FMAB - episode 5: Rain of Sorrows
Dec. 22nd, 2023 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsFMAB - episode 5: Rain of Sorrows
This is a bit of an odd episode. I don’t dislike it at all, it’s mostly good, and yet I never really care about watching it because it always lands squarely in the meh category. Because it’s an action episode; it’s a good action episode, but those are almost never my favorite episodes of any show.
I actually remember from the first time I watched it that the thing I was most interested in was stopping and examining the Amestris map we get at the end, as well as the snapshots we get of Ishval. Because even if I hadn’t quite realized it yet, I wasn’t really watching the show for the Elrics. Which is part of the problem for me with this episode; there is a decent amount of character work done during the fight, but it’s all for the Elrics, so it’s just not my main jam.
And it’s even more obvious on rewatch. Even at the time, I wanted to follow the discussion of what happened in Ishval, but Ed doesn’t care and it’s not relevant to his story, so he and the show just ignore it. Now, I guess this is a sign of Ed’s childishness at this point in the series as he will later want to learn what happened in Ishval, as he realizes that history is relevant to how they got where they are and what they need to understand to do better going forward; but I’m just not in Ed’s head for this scene. I’m way too focused on Roy’s attitude to be in Ed’s head.
Hell, I think is kind of on both Ed and Roy’s side on the subject of Scar’s motivation; but the show so far defaults to Ed’s POV so for now it seems to be on his side alone. Scar’s revenge quest is more than a little justified, his choice of targets has as much logic as a revenge quest can. But I do wish he showed a little more uncertainty about going after Ed; he’s clearly a kid who would have had nothing to do with Ishval’s destruction. We know Tucker wasn’t a State Alchemist at the time, but from the outside it wouldn’t be obvious that he hadn’t been. (Also, Scar killed a lot of MPs, even just to get to Tucker, we don’t know how many non-alchemists he’s killed in the process of gunning for the big dogs of the military.)
And when Ed dismisses Scar’s motivations as someone disguising their hate under the idea of a godly crusade, I don’t think anyone else is all that hung up on the God part of Scar’s reasons. Whether or not Scar calls his motivation as a mission from God, everyone else in that room understands why an Ishvalan would think they were righteous to go after the State Alchemists. (They were all either in Ishval or work for Roy, who is the one to vocalize the fact that Scar’s reasons are understandable. I doubt he’s made a secret to his team how much he thinks that what happened in Ishval was a crime, whether or not they all know the long term plans that go with that view. While Ed, and therefore the show, isn’t really paying attention to Roy in that scene, what he does let out about what happened in Ishval tells me that he’s on the verge of a PTSD breakdown for having to think about just how justified he thinks Scar is.)
I do have a couple of notes on the translation comparison. Less importantly, I’d always wondered a bit if there was a translation problem when Hughes refers to alchemists as pseudo-humans, because that doesn’t seem like something he’d say when his best friend is an alchemist. But the sub version isn’t any better for going with ‘nonsensical mutants,’ although I think maybe I do prefer mutants to pseudo-humans even if I don’t think it’s a great option or one that Hughes would likely use. I thought I saw someone somewhere translate it more as superhumans, which I think is closer to how alchemists (especially the highly skilled ones) would be seen in this world, but I’m still not sure it’s the word I would use. Referencing super-powers though, that seems in keeping with why Hughes was staying out of the fight; even if all of the MPs, Havoc, and Hawkeye were all involved.
The slightly more plot relevant translation change is one of Lust’s lines. In the dub she references rivers of blood, but in the sub it’s a crest of blood, which is the same wording the dub uses when we get up north. I think it would have been nice to have the same phrase used across the series, and I don’t think it would have given that much more away at this point as to the Sin Squad’s goal.
Although I am not sure how they accomplished getting Envy-Cornello back in charge; Envy can’t even do alchemy to continue to so the miracles Cornello performed. I do appreciate that the town is now clearly divided on ‘Cornello’s’ leadership, but there were a lot of people on his side, more than I think there ought to be. It’s also really hard to tell what is actually going on in Liore for this; I’m not even sure whether or not there is a threat of military intervention or if the homunculi are just using it as a scare tactic and they only need a regular old riot to spill the blood that they need. Because we’re not actually following this story, the scenes of the riots don’t quite fit with the rest of the plot going on in the episode. Though the Squad’s discussion of their available alchemists does work fine.
This is another one of those episodes where I think it maybe needed another draft (I don’t know if at the manga level or the adaptation one), because I’m pretty sure I know what Ed’s arc is supposed to be, but it’s not properly paced out over the episode. On an arc of points 1-10, it does a fine job starting at 1 (depressed and morose) and ending at 10 (let’s get our legs back under us and keep moving forward), but numbers in the middle get jumbled and swapped so it doesn’t quite form the arc it should.
But I do like points 1 and 10, which get the most focus, so it’s hard to say it’s that bad. It’s just an episode where the focus is rarely on things that interest me that much. Which is kind of true for a lot of this section of this series. People talk about how the show is trying to cram too much into its first arcs, but it’s more that the show doesn’t allocate its time well for how few episodes it gives to this part of the story. Then again, I’d be perfectly willing to sacrifice fighting episodes for more story focused ones; maybe not everyone feels that way.
This is a bit of an odd episode. I don’t dislike it at all, it’s mostly good, and yet I never really care about watching it because it always lands squarely in the meh category. Because it’s an action episode; it’s a good action episode, but those are almost never my favorite episodes of any show.
I actually remember from the first time I watched it that the thing I was most interested in was stopping and examining the Amestris map we get at the end, as well as the snapshots we get of Ishval. Because even if I hadn’t quite realized it yet, I wasn’t really watching the show for the Elrics. Which is part of the problem for me with this episode; there is a decent amount of character work done during the fight, but it’s all for the Elrics, so it’s just not my main jam.
And it’s even more obvious on rewatch. Even at the time, I wanted to follow the discussion of what happened in Ishval, but Ed doesn’t care and it’s not relevant to his story, so he and the show just ignore it. Now, I guess this is a sign of Ed’s childishness at this point in the series as he will later want to learn what happened in Ishval, as he realizes that history is relevant to how they got where they are and what they need to understand to do better going forward; but I’m just not in Ed’s head for this scene. I’m way too focused on Roy’s attitude to be in Ed’s head.
Hell, I think is kind of on both Ed and Roy’s side on the subject of Scar’s motivation; but the show so far defaults to Ed’s POV so for now it seems to be on his side alone. Scar’s revenge quest is more than a little justified, his choice of targets has as much logic as a revenge quest can. But I do wish he showed a little more uncertainty about going after Ed; he’s clearly a kid who would have had nothing to do with Ishval’s destruction. We know Tucker wasn’t a State Alchemist at the time, but from the outside it wouldn’t be obvious that he hadn’t been. (Also, Scar killed a lot of MPs, even just to get to Tucker, we don’t know how many non-alchemists he’s killed in the process of gunning for the big dogs of the military.)
And when Ed dismisses Scar’s motivations as someone disguising their hate under the idea of a godly crusade, I don’t think anyone else is all that hung up on the God part of Scar’s reasons. Whether or not Scar calls his motivation as a mission from God, everyone else in that room understands why an Ishvalan would think they were righteous to go after the State Alchemists. (They were all either in Ishval or work for Roy, who is the one to vocalize the fact that Scar’s reasons are understandable. I doubt he’s made a secret to his team how much he thinks that what happened in Ishval was a crime, whether or not they all know the long term plans that go with that view. While Ed, and therefore the show, isn’t really paying attention to Roy in that scene, what he does let out about what happened in Ishval tells me that he’s on the verge of a PTSD breakdown for having to think about just how justified he thinks Scar is.)
I do have a couple of notes on the translation comparison. Less importantly, I’d always wondered a bit if there was a translation problem when Hughes refers to alchemists as pseudo-humans, because that doesn’t seem like something he’d say when his best friend is an alchemist. But the sub version isn’t any better for going with ‘nonsensical mutants,’ although I think maybe I do prefer mutants to pseudo-humans even if I don’t think it’s a great option or one that Hughes would likely use. I thought I saw someone somewhere translate it more as superhumans, which I think is closer to how alchemists (especially the highly skilled ones) would be seen in this world, but I’m still not sure it’s the word I would use. Referencing super-powers though, that seems in keeping with why Hughes was staying out of the fight; even if all of the MPs, Havoc, and Hawkeye were all involved.
The slightly more plot relevant translation change is one of Lust’s lines. In the dub she references rivers of blood, but in the sub it’s a crest of blood, which is the same wording the dub uses when we get up north. I think it would have been nice to have the same phrase used across the series, and I don’t think it would have given that much more away at this point as to the Sin Squad’s goal.
Although I am not sure how they accomplished getting Envy-Cornello back in charge; Envy can’t even do alchemy to continue to so the miracles Cornello performed. I do appreciate that the town is now clearly divided on ‘Cornello’s’ leadership, but there were a lot of people on his side, more than I think there ought to be. It’s also really hard to tell what is actually going on in Liore for this; I’m not even sure whether or not there is a threat of military intervention or if the homunculi are just using it as a scare tactic and they only need a regular old riot to spill the blood that they need. Because we’re not actually following this story, the scenes of the riots don’t quite fit with the rest of the plot going on in the episode. Though the Squad’s discussion of their available alchemists does work fine.
This is another one of those episodes where I think it maybe needed another draft (I don’t know if at the manga level or the adaptation one), because I’m pretty sure I know what Ed’s arc is supposed to be, but it’s not properly paced out over the episode. On an arc of points 1-10, it does a fine job starting at 1 (depressed and morose) and ending at 10 (let’s get our legs back under us and keep moving forward), but numbers in the middle get jumbled and swapped so it doesn’t quite form the arc it should.
But I do like points 1 and 10, which get the most focus, so it’s hard to say it’s that bad. It’s just an episode where the focus is rarely on things that interest me that much. Which is kind of true for a lot of this section of this series. People talk about how the show is trying to cram too much into its first arcs, but it’s more that the show doesn’t allocate its time well for how few episodes it gives to this part of the story. Then again, I’d be perfectly willing to sacrifice fighting episodes for more story focused ones; maybe not everyone feels that way.
