Things I Love: Full Metal Alchemist

I hate a lot of things. There is also a lot of shit happening in this world, and it’s easy to focus on all the doom and gloom, so every once in awhile I’ll release a Things I Love post. Because, contrary to popular opinion, I don’t hate everything. My first pick is Full Metal Alchemist.

I know this is not a pretentious or even a ‘cool’ pick because Full Metal Alchemist is a manga/anime series. Many people will be biased against it and as a result will write it off and never read it because “that Japanimation is for geeks and kids!”

To all those people, I say, “you don’t know anything! Full Metal Alchemist is fucking awesome!”

I love FMA. I would rate it as the best work of Sci-Fi/Fantasy this decade. I recommend it to friends. Why? Because it’s loaded with great characters, fresh story-lines, and a whole bunch of heart; because it is not pretentious in anyway, and yet it is deep; because the story can be enjoyed on so many different levels; because I love it.

It’s about a fictional world in which alchemy, ‘the science of understanding the structure of matter, breaking it down, then reconstructing it as something else’, is real. Lead can be turned into gold.

But it’s about so much more: science, suffering, sacrifice, bravery, moral ambiguity, belief, greed, wrath, envy, lust, pride and God. Like my blog, it’s kind of about everything.

So, read it. Try something you never thought you would try. I remember someone telling me to watch/read it and I was skeptical because I was too cool for ‘cartoons.’ I was wrong. With all it’s flaws, it’s one of my favorite works of literature. And I encourage you to try it.

You can start reading here: http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/1/00/

— “Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only truth.”