A brief introduction to the world of Fullmetal Alchemist

A brief introduction to the world of Fullmetal Alchemist

Aug 16, 2022 - 12:30
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A brief introduction to the world of Fullmetal Alchemist

One of the most popular quotes from the super-popular anime franchise Fullmetal Alchemist is something said by Edward Elric; he’s looking for the mythical ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ (capable of turning base metals into gold and silver, a powerful tool employed in the fictional science of alchemy) to restore his own and his brother Alphonse’s body. After their mother’s death, the brothers attempted a risky and dangerous ‘human transmutation’ process that backfires on them; Alphonse’s soul is trapped inside of a steel armour while Edward loses his right arm and left leg (replacing them with metallic prosthetics, eventually). In this bit of dialogue, Edward is talking about the brothers’ years-long quest to find the stone and how they have made numerous sacrifices down the years.

“A lesson without pain is meaningless. That’s because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart. A fullmetal heart.”

The ‘fullmetal heart’ bit at the end as well as the heavily philosophical nature of the dialogue are both elements that make Fullmetal Alchemist—both the original 2003 series and the 2009 follow-up/retelling Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood—a beloved classic of the Shōnen genre of manga and anime, aimed primarily at the male teenaged demographic. Netflix is releasing the second live-action Fullmetal film on August 20 — The Revenge of Scar is the sequel to 2017’s live-action Fullmetal Alchemist and sees Ryosuke Yamada returning as Edward Elric.

This movie sees the brother facing off against Scar, a nameless serial killer who adopts his moniker because of a huge scar across his face. As fans of the show know, Scar is an Ishbalan survivor, who nurses a grudge against everybody he deems responsible for the Extermination Campaign against his countrymen (Ishbalans frowned on alchemy, too, which makes Edward Elric even more of a hated foe for Scar).

The world of Fullmetal Alchemist

As mentioned before, the core narrative follows the Elric brothers, of which Edward is the titular ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’, one of many ‘State Alchemists’ employed by the government of Amestris. Amestris and its rival kingdoms play a significant role in the narrative, as do the ‘Homunculi’, artificial human beings with a Philosopher’s Stone where the heart should be—this makes them strong, well nigh invulnerable and as fans of the show will tell you, insufferably evil.

In the live-action film Fullmetal Alchemist, we were introduced to a family of homunculi called Envy, Gluttony and Lust, respectively, super-strong, monstrous creatures who cloaked their true forms with human veneers. In the original series, these three are led by ‘Father’, the oldest known homunculus in existence, one who has a history with the Elrics’ father Van Hohenheim, who abandoned his wife and kids when Edward and Alphonse were still boys.

“Water: 35 liters, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 liters, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphorus: 800 g, salt: 250g, saltpeter:100g, Sulphur: 80g, Fluorine: 7.5 g, iron: 5.6 g, Silicon: 3g, and 15 other elements in small quantities.... that’s the total chemical makeup of the average adult body. Modern science knows all of this, but there has never been a single example of successful human trasmutation. It’s like there’s some missing ingredient. Scientists have been trying to find it for hundreds of years, pouring tons of money into research, and to this day they don’t have a theory. For that matter, the elements found in a human being is all junk that you can buy in any market with a child’s allowance. Humans are pretty cheaply made.”

A version of this voiceover happens in the macabre scene towards the beginning of the live-action film, as we see two boys barely 8-10 years old, trying to bring their dead mother back with their precocious knowledge of alchemy. Throughout the series, the “humans are cheaply made” sentiment is repeated in one form or another; through the brothers’ actions and those of other alchemists, we are shown the human cost of man’s obsessions, be they scientific or military.

The cautionary note struck around alchemy in general and the Philosopher’s Stone in particular, is reminiscent of a scene from the first Harry Potter novel, where Harry has just been told by Dumbledore that the only known Philosopher’s Stone in existence has just been destroyed and its maker, the 665-year-old Nicolas Flamel and his 658-year-old wife Perenelle, will die soon after “setting their affairs in order”.

““But that means he and his wife will die, won’t they?”

“They have enough Elixir stored to set their af­fairs in or­der and then, yes, they will die.”

Dum­ble­dore smiled at the look of amaze­ment on Har­ry’s face.

“To one as young as you, I’m sure it seems in­cred­ible, but to Nico­las and Perenelle, it re­al­ly is like go­ing to bed af­ter a very, very long day. Af­ter all, to the well-​or­ga­nized mind, death is but the next great ad­ven­ture. You know, the Stone was re­al­ly not such a won­der­ful thing. As much mon­ey and life as you could want! The two things most hu­man be­ings would choose above all — the trou­ble is, hu­mans do have a knack of choos­ing pre­cise­ly those things that are worst for them.”

The inspiration behind Fullmetal Alchemist and the live-action movies’ interpretation

For obvious historic reasons, a lot of Japanese pop culture since the 1950s has involved themes of war as well as the resultant trauma. As the author of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, Hiromu Arakawa, explains in this quote from the box set, she spoke to a lot of World War II veterans while writing and researching these stories. The objective was to depict the human cost of war in a way that felt fresh and not cliched or reductive, to make a ‘war series for people who normally don’t read that sort of thing’.

“In researching this volume, I interviewed veterans who had been at the front during World War II. I read countless books, examined film footage, and listened to many detailed and intense stories firsthand, but the one comment that affected me the most came from a former soldier who lowered his gaze to the tabletop and said, ‘I never watch war movies.”

This research shows at several places during Fullmetal Alchemist, especially when Edward Elric muses about his life choices and whether he could have picked a path that involved less bloodshed.

“Men are not men on the battlefield. We turn into some other creature. You can do the cruellest things… It doesn’t even matter if it’s an order or not. To protect yourself, your mind shuts out any emotions you have. It’s like a steel door. But once the war is over, you can’t keep it closed forever.”

In the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist movie, there are a pair of scenes that depict the aforementioned human cost in a powerful, even macabre way. In the first, we see Edward Elric speaking to Shou Tucker (Yo Oizumi), a fellow alchemist who is known for his innovative experiments. At one point, Tucker created a ‘talking chimera’, a cross-breed animal that was capable of processing and even reproducing human speech.

We see Edward interacting with what appears to be a hybrid of Tucker’s dog Alexander with an unknown animal. The dog-hybrid struggles at first and then says, in a small, childish way, “Edward, come play with me!”, stunning Edward into silence—this is the same line we just saw directed at Edward by Nina, Tucker’s five-year-old daughter who takes an immediate liking to her father’s friend.

Edward is horrified that Tucker would sacrifice his daughter like that—despite the Elric Brothers’ knowledge of alchemy there is no way of reversing the dog-human hybridisation process and Nina is now forever trapped in the dog-chimera body. But Tucker says, “There has never been scientific progress without human experimentation.”

The full import of his words is understood by the audience in another, even more horrific scene at the end of the movie, when Edward learns how Philospher’s Stones were harnessed—the process burned up dozens of live humans at a time, which is why the first alchemists used prisoners of war, a revelation that stuns and repels Edward.

Obviously, prisoners of war is a historically sore issue for Japan. At various points in history, the Japanese have committed war crimes on Chinese prisoners of war—and also suffered the same fate in the wake of World War II, when the US government purposefully delayed the repatriation of Japanese POWs to dismantle military facilities in the South-East Asia region, including the Philippines.

This is just one example how Fullmetal Alchemist uses allegories to discuss political and historical ‘sore wounds’. Hopefully, Revenge of Scar will provide a worthy follow-up to this still-popular story, and introduce newbies to the flamboyant titular villain in a suitably spectacular manner.

Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels.

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