Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 21
By Hiromu Arakawa
Published by Viz Media

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Winry makes her way safely back to Resembool only to discover that Ed has beaten her to it. Though she’s grateful to find him all in one piece, she’s less thrilled with his insistence that she flee the country. Meanwhile, Al has encountered newly-uncovered homunculus Pride (aka Selim Bradley), whose terrifying power is enough to take control of him and set him against his own brother. Only the the surprise appearance of an old ally can turn this fight around! Now with President Bradley and his dangerous son out of Central City, Mustang’s group of rebels finally makes their move, taking the President’s wife hostage. Can they be prepared for the result?

After the last volume’s calm before the storm, Arakawa ramps up the tension by revealing the true horror of Pride’s power, wrapped up in the package of a cute little boy–one so ruthless he’ll consume his own allies if it will help him to win. Even so, Arakawa manages to balance this kind of pure evil with just the smallest drop of pathos, keeping the story from ever settling into comfortable black and white. This is one of her most impressive (and consistent) balancing acts and part of what makes her story so powerful. The series somehow maintains both pure-hearted shonen morality and multiple shades of gray, side by side, even in its primary characters. It is dark, but never pessimistic–moralistic, but never self-righteous. It follows established conventions of its genre without ever losing its persistent freshness.

Though the story’s increasingly serious bent has (understandably) overwhelmed its early humor, especially now as the climax draws near, there is still quite a bit to be found, particularly in the wonderfully dry humor of Major General Olivier Armstrong and pretty much anyone associated with Colonel Mustang. As the series reaches further into darkness and anxiety, these characters help keep the atmosphere from becoming too heavy, something I expect we’ll all be grateful for by series’ end.

“Tension” is the keyword in this harrowing volume of one of my favorite series in current publication. Keep a look out for tomorrow’s installment of Manga Recon’s Manga Minis to see how things explode in the series’ next volume!

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 20
By Hiromu Arakawa
Published by Viz Media

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Falling victim to a double-cross, Envy tracks down Dr. Marcoh, only to walk into a trap that ultimately reduces him to his original, pre-humanoid form. “I know more about making philosopher’s stones than anyone else in the country,” says Dr. Marcoh, hanging mangled and bloody from Envy’s horrific tongue. “But because I know how to make them, I also know how to destroy them!” Afterwards, Scar entreats May to take the now-powerless Envy back to her country for study on immortality, though Envy does what he must to increase his chances of survival. Al, Winry, and the others then head out to the city of Lior, where Al is reunited with Rose as well as his father, Hoenheim, who finally shares the truth about himself, including a piece of information vital to the upcoming conflict. Meanwhile, Major General Briggs discovers the terrifying truth hidden in the bowels of Central City, and Ed–now recovered from his injuries–fails utterly to track down Al’s whereabouts, though he does encounter another long-lost companion with whom he forges an unlikely alliance.

This volume feels a bit like the calm before the storm. After the constant barrage of earth-shattering revelations contained in the past few volumes, Arakawa steps back to focus on relationships, but with an uneasy, anticipatory feel running like a strong current through each chapter. Not that this volume is lacking in new information, by any means. Both Briggs’ discovery and Hoenheim’s confession provide new insight into the homunculus’ ultimate plan, but these revelations seem intended to inform the characters rather than the reader, maintaining the story’s momentum at a strong, tense simmer, preparing itself to rise to a boil. That there is still a long way go to seems obvious, but during the volume’s final chapter, as a piece of key information spreads across Amestris from character to character, it feels very much like a final call to arms.

May’s story here is particularly poignant. Having become so much a part of the personal quests of some of the Amestrian characters (Scar’s and Al’s, in particular), her deep hurt in being urged to return home, even for the sake of her own people, is obvious and extremely touching. Arakawa emphasizes this by drawing her from angles which make her appear especially small, vulnerable, and occasionally off-kilter. With similar effectiveness, Arakawa also uses angles to help distinguish between the wildly erratic variations in the mental state of Greed, who is caught in an internal struggle between himself and Lin, whose memories still lurk within.

As a reader, the ground is always shaky whenever Ed and Al are apart from each other, adding to the mounting tension in this volume. Though it seems like the end must surely be near, this is a series that has never lost its momentum regardless of length, which makes me feel extremely reluctant to ever let it go. Fortunately I don’t have to just yet.

For long-time readers of the series, volume twenty provides further insight into characters both loved and hated, and continues to play out the complex plot so powerfully conceived from the series’ first volume. For everyone else, the time to start reading is now.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Here on the penultimate evening of Girls Only Week, I talk about the most recent volume of my favorite long-running shonen series which just happens to be written and drawn by a woman. Is this a coincidence? One must wonder. Meanwhile, enjoy:

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 19
By Hiromu Arakawa
Published by Viz Media

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In this volume, Hawkeye reveals the truth about President Bradley’s son to Mustang, though he finds it impossible to believe. Ed is badly injured in the attempt to take down Kimblee and ends up purposefully disappearing along with a couple of Kimblee’s men. Finally, Al is discovered by Scar and Winry’s group in time to warn them away from Fort Briggs, though it isn’t long before he suffers a repeat of last volume’s experience in which he begins to feel pulled out of his body. All of this feels almost trivial, however, compared to this volume’s real story, which reveals the origins of Father and the homunculi (down to their names), as well as the distant past of Ed and Al’s father, Von Hohenheim, and the dark history they share.

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So, I picked up volume four of Pluto earlier this evening, anxious to dig in to the latest volume of my favorite manga series this year. My plans were dashed less than a chapter in, however, when I became so emotional that I actually had to put it down. Since this volume is new, I’ll avoid any details. Suffice it to say this was a fairly small incident (relative to the scope of the work as a whole) that just happened to hit me unusually hard. This isn’t a fatal issue, of course. I’ll pick it up again once I feel I’ve recovered, perhaps in a less vulnerable moment. Nor is it a criticism of Pluto, by any means. I want to be moved deeply by fiction. That’s why I read it. It’s a powerful testament to the craft of both Tezuka and Urasawa that the series is able to affect me so strongly.

What this experience brings to mind now as I remain here uselessly in my chair, not quite ready to pick up anything else, is other moments in manga that have brought me to tears.
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As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, I am occasionally struck with an intense (if not profound) need to question the workings and motivations of my inner geek, generally expressed via long-winded navel-gazing in the form of a blog feature. In today’s installment of this periodic ramble, I address the question of my outer geek, what that means and why. As usual, I’m coming at the question from a strictly personal angle, but though the bulk of this post is about my own experiences in displaying my fandom, I’m hoping to motivate the rest of you to tell me about your own.

The outward display of fannish/geek paraphernalia is certainly nothing new or profound. From t-shirts to full-out cosplay, fans like me dress up constantly to some extent or another and have been doing so for longer than any of us have been around. I’m sure there have been academic studies done on fan culture and so on which address the subject in detail. Something that has struck me lately, however, is how personal some of these displays can be–to the point where I question the object of wearing them in the first place.

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Just a couple of quick links to reviews offsite! First of all, I reviewed DMP’s yaoi one-shot Awaken Forest for this week’s Manga Minis. In more exciting news, I just posted a review of volume 18 of Fullmetal Alchemist, which still stands as one of my favorite series of all time.

Since FMA 18 was released last week, I picked it up at the Comicopia booth at Anime Boston, and it took me all of, oh, two hours before I gave in and headed to the manga library room to read it. Oh, Fullmetal Alchemist! I know I’ve already gone on and on here about how fantastic a storyteller Hiromu Arakawa is, and how I think the series is tragically underrated despite its popularity. But. Gah. I have to say it again. Hiromu Arakawa is a great storyteller of our time, and if you’ve avoided Fullmetal Alchemist for some reason, you are seriously depriving yourself of something special. If you’ve only watched the anime (which is great, yes) you honestly have no idea what you’re missing. If you think you don’t like shonen manga, try it anyway. You won’t regret it. FMA transcends its genre. Don’t let 50,000 cosplayers scare you away!

First off, I have a review up this morning at Manga Recon, for volume nine of NETCOMICS’ manhwa soap opera 100% Perfect Girl. I’ve had a rough time with this series as its heroine is repeatedly dragged through hell by the men who supposedly love her, but if you love a soap opera this may be the series for you.

In other news, I was thrilled to see this morning (thanks to ANN) that Funimation is going to be streaming the new Fullmetal Alchemist anime series within days of its airing in Japan! Now that the manga is so far along, I have real hope that the new adaptation may be able to approach Arakawa’s genius. There are few stories I love as much as this one, and to be able to watch the new anime series legally as it airs is more than I’d expected.

I hope this means that all this new streaming going on is working out just as the studios hoped, and that this will become the new model (or at least a new model) for anime distribution. We’ve already got a membership at Crunchyroll so that we can stream Shugo Chara! in high quality each week (and we’re excited about trying some other series as well), and aside from a few technical glitches here and there, it’s been a fantastic deal.

I have manga and even anime to talk about, but when? This I do not know. For a moment, a couple of quick links (after the jump).

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I’d waited so eagerly for this volume, and here I am almost a month late with it. I suppose I can’t complain, though, as it’s the perfect reading for a stormy Saturday morning.

Fullmetal Alchemist is one of those series where every volume brings amazing new revelations, yet it is so well-plotted, none of this ever feels melodramatic or forced. I am constantly impressed with depth and detail of Hiromu Arakawa’s planning for this story, compounded by her deft execution of it. I know that FMA is a popular manga, but I often feel that in spite of (because of?) that, or perhaps because it is a shonen manga, Arakawa does not get the recognition she deserves for being a seriously fantastic storyteller. The release schedule for FMA in the US leaves long gaps between volumes, and I tend to get caught up in other things in-between. But every time a new volume comes out, I’m reminded immediately of why I’ve often said this is my favorite manga series.

(Spoilers beyond this point)
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First of all, many thanks to those who have been leaving BL recommendations for me here! I’ve started looking a bit at some of the recs, and will report back in more detail soon. So far, the series I’ve looked at are Shout out Loud!, Let Dai, and Totally Captivated, and I’ve liked at least *something* about each of them, though I still have some reservations.

Random: This made me laugh for an entire day. Seriously.

Happy: I have at last acquired a scanner, which means that my next installment of the Fullmetal Alchemist Read-a-Long will include scanned pages from the Viz editions, rather than scanlations which I’d resorted to originally. I’ve also updated the previous entries (vol. 1 & 2 | vol. 3 & 4) with the proper pages. I’m also thinking of posting some version of my massive xxxHolic post in this blog (previously posted in fannish places), now that I have proper scanned pages, as I have a pretty much constant urge to try to draw people into that series.

A bit of navel-gazing to follow:
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