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Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #7
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 187
Words: 9K
From FMA.fandom.com
“Where did Alphonse Elric go during the few short minutes he was wiped from existence, body and soul? From a secret lair in the city of Dublith, a group of outcasts kidnaps Alphonse to find the alchemical secrets of his creation! It’s up to Ed (and a certain housewife) to go into the Devil’s Nest and rescue his brother. But the criminals of the Devil’s Nest aren’t exactly human either. Now, Al must fight a homunculus-an artificial human being- and the streets of Dublith will run red with blood…”
This was good! We finally get some serious butt kicking going on by lots of various people, so it’s not just State Alchemists ka-blooey’ing people or Scar exploding bodies. We get chimeras, successful ones, unlike the poor girl and her dog a few volumes back. It did make me question WHY the alchemist that did that to his wife and then daughter wasn’t brought onto the project for the successful chimeras. Felt like sloppy story telling.
But Al, the big suit of armor brother, getting “kidnapped” and allowing it to happen for a chance to get a body back, well, he shows a lot of brains. And then when Ed comes rampaging in to take on the homunculus, we find out a LOT more about homunculi in general and we see why Ed is a state alchemist at such a young age. He’s not only powerful but also very smart.
Then we have President Fuhrer King Bradley getting involved. Once he overhears that there’s a homunculus involved, not only does he send down Major Armstrong (the biggest and handsomest State Alchemist) with a battalion of shock troopers, but he makes an appearance himself and almost single handedly takes down chimeras and the homunculus, without batting an eye. It’s easy to see the power he has harnessed has allowed him to become the leader of the country. But it’s also revealed that he has the symbol of the ourobouros (the snake eating its own tail) on his eye and so far, only homunculi have had that symbol. So either it can be used for other purposes OR Bradley himself is a homunculus. With the order to exterminate the nation of Shamballa, and therefore its attendant priests with their unique power (as we’ve seen through it’s misuse by Scar), coming directly from Bradley, it would appear that the power of Shamballa is something that the followers of the ourobouros fear. My vote is that Bradley is a homunculus. Which means he’s ultimately evil and if that plays out, I hope he gets his.
Knowing my luck though, the manga-ka will pull an old fashioned switch-a-roo and reveal some info that changes everything at the worst possible moment. So I’m not placing my dollar just quite yet.
Ahhh yes, the art. Blah, blah blah. The symmetry was totally blah, blahh but I found the use of different pen styles blah, blah, blah. In short, blah, blah blah unless you’re really into that stuff and then I’d probably have to say blah, blah, blah, but just like with Bradley getting my vote for being an evil homunculus, don’t hold me to blah, blah, blah because it might just change to blah, blah, blah at any time. That’s the wonderful thing about art, it can totally blah, blah, blah.
★★★★☆
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