Mechanical Anime Reviews

Hello everyone! Welcome to my second blogiversary week. The official day is Friday, but why not have some sort of lead up to it? This is the post/tag thing that I’ve written about a while ago and it’s finally come to fruition. After giving it some careful thought, I’ve finally come up with what I want to do. It’s not based on the Olympics; it’s something simpler then that. I tried different version of that Olympic thing and it didn’t work out. Still, I like the way this idea turned out. Not what I planned, but oh well. Things change over time.

Let’s lay down some ground rules when you have been tagged:
-Let the world know who tagged you with a link and describe who they are for your audience members. Credit the original creator if you want.
-Choose an anime that you like the most based on art style, animation, plot, music, and characters
-Use that anime as your Featured Image
-Under sub headings (something like Art Style, Animation, etc), say what you find best about them.
-Have fun, this isn’t a review. Just say what you like about your chosen series and what makes it special. Get people interested in a series that they might not have heard about yet. Be as biased as you like.
-After you are done, tag five more people to do this.

An Example:

Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Art Style

I don’t know about anyone else, but Hiromu Arakawa’s art style is genuinely unique compared to everyone else’s art style out there. Maybe more so compared when I first watched Brotherhood then now where it is spread a little more, but there is always a little pop for me that makes them special. Still, character designs is one thing. Then there are the background designs. From simple farms to train stations and all the way to vast city scapes, there is so much to explore here. Each one is unique as well and has their own personality. This show is full of it!

From the uniforms to what Edward Elric wears, everything about this show is unique. Even the uniforms themselves give each character a personality and help distinguish them from any other show. The uniform themselves do that, but there is some layering of personal style with them that shows each of their personality.

Animation

What can I say about Brotherhood that hasn’t been said about this already? For lack of a better term, this show is sakuga central. Especially during action scenes. It’s Studio Bones at its best with awesome choreography, the large variety of powers, and somehow having personality between all their moves. Some scenes come up as still frames because of it, but there is some skimping from time to time to help the over all product.

Music

It’s been years since I watched this show, yet I remember quite a few soundtracks from this series. Especially the most powerful ones centered around either the Philisopher’s stone itself or the theme of a destruction of the country of Amestris itself. Then there are the openings which are the most powerful things that I remember. Such good songs that fit the mood of what is going on during each story set.

Plot

This part really shows the strength of Brotherhood. While the very bones of FMAB itself are battle shonen, it’s outer coating is anything but. The big driving force of this are two things: alchemy itself and a long ancient conspiracy (…which is centered on alchemy). We start our plot near the very end of our main villain’s plot, so everything was set in motion before our two brothers started their journey. All of which makes learning about the journey around Amestris, the appearance of foreigners in that very nazi germany of a country, and the uncovering of a grand plot interesting. Especially since the two brothers two little cogs in the machine. Our protagonists could have been anybody, but somehow it turned out to be the troublesome duo of Edward and Al Elric. Just wonderful.

Characters

The characters are where I think the true richness of Brotherhood comes from. All the great characters. Since FMAB is a longer series, it has the potential to develop a vast array of characters and none of that is wasted. From our main protagonists all the way to side characters that only stick around for an episode or two, every single one of them feels real and fully developed. This is what makes watching this anime completely worth it. Please give this one a watch!

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The Five People I tag for this post are:
1) Leth from Lethargic Ramblings
2) Shoujo from Shoujo Ramblings
3) Zel from Archi-Anime
4) Remy from RemyFool
5) Irina from Drunken Anime

If anybody reading this wants to do it too, please do. The more the merrier.