The Fullmetal Alchemist live-action adaptation has had a ton of great success both critically and commercially in Japan, and now the film fans of the series and fans of film both throw their support behind will finally be available for fans in the West.
The live-action Fullmetal Alchemist film is slated to hit Netflix February 19, and to celebrate the streaming service has unveiled a new poster for the film.
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Just got an email from Netflix that the FMA live action movie is available on February 19th from r/FullmetalAlchemist
The poster for the film features Alphonse and Edward Elric stepping off of a train (which is one of the most recognizable images in the series), and will most likely be the image Netflix users see when the film finally is available for streaming.
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.
