Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

The promotional artwork for the new series it seems

I haven't watched any anime in a long time, but I'm a huge FMA fan so when I heard there was a new series coming, I wanted to give it a try. Here's what I think of it so far (first 14 episodes).

FULL METAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD (first 14 episodes)

Episodes: Probably 26
Rated TV-14

STORY
(ANN summary) Two brothers lose their mother to an incurable disease. With the power of "alchemy", they use taboo knowledge to resurrect her. The process fails, and as a toll for using this type of alchemy, the older brother, Edward Elric loses his left leg while the younger brother, Alphonse Elric loses his entire body. To save his brother, Edward sacrifices his right arm and is able to affix his brother's soul to a suit of armor. With the help of a family friend, Edward receives metal limbs - "automail" - to replace his lost ones. With that, Edward vows to search for the Philosopher's Stone to return the brothers to their original bodies, even if it means becoming a "State Alchemist", one who uses his/her alchemy for the military.

Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, is suppose to be a remake of the first anime series that follows the story of the original manga much more closely. From what I've seen in these first 14 episodes, the story has been progressing pretty much similarly to the older anime, except things happen in a different order and certain events go about in a different way. It's actually not till the 14th episode that things start getting really different. The pacing is also much faster. Some may like this cause the show just gets through all the slow stuff and right into the action and story progression, but others may dislike it because it goes through things TOO fast, whereas the original anime took the time to develop things and set up the atmosphere. No doubt things will soon start getting much different from the original anime series.

Well THAT didn't happen in the first series...

ANIMATION/SOUND
The animation goes up a notch or two in this series. The background art and character designs look pretty much the same as the original anime, with only slight differences in the way the characters faces look, but the fluidity of the animation is beyond what a lot of the first season of the original series did. Action scenes are intense and fast-paced, relying much less on still shots and shortcuts than the original anime, which didn't even use them that much in the first place. Some normal character movement is also much more smoothly rendered. The soundtrack is different for this series than it is for the original, but it has the same sound to it that the first did. The new opening is just as generic as all the others before it, but that doesn't keep it from being a decent opening. The Japanese cast performs their roles well, the only problem being with the way they pronounce the characters names. Romi Paku's strength with Ed is that she sounds young, so her voice makes a lot more sense as the 8-16 year old Edward. Vic Mignogna is an excellent actor and an excellent Edward, but while he sounds acceptable as 15-16 year old Edward, he just sounds too old to play as 8-12 year old Ed. There is no English dub yet, but one will undoubtably come up. My only concern there is with Al. Aaron sounds older now than he did when he first played Al, so I'm not sure how they're going to handle him voicing a younger sounding character. It would be a shame if they had to get a completely different person to voice him. Just wouldn't be the same.

OVERALL
If you are a FMA fan, watch it. If you're not, I still recommend it, though I believe you should watch the first series first unless you'd just rather see the series unfold like the manga. You can watch episodes in Japanese on FUNimation's website. There are 14 episodes there so far.

PROS
-Upgraded animation
-Some may like the faster pacing.

CONS
-Faster pace might also turn off some people
-Music is still as generic as the last series

???
-What are they going to do with Al's English voice?!