Sinnesspiel

 Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thoughtwere interesting. Note that parts of the "final cut" script aren't in fact in the final print! I translate these while at work when I don't havethe movie playing in front of me to check scene by scene, and I'd been feeling out cut scenes from the prototype based on what was in theprototype but not the written final cut script.  

Maybe one day I'll watch the movie with the script in hand and note any cut parts or details from the final script, too. For now I'll include thefinal script's written ending since there's a good note about it and I think it helps see what the staff were going for in some of the ideas theyhad even if they weren't implimented. 

A little more detail on how Gate alchemy works, what's going on in the nation of Amestris and on Roy's situation. His relationship with Winry is shown to be rocky but still more intimate than his relationship with Hawkeye and his relationship to Hughes and Ed is given more weight. The Noah-Ed-Alfons love triangle comes to a head, and there's a note by the writer on how Alfons was originally an extension of and written for Kugimiya!Al.



( Prototype Script - Part C )

Notes from the script in the Shamballa Scenario Book, which has the film's script. I'm just picking out excerpts of the side notes I thought were interesting and/or may be useful to people discussing the series, roleplaying, etc.; those that I am skipping are historical facts that one could look up in far more detail if they had interest, things already assumed to be known by most English speakers (what the Aryan race is, etc.) or references back to the series that I think all fans will know without reading it here (who Sig and General Hakuro are, what 'Flame Alchemist' means, etc.)

Prototype script notes are on other posts with the prototype tag. Note that some prototype script notes actually include notes/intentions relevant to the final cut as well. Some notes also overlap, such as the ones about Roy's crews ranks. For these posts I'm doing them just by where the notes appear in the book; either at the bottom of pages of the final cut script or in the prototype commentary list at the end of the script. I may do a synthesis post on ura_hagaren if I decide that's the best format.



( Shamballa scipt notes, Part B )



That's all for Part B. Thanks for reading!

More things I've translated from interveiws in Anime Yawa to be organized for ura_hagaren that are of interest.

Aikawa in regards to Izumi: Izumi didn't debut until the third season, so already half a year had passed for viewers. Of course, they were throwing around the word "Sensei, sensei" (written shishou) from early on so they (the anime staff) had to think about her place in the story too, while looking ahead at what she was in the manga.

"Ed and Al's mother is already dead. While she's like another mother figure, she's not merely a substitute. Their already dead mother, being dead, is also idealized, living on as an ideal like that in their hearts. So what does that make Izumi? Is she perfect after all? No, she is alive and, just as their mother may have been, she of course has human weaknesses in her. While we were thinking of that, we compiled Wrath's settings and because there are no perfect people in this work, I thought that this would be a way to display the incompleteness of the master who appears flawless at a glance."

When asked how Wrath came about, Aikawa said: "She asked 'Will the full 7 Homunculi appear?' " "They will." And so she laid out their details "They're like this and this and this. But it'd be bad to reveal that early. "

Mori's favorite was Scar. They talk about how he died even though he's still alive and well in the manga, and host Sato tries to give Aikawa guilt about not bringing him back to life.

"That's how it goes. There's certainly problems with managing the life and death of a character still active in the original work. As Scar is a character with quite a bit of anime settings added to him, we worried over quite a few of those details ourselves. For example, if you only read the manga his voice comes off a little younger that you'd expect. That was exactly what we were going for but even Okiayu (Ryoutarou) asked "Why are you having me do this role?" and seemed troubled by it. "Are you sure it's okay for someone like me with the voice of a boy in the prime of his youth to be doing the voice of this man who's like a Terminator, this sturdy guy," you know? That was something intended by Sound Director Mima, Director Mizushima and myself. In the original, Scar is immediately a man with a dark, mysterious grudge, but in the anime he has inconsistencies, feelings for his brother, feelings about Ishbal, and feelings towards those called State Alchemists, all making him into a wavering young man. So in all of that, in order to save Ed and Al, it was necessary to purify him to some degree, to show that there was no escaping that fate. "

They asked what Scar's appeal to women was, to the token chick.
"Just in the original, he sucks."
Thanks, that was insightful. (She says more, but she's not a staff member, so who cares about fangirl A? I just thought her frank first sentence was funny.)