Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Simple People OVA

OVA, "Simple People"

"... and don't expect them to call the next day." "Oh, so that's what sex is like."Men, try this at home.

*****SPOILERS*****

Synopsis: His automail arm damaged, Edward decides to go back to Risembool to have Winry repair it. He and Al decide to buy Winry earrings to calm her expected anger over Ed damaging the arm. This ends up working well. Sometime later, Edward fights a man with blades and his automail gets damaged again, so he decides to buy Winry more earrings. Ed asks Winry why she got her ears pierced, and she says it's because she noticed Riza Hawkeye's pierced ears on the day Ed decided to work for the military. Edward chides her for repeatedly piercing her ears just to wear all her earrings at once. In Central, Riza Hawkeye has grown her hair because of Winry. Her friend Rebecca comments on what a simple reason it is, and she says that people do things for simple reasons.

Ginsu Knife salesman are getting more aggressive."Oh Ed, a Fuhrer Bradley Commorative Coin! Just what I always wanted! He's so handsome!"

Comments:

Like the first OVA, this is based on a Gaiden work by Hiromu Arakawa. I wonder why they couldn't have incorporated this one into the series proper. Come to think of it, they probably could have done the same to The Blind Alchemist. Then again, you'd probably get some folks bitching about filler. Some of the filler in the first series was from the Gaidens and light novels by Makoto Inoue. I wouldn't mind seeing more of that type of stuff, at least as OVAs.

This OVA was very low-key compared to The Blind Alchemist, very light, but still enjoyable. We do get a little action scene in this one, but there isn't much impact. Most of it centers on the results of the encounter Winry and Riza had back when Roy came to scout Edward for the military. Winry has decided to wear earrings since Lt. Hawkeye was, and meanwhile Riza has grown her hair out like Winry.

We get a bit of comedy in Edward looking to appease Winry with gifts to keep her from acting violently to his broken automail. It works both times. It turns out that Winry has pierced her ears full of holes so that she can wear all the earrings at once, which is extremely stupid. Then again, we're talking about a girl who works with metal all the time, so she's probably a bit obsessed. I'm not a big fan of a lot of piercings on a girl, myself. A few is fine, but there is overdoing it.

Edward fights some guy with knives. I'd like to know the story behind that. In fact, I think I'd probably preferred that to this, not that this was bad. I know he's just some stand-in character whose point in the story is to test the strength of the automail, but it's a neat little encounter. It's weird seeing Alphonse using alchemy circles again.

At the end, Riza brings up an interesting belief of hers, that people do thing for simple reasons, and the world is very simple, a world where you fire at the enemy and they die. But is the world of Fullmetal Alchemist a simple world, and do the characters have simple motivation? It's worth considering.

"I want a bunny next!"That's Riza after she shot the mouse out of my hand for not including her in more review screencaps.

Overall Score: 3 out of 5



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