[Manga] Fullmetal Alchemist: Manga edition

Chapter 71 was released by ZOMGFTA today, huzzah!

Spoiler:

We finally get to see how homonculi are created when there's no human subject, and it isn't pretty. Father giving "birth" to Gluttony through his chest is pretty weird, and brings even more questions about what exactly Father is.

Scar and Marco's meeting went about how I figured it would go, except I thought Marco would be a bit less desperate to die. He seemed fairly calm and collected the last time we saw him talking to Envy, but I guess it HAS been several weeks/months since then.

The thing that I'm most curious about is the array on Hawkeye's back. It's Roy's fire array in the middle with all the triangles and salamander, but with more stuff surrounding it. It kind of reminds me of the array Ed found in the Xerxes ruins that was an alchemy array but with more symbols added. Hawkeye has obviously had the tattoo for a long time since there are scars over the top of it, but what use would a non-alchemist have for it?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Haha, actually I mean 57! When I typed that I must have confused it with Bleach, since I just finished watching ep. 71 of that during lunch today. ^^;

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Enkidu

Spoiler:

I must have missed that reference to Sloth. I really want to know just what he has to do beneath Central, but I guess that it'll be a while until we find out what the "Father"'s plans are.

Just noticed this!

Spoiler:

I thought this was already pretty much cleared up by the earlier conversation between Marco and Envy. Father is conquering other countries and Sloth is digging the tunnel to create a gigantic alchemy array to use millions of people as Philosopher's Stone ingredients.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hwere have you been getting your translations? I'm 2-3 months behind since ZOMGFTA went on hiatus.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I read it last night, and I thought the end was pretty satisfying. There were a few things that bugged me, but nothing major.

Spoiler:

- Roy initially said he was going to let Grumman become Fuhrer since he'd gone blind and would have to leave the army. Somehow Grumman still became Fuhrer even after Mustang had healed his eyes, and Roy was only a Brigadier General. Not really a complaint, but it's something that I wish they had fleshed out a bit more.

- I'm still unclear on how Pride forced Roy to use human transmutation, or why Roy had to pay a price for it. I don't recall anything actually getting transmuted by the process either, so that was all a bit funky.

- I wish the culmination of Father's plan hadn't been to engulf God and harness its power. That's such a stereotypical villain plot. Dante's goal of just needing a new stone for self-preservation in the first anime series' ending was better. They could have just left it at that considering he probably did need a new stone for the same reason, but they just had to drag becoming a god into it.

- Ed leaving Winly behind to go learn in the west was strange considering he essentially proposed to her, and it showed that they later had a kid or two. Not sure why she didn't go with him.

That stuff aside, it was a pretty good ending. I need to catch up on watching Brotherhood since I've fallen about 5 episodes behind. I haven't watched since the two episodes of Roy and Hawkeye effortlessly decimating Envy aka the most one-sided fight ever. That's the best part of the manga anyway.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Do we know that Brotherhood is going to be 63 episodes, or are you just gauging by what's left in the story?

Spoiler:

They sort of left out Father in the first series. From what I remember the homonculus still referred to Father near the beginning, but called it something different once it started to diverge from the manga's plot. Their leader was Hohenheim's old wife using the philosopher's stone to live forever, so there was nothing about Xerxes from what I remember. Hell, I think the transmutation circle was only Central instead of nationwide.

I was speaking idiomatically.