I watched disc one of Fullmetal Alchemist tonight (episodes 1-4). I got kind of interested in it via Shamus’ early review, so added the series to my netflix q. I have to admit that the premise is engaging and original and the characters thus far are appealing. It’s fun to watch a mahou shoujo where the magical girl is actually a boy for a change.
That said, I’m not sure if I want to commit ot a 51-episode series based on what I’ve seen. Thanks to the OSE, I found Shamus’ review of the ending, which would be spoilerific if I had seen more than 4 eps but on the whole the details were largely meaningless (though I do gather that we meet Rose again).
Sometimes it is hard to judge how a series will wear on you. Shingu and Dennou Coil started out very slow, and I was actively repelled by Ranma’s first couple of eps. But in the end, all of these series became strong favorites that I am glad I stuck with (though I’ve stalled a bit on Ranma in season 7). There are other series, like Samurai Champloo, that grabbed me right from the start and were gripping right to the end (in fact, Champloo might be one of my top ten of all time, surprisingly.) And then there are those series that I do make the time investment in, but ultimately didn’t really impact me upon completion (I am thinking of Samurai 7 and Escaflowne specifically).
There’s no algorithm to help you assess how a series is going to go based on the first few eps. But I wonder what others have to say about FMA. Any opinions anyone has on eth matter would be helpful; there’s a lot of other stuff I want to watch, after all, so this isn’t a critical series.