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tori_reviews2023-11-01 11:51 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote in tori_reviews2023-11-01 11:51 pm
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FMAB - episode 2: The First Day
This has been a very forgetful year here at tori_reviews. And now we're getting into all the distractions of the last couple months of the year, so I don't expect it to get better for the next couple months. Start thinking if next year will be better.
FMAB - episode 2: The First Day
I did consider doing the second part of the ’03 two-parter, but if I set that precedent then I’m going to have to make some judgements about what counts and multiple parts of the same story for these shows. And since at some point that would basically be ‘the last 20 episodes of Brotherhood’ I think I’ll just alternate. Besides, if memory serves I’ll be very happy when doing the ’03 Lab 5 arc that I get to go and watch Brotherhood in between episodes. This idea may or may not stick anyway.
But I’m not sure about this project of comparing sub and sub versions of the writing. Reading subtitles really does impact my ability to immerse myself in the story I’m watching, even if what I’m reading is more or less the same as what I’m hearing. Yet there are enough places that I would have wanted to go back and check the sub against the dub that I might as well be doing it as I watch. I’ll stick to it for now, but I will probably drop it by…maybe the end of the first batch of episodes.
However, while I am doing it, I will comment if I find a distortion that is particularly interesting to me. There were quite a few instances where I noted that the slight changes in translation made one or the other more poetic (usually the dub, which I guess makes sense as it would be paying more attention to what *sounds* good when it’s spoken), but that’s not what I feel like dwelling on.
…it only occurs to me as I try and remember what I most wanted to talk about, that most of them involve Roy. Wow, brain, did you have to be so predictable?
I feel like Pinako’s outburst to Roy comes off different in the different presentations. In the dub I’ve always understood her to be protecting Ed from the military; that Ed’s too weak right then and it sure looks like the military wants to exploit him. But in the dub, she seems more anti-alchemy. She hates alchemy because she saw what the boys created with it; and that’s very different from not letting anyone push them into alchemy they are in no condition to do.
And in basically the same scene, there’s what seems like the big one to me. The difference between ‘want to’ and ‘have to’ when Riza talks about why she joined the military. In the dub she says there’s someone she ‘has to protect’ whiles someone she ‘wanted to protect’ in the sub. The interesting thing is that it’s almost a distinction without a difference. They both seem like valid reads of her character and her reasons for following Roy into the military; they’re not even mutually exclusive as Riza joined because she wanted to protect him and stays because she ‘has to’ protect him. It just puts a different focus on events depending on which version you go with.
I wonder if the original Japanese included the word ‘alkehistory,’ which is used in the dub, while the sub just calls it eastern alchemy for Xing. While that jumped out at me as single instance, that scene is kind of odd to compare character-wise too. The dub sounds like Roy’s cool with hanging around Central and will be shipped back to the east. While the sub seems more like he’s a loose part in Central and ready to be released back to the east. I can see the logic in either attitude, but again the distinction stood out.
I will have to call the sub-writers out on Ed’s exam scene as they have Ed say that his arm was injured in the Western conflict; even though Bradley identifies the cause as Ishval. On the off chance it was meant to show Ed was so nervous and/or bad liar that he forgot that he lives in the East then it doesn’t come through and it was right to smooth it out in the dub.
One thing I suspect I will give ’03 over Brotherhood is that I think it does more to flesh out where Roy’s mind was at in recruiting the boys in the first place. That for him to discover such a powerful young alchemist looks good on his record too. The problem with retrofitting the ’03 idea into Brotherhood is that Roy isn’t the same character in the two different shows (as I recall), and ’03-Roy is the darker of the two. I guess what I’ll say is that it probably isn’t a non-factor for Bro-Roy, but I’m not willing to say it’s a key factor for him. I think Roy sized up Ed pretty quickly; a kid who was so dedicated to bringing back his mother wasn’t going to sit still while his brother was a suit of armor, so he offered Ed what is in a military dictatorship the best way to have access to wide source of scientific research. And so, yeah, Roy wanted to be the one who brought this kid into the fold, but he also figured Ed would have to come to the same conclusion once he’d healed up enough to start searching for a solution.
What neither version (and I gather the manga too) convey well at is what brought Roy out the Resenbol when it did? (actually, I know ’03 invents its own reason, we’ll come to that in a relevant review.) It’s clearly within maybe a month of the attempt to revive Trisha and it just so happened to be when Roy decided to head down to look into some unknown powerful alchemist? Hoenheim hadn’t lived there is years at that point, and if it was the boys’ prodigy level talents got them noticed then it probably would have happened years ago. I don’t see Hoenheim having somehow known what the boys did and tipping off the military to come and talk to them (fudging what age the alchemist in question was). I can almost see that Father would be able to sense someone in Amestris opening a portal to the Truth and have gotten someone to go out and look into it, but at that point, why let it go to Roy? As far as the big powers know at this point, he’ll a loyal soldier, but he’s far from inner circle; and even if said powers don’t know they’re dealing with a couple of children, Roy is still maybe not the best choice for a recruiter.
One more note on the translations though, since I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing this part of the analysis. There’s a difference in the opening narration that I think changes some context. The dub makes it explicit why human transmutation does not and can not work; because nothing can equal the value of a human soul. The sub makes it seem more like a taboo, that alchemists just don’t do. It makes me aware that somehow the boys (and to a lesser extent others in this world) have to understand the rules both ways in order for this plot to happen. They know they need to put in some soul data, which means they do understand that the soul is part of the equation; but not enough to have tried to work out the equivalent exchange that would produce a soul. I’m not going to call this a writing mistake, as they are very much kids at that point who could easily make a mistake like that as characters; who don’t yet quite grasp the *why* there isn’t equivalent exchange for a soul. And anyway, it’s the opening narration, I never assumed it was entirely how characters thought about that rule.
Seems I never actually said that I like this episode. It covers a lot of material but I think it does it well. It probably could have used more fleshing out over the course of the show, but it’s what it needs to be as a starting point.
FMAB - episode 2: The First Day
I did consider doing the second part of the ’03 two-parter, but if I set that precedent then I’m going to have to make some judgements about what counts and multiple parts of the same story for these shows. And since at some point that would basically be ‘the last 20 episodes of Brotherhood’ I think I’ll just alternate. Besides, if memory serves I’ll be very happy when doing the ’03 Lab 5 arc that I get to go and watch Brotherhood in between episodes. This idea may or may not stick anyway.
But I’m not sure about this project of comparing sub and sub versions of the writing. Reading subtitles really does impact my ability to immerse myself in the story I’m watching, even if what I’m reading is more or less the same as what I’m hearing. Yet there are enough places that I would have wanted to go back and check the sub against the dub that I might as well be doing it as I watch. I’ll stick to it for now, but I will probably drop it by…maybe the end of the first batch of episodes.
However, while I am doing it, I will comment if I find a distortion that is particularly interesting to me. There were quite a few instances where I noted that the slight changes in translation made one or the other more poetic (usually the dub, which I guess makes sense as it would be paying more attention to what *sounds* good when it’s spoken), but that’s not what I feel like dwelling on.
…it only occurs to me as I try and remember what I most wanted to talk about, that most of them involve Roy. Wow, brain, did you have to be so predictable?
I feel like Pinako’s outburst to Roy comes off different in the different presentations. In the dub I’ve always understood her to be protecting Ed from the military; that Ed’s too weak right then and it sure looks like the military wants to exploit him. But in the dub, she seems more anti-alchemy. She hates alchemy because she saw what the boys created with it; and that’s very different from not letting anyone push them into alchemy they are in no condition to do.
And in basically the same scene, there’s what seems like the big one to me. The difference between ‘want to’ and ‘have to’ when Riza talks about why she joined the military. In the dub she says there’s someone she ‘has to protect’ whiles someone she ‘wanted to protect’ in the sub. The interesting thing is that it’s almost a distinction without a difference. They both seem like valid reads of her character and her reasons for following Roy into the military; they’re not even mutually exclusive as Riza joined because she wanted to protect him and stays because she ‘has to’ protect him. It just puts a different focus on events depending on which version you go with.
I wonder if the original Japanese included the word ‘alkehistory,’ which is used in the dub, while the sub just calls it eastern alchemy for Xing. While that jumped out at me as single instance, that scene is kind of odd to compare character-wise too. The dub sounds like Roy’s cool with hanging around Central and will be shipped back to the east. While the sub seems more like he’s a loose part in Central and ready to be released back to the east. I can see the logic in either attitude, but again the distinction stood out.
I will have to call the sub-writers out on Ed’s exam scene as they have Ed say that his arm was injured in the Western conflict; even though Bradley identifies the cause as Ishval. On the off chance it was meant to show Ed was so nervous and/or bad liar that he forgot that he lives in the East then it doesn’t come through and it was right to smooth it out in the dub.
One thing I suspect I will give ’03 over Brotherhood is that I think it does more to flesh out where Roy’s mind was at in recruiting the boys in the first place. That for him to discover such a powerful young alchemist looks good on his record too. The problem with retrofitting the ’03 idea into Brotherhood is that Roy isn’t the same character in the two different shows (as I recall), and ’03-Roy is the darker of the two. I guess what I’ll say is that it probably isn’t a non-factor for Bro-Roy, but I’m not willing to say it’s a key factor for him. I think Roy sized up Ed pretty quickly; a kid who was so dedicated to bringing back his mother wasn’t going to sit still while his brother was a suit of armor, so he offered Ed what is in a military dictatorship the best way to have access to wide source of scientific research. And so, yeah, Roy wanted to be the one who brought this kid into the fold, but he also figured Ed would have to come to the same conclusion once he’d healed up enough to start searching for a solution.
What neither version (and I gather the manga too) convey well at is what brought Roy out the Resenbol when it did? (actually, I know ’03 invents its own reason, we’ll come to that in a relevant review.) It’s clearly within maybe a month of the attempt to revive Trisha and it just so happened to be when Roy decided to head down to look into some unknown powerful alchemist? Hoenheim hadn’t lived there is years at that point, and if it was the boys’ prodigy level talents got them noticed then it probably would have happened years ago. I don’t see Hoenheim having somehow known what the boys did and tipping off the military to come and talk to them (fudging what age the alchemist in question was). I can almost see that Father would be able to sense someone in Amestris opening a portal to the Truth and have gotten someone to go out and look into it, but at that point, why let it go to Roy? As far as the big powers know at this point, he’ll a loyal soldier, but he’s far from inner circle; and even if said powers don’t know they’re dealing with a couple of children, Roy is still maybe not the best choice for a recruiter.
One more note on the translations though, since I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing this part of the analysis. There’s a difference in the opening narration that I think changes some context. The dub makes it explicit why human transmutation does not and can not work; because nothing can equal the value of a human soul. The sub makes it seem more like a taboo, that alchemists just don’t do. It makes me aware that somehow the boys (and to a lesser extent others in this world) have to understand the rules both ways in order for this plot to happen. They know they need to put in some soul data, which means they do understand that the soul is part of the equation; but not enough to have tried to work out the equivalent exchange that would produce a soul. I’m not going to call this a writing mistake, as they are very much kids at that point who could easily make a mistake like that as characters; who don’t yet quite grasp the *why* there isn’t equivalent exchange for a soul. And anyway, it’s the opening narration, I never assumed it was entirely how characters thought about that rule.
Seems I never actually said that I like this episode. It covers a lot of material but I think it does it well. It probably could have used more fleshing out over the course of the show, but it’s what it needs to be as a starting point.