Book Report: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (2005, 2007)

Book coverI thought this might be the last of the manga that I bought at the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton garage sale in 2015, but extensive studies have determined that although I have read Shaman King #17 and Warriors: The Rise of Scourge, I don’t see a book report for Naruto #15. So I guess I will find that seven years hence.

At any rate, this is early in the series. An alchemist, which is kind of a magician, has lost his arm and has a robotic one to help him with his alchemy/spellcasting. The attack that left him in such a state also destroyed his brother’s body, so he, the fullmetal alchemist, infused a suit of armor with the brother’s soul. A serial killer–well, we would call it a serial killer in a modern suspense thriller, but really it’s an unknown supervillain of some sort–is hunting down the government alchemists. As the story develops, they learn that it’s a survivor of a government suppression of a religious sect, the suppression which used government-sponsored alchemists to perform a genocide on the sect. Pardon me, but what is the verb for genocide? “Perform” seems tame.

So we get four chapters in the saga, where the brothers and other government alchemists battle the unknown assailant and discover his reasons, but not why he is so powerful. Four out of many, many such chapters, and of course it’s comic book form, so a lot of comic art for little story.

So I’ve not really gotten into manga, although I have read a comic book or two. But they don’t count toward the annual total, unlike graphic novels or manga. So I will eventually read that remaining volume when I find it.

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