October 20th, 2009 
AstroNerdBoy Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 27
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 27 review
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 27
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Hohenheim polishes off a bottle of adult beverage in a field and has a dream where a young Pinako Rockbell and many others are at a bonfire dance. He and Pinako discuss alchemy, humanity, and more before he awakes in the morning and heads on.
Thoughts/Review:
When I saw the previews to this episode, I thought, “Interesting. We’ll get to see Pinako Rockbell as a young woman and maybe learn a bit more about Hohenheim.” Instead, we get this episode of Hohenheim reflecting on alchemy and humanity after sleeping off a drunk in a field while using a lot of recycled footage from earlier in the episode. Now, while this may be a clever use of the recap system, I found myself not at all amused by this. For starters, how much of the manga got skipped so that the anime production team could “fly robin fly?” Now, we are going to mark time with a recap episode? Why?
I suppose the anime team needed a cost-saving episode and a recap episode provides that. So a question to those of you who’ve read the manga — does Hohenheim have a chapter where he reflects on things or is this an anime-only story?
The only thing I got from this episode is that Hohenheim is not Father. I guess Father could be his brother since they look to be twins. That would be an interesting thing.
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About who is Father – you’ll learn eventually. Don’t worry. But I can’t say when, even if I wanted to tell you.
Also, this episode is entirely new – there isn’t a chapter like that as far as I read the manga – around chapter 70 (or at least I don’t remember to be one).
I really stink at remembering more than the main events of the FMA manga, but I’m pretty sure this is anime-only…
They’re kinda dropping the ball again and again on the ‘true-to-the-manga’ adaption eh. ~_~
Well, it was the start of Season 3, so it was probably for anyone who came in late to catch up a bit. It did show a more direct connection between Father (who was the evil-seeming Hohenhiem) and himself. The only thing it truly revealed was that Hohenhiem had known Trisha since when she was a young girl, something the manga never said, but makes a few things make a bit more sense.
Next episode is the Father episode and is very true to original. After that and one more episode is likely the Ishbal flashback (due to large amounts of clips of it in the 3rd opening, all very recognizable panels from the manga). That I had thought would be skipped, but it works well to introduce the manga version of Kimbley, who is very intriguing, to say the least.
Thanks – ’til I read your review, I wasn’t sure if it was just me or if there just wasn’t any deeper meaning to get from this one. To me, Hohenheim came across like an old joke about some river with a really shallow delta: “A mile wide at the mouth, but barely knee-deep.”
No comment on the new OP? It’s kind of Spoiler-tastic.
I’m so pressed for time of late, I skipped the OP and the ED. ^_^; I guess I should take time to watch the OP next time.
The new OP has become one of my all time favs. It’s such a weird yet awesome song and every line fits the art shown perfectly. And the line of soldiers on Briggs really left an impression.
Well, I’m kinda the opposite – I didn’t like the song. Yeah, I agree – it’s very different from the other songs I’ve ever listened, but still I didn’t like it. But, except the song, I liked the OP. And the ED, too. But, although I liked them, they’re far from my favorite.
I don’t want to seem snarky about it, but you completely missed the point. One of the threads running through vampire manga is that the desire to live forever is a corrupting influence on the human soul. We get to hear Hohenheim voice the same opinions; that people are stupid, fit only to be sacrificed to make Philosopher’s Stones. But he is reminded in his dream that there are other, more humane and hopeful ways of looking at people, first from Pinako, then from Tricia Elric. We don’t yet know when Hohenheim awakes how much of the dream he remembers, but I loved that the dream was punctuated by a flight of cranes. In Japan the crane is a loaded symbol, believed by the ancients to live for a thousand years but still die when it’s their time to die. Like the cherry blossoms of spring, cranes are a reminder that longevity is a blessing, but the very fact of mortality makes life beautiful and precious, not to be wasted or dismissed.
Did anyone else notice that Pinako is so young but Ed and Al are born? Am I the only confused by when this is suppose to be happening? Because not only are Ed and Al born but the Ishvalan war is happening which happened when Ed and Al were like 6 and 7 or 5 and 6? Damnit Funanimation….get your shit together.
It has been so long since I watched this, I don’t rightly recall. ^_^;
What is the name of song
I have no idea. I’m guessing someone has it out there. You might need to Google it.