Customer Reviews

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 5

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

 

 

Volume 5 of Fullmetal Alchemist takes a rest from the Philospher's Stone battles with Homunculi and serious angst of previous volumes to lighten up a little. Ed and Al travel with Winry to Rush City, a boomtown of the boondocks of the country, which despite its isolation has become a mecca for auto-mail engineers. Of course, you know Winry is slavering from the mouth when she enters its precincts! But then Ed's State Alchemist watch is stolen by a pickpocket and the chase begins. Ed and Al are journeying to find their old master, Izumi Curtis, the woman who trained them in their early years in the art of alchemy. They are hoping she might know something about the Stone. The problem is, she is so tough on them that the two brothers almost hope they won't find her! Especially when she finds out that they broke the strongest taboo of alchemy trying to bring their mother back to life.

Excellent excellent excellent book. These characters live and breath. Even their tough as nails master, Izumi, has some sadness in her life and takes the boys in as apprentices because they remind her of her own dead child who would have been their age. There are such depths here in the characterization and you really see what makes manga so special. Alchemist is at turns deadly grave, kinetic, mysterious, and funny....just like life. I get excited thinking where the plot can lead and contemplating the mysteries of the series that have not been revealed yet. Classic.

Because she knew how it all ends, and it will end in Japan at the end of this year (2009). Start from the beginning and know that unlike mangas like 'One Piece' and 'Bleach', this is a tangled web of seemingly vague threads that slowly knit itself into a grand and terrible Epic that I'm biting tooth and nail for.

Stupid company in America is bleeding out the volumes at a horrifically slow pace and I doubt we'll see the end till half a year or more after the series ends in Japan!

Volume five had some ups and had some downs. I loved reading about Rush Valley and getting to see this auto-mail mecca and the engineers (and people in need of them!) that lived there. Also reading about the story and the lessons learned by and from the pick pocket was good fun. Who knew one girl could give two alchemists so much trouble? And she does! It's great fun! The most powerful part of the book was where the boys learned the limits of alchemy and the wonders of the human condition as they got to attend the birth of a baby. The creation of a human life is something alchemy cannot achieve and was just one of the many ways the boys are truly humbled in Rush Valley.

The story gets a little shaky after the boys leave to meet their teacher and the book flashes back to when they first started learning alchemy, and why. I thought that the scenes with their teacher when they show up on her doorstep from Rush Valley were a little forced. They were obviously supposed to show us some of their teacher's beliefs and teachings without Ed and Al having to "tell" us them. But having random kids show up right at that time just so Teacher could solve their problems and show us the limits and proper attitudes towards alchemy that she likes to teach was almost more than could be believed. I wish that was done in a different way.

All in all another great addition to the Fullmetal Alchemist series. I enjoyed reading about the boys adventures - not to mention watching their interactions with Winry, Teacher and each other - and of course watching them eat their huge helping of humble pie that they have to choke down in every chapter of this volume!

Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 5 (ViZ, 2003)

I'm really starting to like Winry as a character. Once their small band reaches Rush Valley, we get involved in a mini story arc where Winry, who's also looking to better herself (despite the fact that everyone in Rush Valley marvels over the complexity of Ed's prosthetics), makes a journey deep into the mountains to submit herself as an apprentice to Dominic, the universally-acknowledged best automail artist in Rush Valley. Most of the rest of the volume (the last chapter finds Ed and Al at their teacher's place reminiscing) details the goings-on at Dominic's little campground. We get to know the people there, and get some tantalizing clues about the past doings of Winry's grandmother. The series just keeps getting better. *** ½

I purchased these as a gift and they really were appreciated. It was great.

Although the volumes have been getting darker, the humor of the prevoous volumes still prevails.