I will say this now - I thoroughly enjoyed the Full Metal Alchemist series. This makes me biased, but I think my bias is because it was well written, acted and brought to life.
I enjoyed The Conqueror of Shamballa for many of the same reasons. The plot is believable (yes, there was a Thule Society, and yes, they were into the occult), and the characters have additions that would naturally occur over two years.
However, I felt that while this is the story of the Elric brothers, I did feel that Mustang, Armstrong, Winry et al could have been used a lot more. Eckhart was a decent bad girl (she had the prerequisite maniacal laugh when she shoots down Ed), and provides plenty of food for thought (methinks she and Yoda should have a talk about fear - watch it if you don't know what I mean).
The story could have also been explored in more detail. For a 100 minute movie though, it did quite well. A longer movie might have allowed more screen time for the minor characters too (you could count on two hands the number of lines some of the minor characters, including the military ones, actually got).
I did also like meeting the Earthly equivalent to King Bradley (he played a fairly big role, including a reflection on the pros and cons of science), along with cameos by Lyra, and we see how Hughes would have ended up if he had never married Gracia (they're getting set up by the end).
All in all, with good music (as always) and fairly good animation (apart from a few minor lapses), it was a very good show. If its the end, its a good one, and if its one of a series of movies they'll come out with (we can always hope :D), then its going to be a much better addition. Either way, we're all the better for it in my opinion.
PS - I have watched the English dubbed version; I'm not sure how the original Japanese looked, so any inaccuracies may be due to the translation.
I enjoyed The Conqueror of Shamballa for many of the same reasons. The plot is believable (yes, there was a Thule Society, and yes, they were into the occult), and the characters have additions that would naturally occur over two years.
However, I felt that while this is the story of the Elric brothers, I did feel that Mustang, Armstrong, Winry et al could have been used a lot more. Eckhart was a decent bad girl (she had the prerequisite maniacal laugh when she shoots down Ed), and provides plenty of food for thought (methinks she and Yoda should have a talk about fear - watch it if you don't know what I mean).
The story could have also been explored in more detail. For a 100 minute movie though, it did quite well. A longer movie might have allowed more screen time for the minor characters too (you could count on two hands the number of lines some of the minor characters, including the military ones, actually got).
I did also like meeting the Earthly equivalent to King Bradley (he played a fairly big role, including a reflection on the pros and cons of science), along with cameos by Lyra, and we see how Hughes would have ended up if he had never married Gracia (they're getting set up by the end).
All in all, with good music (as always) and fairly good animation (apart from a few minor lapses), it was a very good show. If its the end, its a good one, and if its one of a series of movies they'll come out with (we can always hope :D), then its going to be a much better addition. Either way, we're all the better for it in my opinion.
PS - I have watched the English dubbed version; I'm not sure how the original Japanese looked, so any inaccuracies may be due to the translation.