While anime fans are always wary to hear that their favorite anime or manga series is getting a live-action adaptation, the more we see of Fullmetal Alchemist the less there seems to be worried about.
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In fact the film has done well in Japan, opening big at the box office last year, and now fans in the West will see what the fuss is about when it becomes available for streaming on Netflix February 19.
To celebrate, Netflix released a new trailer for the film which features English subtitles. The trailer shows off the adaptation’s great visuals, as well as the fact it’s set to adapt early moments of the series. It also shows the film’s versions of the characters Ed and Al, Winry, Major Hughes, Colonel Mustang, and many other favorites in the series.
Though there can be a worry in how much the film wants to cover, but at least it’ll fare better than most anime adaptations.
For those unfamiliar with Fullmetal Alchemist, the series was first created by Hiromu Arakawa. The story follows two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who learn alchemy in order to bring back their deceased mother. After a terrible miscalculation, however, the two brothers pay a terrible price with Alphonse even losing his body and linking his soul to a suit of armor. As the two boys search for an alchemy that will restore their bodies to their original forms, they join the military and deal with a whole host of new political, ethical, and moral issues.
The series ran in Square Enix’s Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine from August 2001 to June 2010. It was collected into 27 volumes, and was localized for an English language release by Viz Media. It has sold 67 million copies worldwide, and was later adapted into two anime series from studio Bones.
Bones’ first attempt in 2003 successfully ran for 51 episodes, but was marred by fans for its pacing issues and deviations from the original source. Bones produced a more faithful adaptation in 2009 with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and most fans assumed the live-action film would parallel this series since it was pretty much beat for beat with the original source.
There is a live-action version of Fullmetal Alchemist that has been recently released and has been well received by both fans in Japan and critics. Since the first film has been received as well as it has, there is already a possible sequel on the horizon.
