Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 41

Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 41
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 41 review
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 41

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41Winry, Marcoh, Scar, Yoki, Zampano, Jerso, Mei Chan, and Xiao Mei continue their way through the mines, taking the time during breaks to discuss Scar’s brother’s research. Making their way through, they encounter Al, who warns them of the dangers in Briggs. As such, Scar decides to lead them to the town of Asbec, which has a Ishval refugee slum there. During the trip, Al collapses as his soul once again attempts to leave the armor it is attached to.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41Back in Baschool, Ed objects to Major Miles plan to kill Kimblee and Kimblee’s men as Kimblee decides to have his men search the town’s mine shaft. Ed attempts to talk Kimblee into letting the Briggs soldiers search, leading Kimblee to reveal that he already knows he’s the target of snipers. Ed battles Kimblee, who’s aided by his two soldiers, who are also chimera. Ed manages to separate Kimblee from the larger philosopher’s stone but doesn’t Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41realize Kimblee has a second one. Kimblee defeats Ed and escapes, severely injuring him and the two chimera. Ed uses alchemy to free the chimera from the rubble and they remove the beam from Ed’s body, at which point he uses alchemy to seal the wound before passing out. The two chimera are not happy at having been discarded by Kimblee and take Ed out to find a doctor.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41
Thoughts/Review:

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41OUCH!

I got to tell you, BONES didn’t really pull any punches when it came to the scene with Ed’s being impaled. Wow. I felt they managed to capture the pain and sense of near loss of consciousness quite well with Ed’s major injury. In any animated or drawn form of storytelling, there’s usually a sense of separation from reality no matter how dramatic a scene is, even if there’s a death. From time-to-time, an Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41anime production teams brings the power of emotion through and provokes an emotional reaction from the audience. So even though this was an anime, I couldn’t help but cringe as the two chimera soldiers pulled out the beam from Ed. It was brutal, bloody and felt very real. It is a moment like this that places Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood above your traditional shounen anime.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41It was not unexpected that the ever crafty Kimblee sensed the Briggs soldiers were keen on killing him, nor that he apparently never completely bought the Scar kidnapping of Winry. I couldn’t get a sense of how long the blizzard lasted, but with Winry and company having made it through the mountains, they have a huge head start on Kimblee. So I don’t expect he’d catch them before they reach Asbec unless Al slows them down terribly.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41The two chimera (Darius and Heinkel; I had to look the names up because I don’t think they’ve been mention and I needed names) with Kimblee ended up switching sides but only because Kimblee nearly killed them and Ed saved them. I suppose this means that Zampano and Jerso legitimately switched sides too. I’d been suspicious of Zampano and Jerso changing sides before, but after this episode, I’m going to say that they are for real. The question for me Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41then becomes, “After Darius and Heinkel get Ed to a doctor, are they going to stick around?” If the subject of getting their original bodies comes up, I’ll say an easy “yes” but otherwise, I really couldn’t say. It would be more dangerous for them personally if they didn’t go into hiding since they’d be AWOL. We’ll see what happens. After all, they have Kimblee’s other philosopher’s stone.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41Speaking of Ed, I really liked the frank conversation between himself and Miles over the idea of killing Kimblee, Darius, and Heinkel. In a strange way, both Miles and Ed were proven right and wrong about things. Had Miles been able to take out Kimblee, Darius, and Heinkel, that would obviously save a lot of grief in the future. One doesn’t leave an enemy to live lest that enemy come back to get you in the end. On the other hand, since Miles wasn’t able to take them out, Darius and Heinkel ended up saving Ed’s life, showing Ed was right about them to a degree. I say Miles was more correct in this situation but that’s neither here nor there.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41I don’t know if it means anything, but Al’s latest episode where his soul was being summoned out of his armor was shown to happen about the time Ed got impaled by the metal beam. I found the timing interesting considering their joint trip to the Door of Truth but I’m not sure if I should read more into this or not.

It was weird that the guy pretending to be Al just disappeared from the episode. I know the point of showing Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41him was to show how Ed covered for Al’s having gone after Winry and company. However, I couldn’t help but notice how he just disappeared from the episode.

Interesting that Hohenheim turns out to be the person (Philosopher of the West) who taught the people of Xing alchemy (well, it is HEAVILY implied Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41that he is, so I’m assuming this to be the case). However, it is strange that they use alkahestry and the people of Amestris use alchemy. I say this because if Hohenheim taught the people of Xing alkahestry, then surely Father-Homunculus taught the people of Amestris alchemy (the Philosopher of the East). One would think that alchemy is alchemy and that what Hohenheim knew, Father would know. Apparently not since Father could not control Mei Chan’s nor Scar’s abilities and indeed seemed surprised by them.

So as usual, another good episode here. ^_^

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood - 41

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 41”

  1. Anonymous says:

    “It was weird that the guy pretending to be Al just disappeared from the episode”

    He’s one of the snipers @9:48
    You can see the armor too.

  2. In the manga,when ed was impaled by that metal beam he had his memories flash before his eyes.I’m somewhat glad that BONES didn’t animate that part.If they did,it would have ruined the shock of ed nearly dying.Also that soldier who was impersonating al didn’t have much attention in that chapter.I’ve been reading your blog for several months now and I wanted to let you know that I enjoy reading reviews on Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood.^_^

  3. ku_fei lover says:

    the only thing I noticed was that they edited a scene

    in the manga heinkel picks up ed and ed says the mane is smothering him (he says the mane is cool though “king of the jungle baby!”) and it’s darius who picks up the stone

    http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/77/13/

  4. AstroNerdBoy says:

    @Anon — I see I should have been more specific about what I meant. I was not so much referring to the guy specifically as I was him in the suit of armor. My bad there. ^_^;

    @nightastronomer — Thanks for the manga information. ^_^ Also, thanks for reading the blog. I’m glad it is enjoyable to you. ^_^

  5. AstroNerdBoy says:

    @ku_fei — I’ll have to check that out. Thanks! ^_^

  6. GhostStalker says:

    If you can’t remember the Chimeras’ names, you can just do what Ed does and give them nicknames. He refers to Darius as “Donkey Kong” and Heinkel as “Lion King”, IIRC (I don’t remember if this was just in the scans or in the Viz translation of the manga as well).

    Also, I take it they left out a really amusing part of the Chimera/Ed fight. Right after the Chimera reveal, Ed falls into a mine shaft and the Chimera follow. Ed stumbles onto a crate of dynamite, but it’s too wet to be of any use due to the snow. When the Chimera catch up with him, Ed shows off the dynamite, but they aren’t impressed because it’s all soggy. Ed warns them still and then asks them if they know what dynamite is made out of. When Donkey Kong mentions Ammonium Nitrate as one of the ingredients, Ed then asks them of they know what that is made out of. The two chimera wonder where he’s going with this as they answer Nitric Acid and… ammonia…. Ed has already plugged his nose and with an overly gleeful expression is readying to transmute the dynamite into just that. Now since both Donkey Kong and Lion King are combined with animals with such keen senses of smell, I’m pretty sure you can guess the rest of the scene.

  7. Anonymous says:

    His memories didn’t really flash before his eyes. He just remembered Riza saying “You have to live on for the sake of the people you love,” and then he remembered Al saying, “I’ll only get my original body back if you get yours back too big brother,” and his hand twitched, and then he remembered Winry saying, “We promised the next time I cried they’d be tears of joy,” and then he got up and began to save himself.

    It’s better that Heinkel picks of the stone this time around, it was actually a sort of continuity error later in the manga and this way Brotherhood has fixed it. And yeah, in the manga Ed wasn’t able to get up and walk as far he did. He collapsed as soon as he stumbled up and Heinkel picked him up right away and he was all, “Mane…smothering…” It was funny xD and then he passed out.

    But now we won’t be seeing Ed for a while :O

  8. AstroNerdBoy says:

    @Ghost — That scene was in the anime. Because I’m trying to keep my summaries down from last year to save some time, I didn’t mention it there and I guess I just didn’t think about it much afterward. ^_^; The look on Ed’s face was funny though after they realized what was up. ^_^

    @Anon — Yeah, the anime didn’t show any imagery, but Ed did pretty much go through similar motions before saving himself. I note that he mentioned “her” and I’m guessing that is Winry.

  9. fun fact man says:

    this is minor but kimblee has his new stone the one they got was his old one that means in they meet him again he has a full power stone and they has the old weakend one

  10. GhostStalker says:

    Well, I guess I stuck my foot in my mouth on that one. Guess I’m used to your detailed summaries.

  11. AstroNerdBoy says:

    @Ghost — don’t worry about it. I used to do more detailed summaries but the problem was that I’d get bogged down in the details and in taking time to go back through the episode. Thus, it would often take me a couple of hours to write the summary when factoring in the rewatching that I would do as well as the additional writing. Since my time is often very short, I had to keep my summaries to a minimum which meant strictly going from memory and picking up the highlights. In retrospect, I should have mentioned how Ed overcame his opponents though.

    @fun — I was thinking that the pearl-shaped one was the old one but now that you mention it, you are right.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Powered by WordPress