Here's where the story finally begins to hit its stride and get really good. There's more growth for characters, a spot of backstory, emotion and feels, the comedy starts to work better, there's a couple great and well-written revelations that give us an idea of what we're dealing with and what horrors to expect from the future, and of course a good fight in the end.

All that being said, I also find myself with a newfound appreciation for the first anime: it improved on the manga almost everywhere it touched, with better fights and tighter pacing - for instance by combining the fight Scar had in the sewers with the burning of the library, by giving more reason for Ed and Mustang to duel it out, and by giving more scenes for Sheska. I never cared for most of the filler stuff, though.

3.5
Partly dark and partly cute?

Winry baby girl.

3.5 BROO TEN DODATEK! KOCHAM MUSTANGA.

I enjoyed Volume 3. It had a nice mix of humor, action, and emotions. It was fun seeing the banter between Ed, Pinako, and Winry. It was also fun seeing Alex Louis Armstrong interact with the Elric brothers. The dialogue is good and I like how fun the story can get.

What I liked even more though was learning more about Al and Ed's past - and backstory about the war as well as its impact (including an ironic result) on Ed, Pinako, and Winry. Hiromu Arakawa continues to do a great job in weaving in backstory into the story without making it seem like an info-dump or out of place.

It was also great to learn more about the Philosopher's Stone as well as how Ed and Al got to learn about it in spite of a setback. This led to the fun introduction of Sheska. I hope we see more of her in future volumes. She is quirky and fun. But, as we learn more about the stone, the story gets darker.

This does lead to a bit of a tonal inconsistency, but it's not a major issue - and I like how the story transitioned to a darker tale. It was chilling to learn about how it was used on prisoners. It was during this that we got to see some action. Ed and Al's fights with the guards were well written and well-drawn. While the guard characters weren't too complex, they were brutal and the stakes were high (especially Ed's battle with the Slicer brothers). The end of the volume was good. It was a great cliffhanger and I'm excited to read Volume 4.

I enjoyed Volume 3 and it is a good read.

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 3 continues where the previous tankōbon left off and contains the next four chapters (9–12) of the on-going manga series.

Thanks to their friend Winry Rockbell, an automail expert from Resembool, the Elrics recover from their battle with Scar. Afterwards, they head to Central City with Major Alex Louis Armstrong to find Dr. Marcoh's notebooks that reside in the First Branch Library. Upon their arrival, they discover the library has been burnt to the ground after a fight between Scar and artificial humans known as homunculi.

Fortunately, they are able to recover a copy of Marcoh's notes from Sheska, a former librarian. However, the brothers are shocked to discover that the Philosopher's Stone is made by sacrificing human lives. They move through Central City to infiltrate an abandoned facility known only as Laboratory 5.

There they find that alchemical experiments were conducted using human sacrifices from a nearby prison. While investigating the lab, the Elrics are separated and forced to fight a pair of guards who have their souls sealed in armors like Alphonse.

This tankōbon is written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. For the most part, it is written and illustrated rather well. It continues the Elrics brothers' quest for the Philosopher's Stone as they discover through Marcho's notes that his manner in forming such a stone is to sacrifice human lives, which was experimented on in Laboratory 5, which used prisoners as subjects.

All in all, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 3 is a wonderful continuation to a series that seems really intriguing and I can't wait to read more.

4.5

Definitivno uživam u avanturama braće Elrik, ali pravi MVP ovog broja je Aleks Luj Armstrong koji mi se kako vreme ide sve više i više dopada. Toliko suprotnosti u jednom liku, od izgleda do emocija… Savršen miks svega što čini jednog lika zanimljivim i upečatljivim. Na svakoj stranici na kojoj se pojavi osmeh mi se razvuče preko lica. Obožavam ga.

(I'm cramming three volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist for my book club this afternoon! I'm reading the omnibus but I'm going to log each volume as a separate entry to contribute to my reading goal.)

This might be my favorite volume of the day. They’re all five stars, but this one made me remember what about FMA made me fall in love with it. It’s the world itself! It’s all the small interactions and settings. I could live and die and the Rockbell’s cottage in Resembool. I could get lost in libraries with Sheska. I could almost see myself at a cozy family dinner full of bickering with the Elrics. It’s a strangely comforting environment for a series so concerned with morality, genocide, and humanity itself.

I think this volume also highlights how masterfully FMA blends sci-fi and fantasy, to the point where you can’t quite even define it as one genre specifically. It’s not even that some elements are sci-fi and some are fantasy— the very idea that alchemy is a magical science overseen by God is so fascinating. And it never feels overbearing.

Anyways. I love this series. Funnily enough— the students were mostly ambivalent! No one really expressed super strong feelings. It appears that, like me, a lot of them prefer shoujo. Our next title is going to be Cardcaptor Sakura and I can’t wait to introduce that one to everyone.

“It brings joy in sorrow, victory in battle, light to darkness, life to the dead. That is the power of the blood-red jewel which men honor with the name "The Philosopher's Stone.”

In this volume Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric continue their quest to find the philosopher's stone and they go through many hazards along their way. The notes to making the philosopher's stone is hidden in the Central library but they have to get there before another villain, 'Lust', does. Just when they thought they were about to restore their bodies back, another problem arises...
This manga now just means everything to me. It's funny, gripping and adventurous. What more could you ask for?

“I think being so passionate about something is a talent in itself.”

4.5⭐️

Ed y Al regresan a su pueblo natal para arreglar las automail destruidas de Ed.
Parecía que la búsqueda de la piedra filosofal había desaparecido pero por suerte encontraron alguien que los ayudara lo malo va a ser que van a descubrir algo que no será muy grato

Ok, ovo za sada zvanično postaje moja omiljena manga. Ovo je prva manga koja mi se dopala od samog početka.

Radnja se odvija u militarističkoj državi Amestrisa neposredno nakon građanskog rata i ta atmosfera se stvarno oseti. Posttraumatski stresovi, mržnja, ratna siročad, osveta.

Protagonisti su siročad, braća Edvard i Alfons Elrik. Pošto je alhemija deo svakodnevice u njihovoj zemlji, oni su pokušali da vrate svoju majku iz mrtvih i tu je pošlo naopako. Osnovu alhemije čini ekvivalent razmene - dobiješ ono što želiš, ali moraš platiti podjednaku cenu nečim drugim. Alfons ostaje bez noge a da sačuva dušu brata i poveže je s okolopom daje i svoju ruku. Od tada polaze u avanturu da pronađu kamen mudrosti i vrate svoja tela.

Čelični alhemičar postaje državni, odnosno ljudsko oružje u službi vojske. ”Običan” narod poučen iskustvom građanskog rata, pohlepom i zlopotrebom moći prezire vojsku.

Tokom svog puteštvija braća doživljavaju razne avanture kroz koje upoznajemo sjajne i zanimljive likove. Jako mi se dopadaju i jaki i zanimljivi ženski likovi jer u mangama koje sam do sada čitala postoji tendecija da ženski likovi budu submisivni, pasivni i vidi se da je Čeličnog pisala žena