Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 22
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 22
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 22

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

King Bradley races at incredible speed and attacks Lan Fan, who just manages to save her life with her kunai, breaking one of Bradley’s swords. Bradley gives Gluttony permission to consume Lan Fan, who then excitedly leaps in to do just that, only to have his head cut in half by Ling. Lan Fan has an injured arm, so Ling is forced to carry her over his shoulder while at the same time, fend off attacks from King Bradley.

Gluttony regenerates and Ling is forced into a nearby building in a room with no chance to escape. He won’t leave Lan Fan to save himself and she manages to get a flash grenade off, blinding everyone. Ling uses the direction of air currents to find the door to get out of the room but Bradley uses a sword to seal off that exit as his left eye had revealed Ling’s plan.

Meanwhile, Winry pays respects at Hughes’ grave with his wife and child. Ed and Al battle Scar and Winry foolishly attempts to find the brothers after hearing they are in battle. Ed is growing tired and so Al attempts to give Ed a breather by getting Scar to talk. Scar makes them both concede that with the incident in which Nina had been turned into a chimera was a failing on their part since they were putting off making a hard decision and knew that if left to the military, the Nina chimera would be treated like a lab animal.

Ed continues the talk by inquiring about Winry’s parents, whom Scar killed during the Ishval War. Winry happens upon the scene about that time and is horrified to see the killer of her parents there. In grief, she falls to her knees and finding the hand gun of an unconscious troop, she points it at Scar. Scar concedes that she has the right to shoot him but if she does, he’ll consider her an enemy at that point.

In a flashback, we see Scar during the Ishval War, a well-trained monk who’s older brother has learned the skills of alchemy and alkahestry in order to save their people from the armies of Amestris and the State Alchemist. Both of Scar’s brother’s arms are tattooed and as their city comes under attack, a State Alchemist attacks, killing Scar’s parents and wounding himself and his older brother. His older brother sees that Scar has lost an arm and uses his abilities to give Scar a new arm — his tattooed arm. In a field hospital, Winry’s parents are trying to help as many of the Ishval people as they can, but when a wounded Scar comes to, in a moment of grief and rage, he slaughters them.

Back in the present, Scar and Ed resume their fight but when Ed attempts to shield Winry from harm at the cost of his own life, Scar remembers how his brother did the same for him and stops the attack. Al takes advantage and attacks Scar, yelling at Ed for being foolish and ordering him to get Winry away from there. Scar flees with Al in pursuit as Winry cries at not being able to kill the slayer of her parents. Ed takes the gun from her and tells her that she was not meant for killing, but for saving lives.

Thoughts/Review:

No comedy this episode, but then the nature of the episode is such that comedy would have been highly inappropriate.

The story of how Scar came to be what he is now is something I found most interesting. I’m pretty sure that one alchemist that caused the death of Scar’s family is one who was in jail for whatever reason early on. I like the imagery of Scar realizing that he’d become the enemy (or was becoming that). I was reminded of the scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke Skywalker looks at his own mechanical hand and realizes he was becoming just like Darth Vader. It will be interesting to see what Scar does next with Al on his tail.

Just how long was the Ishval War anyway? I ask because if Scar’s brother learned alchemy and alkahestry, he didn’t do that overnight and the episode implies that he learned both arts to become a weapon to fight the State Alchemist and the Amestris army. Plus, he had to have access to Xing research since that’s where alkahestry comes from. How did he get this?

Also of great interest is Bradley (Wrath) and Gluttony having their fight with Lan Fan and Ling. I’m informed by some of you who’ve read the manga that Lan Fan had already fought against Envy and thus showed her impressive skills. Here, the fight is all new and Lan Fan immediately gets defeated, though is shown to have skills enough to save her life when she should have been killed by Bradley’s attack. Had we seen her battle homunculi before, her defeat would have been even more impressive since we would have seen how skillful she truly is.

Does the fight still work?

Yes, but I’m a fan of not cutting so much from the source materials. The anime production team is bent on speeding through as fast as possible and that means dropping all kinds of stuff, which is unfortunate.

But I digress…

Last episode, Ling showed himself to be more than a comic relief character, but only for a moment at the end of the episode. This episode, Ling shows himself to be a gifted fighter and someone who truly does care about his people. Lan Fan may be only a servant, but Ling meant it when he said that a king is nothing without his people. His refusal to save his own skin at the cost of Lan Fan’s life (and we’ve seen him leave Ed out to dry more than once so he is selfish and a bit greedy too I’d say) put his money where his mouth is. As such, Ling scored more points with me as a character.

It will be interesting to see how Ling gets himself and the injured Lan Fan out of the trap they are in now that Bradley has apparently closed the only avenue of retreat they had.

So for me, this is a really good episode, though I am disappointed to learn of how much stuff is still being cut from the manga, even if they are following the manga storyline. Keep me informed on stuff that goes missing in the anime from the manga. ^_^