Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood A Remake?

Full Metal Alchemist has become a hit anime series in Japan back in 2003 when it was first adapted from the manga of the same title (or "Hagane no Renkinjutsushi" in Japanese), originally created by Hiromu Arakawa, with art and story both created by the mangaka. The anime then repeated the same kind of reception and success when it was brought to the States by Funimation in 2006. The series also received good reception in other countries in Asia, as well as countries across the world. This is because of the series' uniqueness and its "appeal" to not only kids and teenagers, but also young adults and adults.

When "Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood" (also called "Full Metal Alchemist Shintetsu"; derived from its original Japanese name, "Hagane no Renkinjutsushi Shintetsu") was announced by Bones Studio, it excited many of its fans across the world. April 5th, 2009 was when the new series first premiered on Japanese TV, TV Tokyo. US fans can also follow the series from Funimation's official website, where fans living in the United States can go to the website and catch streaming episodes of the show. In addition to that, a few independent websites made by fans also provide the show's episodes download for free, truly for the intention of sharing the same excitement all fans have for this new series.

Though, for some fans who have started following the new series from episode 1, confusion started to arise. Questions like "why is FMA Brotherhood story just the same as to the original FMA?" or "is FMA Brotherhood a remake of FMA?" starting to arise. Some fans just merely confused of what timeline should this new series follow parallel to the original show.

The answer is, this new series started "all over again" and is "completely independent" of the first series. So is it a complete "remake" of the first show? No. Not exactly. The original plan of this new series is to make it start as what the manga has and end also as to what the manga will. So basicly the new series will just follow the original manga storyline, regardless of what the first anime adaptation of it has explored to.

As opposed to Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, the first show had first followed the manga storyline, but strayed off to "its own storyline" when it got ahead of the manga halfway of its story. This happened because as you know it, manga chapter is out on weekly and some monthly basis (in the case of Full Metal Alchemist, it's on MONTHLY basis, being serialized on Monthly Shounen Gangan), and it is very limited to what each single chapter can cover monthly. On the other hand, anime episode is also out weekly, but with over 20 minutes of animation, an anime episode can cover much more than what a manga chapter can. In result, the anime got ahead of the manga halfway of its story. With no story to follow from the manga anymore, it developed its own story all the way through the ending.

As what you saw on the first series, the story ended with Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric both continued their journey on "our" world, sealing "the door" to their own world completely. This was shown on the movie: Conqueror of Shambala instead of the final episode, episode 51.

In Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, what you can be sure of, is, you "will not" see this same ending again. It will end differently. It will end the way the manga will.