry’s parents when he was under extreme duress, pain, and trauma. I would also argue that Scar’s reasons for killing the Rockbells are more sympathetic than Roy being a soldier who was just following orders. Reinforcing this point through Scar’s character leaves a powerful impression on the viewer and adds an extra dimension to this moral. So even if we take the 2003 FMA fan’s words at face value, Mangahood already did that and it didn’t need to make that point at the expense of any of the characters.

             I would also like to add that the person in TVTropes who argued in favor of the 2003 version of FMA is also reinforcing my point that Roy’s crimes in Ishval aren’t heinous enough, so we have to have him kill Winry’s parents or else the audience won’t understand the gravity of his crimes. That’s pretty telling, and it reinforces my point too.

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Counter Argument # 2

 “At the time of the Anime`s writing the manga's identity of the Rockbells' murderer hadn't been revealed. All they had to go by was "Doctors killed", and "Doctors helped those on the other side of the conflict". The writers had been given the task of wrapping up a loose plot line, and since that was what all they could go by they did the best they could.”

Me: Okay so they shouldn’t have tried to make an adaptation of the manga before the manga was complete. One opinion I have about adaptations is that you should only adapt stories that are finished. There are SO many problems that come about whenever an adaptation starts before a manga’s complete. Any fan of Game of Thrones should be able to tell you what happens to an adaptation’s quality when the adaptation catches up to its source material. The 2003 FMA is no exception to this rule. It’s the showrunners fault for even attempting to adapt the manga long before its completion.

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Counter Argument # 3

This next counterargument is so long winded that in order to respond to it, I’ll have to summarize it into the following points:

Other Major Points to this Counterargument

1. 2003 Scar’s arc is about coming to terms with being a victim of persecution by an overwhelmingly more powerful oppressor. Mustang gets manga Scar’s arc of revenge in order to make Mustang a better father figure for Ed. 

2. It makes no sense for 2003 Scar to get his manga counterpart’s arc since it would dilute his arc of defending victims of oppression.

3. 2003 FMA is more concerned with showing just how bad “Just Following Orders” is and it does this through Roy. This plot point makes Roy “a dog of the military” and has him show Ed what that means. “The experience of killing Winry's parents does inform Roy's character in 2003, and is a driving motivation for why he is able to teach Edward that Edward needs to look beyond his own dreams and his justifications for them… In sum, Roy killing Winry's parents isn't about being the straw that broke the camel's back; it's about making Roy's actions more personally relatable for Edward.”

Me: I’ll be the first to admit that there was more to the original argument, and if you want the full context, once again I will give you the link to these arguments for a second time: 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/FullMetalAlchemistAnime

My Response: I disagree that 2003 FMA Scar has an arc. He never drops his quest for revenge. He never undergoes a change in his character or his personality. He’s nicer to the Elric brothers I guess, but that’s not enough to constitute as a character arc. So the entire argument about “diluting Scar’s arc” doesn’t work, because Scar doesn’t have a character arc to dilute in the 2003 FMA.

“The experience of killing Winry's parents does inform Roy's character in 2003, and is a driving motivation for why he is able to teach Edward…”

This blurb right here reinforces my earlier argument that making Roy the killer of the Rockbells is more about Roy than it is about Winry. Saying that it’s only there so that he can teach Ed a lesson doesn’t change the fact that the focus shifts from Winry to Roy (or Ed) and that by doing so, Winry and Scar’s characters get screwed over in the process.

In sum, Roy killing Winry's parents isn't about being the straw that broke the camel's back; it's about making Roy's actions more personally relatable for Edward.”

The first sentence in this argument is more about semantics than anything else. Whether it’s about “the straw that broke the camel’s back” or not, that still doesn’t change the fact that this is how the narrative presents these events. If that wasn’t the case, then that’s all the more shame on the show for presenting it in such a way that would lead someone to that conclusion. In a previous sentence this person admitted that it “informed Roy’s character”, which reinforces the point that the deaths of the Rockbells has nothing to do with Scar and Winry’s characters. 

Second, making the deaths of Winry’s parents a lesson for Ed (or making Roy’s actions “relatable” to Ed) cheapens their deaths. By extension, that also cheapens the deaths of the Ishvalans. It reduces the horrors of war and genocide to an aesop for the main character about how awful it is to just follow orders. This argument does nothing but reinforce what I, and other FMA fans, have been trying to say.

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Final Counter Argument

Finally, it isn't really the case that the anime treats Roy's murder of Winry's parents as particularly more vile than the genocide of the Ishvalans. It's just that the murder of Winry's mother is more personally relevant to the main characters' development, so that murder is more centrally discussed in the plot. Roy's PTSD and regrets are in fact caused by everything he went through during the war. An example of this is the flashback he has of killing an Ishvalan child during the Fullmetal vs. Flame Alchemist fight.

 

Me: I call b.s. Roy only attempts to commit suicide after the Rockbells died. This would suggest that he found their deaths more upsetting than the deaths of the Ishvalans. There’s nothing to suggest that he would have still attempted suicide even if he hadn’t killed them. Plus, the fact that this person claims that “the murder of Winry's mother is more personally relevant to the main characters' development, so that murder is more centrally discussed in the plot” reinforces my earlier point that the narrative treats the deaths of the Rockbells as being more important than the genocide of the Ishvalans. Let’s also not forget that his motivation to become the Fuhrer was based on the deaths of the Rockbells, not the Ishvalans. 

Yes, he gets PTSD from the Ishval War, but that’s not the same as wanting to commit suicide, or wanting to become Fuhrer. This person agrees with me that the deaths of the Rockbells are more important to Mustang’s character than the deaths of the Ishvalans. 

Who Killed Winry's Parents? (And Why That Matters)

 Who Killed Winry’s Parents

One major difference between the 2003 FMA and Mangahood (it’s easier to say “Mangahood” than “Brotherhood and the manga”) is who killed Winry’s parents. In Mangahood, Scar killed Winry’s parents. In the 2003 version, it’s Roy Mustang. I’m not a fan of this change in the 2003 version for several reasons:

1. The 2003 version treats the deaths of the Rockbells as a more heinous crime than the genocide of the Ishvalans: There are two episodes in the 2003 version of FMA (episodes 15 & 43) that talk about Mustang killing Winry’s parents. In both episodes, it’s made abundantly clear that Mustang tries to commit suicide directly after killing the Rockbells. In episode 43 Mustang brings up why he wanted to become the Fuhrer:

“I got my orders in the morning, and I shot them that night. Afterwards I tried to kill myself, but I was too much of a coward so I took an oath instead: To never follow unreasonable commands again, to reach a position where I wouldn’t have to follow them.”

There’s a couple of problems that I have about this being Roy’s motivation:

             (1) If he didn’t want to follow “unreasonable commands” then why did he join the military to begin with? Sure, Mangahood Mustang was also naive about this point, but at least Mangahood had the decency to call him out on it through Kimblee.

           (2) If he really was so determined to not follow “unreasonable commands” then why didn’t he just resign after the end of the Ishval War? He wouldn’t have needed to follow such orders as a civilian. It seems like continuing to be in the military would put him at risk of breaking his oath. 

This speech makes it obvious to me that Roy was far more affected by the deaths of the Rockbells than he was by the deaths of the Ishvalans. To his credit, we do see him hallucinating an Ishvalan during the episode where he fights Ed (in episode 13). That being said, it’s obvious that he found the Rockbell deaths more heinous, and the show doesn’t do anything to correct this either. So for all intents and purposes, it seems like the show treats the deaths of the blond haired, blue-eyed Fantasy Europeans as a much greater crime than the wholesale slaughter of the Ishvalans, whose skin is dark. That’s...really messed up, and the show never calls Roy out, or bothers to deal with the implications here.

2. Making Roy the killer of the Rockbells comes at the expense of Scar’s character arc: The biggest difference between the two versions of Scar’s character is that in Mangahood, Scar has a character arc, and gets character development. In the 2003 version, he doesn’t have either of those things. The reason why only one version has character development is because of this change in the story. 

           Scar’s character arc in Mangahood is prompted by the fact that he killed Winry’s parents. Their deaths are the only ones that he can’t write off as justified. This gives him an internal conflict, and a reason to change. With that gone, his 2003 counterpart continues to be an agent of revenge who eventually dies as the FMA world’s version of a suicide bomber. It’s 100 times less compelling and it happened all because of this change in the story.

3. Making Roy the killer of the Rockbells comes at the expense of Winry’s character:

Another major criticism I have of this change in the story is how the deaths of the Rockbells focuses more on Roy’s guilt than it does on Winry’s pain in the 2003 anime. There’s a much greater narrative emphasis on how this affected Roy’s motivation to become Fuhrer. Winry barely gets any focus when it comes to this issue, and the result is that it feels like she’s pushed to the background.

 Making Scar the killer of Winry’s parents in Mangahood gives her a choice that she doesn’t have in the 2003 anime: The choice to take revenge and kill her parent’s murderer. That scene in Brotherhood that had me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t want Winry to take revenge against Scar! But I also couldn’t fault her for wanting to pull the trigger. When she doesn’t pull the trigger we learn something powerful about her.

In the 2003 FMA, we barely get to see how Winry reacts to the death of her parents. She gets a few moments sprinkled throughout a couple of episodes and ultimately comes to the conclusion that Roy is a good man who was driven to do a horrible thing. When you compare this to how Brotherhood handled the death of her parents, this conclusion feels lackluster and underwhelming. This ultimately results in Winry feeling pushed off to the side. She really doesn’t do anything interesting or memorable in the 2003 FMA, and this is a huge reason why she fails to leave much of an impact on me as a character.

Let's review the arguments

The 2003 version of FMA treats the deaths of the Rockbells as a more heinous crime than the genocide of the Ishvalans. It's given more focus in the narrative, and Roy seems more upset by deaths of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Europeans than he is about the dark skinned fantasy minorities.

Making Roy the killer of the Rockbells gives him cheap drama at Winry and Scar's expense. Scar is robbed of his character arc and development. The narrative chooses to focus on Mustang's guilt over Winry's pain. This shoves her character into the background, leaving her characterization weaker as a result.

Why I think FMA Brotherhood is Way Better than the 2003 Version Introduction

              One of the biggest debates in anime used to be whether the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist is better, or Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I say "used to be" because it seems like the debate has been settled: Most people believe that Brotherhood is better due to its faithfulness to the manga. This drives fans of the 2003 version nuts. When you look at how many of them react, they don't seem to appreciate the fact that Brotherhood has overshadowed an anime that they love. So it feels like they're willing to argue tooth and nail that the 2003 version is better. 

         To their credit, I agree that simply saying "Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is better than the 2003 version because it's more faithful to the manga" isn't a very satisfying answer. The second most popular answer that Brotherhood fans give when stating why Brotherhood is better than the 2003 FMA is that Brotherhood has a better plot. They also accompany this by mentioning that Brotherhood has a better ending. These points are true, but they never seem to get fleshed out or explored.

         In fact, I feel like I rarely come across any in-depth explorations of the 2003 FMA's flaws. This feeling is what ultimately led to this blog series being created. You see, I think that there are numerous flaws with the 2003 FMA anime. In fact, the more I've thought about it, and the more I've tried to listen to both sides, the greater my feeling becomes that 2003 FMA makes less sense the more that you think about it. 

        This post is designed to be an introduction to a very long blog series. I'd like to lay out the outline of what future blog posts will cover on this topic. So why do I consider Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood to be superior to the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist?

1) Brotherhood's plot is superior by a significant margin. The plot of the 2003 FMA does not make sense, for reasons that I will lay out in the future.

2) The 2003 FMA has a lot of good ideas, but doesn't always execute them very well. (Examples include but are not limited to: Envy being related to the Elrics, the changed explanation for how the homunculi are created, how Edward shed his "no killing" rule, etc.)

3) Brotherhood's take on the characters is far better than the 2003 version. 99.9 % of the time there's a major difference between Brotherhood and the 2003 version, I find that Brotherhood winds up being superior to whatever changes the 2003 FMA made. 

4) Brotherhood is more consistent with the lore and the rules of alchemy than the 2003 version.  

5) Last but not least, I also find some of the arguments in favor of the 2003 FMA to be rather weak for reasons that I'll get to in future blog posts.

I realize that I'm far from the first person to state that they like Brotherhood more than the 2003 version. So why bother? Well, I feel like I have a unique perspective to contribute because I'm that rare FMA fan who saw Brotherhood first, then the 2003 version, and then read the manga. Most FMA fans either read the manga first, or saw the 2003 version first. This order makes logical sense, but it feels like it does affect how they view certain elements of both stories. 

It's incredibly rare for me to see someone who viewed Brotherhood first and give their thoughts. Plus, as someone who saw Brotherhood first I feel like other fans constantly talk over me, and I'm not a fan of that. If this sounds vague to you, then I promise that I'll expand on this talking point more in the future.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to this new writing project. I'm curious to see how people will react. Plus, it will be good to get this off my chest.