This scene was all types of awesome!
Summary:
With the blizzard over, Miles makes preparations to assassinate Scar and his men, ignoring the complaints of Ed who asks that no one be killed. As Miles and his snipers walk off to plan their moves, one of the soldiers remarks that – like Ed – he used to think that no one should be killed. Miles agrees that he was like that once upon a time too until the bitterness of the real world hit him.
Yoki's such a goof
Meanwhile as Winry, Marcoh and company discuss with Scar about his brother’s book. Apparently most of the book refers to Eastern Xing alchemy and uses terms like ‘perfect man’ and contains a lot of allusions to gold. It seems all of this is in reference to the person who brought Alchemy to the east in the first place, a certain golden haired immortal individual (implied to be Hoenheim). As Yoki finds the exit to the mines they set off outside.
You know if you really think about it, Al is made of metal, so May Chang should be stuck to him by now... Or perhaps that's what she was hoping for
As they travel outside, Winry hears a cry for help and realizes that it’s Al stuck in the snow. After being dug out, Al alerts everyone that Briggs has been taken over by Central and that Olivier herself has been sent to Central. With no where else left to go, Scar urges everyone to go and train in the mountains.
I'm reminded of the time the military had a recruiting booth at the mall and some unloaded weapons... I started to aim the sniper rifle to 'do' headshots on the people going up the escalators on the other side of the mall before the guy told me not to
Back in town, Ed has created a fake suit of Al armour with a Northern soldier inside to pretend to be him to trick Kimblee, but Kimblee is unimpressed. As preparations for sniping down Kimblee and his men commence, Kimblee decides to head to the mines to find Scar. Hoping to achieve a bloodless outcome, Ed confronts Kimblee where Kimblee reveals he knows quite well about the plot to kill him and promptly creates an explosion to escape. As Ed gives chase, Kimblee’s men – the remaining two chimeras – move to stop Ed.
Ed dresses up in his best Wolverine costume
Initially Ed loses the battle with the Chimeras and falls into the mine shaft, but after finding dynamite and doing some clever alchemy he manages to subdue the pair. He then confronts Kimblee and surprises him with his speed. After managing to make Kimblee lose his grip on his Philosopher’s stone (and having it fall into the abyss), Ed manages to cut into Kimblee’s transmutation circle tattooed into his right hand as per his no kill policy. Kimblee remarks to Ed that his no kill policy will be the end of him as he reveals his second Philospher’s stone and blows up the mine entrance.
I hope he got his tetanus shot...
After the explosion Ed wakes up and starts coughing up syrup blood. He quickly realizes what has happened to him, as a large metal rod is sticking out of his mid-section and he collapses on the ground. At the same time, Al collapses as well as he mutters something about his soul wanting to go back to his body to a confused Winry.
Ed is not defeated though, as he uses some quick alchemy to free the trapped chimeras who are now pissed off at Kimblee for leaving them behind to die. The Chimeras ask Ed why he saved them, and Ed explains that he needs someone to pull out the metal rod from his body. He further explains that with the rod out, in order to prevent bleeding he would use the POWER OF HIS OWN SOUL to power the transmutation to fix up his insides. In a ‘what the heck why not?’ moment, the chimeras decide to help Ed out, and he manages to summon all of his energy to use his own body as a Philosopher’s stone of just one soul to fix his body. With the transmutation successful, Ed falls unconscious and the chimeras decide to take Ed along with them before also managing to find Kimblee’s dropped Philosopher’s stone.
Reaction:
While this episode started off slow, it ended up pretty amazing. It looks like we finally have somewhat of a confirmation that Hoenheim was the one who brought alchemy over to Xing in the first place. Now I wonder if his advanced alchemy was a product of Xerxes or if the Homunculus actually told him more secrets than we’re let to know.
It also seems like Al’s soul wanting to return to his body will become a major theme in the endgame of this show. I can see Al collapsing at the worst possible times in the near future, probably in the middle of some major battles. I could even see his soul returning to his body just as his armour body is destroyed, thus saving him.
With his ‘defeat’ at the hands of the super fast martial arts of Ed, Kimblee is starting to look less and less impressive. Of course he himself states that he is still in convalescence (from his completely healed injuries from his earlier Scar encounter, or from his long jail stay?), but Kimblee certainly looks less and less of the invincible villain we were led to believe he was at first. In a way, this is a bit disappointing as the prospect of some seriously cool battles with Kimblee has been vastly decreased (get his remaining stone out of his hands and he’s useless) but I guess we can’t have the guy overshadowing the true bad guys which are the Homunculus.
I also question the ability of these snipers who not only not manage to aim for the head shot, but also have to try extra hard not to hit Ed who is standing 3 metres away from Kimblee with the soldiers literally ACROSS THE STREET from all of this.
Finally onto the best part of the entire episode, which is Ed realizing that since Philosopher’s stones are made of souls, his own soul could be used to power transmutations. While he did use up a huge amount of life energy to save himself, he would have died without it, so I guess there was no choice. Not having Mustang’s skill with fire, there was little Ed could do. I do wonder why Ed can normally do crazy alchemy (i.e. instantly make rock hands to lift up the beams to save the two chimeras) but not save himself. Is this because medical alchemy is more complicated or was it because he was weak from his injuries?
One interesting thing about Ed using his own soul to power his alchemy is now we have a good way in which the Elric brothers can fight Father. Previously Father was able to ‘turn off’ all the alchemy in Armestis making the brothers useless, but now they have a way to fight back. Obviously it would be better if they could do the Xing-style ‘power from the ground’ thing, but this may be a worthy workaround. The only question is, does this set Ed up for an early and tragic death (perhaps at the end of the show to a weeping Winry and a newly restored Al pledging to ‘take care of her’ Pearl Harbor style?) or will Hoenheim ‘donate’ some of his SOUL POWER to Ed to save his son from the brink of death?
Next episode looks like there will be a counterattack from the Homunculus. I’m hoping for some awesome battles!
Related posts:
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 31
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 38
- Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 61
This post was written by...
Epi – who has written 175 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
As a huge fan of all things mecha, high school and tsundere, I've been writing for SSAB! since the summer of 2009, although my love of anime spreads through all genres. I'm not as witty as some, but I aim to bring comprehensive and well-written anime reviews out there for you all out there to enjoy!
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
dont worry about kimblee the next time kimblee does a job he gets it right also his hand heals and gets his tattoo fixed and you cant say he is not impressive he just impaled Ed and this episode makes may say were the hell is Envy and Gluttony we have not seen them for 10 episodes
We’ll get to see Envy in the next few episodes in his giant lizard form once again!!
@Epi I feel Ed wont get killed in the end of the story…if that were so..I guess Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood wouldn’t be a big success as the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist series!
I hope he won’t die, but seeing as how he now knows the ‘soul secret’ and knowing how Ed likes to help people in danger, he might very well end up killing himself.
Kimblee is far from invincible. He’s just a maniac who likes to blow stuff up. The invincible villain role belongs to Father lol.
Yeah, I didn’t really get why Ed to use his own soul to heal himself either. Human organs are probably more chemically complex than the inanimate objects that most alchemist transmute, but it takes a large amount of energy to perform “regular” alchemy. May probably could have just healed Ed’s wound with her Xingese alchemy without using anyone’s soul lol.
Yeah but May was with the rest of the group while Ed was with Donkey Kong and Lion King lol
So he would’ve bled to death if he hadn’t used his soul to heal himself.
You have a point. I just always thought from his great intro, to his pimpin hat, to the fact that he’s smart that he wouldn’t be a guy who’s losing to everyone (Scar, Ed) unless he uses his Philosopher’s stone.
To be fair to Kimbley hes been rotting in jail since Ishbal, while Ed’s a highly skilled and experienced martial artist while scar’s a badass warrior monk whose been going around other state alchemists.
Also Kimbley is never shown to have been a particularly talented close quarters fighter even in Ishbal he ran around finding new ways to blow people up with a philosophers stone.
Hinekel and Darius the two chimera have funny nicknames Ed said he really did not care what their names were and named them Lion King and Donkey Kong
its really funny when someone says i dont give a shit about your real names form now on your names are Lion King and Donkey Kong
I like how everything in this show is either German or Persian
Omg, syrup xD I thought the exact same thing. For a moment I had trouble taking the horror seriously when his blood looked like cherry syrup. Ah, poor Ed. I’m surprised no one has mentioned yet, of the manga readers, on all the Brotherhood blogs I go to, that they left out the part with Ed thinking of Riza’s words and Al and Winry flashbacks and then having the will to save himself. I don’t think much was lost without it but for me in the manga it made the scene much more poignant. For a while Ed was just lying there in his blood completely passed out seeming as if he had no energy left and was just going to lay there and die…and then he remembered Al saying they’d get their bodies back together and Winry saying she wouldn’t cry again until she was happy and then he had the power to pull himself together.
For me it just added more to the hopelessness of the situation making you think he might not make it out of this alive and then added to the power of him finding all that strength within himself to save himself. Whereas in the episode he seemed to just get up immediately after recovering from passing out.
But still, the way they animated this was breathtaking. I have no real complaints (despite all I just said) and Romi Paku was in fine form, as well the pulling out of the small beam scene perhaps being even better than in the manga. ;P
As interesting as the flashbacks could have been (I’ve never read the manga so I dunno), I think it would have just taken away from the pacing of it and felt more like a ‘clips compilation’. We already know Ed thinks the world of Al and Winry, and I think it was pretty dramatic the way it was!
I think it was too. I know it added so much more to the scene in the manga but I don’ t know about the anime, if it would’ve added or taken away, so I think it’s fine the way it was. Though the flashbacks would have taken about 3 seconds and could have even just been voice overs I really don’t care that they left them out. Brotherhood’s Brotherhood and the manga’s the manga. (the manga should at least be allowed to stay better in some ways since Brotherhood is doing such a great job of being awesome xD) There scene was still plenty perfect as it was.
I didn’t mention this because I completely forgot about it. My memory blows.
I think we have Ed’s official theme song now.
Hmmmm
I wonder if this episode is in any way hinting at what Amestrian Alchemy is based of off…
About why Ed had to use his life energy to save himself, it’s because he lacks the knowledge and skill to do medical alchemy. Yeah, medical alchemy is much more complex compared to normal alchemy (in Amestris at least), and his wound is quite critical, so Ed wasn’t sure if he could successfully treat his wound without messing up. The PS can amplify an alchemist’s power and make up for his lack of knowledge, in this case, because he didn’t have a PS, he used his life energy as a substitute.
Btw, I don’t think Ed will ever use this again, since ya know, it’s his own life source, and it’s limited. The next time he uses it he’d be as good as dead! <_<