The most evil kids since the McCauly Culkin movie THE GOOD SON. Ha ha ha…

Well, I genuinely did not expect there to be that much more to cute lil’ Selim, nor for the last sin to be revealed like. They’ve all been hiding in plain sight, haven’t they? I figured the shadow waves with the teeth and the eyes were going to be some manifestation of Gluttony’s gut, but I was just a bit off, wasn’t I? It is pretty amusing to have such a sinister reveal behind him followed by that cute SNL-style photoshoot bumper of him with the gravelly voiced announcer “FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST.”

Kimblee actually is quite the gentlemen villain, playing with Winry’s trust like that. The team’s very clever about the little touches like his Sunday suit and his dandy scarf, and the way he casually sips coffee in the cold. You’d never guess there was a wolf lurking under that sheep skin. At the same time, Winry’s just “entrapped” him the same way that Bradley’s entrapped Ed in this war of manners, hasn’t she?

It’s been a while since that first episode with the false prophet, but what does a philosopher’s stone do if it doesn’t turn you into a homunculus? Does it just amplify your alchemy? Kimblee has to eat the thing. And if his real mission is, indeed, to find May, then that furthers my thinking that the homunculi use alkahestry as one of their secrets.

To use an metaphor appropriate to automail maintenance, they’re ratcheting up the romance between Ed and Winr, aren’t they? Things are going to be even more complicated now that she’s tagging along, intentionally putting herself in danger. I’ll give this show credit for making her willful and proactive enough to not be a damsel in distress, but still not excessively dangerous as to make everybody on this show an asskicker.

Watch this episode, “The First Homunculis,” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.      

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of  HYBRID BASTARDS!  &  UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon   here  &   here .  Follow him on Twitter:  @tompinchuk

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 Dumbass didn’t even see it coming…

Sheesh… we’ve got surprise openings, now? The animators must be exceptionally proud of the intro and the outro that they really want to give viewers an incentive not to ever skip over them. I’m not feeling the outro and it’s deliberately-paced workshop action, but the intro’s definitely reached that threshold of catchiness where I’m looking forward to it jumping to the chorus every time I watch, now. It’s definitely up there with that dance-pop intro to EVA and the later nu metal intro for DEATH NOTE. That might be a worthwhile subject of discussion sometime – - what themes have been the best so far?   

I did already cover “The Real Folk Blues” though, didn’t I?

While I think this third outro’s been pretty boring, it’s actually a pretty shrewd move on the show’s part to continually remind you of Winry’s presence without actually needing to have her show up in every episode. Especially since the bad guys are really twisting the knife into the Alchemical Kids by using her as leverage in this power play, you do need to harp on how important she is. Though, there is something unique about these orphans having her as their one weak spot even when they have no parents to threaten nor bodies to imperil. I suppose it’s oh-so-innocent (or maybe a little pathetic) that Winry isn’t even Ed’s girlfriend and she’s been threatened like she is.

Quick speculation – - Hohenheim is an homonculis! Maybe he’s the first, maybe he’s the missing sin, but the clues in this episode are contributing to my theory that the boys were created through some kind of magic. It’d just make perfect sense, wouldn’t it?

And, man, I did not see Raven’s death coming! Ms. Armstrong doesn’t string things along too long, does she? I guess Ed & Al will put up with intimidation and living a lie for a long time, but she simply won’t abide by it any longer than she wants. Burying the man in cement? That is colllllllllllllllllllllld.

Watch this episode, “Family Portrait,” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.   

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of  HYBRID BASTARDS!  &  UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon   here  & here.  Follow him on Twitter:  @tompinchuk

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 Would YOU dare to call her “sir?”

“Sub vs. dub” is fight that’ll never end. I’m really not insistent on watching anime one way over the other. FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST has been an interesting experiment for me because I ran out of dubbed episodes with #17 (I think that was the number) and have thus reached a point where I’ve watched half of this show subbed and half of it dubbed. So far, both versions are just as good, although the only voices I can remember in my head are of those of the Alchemical kids. I wonder what Olivier’s dub actress will sound like?

Purists are going to cite inappropriate voice actors as a case against dubbing, but I think a counterpoint is that sub-titles can sometimes have awkward phraseology that probably wouldn’t have passed by if somebody had been asked to speak the lines aloud. In this episode, specifically, the Briggs troops say their solidarity is “monolithic,” which a bit too eloquent of a way for grunts to describe their espiritus de corps. There’s also the part where a subordinate addresses Olivier as “Sir.” I’m sure an English voice actor would’ve probably said that line and then pointed out to the dub director, “Hey, she isn’t a man.”   

She could very well be a feminist who insists on being addressed the same as a dude, but that needs to be brought up in the dialog then. As is, it just seems like a gaff.

Back to the plot, it looks like I was sniffing right when I suspected the Homunculi’s master plan was similar to the Ripper’s grand sacrificial rite in FROM HELL. The blood-shedding sites even form a pentagram! Considering that May uses pentagrams in her acupuncture and Feng Shui-based magic, maybe the secret is that the Homunculi use alkahestry instead of alchemy? This conspiracy’s certainly getting interesting and they really have been laying the clues for it since the first episode (that poor rogue wasn’t a bad guy, after all, was he?) I suppose that’s one of the advantages of getting to do a whole series over again, isn’t it? You can make the execution that much tidier.

It’s almost getting redundant at this point to say that the action was impressively well-staged and timed, because that’s the case for every episode.  C’mon, the elevator dings and… SURPRISE! It’s a tank!

Watch this episode, “The Shape of this Country,” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.    

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of  HYBRID BASTARDS!  &  UNIMAGINABLE. Order them on Amazon here  &  here.  Follow him on Twitter:  @tompinchuk

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 I don’t remember you, but I can tell you’re a loser. Ha ha ha…

OK… who the hell is this Falman guy? The show could’ve maybe benefit from pop-up footnotes, because the context makes it pretty clear that he showed up in one of the 33 earlier episodes, and I’m drawing an absolute void of a blank on him. It’s not like he has a distinguishing name like Mustang’s or a distinguishing mustache like Armstrong’s (the male one’s, at least) to make him stick out in my mind. See, it’s been a while since we last saw Sloth and that glimpse was only brief… but I still remember him because he’s, well, memorable. Anyway, I’m sure one of you has the 411 on this dude, so let me hear it.  

Back to Sloth – - the dude’s actually one of the more aptly named Homunculi. He might be absurdly-jacked for a creature defined by being lazy, but “sleepy” and “forgetful” are definitely adjectives I’d expect to apply to a character named “Sloth.” You figure there are any more parallels to draw to the Rocky Road-lovign Sloth from THE GOONIES?’

“Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyy yoooooooooou guyyyyyyyyyyyysssss!” 

General Armstrong is a certified shrew, though I suspect this WILL work out like a lot of work affairs work out. First, you can’t stand the woman and her attitude, but then isolation gradually starts messing with your standards until you actually start getting turned on by everything you were so aggravated by in the first place. And a winter fortress is the perfect kind of isolation for that.

It’s a small thing, but I can appreciate the attitude the quarter-Ishvalan soldier expresses. People with a well-adjusted sense of identity aren’t going around, stressing their backgrounds to everybody. They define themselves by… themselves, without any associations or pretexts. Those are the people who succeed, not the ones who have chips on their shoulders.

Watch this episode, “Ice Queen,” below and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.      

Tom Pinchuk’s the writer of  HYBRID BASTARDS!  &  UNIMAGINABLE . Order them on Amazon   here  &   here .  Follow him on Twitter:  @tompinchuk

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