Fullmetal Alchemist - Episode 07 Review

Episode 7, "Night of the Chimera's Cry"

"Look at my bling!"She's doggone cute.

*****SPOILERS*****

Synopsis: Edward recieves a pocket watch that all State Alchemists wear that signify their position. On his way back to the Tucker residence, he learns Colonel Mustang has been investigating a serial murderer who kills women. Edward is cynical, believing Roy just wants a promotion. Back at the Tucker place, Ed learns that Tucker's yearly assessment is coming up, which he is concerned about. Ed learns that Tucker's wife left before he became a State Alchemist, because they were poor, and he'll return to that life without the support of the state. Hughes tells Edward that Tucker's wife died before he moved into town. The brothers go to the library to try to get information on Tucker's chimera. General Basque Gran ejects the brothers from the Tucker residence. Returning to his house later, the brothers find that Tucker has created a new chimera that talks, but Edward realizes that it was made from Nina and Alexander. Gran and his troops arrive and take Tucker away, but Nina gets away and is killed by a mysterious scarred man.

Edward's reaction upon first hearing the English dub. "Did I mention I'm an asshole?"

Comments:

Ah, what a tragic episode. And a pretty busy one, too, with plenty going on. You had Roy investigating a serial killer who targets women, Ed just off of getting his license, Shou Tucker worried about his assessment, Basque Gran, the mysterious scarred man, and the real tragedy of Tucker's experiments.

As Jean Havoc notes, while investigating a murder isn't usually the job of the military, since the murders are going on in the capital, Roy's made it his mission to stop them, and gain a little more favor for it. Edward doesn't like this, thinking Roy is just out for a promotion, but he doesn't realize why Roy wants to be promoted. At this point in the show, you don't really know much about Roy, other than him being sarcastic and a bit manipulative, but at the same time, he seems to want to help Edward out, to some degree.

One of the underrated scenes in this series is the one where Edward is at the scene of the murder of a woman and the woman's child pulls off the sheet, exposing her dead body and making Edward flash back to the "thing" he and his brother made with human transmutation. Ed freaks out and faints, which isn't the most masculine reaction, but he's a kid himself, regardless of how he acts, and it was probably very tramatizing.

We're introduced to Basque Gran, a giant of a general, and a giant of a douchebag. He comes off as a bit more sympathetic in the manga, during the Ishbal war flashback. But I believe that was penned well after most of this series concluded. And the sad thing is, you don't even get to see his scenes in Brotherhood, either. I have a real problem with how Brotherhood dealt with the Ishbal war material. But that's another show. Here he's more of a straightforward douchebag officer who won't hesitate to punch a kid in the stomache or mercilessly mock his subordinate to achieve results. I guess that's not to different from Roy in a way, but he's far less good humored about it.

The scene with Edward and Alphonse meeting Tucker in his basement lab and the realization of what he'd done was so well done here, with the orange tones and music selections. Romi Paku really cut loose with Ed in that scene. Then the tragedy continued with Ed finding what was left of Nina after she had wandered into the alley where Scar was. I guess you can say they played it for all they could, in a way, with the rain and the crying, but it was geniunely heartbreaking.

I remember watching this episode with my cousin and when Scar was walking away talking about how alchemists commit sins against God and how he'll punish them. My cousin said, "You can sort of see where he's coming from with that." And while its no excuse for his heinous deeds, it's certainly understandable, to a degree.

This was one of my favorite episodes of this series. It was extremely well done from all angles, from superficial production values to direction. One of the earliest gems of the series.

Now Ed's got a dog in this fight!"You want some of this? You want some of this glow?"

Overall Score:

4.5 out of 5



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