CAA Radio – Fullmetal Spoilercast!

[Link Antilles]

STOP! If you haven’t finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or the manga, turn back now! Last chance!

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Okay, for the folks still here, get ready to enjoy almost 3 hours of rambling about Alchemists, Ancient Conspiracies, Homunculi, and Panda Cats!

You can directly download the show from this link: Right Click and Save As. Or stream the show from here.[/align]

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Sweet goodness, I can't wait to listen to this.

[blkmage]

did someone say panda cat

[ShiroiHikari]

Definitely won't be listening to this edition as I am planning to start reading FMA soon and I don't need no stinking spoilers!

PS: Those are some cool portraits of our lovely hosts.

[goldenspines]

3 hours!? Yaaaaay! *w*

*downloads*


BBL to comment more. Also, major kudos to the artist of the hosts' portraits~

[ChristianKitsune]

3 hours!? Yaaaaay! *w*

*downloads*


BBL to comment more. Also, major kudos to the artist of the hosts' portraits~

That would be Mech! He DID do a great job on it! So nice!

I hope you guys enjoy this edition! We were all really excited about bringing it to all of you! ^_^

[airichan623]

did someone say panda cat

OMG, blkmage, i just watched that and ended up singing and dancing with the kids.... O_O I COULDNT STOP MYSELF THE POWER OF CUTE COMPELLED ME!!!!! [color="Magenta"]pa-pan-pa-pan panda neko![/color]

am so listening really fast to this...


ps. i can tell which person is kitchan, but which is which for the 3 guys? (sry guys i has no knowledge in this area)

[ShiroiHikari]

The blonde one is Link, the one with the facial hair is Fish, and the one with brown hair and glasses is Mech.

[mechana2015]

Counter-clockwise, LinkAntilles, Mechana2015, ChristianKitsune, FishandChips.

Edit: ShiHi got it.

[goldenspines]

Awesome show guys (and brilliant drawing, Mech)! I enjoyed listening to all the discussion and fanboying/girling.
I need to reread the manga again. D: And rewatch Brotherhood. So much to cover, so little time. x.x


And since some people reading this thread may not have finished the series, I will put my minor question in spoiler tags.
This may have already been answered in the manga and I missed it, but
[spoiler] Why does new baby Selim have a funny circle thing on his forehead? I forgot if that meant anything...>_> [/spoiler]

I will agree with almost everyone that has read the series that the characters in FMA are excellent. I liked how you could remember even the minor characters if they happened to show up again (or even if they didn't).

I can honestly say that even though I've read the end of the series, I still want to buy the volumes, if for anything, the four panel comics at the end. Plus, the series is awesome and stuff. :3

I was impressed that you guys could actually pick a favorite character. I can't. XD I love them all.

....except Tucker. >_> But everyone loves to hate him.


LOL at the Al's twitter page idea. XD


I'm still very sad that the series is over. 8( But it was awesome while it lasted. It was one heck of a journey.
Thanks again for the great show.

[ich1990]

SPOILERS! Don't read this comment until you have become a decent person and read the manga or watched Brotherhood!

[spoiler]Unlike a bunch of people, I started out right with the manga. I was first introduced to it when my sister picked up the first volume from the library and passed it on to me. It was a great introduction, but it didn't really hook me until volume two, when we got to the Tucker incidents. It was then that I realized that this was more than just shounen and that it was capable of throwing out serious emotional sucker punches. After volume two, I exhausted our library's supply and then went to scans. It took me a couple of months to get caught up, but I finally managed it on January 1st, 2009, thanks to Christmas break.

After a year and half of following the manga at a seeming snail's pace, as well as re-reading the entire thing once (and portions more than once), the final chapters were announced. FMA: Brotherhood had been released during that year or so, and I had wanted to watch at least the fight scenes for a long time. At the TheSubtleDoctor's urging, I finally decided to just go for it: I marathoned the whole thing (barring the first few episodes which I had watched as they aired) in about a week. It was a great show, and a perfect way to recap the series before the final chapter. I haven't ever watched the original anime, nor do I plan to.

The Ross thing faked me out too. After watching Hughes die, I wasn't sure that anything was sacred.

I thought the Ed fixing the roof segment, at least in the manga, was an awesome way of showing the value of living life without alchemy. He gets up there, hurts his thumb, then stands up and realizes how beautiful the view is. He realizes that he would never had noticed it if he had used alchemy to fix it. He ponders how “a normal lifeâ€

[mechana2015]

SPOILERS! Don't read this comment until y'all done with this stuff!

[spoiler]

Hohenheim telling father that he had talked with every single one of the souls living inside him and convinced them to help him fight.
[/spoiler]

I can't believe I forgot this... that scene was AMAZING!

[spoiler]
I don't ever want to hear a joke about Father, little kids, and black vans ever again.
[/spoiler]

*writes that joke down to remember for future podcasts*

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

I'm disappointed by the lack of Fu discussion, but otherwise it was a fantastic show.

[spoiler]As far as romance goes, I have to disagree with the "deeper than romance" relationship. Not that I don't think it is, at least in the case of Hawkeye and Mustang, but that doesn't mean they can't have both romance and their "deeper than romance" feelings for each other. As for Lanfan and Ling, I wouldn't go so far as to say their relationship is more than love. Fu had the same duty, and followed it to the end, but we didn't see him flip out like Lanfan would.[/spoiler]

Also, Ling is the coolest character of them all. You guys should stop trying to deny that.

I had so many things I was going to say other than that, but I couldn't post while listening...

As for Arakawa's next series, I'd be up for something like Demons of Shanghai, with a more modern setting but retaining fantasy.

[GeneD]

Great show guys! It made me want to go watch Brotherhood really bad.

I love how during the favourite character part someone goes: (character name) "XXX" and then someone or everyone else goes "Oh XXX". XD I also think it's interesting that Ed and Al are mentioned the least, but I attribute this to Arakawa's great "supporting" characters. Also, Winry! I love her, her whole attitude and love of automail is great.

I have a question though; what do you mean by saying Roy is broken (did I hear that right?) in terms of combat? Is that good or bad or something?
Not as good as Fish's call, but I called Riza acting as Roy's eyes. Although I imagined it more epic than it was, but a lot of stuff was going on so the focus couldn't be completely on them.

I imagine Sheska just sitting coping out all those books that were destroyed all through the events of the story without really paying attention to what's happening around her. [spoiler]When everyone passed out/died from the massive country circle, I think she just wakes up afterwards thinking she fell asleep on her work and happily carries on working.[/spoiler]

I'd totally join twitter for Al's updates.

Whatever Arakawa does next, I'd love to see small bits of the continuing FMA story, similar to an Al twitter, in the short gag comic form. I think that would be a fantastic extra for her fans.

I made this wallpaper from the one manga page as a tribute: http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/6606/14fmaend499.jpg
(Please don’t post it anywhere else) XD

[Fish and Chips]

Fish, you said FMA was the best manga ever? Do you really mean that? As much as I enjoyed it, I still think 20th Century Boys wins by an ever-so-small margin.

I was sort of thinking my tone would give it away as the heat of the moment concession it was, actually. Though yes, I do think 20th Century Boys is a cut above even Arakawa's work, though FullMetal Alchemist is still the best Shounen currently in popular circulation.[quote="GeneD (post: 1410727)"]I have a question though]"Brokeness" is an idea that originated in fighting games, eventually pervading comics and other media with an inordinate amount of people performing acts of violence against other people. The general gist is that any good fighting game desires a level playing-field between opponents for maximum flexibility; that is, Character A is stronger than Character B, so Character B is tweaked to be faster than Character A to compensate, things like that. Preferably, this leads to a game where every character is different (to suit different playing styles), some weaker or stronger in certain cases, but no single character is universally "Better" than the rest of the cast.

Brokeness is when there is a character like that―or occasionally, several. It's not inherently a bad thing (divorced from gaming conventions), except in that the more powerful, versatile a character is, the more likely the author is to write themselves into a corner trying to come up with reasonable threats against them, often times drawing upon even more ridiculously overpowered characters to face them.

Most Triumphant Example would be Hellsing's Alucard, a man so consistently overpowered and night invulnerable that the only other character in-series who even remotely inconveniences him is a one-shot reality warper who subsequently dies in the attempt.

Roy Mustang's brokeness is his alchemical ability, allowing him to strike both in close quarters and over great distances with certain lethality with precision or area of effect. There is his aversion to water, but if he's carrying so much as a lighter he could still win by transmuting the hydrogen into highly flammable gas.[spoiler]His only other weakness exploited with any reliability was his reliance on the symbols on his gloves, but now that he's opened the gate he can transmute without them like Ed and Al. Cue Marco giving him back his sight, and Roy's nigh unstoppable in any one-on-one fight.[/spoiler]Consequently, this means Kimbley is also relatively broken, especially with that spare philosopher's stone of his. Scar, by contrast, is actually very balanced, since his destructive capability, while absolute on contact, is close proximity only, though he can attack at range with lower effectiveness.

No exceptions, the two most broken characters in FullMetal Alchemist universe are still Father and King Bradley, respectively.

[ChristianKitsune]

I too was really surprised at how little we talked about Ed and Al, but I really thinking LOVING those two character is an obvious reality. They are the title characters after, and the whole cast sort of revolve around them.

To mention some absolute favorite moments with the brothers here for you guys to read are:
[spoiler] Of course when Al sacrifices himself, his soul, to give Ed back his arm so he could fight Father. During the entire series, Ed really shoulders a lot of the blame upon himself, and he promises Al that HE would get his body back, wherein, Al retorts that he would do the same for Ed. The entire time I wondered how they would do this? Who would accomplish what. In reality it was a rather "simple" way to get his arm back but not in the way I expected.

And then when Ed gives up his alchemy, the very thing that sort of defined Edward, (besides his shortness ) to save his brother and get his body back...was just a very awesome touch.

I also really liked how they leaned on each other, when Ed was first hurt at the very beginning of it all as a child and Al had to carry him, and then contrast that when Al was so weak from being inside the gate, and having atrophied muscles that he had to rely on Ed to hold him up...aahh such a wonderful theme there! [/spoiler]

These two just had a very special Bond, a very special place in my "Favorite characters" list.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Fantastic podcast, all! I thought everyone made great contributions. Woudln't mind seeing this kind of thing done with more anime series, and not necessarily even current ones. One minor grip tho:

No love for Archer?

[ChristianKitsune]

Fantastic podcast, all! I thought everyone made great contributions. Woudln't mind seeing this kind of thing done with more anime series, and not necessarily even current ones. One minor grip tho:

No love for Archer?

Was he even in Brotherhood?
It seems that Kimblee took his place as the other major bad guy...

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Was he even in Brotherhood?
It seems that Kimblee took his place as the other major bad guy...

:stressed: Agh! That was sarcasm =). I don't think anybody liked Archer.

[mechana2015]

Archer was probably the place where the first series really went off the rails and over the shark. Well maybe it jumped the shark earlier, but Archer was terrible.

[ChristianKitsune]

Archer was probably the place where the first series really went off the rails and over the shark. Well maybe it jumped the shark earlier, but Archer was terrible.

Ah~Greed. XD Didn't miss him at all.

[Fish and Chips]

What is wrong with all of you.

Archer was the best part of the original adaption.