Epi on March 10, 2010 · in Full Metal Alchemist 2

I knew it was coming, but at first I couldn’t place it. Was that Orange-kun’s spinning power I saw? No wait maybe it was Izumi? As my brain slowly put together the pieces, my body suddenly felt light, my head felt numb and my eyes welled up… the moment I had been waiting for for so long had finally arrived…

Summary:

As the Promised Day approaches, Ed and company make their way to the slum of Kanama on the outskirts of Central. There they find Hoenheim and Ed reunites with his dad with a punch to the face… using his metal hand. Hoenheim proceeds to explain everything including his being a giant Philosopher’s Stone to Ed and his companions. In turn, Ed delivers Pinako’s message for him, Trisha’s last words: “Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise. I’m going to have to leave you first.” While Ed was expecting his father who abandoned the family not to care he is instead surprised by his tears over the message.

As Hoenheim reminisces about the faithful day – when he left the family and Trisha’s promise to him to still be in family pictures when she was old and wrinkly and him looking the same as ever -  Ed creates for himself a new red coat (to be shared with Chizuru, but only on soccer weekends).

While Ed and the gang discuss the final battle ahead, the chimeras admit that their animal instincts tell them to stay and help with the final battle even though they don’t have to. As they talk, they wander outside the slum and encounter a strange acting Al.

Meanwhile back in the East, as the search teams scour to find bodies after the bridge explosion, they are unable to find Bradley’s body. As the soldiers search, Grumman mulls staying in the East until Roy and Olivier start their little rebellion so that he could come to the rescue and take over the country all for himself. Sensing his completely counterproductive schemes, Miles tells himself to stay alert even with allies.

Back at Kanama, as Ed walks towards Al, Ling manages to get through to him before he manages to get too close and warns him to stay back. It seems that Al is actually a Dullahan being controlled by Pride’s shadow power while Al is still unconscious. As Pride moves to take out Greed and caputure Ed, Ed realizes that Greed’s entire power is based upon shadows. With the happy coincidence of a dark and cloudy night sky, Ed blacks out the entirety of Kanama with alchemy. Without light, Pride cannot materialize, and Greed uses that time to explain to everyone that the real Pride was probably hiding in the forest instead of inside Al’s armour body.

While Heinekel goes off to defeat a darkness eakened Pride, the rest chat about what to do next when all of a sudden Gluttony appears.

As Gluttony sets off kicking everyone’s ass, Ling asks for control of Greed’s body back as he’s able to sense the presence of the Homunculus and puts up a bit of a fight. Realizing that he too can’t see in the dark, Gluttony decides to use his ultimate attack of his stomach sucky thing-a-ma-bob but before he’s able to materialize, A SUPER AWESOME AND SUPER POWERFUL MYSTERIOUS STRANGER appears and kicks Gluttony’s ass. Who’s this stranger? None other than RAN FAN.

Reaction:

First of all, I must reiterate the completely awesomeness that is the return of RAN FAN. I’ve been waiting for her to appear for a very long time, and for her to come back kicking so much ass like this is a treat to behold. Too bad she’s still behind the mask instead of being out there in all of her beauty because now it’s going to be even harder to wait for episode 48 to come out.

As for the rest of the episode, I was extremely surprised that Grumman does not seem to fully grasp the implications of what is happening on the Promised Day, nor does he know that Bradley is a Homunculus and thus immortal. This explains why the bridge was destroyed in the first place as Grumman probably thought it was a pretty awesome trick he played on poor Bradley. The fact that Grumman is mulling about being at the top of the country and thinking about sacrificing his colleagues for that goal, he really doesn’t seem to know that the Promised Day means the end of the entire country, and thus it would be dumb to delay anything until later. Why they never bothered to tell such an important ally about what was really going on may end up being an planning failure that’s going to haunt our heroes for some time to come.

I thought the bit with Hoenheim crying at the news of his wife’s last words were really quite touching (at least for FMA standards) and quite a scene. At the very least, united by the love of Trisha, Ed is able to realize just what kind of person his father really is (although I’m starting to believe more and more that the dude’s a total goof).

The Pride fight was really fun to watch. I’m predicting that the fight will end within the first few minutes of next episode with Pride and Gluttony escaping back to the capital in hopes of fighting again. And then with all external threats gone, RAN FAN decides to strip down to her bandages once again.

With the evening almost over, it seems like all remaining episodes will be directed at the last battle. They sure are taking their sweet time though eh? I guess we are catching up to the end of the manga now so they have no choice.

Finally, I just wanted to mention that I’m glad they at least re-inserted the idea that people from Xing can sense the Homunculi, something which we haven’t heard anything about since May Chang’s ‘weird feeling’ when she first saw Father. Speaking of May, where is Envy?

Can’t wait for next week and more… RAN FAN.