May 10th, 2010 
AstroNerdBoy Hagane no Renkinjutsushi – Fullmetal Alchemist Ep. 56
鋼の錬金術師 FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST Episode 56 review
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood – 56
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Hohenheim explains to Father that from the time of the destruction at Xerxes when Hohenheim was rescued by Xing merchants to the present, he’s had plenty of time to talk with the 536,329 souls within him and while a massive chore communicating with them, they have agreed to help him. Thus, Hohenheim knows the souls that have transferred to Father’s body, where they plan to get their revenge and shatter the container holding Homunculus — the humanoid body of Father. They accomplish this, but Homunculus has a new physical form, revealing that he too has evolved in the years since Xerxes.
At the HQ building, King Bradley begins wiping out Briggs soldiers and even takes out a tank and seriously injures Buccaneer. His assault is halted when Greed announces his presence and intent to fight Wrath. As they battle, Central troops loyal to Bradley begin to attempt to retake the HQ building. They are held off from going to the roof where Bradley and Greed fight due to a couple of machine guns covering the stairway access.
Meanwhile, Greed finds that he’s barely holding his own against Wrath, leaving Falman to order that Buccaneer be taken to a safer location. The Central forces hear confusing reports on doll soldiers when a bunch of smoke bombs go off and some soldiers are taken out. Since no one knows who this attacker is, both sides open fire, but miss. The attacker makes it safely to the roof where he attacks Bradley and reveals himself to be Fu. Upon learning that this is the man responsible for taking Lan Fan’s arm, Fu readies himself for an attack.
Thoughts/Review:
Two battles to discuss. ^_^
First, Father vs. Hohenheim. As I expected, Hohenheim’s philosopher’s stone souls worked to fight Father. What I didn’t expect was Hohenheim’s plan, which was to destroy Father’s body, leaving Homunculus without a shell to survive in. Well, on paper it was a good plan, but as with all good plans, there’s always a good 
chance that something won’t go right. This time, Homunculus has a new form so that even though he’s deprived of the form he had as Father, he still has form. At this point, I couldn’t even begin to predict how this would turn out because clearly, Hohenheim didn’t expect Homunculus to have this new form. Maybe the souls within Hohenheim can counter the souls in Homunculus and that’s how they defeat him in the end.
The bigger fight was King Bradley returning to inflict some “wrath” on the traitors (pun intended). As Wrath used his blade to deflect all the bullets coming his way and to slice the shell from the tank’s main gun, I couldn’t help but think of Goemon from the Lupin III series, who has a similar ability (though there are other anime/manga characters who can do this, with at least three in the Negima! manga alone). What I couldn’t understand was why the Briggs soldiers just stood around and 
didn’t open fire when Bradley appeared. In my mind, Bradley-Wrath would have been hard pressed to take incoming fire from so many directions. Later when three did open fire, it was from a single direction and he dodged them.
Seeing as how Buccaneer survived three assaults from Bradley, I’d say he’s going to survive to the end despite his wounds. I had wondered if Bradley might meet up with both Armstrong siblings, but with Fu showing up, I’m not so 
sure now. Using Ling’s skills, Greed and Fu might be enough to overcome Wrath but that remains to be seen. If they can’t take him out, then we may well get to see Bradley face off against Olivier and Alex as well as Izumi and Sig.
It is a shame that so many Briggs soldiers have been killed in this rebellion. If the sub-homunculi are still around, then we may have a 
lot more Central soldiers die too.
It is also a shame that Olivier and her men are taking the blame for this rebellion, but I suppose she knew that was in the cards if Mustang is going to take the throne and things went south, which they are at the moment.
Finally, with Central troops massing to take over the radio 
station, I have to believe that they’d kill Bradley’s wife and not even give it a second thought. I wonder if Mustang’s folk’s ruse about being on Bradley’s side will work though.
So, an action-packed episode with some interesting additional information about Hohenheim, an interesting change in Father-Homunculus, and an incredible fight with Wrath.
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The battle between the Brigs and Bradley and Central soldiers is different from the manga. But I think it’s in a good way.
For instance, in the manga, the ramp to the gate does not have a roof and Brigs have a cannon on the top platform, not machine guns. Also, there are other minor changes, but I don’t think that it’s bad.
Also, don’t think that King Bradley is so easy to kill, even if soldiers did shoot at the same time. Bradley is incredibly fast and agile, and even a tank didn’t do much. Also, if you remember, in the episode the tank did shoot with its machine guns against him in the tunnel (not too much space to maneuver for the homunculus), but without any success.
Ah, Bradley vs the tank… One of my favorite fights in the entire manga, it shows just how broken Wrath can be.
Bradley + sword + grenade > tank
It’s horrible astro *crys*
only one more chapter left and it all ends
I completely didn’t remember the switch the blame radio thing from the manga, was shorter and less discussed between Fury and Maria.
And I don’t mind the way they changed the entrance. More secure than a plain ramp/stair set. Made Bradley’s tank takedown more awesome than when it just attempted to retreat up the ramp in the manga.
Preview for next was short. Likely will finish the Greed / Wrath fight mainly. Though the anime has been jumping around compared to the manga to make for better continuity overall and fitting episodic format, we should also likely see a certain scientist show up that we hadn’t seen in the present day yet… And from then on, all bets are off. Heh heh.
ku_fei, I heard that the last chapter would be 150 pages, which equals 3 or 4 normal chapters. And we’ll get this in just one month. Heh, heh! Of course, the scanlators will go crazy scanlating it. After all, it’s almost a whole volume!
But that’s in case it’s true and we’ll really have a 150 pages as a sayonara to the manga series!
@evgenidb — Interesting to hear about those changes. Thanks. ^_^
As to Bradley, I know he’s fast, but in all instances where he was attacked, it was head-on. Therefore, he could deflect the bullets with his sword and/or dodge them Matrix-style. However, it seems that when the soldiers had multiple angles of fire on him, he’d be harder pressed to dodge/strike all incoming fire.
@GhostStalker — “
Bradley + sword + grenade > tank “
*LOL* Very true. That scene reminded me of some from Pumpkin Scissors though.
@Ku — Yeah, but there will be time to relive the manga love by rereading it. I know I reread my favorite manga repeatedly. ^_^
@Anon — “Though the anime has been jumping around compared to the manga to make for better continuity overall and fitting episodic format…”
I’d wondered about that since the anime has made some changes here and there. However, with them needing to not run out of material before the manga ends, I figured the production team might be crafty to get maximum mileage out of the material they have.
@evgenidb — I’ve been hearing 150-pages as well. I know some manga titles have gone out on a bang with double their normal load, but man, that’s a lot of pages. ^_^;
I have to admit, I was disappointed that Bradley’s reappearance wasn’t accounted for in Mustang’s plan. (I.e. as a way to draw him out sooner rather than later.) I’m still hoping that it is and that his people are jumping the gun, because letting a fellow good guy take the fall is not good karma. That’s how a lot of animes start, with an avenger taking down the evil empire that was built on someone sacrificing a comrade for their own ambition.
And I got confused by Fu accusing Bradley of “ripping off” Lan Fan’s arm, though that could be a mistranslation on the part of the subbers. Am I remembering correctly in thinking that he gave her a wound that incapacitated her arm, but she cut it off herself as a way to throw him off the trail?
But for the most part, I really enjoyed this one. And I think they handled the “Oh, crap” / “Oh, yeah!” balance a lot better this time than they have in recent episodes, making it feel more realistic.
@ANB: Looks like your insight about Hohenheim making his souls allies rather than slaves was spot on. Major kudos. (^_^)
I don’t think there’s any way you could have predicted his souls to jump over and pull an “IM IN UR BASE PWNING UR DOODZ” on Father. Sometimes they foreshadow their surprises, like when Hohenheim’s memories of the Xing travelers led into Greed/Ling’s return, but I think they deliberately pulled this one out of left field for a nice twist.
Yeah, but still it’s not a whole volume.
There is a manga called “Red River” (天は赤い河のほとり – “Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori”), which have volumes ranging from 4 chapters per volume to 1 chapter per volume. (For instance chapter 22 takes the whole volume 9, chapter 23 – the whole vol. 10.)
As far as I know (never read the manga) it’s a shoujo manga about a Japanese (of course! Who else?) girl who ends up in a Hett Empire (or Heth, or Het, or… something in between) in the distant past. Since it’s a shoujo manga, I expect there to be lots of love and etc. But it sounds interesting at least.
Bradley should be glad he has that stone to make him faster and stronger and allow him to see the bullets before they hit him if he was a normal human he would be dead
also if i was one of those soilders i would not have fired as well any other solider that shot at him is dead
Ugh… I’m starting to think remaining unspoiled for FMA will reuire a short break from all anime forums other than here. It seems like the excitement is reaching a delirious fever pitch elsewhere, to the point people refuse to control themselves and just spurt out spoilers anywhere they feel like.
(Ku_fei lover, please know that I don’t mean your past hints. I’m just ranting about what I saw on a couple of other sites today. And btw, something I should have said before – thank you for being kind enough to refrain recently despite the immense temptation. ^_^ )
@evgenidb: 150 pages? Are you serious? That’s the length of an entire volume. I’ve been seeing this number parroted around a bit, is there an official source for it?
@AstroNerdBoy: I think the bigger problem is why doesn’t Greed activate his full armor. He’s already fought Wrath twice before, he should know he needs full armor to stand a good chance against him.
@arimareji: Um, I need to rewatch episode 31, but I don’t think Lanfan ever told Fu that she was the one who chopped off her arm. It seemed like she was already massively ashamed of not being able to protect Ling and thus she may have left out that little detail when she was talking about Bradley to her granddad. So I guess Fu was jumping to conclusions about her arm, and I don’t see Ling bothering to correct him even if he was in control of the body.
@Dark Triad: The page count in manga might differ a lot. For instance, Full Metal Panic! Overload is about 90 pages, while Ghost in the Shell manga I have (read downloaded) is almost 400 pages (379 to be precise). But I agree, most volumes are between 150 and 190 pages, and 150 is about the lower bound (although I’ve seen mangas that are a little bit more than 200 pages). But here’s an example for 150 page manga – Full Metal Panic! Sigma.
On the other hand FMA chapters are about 40 pages (a little more than that, actually), so 4 chapters x ~40-43 pages (roughly) = ~160-172 pages (which is normal for a volume). If then we substract, ~160-172 pages – 150 page chapter = 1 or 2 extra(s). Not enough space for another chapter but just perfect for a new extra. 3x HIP, HIP, HOOORAAY! And long live the Math!
On your other questions:
The question to Astro: I second that question, not only to him, but to everyone. I also wondered about it. Even in the manga he doesn’t go to his full armor against Wrath, no matter what (and also against the other homunculi). No idea why. And I always wondered.
The question to arimareji: I think that even if she told his grandfather who actually ripped her hand, Bradley was still the prime cause for that. After all, her hand was in really bad shape and was completely unusable in battle.
The ‘original’ Greed said back in “the Beasts of Dublith” (ep 14) that he doesn’t like to use the full shield/armour because of how hideous he looks with it… or something to that effect anyway