Customer Reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist Complete Best

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This mix is great, if your a longitme fan whos seen the whole series.
HERE IS THE COMPLETE TRACKLIST TRANSLATED:

01 Melissa (first season intro)
02 Kesenai Tsumi (first season closer)
03 READY STEADY GO (second season intro)
04 Tobira no Mukou He (second season intro)
05 UNDO (third season intro)
06 Motherland (third season closer)
07 Rewrite (fourth season intro)
08 I Will (fourth season clower)


If your following them in english, I suggest the first collection, as it has music from the anime. This is just the intros/closers.


~Whodaimen.

"COMPLETE BEST" is a bit of an awkward title for this collection. Yes, it is "complete" in that this CD compiles the eight songs that opened and closed the credit segments of the anime TV series, but titling it "best" is a bit superfluous, since these are the ONLY songs to bookend the episodes. None of the fine instrumental music heard throughout the series is included here.

If you've watched the series on DVD then you should already be familiar with each of these songs but, if you're like me, and followed the show as it aired in the US on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim (which only used two of the opening themes), then some of the music will be new to you. Your enjoyment of this CD will rest heavily on your tolerance for commercialized pop music, which for me, can be a bit of a challenge.

The CD is sequenced so that opening and closing themes alternate. This was a wise choice, as the opening songs tend to be up-tempo rockers sung by men, the closing numbers being mostly sweet or melancholic songs sung by women, and switching between the two in the linear fashion of playing the disc in track order helps to highlight the differences between them.

Of the four opening-credit songs L'Arc-En-Ciel's "Ready, Steady, Go!" and Asian Kung-Fu Generation's "Rewrite" packs the most punch (it didn't hurt that both were accompanied by well-crafted animated sequences). In this catergory Porno Graffitti's "Melissa" sounds out of step not just within the soundtrack, but the series in general, taking a sunny upbeat tone that clashed with some of the earlier episodes' darker themes that it shared (the "Mother" and "Night of the Chimeras Cry" episodes comes to mind).

The closing-credit songs served well as reflective meditations on whatever misfortunes the protagonists faced by episode's end. I don't play these as often, but Yellow Generation's "To The Other Side Of The Door" is, I think, the strongest in this category.

The cover of the booklet is the only place where artwork of the characters is featured. The interior contains the lyrics to each track (in Japanese only) and postage stamp-sized photos of each band/artist. A bonus DVD is included with a video of Nana Kitade's "Indelible Sin", but it's accompanying visuals has only vague themes that tie it to the series (and no FULLMETAL animation). The running time for the music disc clocks barely over 34 minutes, so I suspect the DVD was tossed in to justify a full CD's sticker price, making the whole package seem unnecessarily padded.

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (based on my enjoyment of the music alone)

If you're new to Anime and find the price to be a little high for your taste, bite the bullet and buy this CD. You'll be getting the full length versions of the outstanding opening and ending music played throught the Fullmetal Alchemist series. The performances on this CD range from rock/alternative to pop/soul and are a refreshing change from the oft-recycled themes peddled by many American record labels. AND, at (when this was written) less than $24 it's one of the less-expensive J-Pop compilations available on Amazon. Take the plunge, you'll wear this CD out...

I loved the theme songs for this series but didn't listen to them while watching the show as much as I could have. It gets annoying to listen to the same song 10 times in a day while watching the episodes one after the other when you could just skip to the actual show.

The songs are catchy Jpop and Jrock and a little bit of Jr&b
"Melissa" by Porno Graffitti: It is a catchy and fast-driven pop-rock song. The chorus is overpowering and always makes me want to scream along. It may be a little too cheerful for some, though.
"Kesenai Tsumi" by Nana Kitade: This is a pop-punk song with female vocals. It echos No Doubt a little bit until the chorus bursts out. Very repetitive.
"Ready Steady Go" by L'arc en Ciel: I love L'arc, a lot, so I'm a little biased. Hyde's voice is very masculine and makes this rock song more grounded than it would have been. The drum drives the beat along and the vocals are so much fun.
"Tobira no Mukou He" by YeLLOW Generation: The beginning of this song pulls me into the song every time, I love it. Despite the rock beat, the song is pretty soothing which is great for an ending song. It may sound like a typical pop song, but the strings make it more.
"Undo" by Cool Joke: Rock. Beyond fun song! The engrish is cute, the lyrics are easy to follow and it bops along like the pop-rock it is. The chorus is pretty powerful, too.
"Motherland" by Crystal Kay: R&B slow ending. Sounds like a nighttime lullaby interrupted by a bass beat. Not a favorite.
"Rewrite" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation: This song by itself is very well put together. The most rock song on the album, too. It rocks along the entire time and the guitar solo is awesome.
"I Will" by Sowelu: Another R&B song, and again it's not all that great. Starts out slow and sad and picks up to a club song, doesn't make such a good season ender.

I am a big fan of Fullmetal Alchemist. I own all the volumes of the manga that have been released in the US, I watched the whole TV show (on DVD, so I heard all eight opening and ending songs), and I even saw the movie. After watching the textless openings (and some of the endings) too many times to count, I figured that I should probably buy the CD. I expected that the CD would be the opening and ending songs. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The CD contains the FULL-LENGTH versions of songs that were cut down to 1:30 for the TV show. If, like me, you are only familiar with the shortened songs from the anime, you will be in for a big surprise.

The songs are 3:47 to 4:49 in length. Most of the songs are basically the same, only with two to four repeats of the verse/chorus. A few of the songs, however, have totally new material in them.

"Melissa" (first season opening) is basically the same, with three verses (although, one is almost entirely instrumental) and more vamping (playing the same chords over and over and over and over...) between the verses. (4:35)

"Indelible Sin" (first season ending) has three verses and a very short bridge. However, it seems to go on forever. The song is still good, but it probably could have been cut down to two verses instead of three. (4:15)

"Ready Steady Go!" (second season opening) has three verses and a short guitar solo in the middle. The song is as good as, if not better than, the version in the anime. (3:48)

"The Other Side of the Door" (second season ending) has four verses and a bridge (which is actually about as long as the verse, unlike the bridges in some of the other songs). In my opinion, the version on the CD is superior to the version in the anime. (4:49)

"Undo" (third season opening) has four verses and one bridge (with weird chanting people and electric guitar). The song in the TV show is one of my favorites, but the song on the CD sounds as though the band had just gotten a new synthesizer and wanted to try every instrument. Instruments include not only drums, bass, and electric guitar, but also weird synthesizer sound effects, organ, maracas, and...was that a cowbell? (4:01)

"Motherland" (third season ending) has four verses and no bridge. That means you get to listen to the same thing...four times. That's great, if you liked the original song. Since it was never one of my favorites, I would compare listening to the extended version to being subjected to Chinese water torture (I know there's a repeat coming; it's going to be soon; IT'S COMING...nooooo!). (4:30)

"Rewrite" (fourth season opening), which is my favorite song from the anime, has two verses, two renditions of the chorus, a short instrumental, and a bridge. I like the whole song...except for the bridge. Call me weird, but when they start chanting "Hup, hup, hup, hup!" I feel like screaming. In fact, the whole bridge is very strange (I'm not sure if the noise in the background is supposed to be the wind howling or a toilet flushing) and it's written in a completely different style from the rest of the song. After listening to the song fifty or sixty times (this is not an exaggeration; I really have listened to it that many times), the bridge has gotten a bit more tolerable, but it's still very strange. (3:47)

"I Will" (fourth season ending) has three verses and no bridge. It suffers from the same problem as "Motherland"; you get to listen to the same thing...three times... (4:14)

The CD does not have any of the beautiful incidental music from the show or the opening and ending songs from the movie. You can only get the CD with the incidental music as an import, which is more expensive. The music from the movie is on a completely different CD called Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa Soundtrack. It's a shame that a CD with the music from all four seasons is not available.

The CD does come with a lyric booklet. The lyrics are written in roomaji (aka roumaji, romaji, or rômaji; it's Japanese written out in Roman characters), but all the words are run together. This makes the lyrics very hard to read.

The CD also comes with a DVD of the music video for Nana Kitade's "Indelible Sin". While I can see why they packaged it together with the CD ("Indelible Sin" is the first ending song from the anime), the music video has absolutely nothing to do with Fullmetal Alchemist. The music video is very strange (the kind of strangeness usually attributed to consumption of many, many alcoholic beverages). Scenes of Ms. Kitade as a singing head that is slowly attached to a body are intercut with roses (with eyeballs in the middle!), freakish masks, bubbles, and mannequin arms, legs, and torsos (all naked and anatomically correct, of course). Once Ms. Kitade is put together, she proceeds to flail about a bit, while the camera gets far too close (I was waiting for it to go up her nose or something). That's the whole video.

Is 34:02 of music worth $17.98? I'm still not sure. I personally like the CD (sure beats watching the textless songs), but you may not want to buy it. If you understand that these are NOT the 1:30 theme songs from the anime, and you still want the CD, by all means, buy it. However, if you want the 1:30 theme songs, the incidental music, or the music from the movie, this is probably not the CD for you.

Fullmetal Alchemist has some of the best incidental music in the business, alternating between moody, spunky, and tragic as needed without getting stale. The songs used in the credits are of equal quality. Melissa and Ready Steady Go are two of my favorites; they have bright guitar crunches and good hooks for listening. You don't forget one of these songs after it's been played, is my point. This CD is the best workout music I've had in a while, although I'd mix it with the Bleach soundtrack and some Naruto to make a really good anime exercise CD.

Id say this is a great CD to buy, love the songs, although it only comes with 8 tracks. Overall though its not too bad for the price but could have a little more songs on it :)

It only has the opening and closing songs, but that's all I really wanted, and they're all full length by the original artists unlike the sucky iTunes remakes.

IF THEY HAVE THE DVD'S, AND THE BOOKS, POSTERS AND FIGURINES, WHY NOT BUY THEM THE CD. MY KIDS LOVE IT.

Ilove the music that plays in the anime credits and this soundtrack has the full versions of the songs I have come to love from my late nights with Edward and Alphonse Elric