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How Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood ruined anime (not really but hear me out)

Once studios realized people wanted faithful adaptations of manga, a little bit of the industry's creativity was stiffled.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood Featured
Image credit: BONES

You can usually tell how long someone has been into anime by their memories of Fullmetal Alchemist. The first anime series came out in 2003, while the manga was still early in its 2001-2010 run, while Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood began airing in 2009 and was praised for being far more faithful to Hiromu Arakawa’s manga. For all its praise – and it deserves much of it – I still can’t shake the feeling that the second anime series was a tipping point for the industry. To me, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood sapped a lot of creativity out of the anime that followed.

That sounds harsh, but don’t go running to the comments to shout at me just yet. Instead, hear me out on how Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, despite being a very good anime, was very bad for anime in general.

Anime hit a bit of

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Trent Cannon

Trent Cannon: Trent is a freelance writer who has been covering anime, video games, and pop culture for a decade. (He/Him)

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