Fullmetal Alchemist

A few episodes in, a desperate government mule turns his own daughter into a half-dog monstrosity that a villain puts out of its misery in the name of natural order. FMA is dark for a family show. Can we rig all our deals? Can we get away with cheating the system? Are we ever fairly rewarded for our efforts? Is anything in this world fair? FMA ponders these with greyed dexterity.

I might have liked this is a kid, but now whole premise is ridiculous

Just never got into this one. Even though nearly everyone else with good taste loves it.

The series that scarred a whole generations of otakus. I'm not crying, it's just the rain on a sunny day.

13 eps

It's not as good as Avatar but it's approaching that same vein of thoughtful pre-teen cartoon who's character and story quality is clearly above expectations.

Has a decent story while following the source material, and a much worse story after the show-runners started writing their own.

There are very good attempts at showing complex gray characters and complex gray situations. However, the story is plagued by too many gaping plot holes, a lot of events that don't make any sense and many plot devices: stupid or very clever behaviors that happen at the exact right time just to make the story go forward. Still quite enjoyable.

It was pretty great until the show went into new territory. Once Wrath showed up the tone changed, everything became an angsty, bleak, depression fest. Characters lost their personalities and the story lost it's heart and stopped making sense. Before Wrath: score 70, after Wrath score 0.

One day I decided I needed to watch more anime, so I asked my anime-loving friend for a top ten list to devour. This was at the top, and the moment I started I could see why. Beyond the creativity, the fascinating world-building, the well-defined characters, the unflinching willingness to explore dark themes and ideas, the thrilling and heart-stopping battle sequences... beyond all that, Fullmetal Alchemist has some poignant things to say about being human... about living a life.