sinnesspiel | BS Anime Yawa - Fullmetal Alchemist

BS Anime Yawa (BS Anime Night Talk) is a program that gathers renouned anime staff members and industry commentators to discuss anime of particular historical significance. The 2003 FMA anime series was ground breaking for covering unique material (infanticide, matricide, child abandonment, scientific ethics, just war theory, racism, etc.) in an indepth manner, in a show ultimately aimed at children and for crossing quite a few boundaries for its timeslot. It's also famous for its script and particularly for its quality in derrivation from the original work. Compare to most series that diverge sloppily due to running up to the end of printed canon or whose different material is mostly filler, or regarded as lesser qualiy by the fanbase unanimously. Many find the 2003 anime's differences a distinct improvement over the original material, which is rarer still.

Episodes I've seen of past Anime Yawas have included Macross, the original Gundam series, and Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. I've heard there's an Evangelion one that I really want to see if anyone drifting by here someday has a copy of it.

Here are some translations of things said during the Fullmetal Alchemist special, by the head scriptwriter, Aikawa Shou about the script and production choices of the series, along with any commentary by the others I find particularly insightful or interesting.

This is my own translation dump for my convenience with a few of my own thoughts littered in while it's on my personal account. It should be clear what's my aside and what's a translation of others' words.

In other words, it's an info-dump translation post until I decide on a good place to put the information over at

ura_hagaren .

First, most of the guests had access to the manga before the anime. Ookata has a bias that makes him assume any particularly good manga will be a boring anime, but when he rented the series and marathoned it within 3 days, he becam excited to talk about it he says. I got the impression he preferred the manga, but can't translate any particular line to quote for that. He later clarified that the reason he thinks most good manga make for boring anime is because it's usually just like having the manga panels as a storyboard with some color, which makes for a boring anime as a separate medium. I bet he hated Brotherhood. Mori's child had the entire manga series to that point, so he read that but it wasn't really going to qualify him to talk about the anime, so when he watched that he was really surprised at the sublte differences and additions that fleshed out the same parts of the stories so naturally. Shoko-tan who I guess is some kind of idol or celebrity cosplayed as Sciezka but is actually a *huge* Ed fan, to the extent that they joked about her having to wipe away her drool while talking about him.

Aikawa says his first impression when reading the manga was "another shounen manga, they're still out there." Of course there are publications like Shounen Gangan that are putting out shounen manga, but while a series can accumulate a lot of various fans, at its core Fullmetal Alchemist is a series that put off a strong feeling of 'I want this to be read by young boys!' and 'I want to make a shounen manga along the lines of the days of old!' And that was the very first, very strong impression. When it was thought to make Hagaren into an anime, book 2 had just come out and it was actually uncertain whether the series was doing well enough for a 3rd book to be published or not. Aikawa thought that BONES really wasn't doing much shounen stuff but that FMA's theme and characters could probably fit their billing well, and that if the manga could just get as far as volume 4, they could make 26 episodes out of that. (Coincidentally, Hughes's death, the ending of book 4, is right around there).

When asked what kind of talks he had with Arakawa, he says they had countless discussions, including face to face, and he'd get a story of how it went to about the half way point as she had plans that far and he would say to her: "Sorry, but you'll have to tell me everything!'

Aikawa wanted the story to focus on character growth and thus in meetings with the designers they discussed how their faces would look; his goal was to have it be a very slow, subtle change so that someone looking back might not notice the difference progress (compare to FMA:B where Ed's character design change all happens sharply and suddenly right after his injury in Briggs, or in the manga where Arakawa keeps jumping back and forth, particularly in those final chapters, between his face settings). I'm sure the fact that Vic couldn't be bothered to change his voice for Ed's younger forms during flashbacks in the dub would make the staff that worked hard to emphasize this theme facepalm.

Commentator Aiko Satou (1996 Japan Bishoujo Contest winner, J-drama starlett http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Sato_Aiko) was asked if she saw the growth; she said at the end of the series as Ed was defeating the Homunculi, she was too busy cheering "Go! Go! Win!" that she didn't realize until the show itself stated a lot of his changes and issues that he had, so somewhere Ed grew along the line where she personally didn't, but that it was a work that could suck in adults like that, too, so she doesn't feel too bad.

They took a survey on everyone in the audience's favorite character, who was, as they expected, Ed. Host Sato is a Roy fan though, saying Roy is a character another adult can look up to. Heasked for the Roy fans to raise their hands and was surprised at how few there were... until he noticed and commented that they're mostly female, so you know, as long as he's popular with women, that's 'all right!" Al had more fans than they expected, too.

On the topic of characters, they discussed how Aikawa did well to make almost all of the characters very relevant in a tightly knit story without someone feeling like they were thrown in just to fill a quick plot role or fluff out the cast.

Satou talked about like Izumi and how her voice was really great even though she normally doesn't actually like seiyuu. (With the anime big names remaining conspicuously silent...) They talked about how seiyuu have certain inflections or tones that just feel stock-cartoony, but that FMA had really good casting/directing, and that there wasn't a single voice that felt out of place. Aikawa said he used the Wrath setting to outline that there is no such thing as a perfect human being as a theme on Izumi.

Speaking of the Homunculi, Arakawa and Aikawa went over her full plans for the future Homunculi, but Aikawa was told not to reveal anything in the manga past a certain point and to do certain Homunculi differently. They compared their scenarios during the meetings. Since even if they went with her scenario, doing a character who didn't have so much as a single final published concept design in the manga yet would definitely lead to a difference in the anime and the manga, they decided to only go with the naming sense for the remainders.

Ookata's favorite is Al, especially enjoying how he can be a supporting character but also go out ahead and do things on his own. But he thinks from an anime maker's perspective, talking about Winry may be more interesting, so he opened the floor to talking about her instead (because apparently she was nobody else's favorite, either). Sato asked what he meant by looking at her from an anime creator's perspective. Ookata says that in the story, Winry's not loved by anybody. But in exchange, she recieved love from the art staff; "Originally she was a short, fat character" (his words, not mine) "At the start she was dumpy faced and a little bit fat." "She underwent quite a few changes, becoming a taller bishoujo character, or a moe character." "And I think that neither the creator Arakawa nor I could really love her like that (as a dumpy character)." "Of course if she's someone you draw you have a little love for her, but she was a homely character connected to the main character through automail and that doesn't give her a lot of opportunities to appear in the story. But then you have Tucker of all people,Tucker the Life Sewing Alchemist who was only in the original for a tiny little bit, but he's abundantly, overflowing with the story editor's love!"

"NoNoNo..." Aikawa tries to insist.

Ookata says he gets that you need that type to pronounce the theme, but... They start to get sidetracked on Tucker's chimera design before Ookata remembers they're supposed to be interested in Winry. It's said that she's not really great from a script editor's standpoint, but from the art team's side, they finally got to draw a cute girl character, so in that aspect, she's overflowing with love. In the third ending "she's a moe character, completely." They emphasize how both sides work together with different aspects of the character the script team and the art team feels love for and combine it to make one single work, one single character.

As an Ed lover, Shoko-tan was upset when Winry started to go on their journey with them, but really loved the addition and weight the anime added to her depths and what she brought to the story for tagging along that little bit, in the end. Ookata pointed out that Scieska had about as large if not a larger part in things, and asked if that was a matter of the writer's taste.

Aikawa stated that it wasn't a matter of liking or not liking anyone (and apologizes for killing their dreams if they assumed that) but that Sciezka was a useful character from a script's perspective because Winry's a girl whose romantic feelings inevitably lead to a poor balance on that level, whereas Sheska is a character who loves to talk and so you can just set her in the scene and she'd naturally explain something. "Winry is a wonderful character despite not knowing anything about their circumstances. No matter what Ed and Al may be suffering, even if she says "tell me!" of course they won't tell her, right? The things that they refuse to tell her, the many things she doesn't understand make onlookers tense and feel for her, but if she were the type who could just read into everything and go "it's like this, this, and this, right?" then that level of sympathy with her would be ruined and then she'd just be told "sorry but just back off already."

But then it was still a problem because until they go back to Rizenboul, not so much as the 'Wi' in Winry is ever hinted at in the story, so they had to find a way to debut her sooner. They then talk about her role as a place to return to a little before getting to Scar, but I'm taking a break myself for now, so this is it for today.

BS Anime Yawa - Fullmetal Alchemist

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