Otra muerte desgarradora!!
Why?!!

oh yes... pain

4.5⭐️

Qué buen tomo !!!
Me encantó, también me pareció muy genial el capítulo de bonus, pero estoy triste porque me gustaba mucho ese personaje.

another solid 4 stars

Lieutenant Colonel Hughes... T-T

And for now I need to wait for a) me buying more manga volumes for my friend b) my friend buying more volumes which I can borrow.

So far, I really enjoy this series!!

“There are some things that I need to be told in order for me to understand.”

This volume was so good (Maes Hughes!! And I thought I was prepared after what happened with Nina and Alexander), and the wait for volume 5 from my library was so long that I gave up and watched the anime (Brotherhood, not the first version)....and now I have no way to coherently speak about this series, I love it so much. The family relationship! Ed and his absolute devotion to getting Al his body back! Al and his conviction that he won't let others suffer in his quest to get back to normal! Colonel Mustang and his ambition and his loyalty to his men! Hawkeye and her awesome sniper skills and her loyalty and strength and ability to keep Colonel Mustang from doing too many stupid things! Winry, who is a fantastic automail mechanic and the best kind of friend and not afraid to use force to knock some sense into her reckless childhood friends! The romance, which feels natural because it's centered on such a strong friendship, and which builds naturally over a long series of significant events (that I can't give away without spoilers, although seriously, they're awesome), and which is naturally an understated subplot, because the characters are so focused on the terrible doings happening in the main plot! Not to mention Scar and the truth about the Ishbal Rebellion and Von Hohenheim (!!!) and Greed and Lin and Pride (who is so freaking scary) and the truth of the philosopher's stone...

Umm, basically, if you took every character and every event and every world-building detail and added a few sparkly hearts and exclamation points before and after them, that's how I feel about this story. Give me a few weeks and I might be capable of a more rational analysis.

If anyone in the neighborhood is interested, I have since found the Westerville library has the whole manga series; I've spent about the last week devouring it. (Maybe for me March is just a month meant for light--yet very awesome--book series? I seem to remember devouring the Alex Rider series in a similar fashion during spring break one year. Although Fullmetal Alchemist > Alex Rider by a billion points or so; they're not even on the same level of enjoyment, here.)

One side note: I have so, so, so many good things to say about this series, but it is worth noting one thing that truly baffled and then somewhat offended me when I read through: (minor plot point spoiler) later in the series, Winry becomes an apprentice to Garfiel, an automail mechanic who is gay. Japanese culture tends to portray gay men as cross-dressing, hyper-feminine individuals, and the mangaka keeps with this stereotype. It was confusing when I first encountered Garfiel, because to me and my American cultural assumptions, his appearance and actions weren't coded gay; they were coded as a man who cross-dresses (no sexual orientation implied) or someone who, perhaps, is transgender. Research was helpful in clearing up what the mangaka was actually trying to convey to the reader. For what it's worth, no one in-text shames Garfiel or treats him negatively or thinks he's less of an automail mechanic. (Well, Ed runs away when Garfiel flirts with him, but Ed also freaks out and does pretty much the same anytime anyone implies he has a thing for Winry.) The mangaka tends to use Garfiel for humorous purposes, which is an unfortunate stereotypical way to treat the only identified gay character in the series, but he's a very minor character in the story who only appears in only a handful of scenes, and ultimately, my dislike for his portayal didn't ruin my enjoyment of the series as a whole. Obviously. YMMV, of course.

The aftermath of the Elric brothers’ fight at the prison. We get Alphonse finally telling Ed about his fears regarding his soul. It’s an interesting plight and I like learning more about Al.

Winry shows up again and i was glad to see her. She has a cute side story with the family of one of the military personnel. Of course, all stories end sadly in this series

I love Hughes so much!

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