Fullmetal Alchemist

[Temprus]

Just picked up the manga volume 1.

How close does the anime follow the manga?

The first thirtysomething episodes use big chunks from the manga and its side projects (most filler episodes are from the Gaidens and comic cds), but they are in a slightly different order. Later ones seem to have inspired the manga or the manga writer gave Bones some of her notes for planned upcoming issues as they share some scenes but no real storyline or plot similarties. Yes, I just gave out the one true spoiler! The writer/artist is really a woman not a man.

Most major characters are the same with very similar histories/baggage, but there are a few of them are not defined as yet in the manga (or defined very differently than how Bones chose to do them).

Major Spoilers:

Spoiler

They start to really part ways over what happens to Barry the Chopper & Greed. Oh and Scar's past.

The Sin roster is different for each.

The manga also adds some different characters after they part ways.

 

[Alzrius]

Ed's world is a parralell world to ours.

Spoiler

I don't think that it's the same world as ours (there weren't any zeppelin bombings of London during WWI, for example), but the world Ed is in for most of the anime, and the world he goes to on the other side of the gate, seem to pretty clearly be the same world at different points in time.

 

[Temprus]

Spoiler

I don't think that it's the same world as ours (there weren't any zeppelin bombings of London during WWI, for example), but the world Ed is in for most of the anime, and the world he goes to on the other side of the gate, seem to pretty clearly be the same world at different points in time.

More spoilers:

Spoiler

Ed's Father says it is a different world. He could be wrong but Bones can't be and they said it is our world (Bones is the animation studio).

On Zepps: "Strategic Bombing had its beginning during WWI when German Zeppelins began raiding London." Read here: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/ww1/ww1-6.htm

Edit: hmm, links show up in spoiler code, weird.

 

[Alzrius]

More spoilers:

Spoiler

Ed's Father says it is a different world. He could be wrong but Bones can't be and they said it is our world (Bones is the animation studio).

On Zepps: "Strategic Bombing had its beginning during WWI when German Zeppelins began raiding London." Read here: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/ww1/ww1-6.htm

Edit: hmm, links show up in spoiler code, weird.

Spoiler

Okay, so that is supposed to be our Earth there. That said, Hoenheim, as I recall, called it "this world" as opposed to the one he was familiar with, but that doesn't mean it's a different universe from the one they left. Likewise, Bones said it was our world, but they didn't say at all that Ed's world wasn't the far future. I still don't see anything to indicate that the two sides of the gate aren't the same world at two different time periods.

 

[SidusLupus]

There's nothing that says Ed's world is the far future. However, I submit that it isn't possible to be the future.

The major point being, there's no talk about time travel anywhere in the series, and the way the gate is set up links the worlds pretty solidly. Unless you want to moebius strip connect them or something. which would be weird! but i guess not out of the question.

I can't remember at the moment but in the final episodes Ed makes the discovery that alchemy uses something on the otherside of the gate, and that's why they haven't got it there. Having alchemy on oneside precludes it from being on the other side. I think.

I could swear it had to do with human souls.

 

[Alzrius]

There's nothing that says Ed's world is the far future.

Spoiler

As I said, the fact that Hoenheim's letter from four centuries ago was dated "by the death of Christ" which was "an old system" of dating, shows that Ed's world is the future.

Spoiler

The major point being, there's no talk about time travel anywhere in the series, and the way the gate is set up links the worlds pretty solidly. Unless you want to moebius strip connect them or something. which would be weird! but i guess not out of the question.

Spoiler

It's never stated, but the above point should make it clear that there seems to be some sort of temporal displacement going on via the gate.

Spoiler

I can't remember at the moment but in the final episodes Ed makes the discovery that alchemy uses something on the otherside of the gate, and that's why they haven't got it there. Having alchemy on oneside precludes it from being on the other side. I think.

I could swear it had to do with human souls.

Spoiler

I don't see what this has to do with the idea of the two sides of the gate being the same world in the past and future. The way the gate operated is that when someone in "the past" died, their soul apparently went to the gate, and remained there until someone in "the future" used it as energy to perform alchemy.

My guess is that someone, at some point in time, created that gate somehow and had it collect the souls of everyone who'd died up until then, thus enabling alchemy.

 

[SidusLupus]

You make good points, but my only contention is this. It hinges on the dating system in the letter.

The only valid conclusion you can make is that either Ed's world shared common occurences with ours (I.e. the death of Christ) or is a splinter from our world, caused by or connected by the gate.

It's becoming more and more common to use BCE and CE for the dating system in newer text books than BC and AD.

The fact that they thought of AD as an old way to date things just means they use a new system now. (Possibly due to a larger or more important event) At the end of the series when Ed goes to the other world, which is around 1900, and the letter his father wrote is from approximately 1500 (400 years earlier), the conclusion that Eds world is from the future doesn't hold up. Perhaps the creation of the gate, and the strange city is the event which caused Ed's world to use the new date system and splintered it from our world.

 

[Alzrius]

You make good points, but my only contention is this. It hinges on the dating system in the letter.

The only valid conclusion you can make is that either Ed's world shared common occurences with ours (I.e. the death of Christ) or is a splinter from our world, caused by or connected by the gate.

Spoiler

Or you can say that the simplest explanation is best, which is that if both worlds have the ano domini dating system, they're the same world.

Spoiler

It's becoming more and more common to use BCE and CE for the dating system in newer text books than BC and AD.

Spoiler

This doesn't have anything to do with what we're discussing though.

Spoiler

The fact that they thought of AD as an old way to date things just means they use a new system now. (Possibly due to a larger or more important event) At the end of the series when Ed goes to the other world, which is around 1900, and the letter his father wrote is from approximately 1500 (400 years earlier), the conclusion that Eds world is from the future doesn't hold up.

Spoiler

It does hold up, because you're making one critical error. When Ed and his teacher discover Hoenheim's letter, they say it's from four centuries prior to the current date (we don't know what that is); it's not four centuries prior to the time on the other side of the gate.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

This may be a bit of a depressing thought but sometimes, when the plot get complicated and there are multiple people working on the story, discrepancies slip in (especially in such a long series).