Fullmetal Alchemist, not only one of the greatest animes (no, i haven't seen, neither do i plan to see the 'Brotherhood' remake), but also one of the greatest mangas to grace my shelves. I've been looking forward to this.
Art: Absolutely sublime, the character design is beyond comparison, literally, there are no two characters that look the same, yet also look believable. The backdrops are just stunning, the towns and cities well planned like a real city, it needs to be seen to be believed, just amazing. My main comparison would be with Akira, though the character design is a completely different style, the backdrops have the same feel that they were drawn not by an artist, but by a machine, and i mean this as a compliment, it's so masterfully drawn that it makes me want to weep and give up illustrating myself because i'll never have that kind of skill. Breathtaking.
Characters: Brilliant characters in this story, from the protagonists Ed and Al Elric, to Father, the Homunculi, to Scar, Solf. J. Kimblee, to the military personel Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye and Alex Louis Armstrong. All of them evolve and develop into such well formed personalities that they could easily step from the page and be regarded as well formed human beings. Is there any criticisms here? No. None. Zip. Nada. Even Barry the Chopper who only really stars in one or two comics near the beginning of the story eventually comes back into it and plays a vital role, and it's believable. My favourite characters are the homunculus Lust, Lin Yao's bodyguard Lan Fan, and Greed. Ah Greed, how bloody brilliant you are. He also has one of the best speeches in the entire series, which they thankfully kept for the anime.
Story: Now i must make a confession. Over here in the UK, not all of the books have been released yet, and so i don't yet know how the story concludes. This is fine though, because up to book 24, chapter 99, i already know a lot of what has happened, and can make my own predictions (which i will leave out of this review). The story is immense, it has so many twists and turns, yet never becomes complicated, it's not like watching pirates of the caribbean where so many things are happening you no longer know what to believe and lose your grip on sanity/reality, it flows well and keeps you in the loop of whats happening, why its happening, and what the consequences are. The story reminds me of The Wave by Hokusai and the Seagram Paintings by Mark Rothko, both very simple paintings (though one is figurative and the other abstract) but when observed closely, they both have so much depth of field, so much detail, and thats the key, a simple story detailed.
The whole premise of alchemy is one that i love and you could easily live your life by in the real world, 'To obtain, something of equal measure must first be sacrificed.' We work hard to earn cash, we then exchange this money for services and goods, in social situations we have to give something of ourselves to learn something of others, we help people to be helped in return. It's a good philosophy to live by, one that doesn't encourage selfishness, greed, and the world would be a better place if this was hammered into people.
The other thing to note about this story is just how much it keeps you guessing, it's never predictable, but then it never throws a curveball that makes you think 'god thats just ridiculous, why'd they do that?' It's storytelling at it's greatest, fluid, emotional, and it leaves you wanting more!
Overall then, this is a must read manga, it's by far and away the best i've ever read and if you even have the slightest doubt about it, forget it because there just is no criticism to throw at it. So why not 10/10? Well firstly as previously mentioned, i don't yet know how it ends, and secondly, i'm just not ready to call any manga perfect. Though this comes as close to perfect as i doubt we'll ever see again.