After some debate, Kristin and I have canceled the disk portion of our Netflix service and finally signed up for the unlimited streaming side. We had been grandfathered in on a now-defunct plan so we gave that up to get the unlimited streaming.

I don’t watch much anime, but in college Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) caught my attention when I saw a couple episodes. Having burned through Archer Season 1 (fantastic and the only season available on Netflix streaming) I decided to look it up. Luckily, the FMA: Brotherhood series had been brought to Netflix in early April of this year – perfect timing.

What’s interesting about anime for me is that it clearly comes from a different culture. Supposedly FMA is one of the best anime shows ever which makes it a prime example. There is one story arc that covers 53 episodes. Only rarely is there a subplot that starts and concludes in one show, but rather you need to watch every episode to get what’s going on. This is no mere cartoon.

There is also a much freer take on topics that we might find sensitive here – genocide, God, violence etc. It’s a bit more like how real life goes, the cartoon delivery and flights of fancy (again, cultural difference) underscore the irony of the situation.

The downside? There are five parts to the series and I exhausted part 1 and 2 over the last week. Netflix only has those for streaming, the rest come on DVD. From what I have read, the length of wait time on these disks can be very long as they are in high demand and you also stand a great chance of getting a damaged disc. Three and four are on sale at Amazon, only $25 for each on Blu-Ray. Tempting… We’ll see. It is TV, after all…

If you have an open mind towards cartoons (Tangled is also great for some very different reasons) and by extension anime, please take a look at this series. It would be nice to have someone to talk about it with! 🙂

–Nat