Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 43
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 43 review
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 43

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Briggs completely repels the attack by Drachma while in Central, Bradley and Riza have a chat as she serves him tea. In Asbec, Zampano arrives with Envy, who has walked into a trap and is unable to move without setting off remote attacks underground from Mei. Envy transforms into his huge form and attacks. Scar takes him down, but Envy still manages to grab Marcoh and threatens to take out Asbec. However, Marcoh has a surprise for Envy and using Alchemy, Marcoh reduces Envy to the size of a small lizard, expending the philosopher stones of the homunculus.

Returning to Asbec with their tiny prize, Envy escapes and attempts to take over Yoki but seeing that this is a losing prospect, Envy surrenders. The group decides to do what they can for their country so Scar gives the jar with Envy to Mei to take to her people to show them the truth of immortality. Marcoh and Scar head off together leaving Winry, Ed, Zampano, Jerso, and Yoki to travel to Lior, where they meet Rose and discover Hohenheim is there.

Elsewhere, the chimera Bido discovers two soldiers trying to locate Izumi and when they mention Bradley, he rides under their car to Central to attempt to find Greed. In Central, Olivier and Alex Armstrong have a reunion chat where Olivier shows who’s boss. Another general arrives and takes Olivier to a special location where he reveals an army of artificial humans are dormant and hanging by their feet from the ceiling.

Thoughts/Review:

Can we say, “Whoa,” “Whoa,” and “Whoa!”?

I love this anime (and through it the manga, though I’m not currently reading it) because the story always keeps me enthralled and trying to guess how things will go. This time, the story pulled a double-twist back on me and I loved every minute of it. ^_^

When Zampano and Jerso switched sides, I didn’t buy it initially. Then things played out so that I decided that the two chimera may be OK after all. Episode 42 had Zampano making the call to Envy and so my thoughts were, “OK, I was right the first time. They never did switch sides.” The way things played out when Envy confronted Marcoh initially, I half expected Ed to show up just to do battle. I didn’t really expect it, but I knew something had to happen. Then when the story revealed that this was simply a trap for Envy, I laughed. I’d been had but it was all good.

Speaking of laughs, the fight with Envy managed to be both deadly serious and full of slapstick at the same time. Envy’s setting off Mei’s “traps” follows the classic slapstick comedy routine of the rake in the face. However, what had me laughing the hardest (enough so that I had to pause the video for a bit) was the completely unexpected “rake in the face” where Envy started to follow Marcoh’s and Zampano’s footprints in the snow only to have it blow up on him just the same. *lol* It was a great moment, enhanced by the deadly serious undertone of confronting such a powerful homunculus.

Next on the unexpected list is Marcoh being the one to take down Envy. Once Scar was involved, I figured his hybrid form of alchemy would destroy Envy to the point that Envy had no further philosopher stones to draw from. Having that done by Marcoh was unexpected but it made sense seeing as how he created philosopher stones.

Seeing Envy’s final form was yet another unexpected (and humorous) surprise. So why didn’t Marcoh kill Envy when he had the chance? I understand Scar wanting to have the people of Xing understand that they don’t want to follow the homunculi path and to show proof of homunculi. However, I think it is a terrible mistake to leave Envy alive. Envy showed that if he can get away, he could gain control of a human and I guess potentially consume said human to gain that life. Even if that’s not true, he could use the controlled human to get more philosopher stones potentially, especially if he can get back to Father. Mei being alone (Xiao Mei doesn’t count) smacks heavily of her running into trouble.

The Armstrong meeting was a source of amusement but I couldn’t help but think of how much Olivier is bluffing and putting on a show. Olivier getting shown the artificial human army (aren’t homunculi artificial humans?) was creepy and makes me think that the ultimate fight will be between that army and the regular army. We’ll see what else is revealed next episode. I did like learning the reason the rules for alchemist were established though. ^_^

Speaking of reunions, it is interesting that Al and Hohenheim are reunited. I can’t help but wonder how Hohenheim will handle this — will he be like a father who wants to keep his son out of danger or will he treat his son like a young man and work on a plan of attack against the homunculi?

Finally, there’s the attack on Briggs, which ended up being resolved much quicker than I expected. I really thought that Kimblee’s people would do something to make there be casualties at Briggs. I didn’t think it would be enough to cause Briggs to fall but I didn’t think that Kimblee simply lied to the Drachma to lead them to the slaughter. Without that inside help, I can see why it was an easy matter for Briggs to fend off the attack as they held the high ground.

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