However, in 2009 Bones (animation company) decided to make another FMA series based more on the manga. This did not seem necessary at first, but now I am glad they did it. FMA Brotherhood has been going on for a year now in Japan and is almost over.
This leads me into the main point of the article. The manga ended this June and it ended pretty nicely. It's just what I expected really, but a couple of thing I did not see coming.
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!!
After Alphonse sacrifices himself to give Ed's arm back, Ed opens a can of whoop ass on Father. Since Father has no energy left from the philosopher's stone, Ed finishes him off. When Father ends up at the Gate of Truth he is sucked into despair. In order to get his brother back Edward performs human transmutation. However, he doesn't give up his soul or body. He sacrifices the truth in order to get his brother. The truth is basically the ability to perform alchemy. So Ed and Alphonse are finally reunited again except now Alphonse has his body back. From then on the ending is pretty conventional. Mustang's eyes get fixed, relations between Amestris and Ishval are patched up, Ling Yao becomes Emperor of Xing, etc...
It's a nice happy ending and it is cool to see all the loose ends tie up. I assume this is how Brotherhood is going to end, but you never know. The question is which ending is better? Is it the 2003 anime ending or the manga/Brotherhood ending better. It's really hard to say, but I like the manga ending a little better.
The 2003 series became really dark in the later episodes, but it is really mature and deep at the same time. Plus a lot more characters like Marcoh, Scar, and Selim Bradley die. The ending was very bittersweet because on one hand Alphonse got his body back, but in order to do so Ed had to transmute himself to an alternate world (our world). Plus Al did not have any memory of anything after the day the brothers first tried to transmute their mother back alive. In FMA movie Ed and Al reunited, but in our world, and not in the Amestris universe. Like I said earlier, it was satisfying, but still bittersweet.
The manga had more at stake in the end because Father was going sacrifice Amestris (Pop. 50 million) in order to obtain the power of the truth. So yeah...it was much more tense. Plus Father was just a better villain than Dante. Dante was menacing, but Father was cold blooded. It makes it all the more sweeter when Ed beats the shit out of the homunculus in the end.
I also liked the homunculi in the manga better than the 2003 series. In the 2003 series, It was neat to find out that homunculi are formed whenever someone tries human transmutation. You had sloth, who was born as a result of the Elric brothers' failed transmutation of their mother. Plus you had Wrath, who was the failed transmutation of Izumi Curtis' newborn infant. Plus Wrath could do alchemy, which was pretty bad ass.
In the manga I like Sloth, who ended up being King Bradley's son Selim Bradley. That was probably the most shocking thing about the series. I did not see that coming at all. I liked Pride because he was the strongest homunculus and the coldest one. King Bradley was Wrath in this series instead of pride and he had a lot more character development in this series.
In addition to the homunculi, other characters got more face time and more character development. Ling Yao and Mei Chang (both from Xing) were welcome additions not included in the 2003 series. Armstrong's sister is a cold blooded general who kicks so much azz. Even Kimblee is given more to do in the series because he was very underused in the first series.
So in wrapping up, I like the manga better than the 2003 version, but the 2003 series was awesome too. I would recommend watch both of the series, and to decide for yourself which one is better.
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