I'm either too dumb or there's no way to stitch a theme out of these stories. Each chapter of this volume (and really, all of the volumes so far) offered short, episodic fables and it is hard to derive a greater sense of meaning out of them altogether. Personally, I like my stories to be meaningful. I don't hate this but I wish it was more.

- Engineers and scientists tease each other for being different types of nerds
- People profit off of suffering. For every limb blown in war, a prosthetic is produced; for every serial murderer, a detective anticipates their promotion. "Turn misfortune into gain."
- You should have self-confidence and persevere! Even if you don't believe you have talent, the fact that you are still trying is a talent in itself! ( )

Oh these are wonderful.

For a while, I was reading an online copy. Turns out that was a fan translation. I've seen switched to the real translations from the library, and wow it's interesting how different the translations can be.

Examples (official is second):




Such language!




The official ... doesn't translate geek? Because that's totally what otaku means. Anyways. Switched to the second one now.

Some thoughts. Man. They're 14 and 15. Dang they're young to have gone through so much. And daw, Alphonse can't cry robot tears!!

But hey, Strongarm Alchemist Strongarm (I got that this time...)



And short jokes:



One thing this chapter in particular brought up... just how much money do they have? The salary for a National Alchemist is really nice?

Some other random images that show just how perfect comics are:



GLOOM!



YO!

And they can even make you really feel for Gluttony, which is saying something:



Maybe that's just me.

A final thought from the end that really makes you think (and I expect we'll see explored some more.



In a world like this, where it's possible (if not exactly easy) to live without a body at all... What exactly does it mean to be human?
( )

I'm liking the characters more, but the plot wanders off into a nowhere digression about a girl with photographic memory girl before an extended and boring fight scene reveals a couple crumbs about the ho-hum larger mythology. Seems awful early in the series to be throwing in so much padding. ( )

Funny, but not going to continue past book 3. ( )

I've decided that I need to read more of this series. I like the Cedric brothers, and I want to see into what adventures they will find themselves. The book is still full of violence (i.e. fights between characters with lots of sound effects). I guess that appeals to young guys to whom shounen manga is usually directed. I am more interested in the characters of this volume. The oddest one is the pipe-smoking Pinako Rockbell who has the weirdest hairdo which looks like some kind of swollen cucumber in the top back of her head. She's an important character, though, as she and young Winry Rockbell are responsible for repairing the chain-metal appendages of Edward Cedric and metal damage to Edward's brother Alphonse. The two creepy characters Lust and Gluttony are still around to thwart the Cedric's bother's quest for finding or creating a philosopher's stone which the brothers need to bring back their own bodies and bring their mother back form the dead. I must read on... ( )