Episode 13

Aired 20050526. Flame vs Full Metal. Same as original title. This is one of my favorite episodes and it's rated highly everywhere. It successfully condenses a side story and a 4-panel with the main story line. A lot happens in this episode... The Elric brothers side, the Mustang team, the rest of the army, Scar, Marco, Ishbal, plus a cat and a dog. Here's the episode guide and detailed recap at TV.com. (Now I have a legit reason to slack off on writing the recap part. Hehehe...)

Hmm... there're a few translation differences, but overall it isn't too bad so I won't go into the details. However, there are 2 major ones that can't be ignored.

• Mustang calls Ed "Edward" instead of "Full Metal"!! Aaargh!! How can they do that!! That's part of Mustang's charm! (Like, maybe he can't remember Ed's name...)
• And he sounds so retarded with the dog and mini skirt! He's much cooler in the sub version!

Some other minor ones to poke at...

• Near the begining, Breda's scream doesn't feel like he's scared at all.
• While talking to Hughes in the cafeteria, Ed says to Gran, "The Iron Blood Alchemist... what do you want?" ...wwwhat???? How can Ed be so rude to his superior! This isn't Mustang! This is an unfriendly-looking Brigadier General Gran! Of course he didn't say that in the original.
• This isn't translation's fault, but when Gran and the Fuhrer arrive, Hawkeye didn't knock before entering Mustang office?

Ed mocking Mustang. His voice is no longer Ed's. This is exactly why the voice actor is bad, because he's showing off as himself, instead of being Ed! ... and Ed calls himself "short"! This is unimaginable in the manga! (The word "short" isn't in the origianl.)
Apart from that, this sequence is excellent in terms of animation! If the animator was lazy, Ed could have just stand there yapping all the way. But no, this scene is lively, comical, and cute. And you can tell the animator had a lot of fun.

Al can frown? Sweat? Cry? Haha... He's so cute! After this episode, he's officially labeled a cat lover.

CG assisted shot? I couldn't figure this one out. The side of the table could be a sliding cell painted with texture, while the whole background is animated. This kind of camera movement is really unfriendly to traditional animators. I can't imagine drawing this by hand.

Ed's evil face is the best!

They try to show Mustang as a cool guy during the battle, but with the dog and mini skirt scene before this, he looks more comical than cool. Luckily by the time the battle's over, his character is restored back to normal. (The Ishbal flashback helps.) I read it wrong the first time I watched the show and took Mustang as a jerk who had been toying with Ed for fun. This time, it's pretty clear that he's on Ed's side.

Hey... there's a Lin lookalike in the crowd!

The cat is abandoned again... this is where I feel strongly about this series. It's very different. Not everything is rosy. Yet it still leaves hope.

Japanese sites spying time: (^_^)
The review of episode 13 at Yoo's blog Fuuyuu.
The review of episode 13 (page 1 & page 2) by Saori Amano at Egaoni Aetara.