Slightly Biased Manga

The whole flashback was contained in the last volume, and I was happy to see that things were back in the present.  A lot of what goes on here is sort of setting things up for future plot developments, and I still didn’t really enjoy this volume like I should.  The characters are sort of shuffled around a little (at least Ed and Al are) and we get to catch up with a few other people, but there aren’t any battles (at least between main characters) or anything, nothing further is explained, and since I would love to see Al in human form RIGHT NOW, anything that doesn’t feel like rapid progress towards that goal is kind of disappointing.

There is still plenty to like here, though.  Ed and Al decide to learn more about Eastern Alchemy, and to do that, they need to go to a northern base and meet up with Major-General Armstrong.  I forget precisely why they need to stop here before traveling (probably because they need to travel in secret), but Major-General Armstrong is an awesome character.  You’d expect them to be awesome because of a resemblance to the Armstrong we know, but the person is awesome on their own merits.  I also really liked some of the bits of wisdom one must follow in the northern climates, especially about automail.  Details like that make things more interesting.

Kimblee is released.  He’s definitely a monster, but I can’t figure out what kind of monster he is.  His fight with Scar is the only action we get to see this volume.  It’s a pretty decent battle considering the fact I don’t really care about either character.

I also don’t care about Mei, but I like the fact that she and Scar have teamed up.  I liked it even more when there was a gag strip in the back that implied that the two formed some sort of plastic surgery team, with Scar causing damage and Mei fixing the damage into a new person.

Eh.  Maybe next volume will be more my thing.

Boo.  This entire volume was a flashback to the Ishbalan War.  While I like Mustang, and I like Hawkeye, and I like Hughes, I hated that we were separated from the current storyline, and I felt that this probably could have been condensed into two or three chapters.  But, you know, even with a flashback that I didn’t really want to read, the series is still amazingly written, and there’s a lot of emotion packed into the total genocide of the Ishbalans.  There’s a couple characters I have no recollection of, the Red Lotus Alchemist being one of them.  I think he’ll come back next volume and we’ll hear more from him though, which is fine.

We learn a bit about Mustang and Hawkeye’s past, which is important.  Their relationship is still very professional, strictly so, but it’s still nice to see them share moments.

At least the Ishbalan War is out in the open now, so the characters don’t have to hint darkly at it anymore.  It’s one less thing hanging out in foreshadow territory, and while I think the series is far from over, at least this significant chunk of plot is behind us.  I didn’t like sitting through it though, and it’s a shame one of the rare volumes of this series went entirely to the boring flashback, though.  Hm, maybe not so rare?  Is it quarterly in Japan?  I know the most recent volume in Japan is 17, and it looks like 16 will be coming out here in March… here’s hoping for quarterly, but I suspect the gaps between volumes will be much, much longer from 16 on.

The most important thing we will get from this volume, however, is that King Bradley likes junk in the trunk.  This is a direct quote.  If my scanner wasn’t out of service, I would break my own rule and scan this panel, because the internet needs this image badly.

Wow. What a terrible weekend I had. I’m sorry I didn’t post. It would have been a better use of my time. Anyway.

Whoo-hoo! Things didn’t go quite as you’d been lead to believe last volume. There’s some serious flow going on plotwise, and while there’s not a lot of action here, things are set into motion and you can see that we’ll be getting to the end eventually after lots more cool stuff happens. This is still probably one of the most tightly plotted and strongest stories I’m reading right now. It’s quite good, and I think it earns all its popularity.

There’s a ton of omake at the end of this volume. I always wind up reading it first, because she’s so good at drawing hilarious gags about various past scenes. Her extras are the best in any manga, ever. One of the gags is her receiving a letter about how someone liked her extras better than FMA, and she said her dream had finally come true.

The prince, who was not a great favorite of mine, loses what little of my respect he had by being… well, greedy. We learn a bit more about the Homunculi (or whatever), including the interesting detail that sometimes their bodies fall apart if they regenerate too much. Not that big a deal since… well, there’s a solution to that, but perhaps useful knowledge for down the road. Ed and Al also begin to touch on the other types of Alchemy. I want them to be true Alchemy masters, better than Scar and the little girl at their stuff, too.

Basically, I want them to win. I want Ed and Al to win so bad.

OH MY GOD. Can I say anything without spoiling it? How about that Ed gets swallowed by Gluttony right off? Yes? Because that happens within the first few pages.

This volume was INSANE. It felt like absolutely nothing happened within the course of the story. There wasn’t really much action, but we got a lot of explanation. Ed actually finds out a lot about human transmutation in this volume thanks to the ruins from earlier in the series. We also find out a lot about Envy, and a lot about all the homunculi, actually.

We also see Al. This series is such a tease, but I love it. I’m still surprised I wound up liking it so much after not really getting into it until the 4th or 5th volume. Now I literally cannot wait to find out what happens next. Really, I just want to read up through the end and have the ending be something that’s totally mind-blowing amazing and wraps everything up within 3 volumes, all three of which I can go out and buy at the store tomorrow. But of course these demands are unreasonable. Too bad.

As a side note, I liked that in the author’s notes, the basketball team (or whatever sports team it was) was clarified in an editor’s note since most people wouldn’t get that reference.  I LOVED that Penguin Villiage was left alone, though.  If you’re not a big enough geek to get that one, you’re apparently on your own.

So yeah, I didn’t have the internet yesterday.  There’s gonna be a ton of entries with my weekend reading.   This came in a package with Phoenix 10 and Case Closed 16 in it.  I’m not sure what else I ordered from Viz this month, but these are the only three I really wanted.  I’ve still got two more volumes of Case Closed to read, but this one’s got the Kaito Kid in it, so hooray for that.

Fullmetal Alchemist is still a page-turner.  Reading it for several volumes in a row was really the best, but I don’t think I can do that anymore because I can’t wait to see what happens.  Apparently the Homunculi have additional powers other than the ones we’ve seen… which I should have seen coming, but they’re already so ridiculously powerful that noone can beat them, so I really didn’t see any need for it.  They didn’t even have him beat when he used it, he just felt like he could.

What else… a rather disappointing faceoff with Scar, but it resulted in a cute Winry scene, which is really all I wanted out of this volume.  I wonder if Winry will disappear for a couple volumes now.

No movement when it comes to Ed and Al’s family or the location of the body, but I have my suspicions that his body is being used for… homunculi activities.  That would be awesome.

The confrontation between Ed and Hohenheim wasn’t as satisfactory as I would have liked, but apparently the plot takes a big step in the direction of getting Al’s body back, and I’m all for that.  There’s some creepy business of digging up… stuff… and there’s also a rather sweet and heartfelt talk between Ed and Al.  I still do feel really bad for Al, and it wasn’t really until this volume that they began mentioning things he can’t do, like sleep, eat, cry, and smile.

I could also do without this business with Scar, and this battle going on at the end of the volume I feel is just kind of taking away from what I would like to see, which is more about Al getting his body.  I’m all for that right about now.  I sincerely hope it’s not the last thing to happen in the series, because I would like for him to get it back and then see a face-off against the seven deadly sins.

And this was from last volume, but I was right about Pride.  Hooray!  He does exist!  Not that it was that hard to figure out.

Now I gotta wait for the next volume like everyone else.  It looks like we’ll be bimonthly until volume 14, which will be three months from 13.  I can deal with a quarterly schedule now that we’re caught up with Japan, but damn, I really wanna see how this story goes and ends.  I’d hate to think it’s being stretched out… which of course it is.  I love it dearly now.

DEVIOUS.  This manga is so devious.  Did you guys see his face?  And then did you see the face on Hohenheim?  It’s the same.  Do you know what that means?  Yeah.  It hasn’t been spelled out explicitly yet, but DAMN.  That’s an amazing bit of plot.

Yeah.  I didn’t like too much what went on in this volume, but that little bit of tomorrow held me over.  So did the part at the beginning where Mustang and Jacqueline broke into Lab 3 and Mustang mentioned he could see why Jacqueline fell for Lust… because of her big boobs.  Jacqueline apparently just loves boobs.

I also liked the inclusion of Hohenheim, obviously, and I loved the backstory we got on the Rockbells, but the rest I probably could’ve done without.  I don’t know.  I still don’t like the characters from the East that much, though they prove themselves to be quite useful in this volume, especially when battling the Homunculus.  Hm.

I had to really admire the plot in this one.  It hit me that what started out kind of slowly as a collection of kinda good one-off stories has become a tightly plotted story that I am really enjoying.  It seems like everything from here to the end is going to be intertwined with no room for error, and I am definitely in the big fan boat for this series now.

I forgot that Al and Ed didn’t know about Hughes.  Him popping up again after this long is kind of surprising, especially all the events surrounding Al, Ed, Mustang, Hawkeye, et al.  It was sad business, dredging Hughes up, it almost made Al lose his will to live, I think.  I kinda thought something was up about the fire and explosion when the prisoner escaped, though.  For Mustang to do that is extremely out of character.

I love Mustang now.  His plan to bait the bad guys here was brilliant, and I especially loved the phone conversation he had with… Elizabeth and Jacqueline.  The flirtyness was perfect.  I especially liked when Elizabeth said she had to smack Jacqueline’s customer.

The pie scene was most heartbreaking, and probably my favorite moment in the volume.  Winry is a good character, it’s good that she’s getting more use now.  I crave some pairings, though I don’t want romance to ruin the good action story going on now.  Hints between the brothers and Winry as well as Mustang and Hawkeye are all I need.

I actually wound up liking this volume a lot.  So the evil characters are named after the seven deadly sins.  But where’s Pride?  Maybe he’ll come in later.

I didn’t actually like the way Greed was handled.  He is what he is, and it seems strange that those characters didn’t grasp that.  But woah, Wrath threw us a curveball.  I kinda don’t like where that’s going, but it makes for some pretty exciting manga.  I’m excited to see what happens now, especially since it doesn’t seem to be dragging its feet like in the beginning and Al getting his body back is a distinct possibility.

There were some pretty awesome fight scenes in this volume.  Mostly they were the fight scenes involving Greed, but there were others too.  Most certainly none of the ones that concerned the travelers from the other country.  I HATED that new characters like that were introduced so late in the game.  It’ll be cool if Ed and Al get to master this other form of alchemy, but I hate the character that seems to have latched onto them.  What a creep.

I’ll probably wind up finishing this series in one go without reading anything else between volumes, I can’t stop myself and I might as well run with it.  So sorry for the big slug of Fullmetal Alchemist entries.

Mostly I didn’t like this volume, though I did like the way that Greed propositioned Al.  Now we know a bit more about the virtuous characters, though Greed didn’t seem too concerned or knowledgeable about Gluttony or Lust.

Let me just say that the Military President is AWESOME.  The fact that he and Armstrong tore things up in the end was what made me enjoy this volume a lot more.

I didn’t really like Greed or the situation that Al wound up in, but I liked that he offered to exchange the chimera knowledge for the knowledge of how to become just a soul.  Equivalent exchange indeed.  I also liked the teacher a lot in this volume, too.

On to volume 8!  This one left off at a bit more of a cliffhanger than the last one did.