Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)/YMMV


 * Adaptation Displacement:
 * Before the Brotherhood adaptation, this was probably what many western fans immediately thought of when someone mentioned "Fullmetal Alchemist" rather than the original manga.
 * And for many, it still is.
 * Alas, Poor Villain:
 * Angst? What Angst?: Being  would traumatize most people for life, but   seems to bounce back pretty quickly.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Hohenheim gets a lot more of it here than he did in Brotherhood, where he's seen as more unambiguously benevolent: is he a wise atoner who feels bad for or a suicidal Jerkass whose excuse to abandon his children and wife Trisha doesn't cut the test and who.
 * Base Breaker: Envy and Wrath are two of the most polarizing characters.
 * Complete Monster:
 * Mugear wanted to use an extremely toxic chemical on pregnant women to produce an alchemic amplifier, after trying to produce it at the expense of the villagers' health and lives didn't bring the results and murdering the inventor of the chemical, after he tried to stop him from producing it by such horrible means.
 * : A 400 year old bitch with a penchant for Body Surfing, she's stayed alive this long by jacking innocent people's bodies, ditching them when they start to rot, and repeating the process infinite. When her own Philosopher's Stone runs out, she sets in motion a plan to cause so much misery in Amestris that someone will be desperate enough to recreate the Stone, allowing her to steal it with no risk to herself. She's abusive towards her Homunculi "children", arranges for Ed to, jacks her own assistant's body, and finally, attempts to steal the body of one of heroes Love Interests, who had been severely traumatized, solely so that she can screw him. Said hero is a teenager, and her ex-boyfriend's son. She's never shown in a sympathetic light, and doesn't even have the excuse of not being human to protect her.
 * Envy. His manga counterpart was pitiful enough in the end to avert this trope. This version on the other hand, is not, and takes the former's evil and Jerkassery Up to Eleven. He's a malevolent sadist who gets his kicks out of ruining people's lives, crosses the Moral Event Horizon with and then follows it up with a string of murders and mind games that end with  . He's got a Freudian Excuse, but it doesn't come close to justifying his homicidal mania, and  . Must be In the Blood.
 * : You know he's not going to be a nice guy right off the bat, what with the whole  thing. It gets worse when you realise that he's the one who ordered the   and worse still when he has those actions repeated in Liore. Then he crosses the Moral Event Horizon with his murder of  and throttles his own son, who had served as his Morality Pet, to death in the finale, thus establishing himself firmly as a totally irredeemable bastard.
 * Kimblee. A Psycho for Hire, Nietzsche Wannabe, and Misanthrope Supreme par excellence, he Loves the Sound of Screaming and isn't afraid to share it with you. He comitted genocide in Ishbal, blew up his fellow prisoners in order to escape from prison, betrayed Greed to Archer, tries to murder Al soon after his reinstatement, reenacts the Ishbal genocide in Liore, and finally . A truly appalling mix of rage, hatred, and pure nihilism.
 * Unlike his goofy manga incarnation who became buddies with the main characters, this series' incarnation of Barry the Chopper is a serial-killing butcher played dead straight, with not a gag or a joke in sight.
 * Contested Sequel:
 * Some fans view The Movie as a touching send off to the characters that ties together most of the loose ends left over from the series. Others see it as a kick in the junk that resolves nothing and simply screws everyone over worse than they were screwed in the series.
 * Mention the Brotherhood adaptation on any anime forum and you'll get a combination of wholehearted praise and brutal scorn, the latter coming mostly from fans of the first adaptation who think that Brotherhood is a disgrace to the original anime series.
 * The reverse is true as well. Hardcore fans of the manga have a tendency to treat this anime very harshly because of the alternative storyline that it presents.
 * Crowning Soundtrack Of Awesome:
 * Michiru Oshima's score is considered to be a masterpiece. The openings and endings aren't anything to sneeze at either.
 * Several tracks stand out in particular, such as Bratja and Dante's various themes.
 * the Kelas
 * "Regret", the song played entirely on the harmonica that plays during Mustang's flashback of the Ishval war in Episode 13.
 * "YOU'RE IN GERMANY, HAVE SOME BEETHOVEN".
 * Cult Classic: For many of its fans.
 * Deader Than Disco: Has sadly become this among most anime circles, though somewhat averted given how Brotherhood hasn't sparkled the amount of ratings or gateways here in America.
 * Die for Our Ship: Rose gets it a lot here, too, from some Edwin shippers and Yaoi Fangirls. Even with all the horrible things that happened to her, getting an expanded role in this version did not help her with shippers. Winry also gets this from the latter group.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Envy and Kimblee, in particular, have a large fanbase.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Lust, so much that she's the picture of the trope article.
 * Fashion Victim Villain: Envy and Wrath.
 * Foe Yay:
 * Gateway Series: Love it or hate it, this series was one of the driving forces behind the big Anime boom of the early-mid 2000's.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Maes Hughes is very popular with the American fanbase, much to the surprise of the Japanese creators.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight:
 * In the manga and the second anime,
 * In one of the flashbacks, a young Ling Yao can be seen, wearing sunglasses similar to Greed; while he has no important role in this anime,.
 * At the end of the (non-canonical) OVA "Kids", there is a prominently displayed photograph of an elderly Ed shaking hands with an important-looking, formally dressed man who bears a moderate resemblance to Barack Obama. (The OVA was made more than three years before he was elected President of the United States.)
 * Iron Woobie: Ed, Al, Izumi, Mustang, Hawkeye, honestly, most of the good guys.
 * Jerkass Woobie: Wrath and Scar
 * Memetic Sex God: Everyone wants Lust, no exceptions. Sloth also fares well in this department.
 * Moral Event Horizon: Crossed by both Scar and the Homunculi. Envy crosses it with enjoys dancing over it again and again. Depending on who you ask,  's came with either.
 * No Yay:
 * hitting on Ed. It gets even worse when you consider that she's mainly doing it to "be loved by the son of Hohenheim."
 * There's also a bit of ...which wouldn't have been that bad, were it not for the fact that
 * And then there's the fangirls who ship Kimblee with Archer. As if the fact that they're both psychopaths wasn't bad enough, one of them is a half-mechanical Cyborg!
 * Stoic Woobie: Lust.
 * Values Dissonance: Izumi's domestic violence against the Elric brothers; Ed and Al basically abusing each other.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion: Envy.
 * What an Idiot!:
 * The Woobie: The Elric brothers, many times. Wrath, Winry, Rose, Izumi, even Jerkass Woobie Scar and Stoic Woobie Lust.