Anime Review: Full Metal Alchemist

If you were a writer, and you started off writing a story, but only complete 2 chapters and then give it to a few people and see how they would continue on with it... they are obviously going to come up with different storylines, but hopefully with a good interpretation of how you intended the story to go. This is sort of what happened with Full Metal Alchemist (FMA). There are actually 2 versions of FMA in anime form. The first is simply Full Metal Alchemist, and the second is Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Basically what happened was... the manga for FMA was being written, and the anime was started shortly after. The anime only followed the manga's storyline briefly (probably about a couple of chapters worth), and then it diverted to the anime director's interpretation of how the story would turn out. FMA Brotherhood was then later developed a couple of years later, and it followed the manga's storyline. FMA Brotherhood is still ongoing, while the first FMA was finished a while ago now, with a movie tying up loose ends. It's quite interesting that although the first anime's adaptation had a completely different storyline and explanation for why certain things happened... it still made a lot of sense, despite being so different to how it is to the manga's intention.

On to the plot... FMA is set in a world that would be of similar time to World War 1 and 2. Also, there is a common practice known as alchemy, which involves the transmutation of one thing into another. The fundamental law of alchemy was that you can not create anything out of nothing, and thus why human transmutation is forbidden. The main characters, Edward and Alphonse Elric did not know about this when they were little, and they attempted to perform human transmutation on their mother who had recently died. Since you can not create live through alchemy, the transmutation failed and it resulted in Edward losing an arm and a leg, while Alphonse lost his whole body. Some quick thinking allowed Edward to use alchemy to attach Alphonse's soul to a suit of armour. Thus the general storyline is based on these 2 brothers trying to find a way to restore their bodies, and this is consistent in both versions of FMA. It's just the later parts which differ a lot.

Aside from the differences in storyline, the main thing I noticed was that the first FMA is of a much darker and more serious atmosphere, whilst FMA Brotherhood is more cartoonish and puts more emphasis on the comedy aspect of it (i.e Edward's personal hate of people calling him short). I'm not really sure which one I favour more, but theres definitely a clear difference in the way the animes are shown.

There are a heap of characters throughout the anime, but I'll just discuss a few of the main staples:

Edward Elric - Obviously the main character. He has an 'auto-mail' arm and leg, to replace the limbs that were taken during the failed human transmutation. It's essentially a fake limb made of metal, but it connects to the person's nervous system allowing him/her to control it as it if was an actual limb. A lot of people make comments about him being short, which he really hates, especially when they think Alphonse is the older brother due to his armour being much larger than Edward. He becomes a state alchemist in order to obtain more information about how to get their bodies back.

Alphonse Elric - The younger brother of Edward. He is superior to Edward in hand to hand fighting, although not as gifted in alchemy. While Edward is the hot-head, Alphonse is the calmer, thinking type. Both Alphonse and Edward are really soft hearted, but Alphonse shows it more... while Edward is more of the 'put on a hard face' type of person.

Winry Rockbell - The childhood friend of Edward and Alphonse. She is an auto-mail mechanic, and she maintains Edward's auto-mail. She is very enthusiastic about her work, and she gets extremely excited about anything related to auto-mail. Apart from that, she's a very typical kind of girl that you expect the lead female to be.


Rating - 9/10. I almost gave it 9.5, but it's not quite up to the standards of some of the other animes I've seen, although it has a great storyline. If you are going to watch FMA, I'd recommend watching the earlier version first, before you watch FMA Brotherhood. Main reason is that FMA Brotherhood is still on-going, but I think it's better to watch the more serious one first, before watching the one that focuses more on comedy. Also, it means you can see how the anime director interprets it, as opposed to how the manga writers intended it to be. However, if you're not a fan of dark kind of anime with a lot of gore, then maybe just watch FMA Brotherhood. I do admit that there are some pretty upsetting scenes in the first FMA, and some that made me cringe.

Below is a picture of 2 main characters; Edward Elric (left) and Winry Rockbell (right).

Movie Review: Avatar

Last night I went to see Avatar finally. The 3D glasses have taken a pretty big upgrade since I last saw a 3D film back in primary school.

So the film is about the humans discovering a planet called Pandora, where a mineral called unobtanium is found. 1 kg of this mineral is worth millions of dollars, and of course... being the greedy race that we are... the humans are trying to extract it. However, the area is inhabited by an indigenous race of humanoids called the Na'vi. The Na'vi resist the humans, as they are obviously going to protect their lands from alien invaders. Thus, the humans developed the Avatar project, where they grow Na'vi bodies modified with human DNA. When the body is complete, the person who's DNA was put in the body, will then be put into something which resembled a coffin to me... but is actually a machine which allows the person to mentally link to the avatar and control it.

So the main character, Jake Sully, replaces his dead twin brother as an avatar operator, since only he will be able to control his brother's avatar. He is sent to the Na'vi to learn their ways, so that they will accept him as their own and trust him. After that, he is meant to persuade them to allow the humans to come and mine the minerals. However, when you live with people for a long time and get to know them that closely... your perception about it begins to change, which is what happens with Jake and puts him in a dilemma of doing his job, or doing what he feels is right.

In my opinion, the story is rather plain and generally just uninteresting... but for this type of movie, you probably won't be going to watch it for its story. The visual effects were quite stunning, with great colours enhanced by the 3D technology. In particular, my favourite was when you see the cockpit of the helicopters with full computer interfaces, which really stood out with the 3D glasses... looked pretty amazing.

Just a couple of things to note. The flying mounts that the Na'vi use reminded me of the drakes in World of Warcraft.... at least the head portion of them... kind of bizarre. Also, I noticed one of the battlecries of the female Na'vi sounded very much like Xena's battlecry... wonder if they just copied it =P

If you haven't already seen the movie, it's definitely good to experience the visual effects of the movie. If you're after a good story... you'll probably need to look elsewhere (perhaps check my older reviews =P). It has been labelled as the stepping stone of 3D technology, so if nothing else... it's good to experience that, before it becomes a staple in movies... i.e every future movie ends up being shown in 3D. My rating for the movie is 7/10... it lost a lot for having a poor storyline, but it made up for it with the visual effects and the action.

Cascada - Fever

Normally when I posted a link, I'll use tinyurl to shorten the urls so that it looks less spammy. But I recently found out that sometimes ppl will use tinyurl to hide links to dangerous sites with trojans, adware, etc. So I'm gonna just post without tinyurl so that ppl don't need to worry so much about that sort of thing... not that I'd post anything dangerous here anyway.

Anyways, this post is for those who love dance music like me. This song is by Cascada, who some may know as the artist who sings Evacuate the Dancefloor. Fever is from the same album, and is in my opinion much better than Evacuate the Dancefloor. One of my favourite songs atm, and it's a perfect song for mixing as well.

This is a youtube link to the official music video for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFXdW3eN2uo

Her background dancers r pretty sexy imo.

Also, for those who enjoy remixes of songs... this one is by Ryan Thistlebeck is amazingly good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNCZb-8I2W4&feature=related

TV Show Review: V

V is a relatively new show that has only aired 4 episodes so far, with the 5th episode continuing in March 2010. It is based off a mini-series from 1983, and of course remade into a modern version of it.

The plot is based on aliens who arrive on earth in high-tech spaceships, and each ship hovers over each of the main cities of the world. The ship hovering over the U.S is the flagship in which the leader of the aliens; Anna, resides. The base of the ships overturn to reveal lights which project an image of Anna who then addresses the country. Each ship across the world also does the same, showing Anna's face, but she talks in the language of whichever country she's hovering over. She is of human appearance, and she states that they come in peace and are looking for materials only found on Earth, and in exchange they will share their technology with the humans.

They establish 'health centres' around the world, which are able to cure just about anything. For instance, there is a minor character who had been in a wheelchair, but he was able to walk again after going to a health centre. Also interestingly enough, it caused a lot more people to begin attending church, as they seek answers to why the 'visitors' (as they call themselves) exist and whether they are trustworthy.

However, the pilot episode (the first episode) quickly reveals that the aliens actually have an ulterior motive, and are not actually human. There is a traitorous faction among the aliens who have been living amongst humans, as well as normal aliens who have been amongst humans, possibly causing many of the catastrophes that the world has seen throughout history. Thus the story is about trying to expose the aliens for their true purpose, although very few people are aware of this.

Some people may also recognise a couple of actors from other shows, mainly Juliette from Lost, and Alpha from Dollhouse. The main characters are;

Erica Evans - an FBI agent, who is also a single mum, with a teenage son. She discovers that the deception of the visitors, and is one of the people who are involved in trying to form a resistance.

Ryan Nichols - he is a traitor V that's posing as a human and is also trying to form a resistance

Father Jack Landry - a priest who also finds out about the visitors' true intentions, and is helping with the resistance. He is also a war veteran, hence why he has good fighting abilities despite being a priest.

Tyler Evans - the son of Erica Evans. He falls in love with a visitor named Lisa and joins up with the visitors in an ambassador program, but mainly so he can get closer to Lisa.

Valerie Stevens - she is the fiancee of Ryan Nichols, and she is unaware of his true nature

Lisa - a beautiful visitor who becomes the love interest of Tyler Evans. Not really sure if she truely has feelings for Tyler, but she's at least acting on Tyler's infatuation of her to her advantage.

Anna - the leader of the visitors. She is also very attractive, which prompts a journalist named Chad Decker to ask her whether there are any ugly visitors.

Chad Decker - the journalist that was chosen by Anna to conduct interviews with her, in order to help with showing the world that the visitors are trustworthy. His career takes a big leap once this happens, and he seems to be pretty ambitious, yet still wary of Anna, so he is kind of caught between reporting what Anna wants him to report, or doing his job by asking her the hard questions, which she has specifically told him not to ask.


Although there is only a few episodes out, it definitely looks like a promising show. I won't rate it as of this moment, since I would need to see more before I can make a better judgment, but it's worth checking out. In particular, the pilot episode is very good, and received good ratings from critics from what I have read, and I agree with that because it gets to the point, and gives a very good introduction to all the main characters and to the plot itself. The next episode won't air till March, so it's probably a good idea to check it out mid February so you don't have to wait so long for it.

Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes

Happy new year everyone. I've been off enjoying my break, so haven't been posting anything since then. Wish my break was longer, but alas... all good things must come to an end.

During the break, I watched Sherlock Holmes with a couple of friends. As we all probably know, Sherlock Holmes is a famous English detective novel. Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and his uncanny ability to solve the most difficult cases, and this has been made into a modernised movie format.

The plot is based around 'dark magic' supposedly being practiced by a characted named Lord Blackwood. At the very beginning of the movie, Holmes and Dr Watson (Holmes' sidekick and best friend) stop a dark ritual, which was going to involve a human sacrifice. The ritual was being commited by Lord Blackwood, and he is arrested. Blackwood is executed 3 months later, but apparently arises from the dead. Afterwards, many murders are commited and its up to Holmes to find out what really happened.

I personally really enjoyed the mystery involved in the film, which of course is very well explained later on, and all these little things that you see throughout the film suddenly make sense. I always like these kinds of movies/tv shows/animes that make use of things that stimulate the mind, and are just generally very clever. I did find it a little odd that Dr Watson was a very capable fighter. I could understand that Holmes, being a detective... would be a good fighter, but I was definitely not expecting Watson to be one as well. However, I read into it a bit more, and Watson is supposed to be a war veteran, so in hindsight it wasn't so bad. It did amuse me when Watson would have people in a headlock and he'll say "don't worry, I'm a doctor."

Despite it being based on the Shelock Holmes novels, there is an obvious absence of the cliche "elementary, my dear Watson." My friend also commented that it would've been awesome if they had added "no shit Sherlock" to the script as well. But alas... maybe in a sequel =P

The main characters of the movie are;

Sherlock Holmes - obviously. He is a genius, and has exceptional deductive capabilities. He takes into account everything, even the littlest of things, and work out things about a person, or deduce what happened at a particular scene. He is also a very skilled fighter, and its quite awesome to see him combine the 2 skills. Basically what he'll do is mentally visualise his plan of attack, and list them step by step. Then he'll execute it perfectly in exactly how he previously described. I find it a clever way of explaining what is actually going on in a fight.

Dr Watson - supposed to be a sidekick for Holmes, but in the movie they seem more like colleagues and good friends. He is of course a doctor, and was present at Blackhorn's execution to confirm his death. While Holmes is quite laid back, Watson is more of a serious character.

Irene Adler - Holmes' past love interest, who is the only person to have outwitted Holmes. She herself is quite intelligent and cunning. She's played by Rachel McAdams, who some people will remember as Regina George in Mean Girls. When I first saw her, I felt like I know who she was but couldn't put a name to her face. I didn't realise till later, that it was Rachel McAdams (I didn't look at the cast before I watched the movie)... she looks quite different without the blonde hair.

Lord Blackwood - as previously mentioned, he is involved in the practice of black magic, and he is using that to take over Britain.


Rating - 8.5/10. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I think its definitely worth checking out, if you haven't already. It has good humour, and some of the fight scenes are quite interesting. The best thing is the element of mystery and then hearing the explanation of what everything meant at the end. I also really liked the background music and I think its quite fitting to the setting of the movie. The movie is suitable for all audiences, but be prepared to keep up with the movie, as Holmes can speak quite fast sometimes.