Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 107 (SPOILERS)

My thoughts on Fullmetal Alchemist chapter 107:

Looks like his eye was bigger than his stomach!

So, wow, I'm just about as late with this review as I was with the last one. Well, I have all the time I want for the next, because it's the final chapter, which makes this the penultimate chapter of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist!

What have I said about cliffhangers in Fullmetal Alchemist? They. Never. Pay. Off. This is the second or third time Father has unleashed a great blast of energy that envelopes everything and again, our heroes recover, though Al is much worse for wear and Hohenheim isn't looking good. Not surprisingly, Roy and Riza team up so he can use his flames to fight Father, but happily it does nothing. I like that now he's using clapping alchemy, since he can, having seen the Truth. (Oooh, having seen it... sorry, Roy.)

Greed is my favorite FMA character, because he's so playfully jaunty and unabashedly selfish, and has an air of cool about him. He also has this sense of loyalty to his "belongings", his allies. He does value friends, even if it's in his own strange way. But I always thought that he still geniunely wanted everything in the world. He's Greed, after all. I figured if they went the whole "He just wanted friends all this time" route, it would be painfully lame, but always assured myself that Arakawa was a better writer than that.

Oops, looks like she's not. No, Greed's entire motivation, despite being Father's greed, is really just for good friends. You know, despite that he's already had two crews of friends and has already learned the value of friendship, and wanted the world even when he had his original crew. So this whole time he wasn't greedy, just lonely, despite the fact he was born into a family of siblings who he could have just stuck with. Oh wait, he didn't, because he's greedy. So... wait. What? What the fuck is Arakawa doing to me? Is she trying to ruin my favorite character? We know he's got nobility in him, but don't soften him up with this fucking Disney moral. He's Greed!

What I did like in this chapter was the interaction between Greed and Olivier, with him telling her to realize her limitations, given her injuries, and her being pissed at him. It's fun to see two of my favorite characters who have never interacted before interact before this is all over. It's almost like Arakawa thought that as she wrote this. "Oh, yeah, I don't think those two have ever met. Hey, here's an idea." It was cute.

The fight with Father has Edward and Greed teaming up to get through to Father, with Greed's trap working long enough for Ed to force Father's power over "God" to run out. This leads Father to try to use Ed's life to keep "God" in him (though is one life enough? There are easier targets all around he he chooses Edward?). But Alphonse sacrifices himself to restore Edward's human arm so he can use alchemy. The Truth still has one of Edward's legs, but at least he has his arm back.

Sacrificing himself to restore Ed, seems familiar. Well, they did say that Arakawa outlined where she was going with her story to Bones back when the first anime series was being made. This sacrifice is done on the fly, though, and we don't have time to absorb it, but I like the added touch of Ed calling Al an idiot as he goes into battle, because it shows that heven though he's devestated, he's in the middle of a fight.

Edward calls Father a "third-rate fraud" (though in at least one scanlation, it's "miserable fuck"), the same thing he said of Cornello at the beginning of FMA. I thought that was another great added touch. Looks like Ed's stepping up as the main character again, but isn't it a little late?

Anyway, despite some of my griping, the art was great and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how Arakawa wraps this up.



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