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Aug. 14th, 2004 01:23 amWhat I really have come to appreciate about Full Metal Alchemist is that, when all is said and done, the characters feel real.
There is no such thing as a stock character or a stereotyped role in FMA. Each character large and small-- down to the miniature sidekicks of villains, feels like their own person with their own story. In Stephen King's On Writing he talks about how it's hard to remember but each character in your writing should be the center of his or her own story-- in their mind, they are the main character, the lead role, even if that's not their purpose to you.
FMA has achieved that, and done so beautifully.
The only other anime I've seen do this is Fruits Basket. And that's two series that could not be farther apart. But they both touched that magic bit of character writing-- where the people you watch feel real, and you care about them, all of them, even the evil ones, because they have that sense of legitimacy and truth. Storytelling truth.
Joss Whedon talked about this too, in one of his many Buffy interviews-- that even though the world is full of vampires and magic, that we conect because the characters feel real to us, feel genuine.
I wish I could enjoy this more and write about it in more depth, but I am getting serious sinus problems and might be getting a cold.
There is no such thing as a stock character or a stereotyped role in FMA. Each character large and small-- down to the miniature sidekicks of villains, feels like their own person with their own story. In Stephen King's On Writing he talks about how it's hard to remember but each character in your writing should be the center of his or her own story-- in their mind, they are the main character, the lead role, even if that's not their purpose to you.
FMA has achieved that, and done so beautifully.
The only other anime I've seen do this is Fruits Basket. And that's two series that could not be farther apart. But they both touched that magic bit of character writing-- where the people you watch feel real, and you care about them, all of them, even the evil ones, because they have that sense of legitimacy and truth. Storytelling truth.
Joss Whedon talked about this too, in one of his many Buffy interviews-- that even though the world is full of vampires and magic, that we conect because the characters feel real to us, feel genuine.
I wish I could enjoy this more and write about it in more depth, but I am getting serious sinus problems and might be getting a cold.
