- #FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST MOVIE CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE SERIES#
- #FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST MOVIE CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE TV#
#FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST MOVIE CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE SERIES#
Still, by the time the movie's over, the central issue of the series is settled. Compared to first-class villains like Lust, Greed, and Scar – especially Scar, a character you could genuinely sympathize with – she can't help but feel like a lightweight. Essentially, our boys are opposed by a woman who wants to do something foolish because she's ignorant and crazy. With so little time to maneuver in, the movie has to cook up what it can on short notice.
#FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST MOVIE CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE TV#
That was one of the things the TV series did just right, taking its time to build a collection of compelling bad guys. Where the story has real problems is before the big world-crossing finish, when it's trying and failing to serve up a decent villain. For most of the gaps in logic, though, the movie at least has a good try at papering over them. How did our boys get their bodies rejiggered in just the way they wanted to? Well… maybe the thing responds to the power of positive thinking. I'm still not sure I could pass a test on exactly how the passage between worlds is meant to work. You can poke some decent-sized holes in the plot if you feel like it. (Edward happens to trip over a few familiar faces there in Germany.) It's an awful lot of material to cram into just over 100 minutes, and it says something that the story actually doesn't feel rushed most of the time. Conqueror of Shamballa tells two parallel stories for each of the brothers, serves up four or five great-looking action set-pieces, and at the same time tries to fit in a modest amount of screen time for nearly every supporting character from the entire TV series – even the ones who got killed before it was halfway over. What ensues could be fairly described as a whirlwind of events. The movie kicks off two years later, with Ed stuck in Munich, Germany during the days of the beer-hall putsch and Al trying to find a way to get him back home.
At the end of the TV series, Alphonse Elric got his real body back, but only after his world gave up another body in exchange – his brother's, which wound up transported to something like our "real" world. It doesn't have enough running room to get everything right, but then the TV show left an awful lot of loose ends hanging. It's a great-looking action romp, though, with an ending that might jerk a tear or two regardless. So this may or may not be the "real" conclusion to Edward Elric's story. Which leaves the events of this movie in a peculiar sort of place – "retconned" into the ether, as comic book nerds would put it. In the meantime, Hiromu Arakawa's manga series was chugging along with a completely different story – the story that's hitting the airwaves now as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. A year or so later this movie showed up to provide the exciting conclusion. The original Alchemist TV show ended with an infamous cliffhanger. If you follow Japanese animation at all, you already know all the details, but here's a primer for anyone who showed up late to the party. A new Fullmetal Alchemist series is running on Japanese TV right now, conceived in large part with the aim of rewriting The Conqueror of Shamballa out of existence. In light of recent events, watching this movie feels pretty weird.