Day 11 already!? I can’t believe it. If you’d like to join Megan’s Geek Out challenge, you can pop over to her blog and read up on the first eleven posts. Or wait until the 31st, when she’ll upload a post with all 30 prompts. You can read Megan’s answer for today here. I have to say, I LOVED her answer.
Day 11 – Favorite manga or comic book series?
Oh this was so hard to answer. I would’ve gone Fruits Basket(mostly because it was my first series and I fell in love with it) but I decided to switch it around this time around. It’s probably still a predictable answer regardless if you know me well enough.
Full Metal Alchemist to me was a journey. I had gotten into the show thanks to the anime but it left me wildly unfulfilled. I remember staying up late to watch the new episodes in Adult Swim, building an OC that wrote me to a wall. Writing that character taught me a lot about myself and my writing.
This isn’t about that fanfic that I’ve never finished though. This is about Full Metal Alchemist and how this show shaped part of my teen years. I absolutely fell in love with Ed and Roy. The animated series made me feel things and prepared me for things in the manga.
When I was finally able to read it, I was hopelessly hooked. The characters had even more depth there. Including Winry, with whom I had a not good relationship with. I didn’t like her much at all. I honestly sometimes think that her and Edward’s relationship came out of seemingly nowhere.
I will however admit, that the Homunculi in the manga was way better. Their intensity, their motivation, it was all so gripping. Roy and Riza to me just blossomed in the manga way better than the animated show. I will admit that in the animated series the sexual tension between them was palpable…but reading through this manga, my ship just grew to the point where I couldn’t contain myself. Whenever Arakwa gave me an inch, I took it a mile.
I do need to see Brotherhood. I also need to reread this manga. I haven’t been able to read it since I finished it years ago. I remember how much I wept when Borders closed. They were my source to get the new volumes when Viz brought them to the US every few months. I didn’t want to read chapters online. I wanted the books so I could take the magic of this series everywhere.
These characters felt so real to me. All of them, the themes were intense, their motivations felt genuine. I truly always felt that Roy had the best interests for his country at heart. Edward regretted his actions that led to Alphonse losing his body. Hughes’s death just hurt me to the point that when I got to it in the manga, it was worse than the animated series.
I hold this series close to my heart, just like Furuba.
What about you?
Michi's World 