Fullmetal Alchemist (2003 anime)

The first anime adaptation, which left the manga behind for an ending of its own.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003 anime) is the first television adaptation of Hiromu Arakawa's manga, a 51-episode series produced by Bones for Mainichi Broadcasting System and Aniplex that aired from October 2003 to October 2004.

Quick Facts

Genre

Adventure
Dark fantasy
Steampunk

Based on

Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa

Writer

Shō Aikawa

Director

Seiji Mizushima

Voices

Romi Park
Rie Kugimiya
Tōru Ōkawa
Megumi Toyoguchi
Keiji Fujiwara
Michiko Neya
Ryōtarō Okiayu

Music

Michiru Ōshima

Country

Japan

Language

Japanese

Facts from the source article.

Background

Seiji Mizushima directed it, Shō Aikawa wrote it and Michiru Ōshima composed the music. Funimation licensed it for North America, where the English dub ran on Adult Swim from November 2004 to March 2006; the licence passed to Aniplex of America in July 2016.

Because the manga was still running, Arakawa asked the studio for an original, screenwriter-led ending, so around its first dozen episodes the anime heads off in its own direction. Its first half adapts the first six manga volumes; the second reworks material from volumes seven and eight. Dante, a former lover of the Elrics' father Hohenheim, is the main antagonist, using the homunculi to push desperate alchemists into making a complete Philosopher's Stone for her.

The story ends with Edward stranded in Munich and continues in the 2005 film Conqueror of Shamballa. A second adaptation, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, followed on the same networks from April 2009 to July 2010.