User:Tommy-Vercetti

There was always something about FMA that drove me to it, but it wasn't the first anime series. I thought the first 10 minutes or so was great (where it had the same style as the manga I hadn't seen yet), but then it got so insanely cliche, melodramatic, and so poorly written, I found myself thoroughly bored by episode 5, I believe.

In fact, I would go so far to say the original series is one of my top 5 "worst animes ever", especially due to the fact at how INSANELY overrated it is. It's so imbedded into fans' heads (they think Sloth should be Trisha for example) it's insane. I was never impressed with that series and I never knew why it was so popular. However, once someone talked me into checking out the manga, I couldn't believe it. I was like "Not only does this make sense! But it knows what it wants to be too!" And so, I couldn't get enough. So, naturally when I found out that finally a new anime would be made following the manga, I was quite eager to check it out. Overall, I thought the beginning could have been a lot better (they breezed through it way too quickly), and even when they got to new footage, suddenly, it was still abridged. At first, I was afraid that this was going to be the new trend. Sure, we'd get the manga storyline, but without any of the story meat that made the manga so enjoyable in the first place. But finally, they got it down to a decent pace and I think overall it turned out to be a damn good series. One of my favorites, but I still prefer the manga due to that it basically has everything.

If anyone cares to know exactly what my top 5 least favorite animes ever are, I'll include the list. 1 indicates worst in existence, down to 5, which is still pretty awful, but I wouldn't wipe it out entirely if I could.

1. Naruto

2. Bleach

3. Pokemon

4. Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)

5. One Piece

Each and every one of these series literally makes me embarassed to even like some other anime, just because all of the ones I've listed are so hideously overrated and is usually what directly comes to mind when a random person says "anime". They literally make saying "I happen to like some anime" very embarassing to even admit. Though, I'm of the mindset that anime is simply a medium, an entertainment outlet if you will, along the same vein as movies. If you "like movies", there are still the ones you hate and the ones you love. It's the same with anime.

Back on Fullmetal Alchemist now. While the new anime was certinaly great, I can't say the same thing about its english dub, however. Such a pity that most people who will come here will have only seen the dub (commonplace in anime), and how there's such a bias for the original Japanese version (by english fans) solely because of how Ed is voiced by a woman or because they don't like to read subtitles. Well, their loss, but it's still such an idiotic way of thinking. The first 25+ episodes of the english dub had some of the worst script writing and acting since the Yu Yu Hakusho dub (my absolute favorite anime that was completely butchered by its dub). FUNimation usually does such great dubbing jobs now-a-days, but they really dropped the ball here. Yu Yu Hakusho was right after their DBZ period, so it's somewhat understandable, but with the new FMA, there's no excuse. Instead of recasting the group, keeping the ones who truly fit in their characters and recasting everyone else whose characters are vastly different in this series, they just kept everyone from the original series they could. Big mistake, and it shows very badly.

I think that's why the japanese version was such a step up from the original series. They kept who worked, but recasted a lot of others. The original story wasn't melodramatic, hammy, and cliche, so when you keep applying the same kind of """""acting""""", it falls flat on its face.

So, if anyone really wants to see FMA how it was meant to be, either read the manga or check out Brotherhood in Japanese. If you'd like examples of the countless plot holes created by the dub itself, do a little reading here on the episode pages. There's tons of them. Have fun with it.

Anyway, that aside, for what I do here, I like to fix tiny little things on this site for consistency's sake, spell-checking, and uploading better or new pictures. Wikipedias are so bland without any images in my opinion. Of course, overloaded is too much too, but the right balance is just perfect.

I'm not really too taken with the oasis skin though; it just really squeezed the layout to a very bad situation. I hope that maybe one day wikia will realize that many other editors share my sentiments regarding it as well.

I don't frequent wikias hardly ever. This one is of a favorite series of mine and is so very well maintained that I've found myself an active contributor here. While I'm thankfully not a raving anime otaku, this is honestly the only anime I do like that I would say also has a good wikipedia based on it. Some of the other series I enjoy, my top favorites being both Yu Yu Hakusho and Berserk, have laughably awful sites. Based solely on dubs or written by people that I'm amazed passed the third grade. The same can be said on just about every anime wikipedia however, and eh, I'm happy not to subject my eyes to further cancer by seeing them.

The only other wikia, or should I say wikipedia, that I occasionally add to would be the Grand Theft Auto wikipedia, solely due for two reasons:

1. My favorite batch of games.

2. They recently moved away from wikia (something I fully support) and I'm assisting them in setting up a new wikipedia away from these awful layouts. They need all the help they can get, and I'm actively against wikia these days.

That about covers it wikia-wise...