Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa

I’m going to have to diverge my opinion from the consensus here. Though I had been a long time fan of the series, the movie was a dull, disconnected effort to recapture the quality of the former. Story 7/10 This is where things fall apart. The general premise of the story was high quality yet the execution in relation to its source material was poor, largely because the end of the series left so many plot threads to be explained. Unfortunately, the movie spends less time attempting to address these numerous plot threads and more time creating larger questions of its own. This is fine by itselfbut Shambhala is inherently a continuation of the series rather than a stand-alone piece. It begins with an unanswered series of questions, brings forth a new series of questions, and in the end, doesn’t conclude in answering any of them. Art 9/10 Beautiful and fluid as always: even more so since this is a feature length film. Sound 8/10 Far above average. The film is lacking in truly memorable pieces in the vain of its predecessor series (Brothers, Heavenly Spirit) but it manages to capture the viewer into the world it creates. It melds well into the background and there’s little to be said otherwise. A notable exception is the movie opening, Link, which easily ranks among the best of the franchise. Character 7/10 And this is where the story comments arrive into effect. The returning characters are handled well; the newcomers on the other hand fall victim to the films limited length. So much time is spent on the original characters that Noah and Dietlinde appear as cardboard cutouts. The villain becomes prominent towards the second half, acts in the stereotypically evil manner, espouses a tacked on, clichéd motivation for its actions, and proceeds to be literally dehumanized thereafter. Other new characters are treated in a similar manner with two sentence reasons for what motivates them. Enjoyment 8/10 Interesting enough. If you take it as a continuation of the series, it often fails to reach a conclusion for plot threads espoused within it, while if you view it as a stand-alone work it still has some glaring problems in the character department. Still, its imaginations should manage to capture any viewer’s attention and many of its other qualities are top notch. Conclusion 7.5/10 The overall presentation was gorgeous but the story and character flaws were often to glaring to ignore. An above average score but not that of a masterpiece.

Full Metal Alchemist: the Conqueror Of Shambala Review by realanimefan This is a brilliantly written film that works in the tension of post WWI Germany to the plot exceedingly well. The people who wrote this film know their history and their folk lore, using aspects of the Nazi society (including Hitler’s supposed obsession with the occult) to pen an enthralling experience. I went and looked up a number of the references made in the film to find out most of them were real. The setting also leads to lots of character conflict. For instance, Hughs (the Maeyz of our world) is a soldier in PostWWI Germany suckered into joining the Nazi party out of desperation. He genuinely thinks the Nazis are doing the right thing (remember, none of these characters have the luxury of knowing where all this will lead) which puts him at odds with Ed. It’s very moving. The characters from the TV series are all there. Ed takes center stage, with the majority of the film taking place in our world. Al and his alternate version feature prominently, though. Al’s bit in the underground city with Wrath and Gluttony is amazing. Some of the other characters, like Winry and Hawkeye, are somewhat cheated of screentime, but practically every character from the show gets to make an appearance, even if it’s just their alternate version (there’s one cameo at the very end of the movie that’s absolutely hilarious). The animation in this movie is non-stop eye candy. The fight scenes and action sequences are all fluid and choreographed to perfection, but that’s only the half of it. The backgrounds and environments are lush and detailed and are just dripping with beauty, even when the setting is the dank bowels of a castle. I’m so thankful I got to see this film on the big screen. It’s hard to rank Conqueror of Shambala. If you’ve seen the TV series you will adore this film. If you haven’t seen the show, you’ll like all the pretty animation, but the story will go completely over your head. Still, if viewed in the proper context, this film is worthy of a 9 to 10 rating. And if you haven’t seen the TV series, do yourself a favor and go check it out. You’ll be glad you did. Full Metal Alchemist is one of the best things to come out of Japan in a long time. Thank you for reading my review of this movie if you have any questions please join my friends list and i can help you best I can.

After watching and enjoying Full Metal Alchemist the series, this movie was a major disappointment. It almost felt like watching a strange AU fanfiction made into animation. The film has many plotholes and never really feels complete, plus the characters you got to know from the anime didn't seem "in character", giving the whole feel to the series a touch of awkwardness. The animation is also a little "weird" compared to the series and the ending felt far from satisfying ((but then again, the whole movie was far from satisfying)). The action is purposeless and there's not many entertaining moments. I wouldn't even recommend this movieto fans of FMA since it doesn't really make sense within the realm of the series and feels like pointless, useless filler, but I also wouldn't recommend the movie to newcomers to the FMA world since the story takes place after the anime is over. As a conclusion, there's nobody to really recommend this movie to.

I've talked about Fullmetal Alchemist before, both the first anime and Brotherhood. It was largely positive, with both series having a lot of good elements. Well, the original series had a film based on it and that's what we're looking at today, Conqueror of Shamballa. Does it live up to the rest of the franchise, is it an embarrassment? Let's find out. Story: The film opens with a scientist showing Alphonse his new bomb, mistaking him for the Fullmetal alchemist. What a novel idea, we've never seen that before. He wants a State Alchemist to help him present his bomb to their higher ups. Alphonse refuses andthe scientist gets angry and attacks him. Which is just a bad move on his part. You'd think he'd be better off finding a State Alchemist who would listen, but that would show common sense and not result in an action sequence. Ed bursts in and the brothers manage to fight off the scientist. Who uses human transmutation in a last ditch effort to stop them. This results in him going through the gate and never being seen again. We cut ahead to Edward in a world very much like ours relating the story to someone who looks very much like his brother, who laughs it off since the idea of alchemy as a legitimate scientific practice is absurd. Which is a bit head scratching since his world has people with unexplained psychic and magic powers. The two join a group of Roma going to the carnival in order to show off their rocket. Ed excuses himself from the demonstration just in time to see a young Roma woman named Noah being chased by a trio of thugs. He steps in and manages to rescue her. Which results in him coming to the attention of the Thule society, you may remember them from your history as a group of occultists who sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was reorganised into the Nazi party. The Thule society is trying to open a gate into Edward's original world, which they call Shamballa under the pretense of gaining an invincible army so that the Nazis can take over Deutschland and then the world. Let's start with the things that are wrong with the film, shall we? The big one is that a lot of the plot points don't make much sense. The Thule Society's plan is patently stupid. They've had three people cross over from the other world, Edward, Hohenheim & Envy. Two of them are ordinary people who don't even have alchemy in their world and the third they manage to capture with no trouble whatsoever. So, how exactly is this world supposed to give them an invincible army? Of course, the woman in charge has a different plan and it is even dumber so there's that. We also get some real plot contrivances. For instance, Winry shows up to bring Ed a new automail arm and leg, knowing exactly how much he's grown so that she could compensate because she read ahead in the script. There's also the issue of the gate itself. In the series proper we saw that opening the gate has terrible consequences for just about everyone who does it. In this they open it several times without a bloody thing happening, save for that initial incident with the scientist. Some characters die, but they all die of reasons un-related to opening the gate. The closest connection we get is that some of them die as a result of someone else opening the gate. Now on the positive side I do like the idea of these two parallel worlds and how people on both sides can share an appearance. I also do think there was potential in Edward's story arc about learning to live in the world he's in instead of dwelling on the world where he was even if this film doesn't handle it well. Characters: You get to see pretty much the entire cast of major characters from Fullmetal Alchemist. Of course, the film screws some of them up. Roy Mustang in particular. Apparently between the ending of the series and this he decided to take a demotion and go off to a remote area to be emo. Yeah, that makes sense for a character who took his angst from a war and channeled it into strength to try to grab political power. Then we have the original characters. They're a pretty one-dimensional group with flat motivations. Maybe that's why our villains are Nazis. Since you don't really have to try to give them motivations or fleshed out personalities. You can just make them evil and everyone will nod and say “yes, that's how Nazis are.” You win this round, Conqueror of Shamballa, but I'm still calling it lazy. And it could have fleshed out Noah and some of the other non-Nazi original characters. Art: I will give the film credit, the visuals are really good, mostly. The character designs are just like the ones in the series and the backgrounds are detailed. What's more mixed are the action sequences. They use some effects that don't really work, sometimes giving them a jarringly different animation style. Some of the fight scenes are kind of badly done too. The fight between Wrath and Gluttony is just weak and there's also the pathetically easy way that Envy is captured early on. Sound: The original cast reprise their roles and they all do well. No worries there. There's nothing wrong with the acting whatsoever. The music is good too, at least the instrumental stuff. Some of the lyrical stuff is outright badly done. Ho-yay: There really isn't any in this film. Final Thoughts: Conqueror of Shamballa is the worst thing I've seen from Bones. It's not a bad film, but it is definitely weak with a lot of story problems and some characterisation & art issues. In the end, it's a weak and disappointing way to end the original anime series. My final rating is a 4/10. Next week I'll look at the second 3x3 eyes OVA. For those of you who are curious about when the Gintama review will be up, expect that on the 20th.

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