Review of Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa (2005) by Alan H — 21 Jan 2013

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa is a non-canon continuation of the smash-hit 2003 Anime Series Fulmetal Alchemist.

As the first Anime series diverged from the plot of the Manga at about the mid-point, a fuller and more solid ending was needed for the story, which came in the way of this movie.

When you're reviewing Anime movies, there's varied things you should take into consideration, I'm not going to list them off here, only to say that for almost everything was improved on the series. I still love Vic and Aaron working off each other as the Brothers Elric, the rest of the cast again do their best jobs, but as I'll explain below, some barely had anything to do in this movie.

The only downside to this movie-and it's a small one-is the plot, I know that saying the plot being a little underwhelming isn't a hard thing to say these days, but when you put the brilliant story crafted from an already brilliant story-and in all honesty, when compared to the 2009/Manga plot, a lot of people prefer the 2003 Anime story-against Nazi's invading Amestris to find the true home of the Ayran Race, it seems like a cop-out. I'm not saying the story is bad, no, it's good, it's just miles less than the plot of the 2003 series.

If you're new to FMA(and honestly, if you are, you're missing out-BIG TIME, go see either series right NOW!) then I'd seriously consider saying give this a miss until you've seen the original series, same goes if you've only seen the 2009 series, won't make a lick of sense to you from that perspective, but if you've just seen the original Anime series, want to learn what happens after episode 51, watch this and be prepared to have a fun hour and half.