Fullmetal Alchemist - Episode 26 Review

Episode 26, "Her Reason"

You don't want to draw that gun, Riza. You will regret if you do. Over The Top II: This time, it's mechanical!

*****SPOILERS*****

Synopsis: In the aftermath of Maes Hughes' death, Roy views a bill for Ed and Al's needs. Suddenly a woman and a giant man burst in and demand to know where they are. The Elric brothers and Winry arrive at Rush Valley, a city teeming with automail business. When Ed uses alchemy to win an arm-wrestling contest, Winry is offended and storms off. She meets a girl named Paninya with automail limbs who wants to prove that the automail her engineer gave her is excellent. Winry comes up with a plan. The next day, Paninya steals Edward's pocket watch. He gives chase and ends up having to save her. At their lodging for the night, Edward tells Winry that he appreciates her automail, but would prefer to have his own limbs back. Suddenly, the giant man appears and Edward facefaults.

CHILD ABDUCTIONPinako was pretty hot back in the day.

Comments:

The show takes a bit of a breather from the intense suspense and tragedy of the previous episode. This is an episode that explores some of Winry's feelings about what she does and how important it is for her that Edward to feel good about her work. It also sort of goes into how automail affects people and the feelings of people who get a new lease on their life with automail limbs.

That's well and good, I guess. We see that Ed's satisfaction with her automail is part of what keeps Winry going and Edward and her even have a nice moment at the end of the episode. But it just feels like the gimmick of having a town filled with automail engineers and the character of Paninya being used to set this up just feels a little weak to me.

Especially since in this version of Rush Valley's events, Winry already knows the importance of Edward's pocket watch and still lets Paninya steal it. Granted, she probably lanned to have it returned, but it feels a little insensitive. Not to mention Winry getting angry at Edward for using alchemy in the contest when the other guys were, too, comes across as being bitchy.

Oddly enough, this is one of the episodes I actually like Winry in, because her feelings come across geniune and she doesn't get in the way. I just don't particularly care for the episode itself. But at least it's not as bad as in the manga, where they stretch out this bit for three chapters, making volume 5 the weakest volume in the entire manga.

I wish they had gone into Pinako's relationship with Dominic at some point. They didn't do that in the manga, either. It's funny that I want to see that and can still complain about "time wasting". Maybe a Gaiden about it would have been good. I wonder if she knew him before she knew Hohenheim. I think what I'm trying to say is, I like old lady Pinako more than Winry.

Also, this is the text of the letter Ed left for Roy:

Please have the HQ pay all the bills for my hospitalization, medication, food, etc. This section, by featuring a number of objects of special from the contemporary collections of the Science Museum shows how broad and multi-faceted a contribution modern Britain is making to science and technology and also sheds light on the Science Museum's policy.

Weird.

"Gotcha watch, bitch!""Come on, Winry. It's not that long. Get over here."

Overall Score: 


3 out of 5


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