Fullmetal Alchemist (2008)

[鋼の錬金術師]

Volume 20

Author/Artist: Hiromu Arakawa
Publisher: Gangan Comics

Synopsis:
Envy moves in to recapture Dr. Marcoh.

Story/Characters:
The fight between Envy and Scar's group was rather good. I'll admit they had me going there. We get to see Envy's true nature on display and I honestly like him better this way. We bring back the lone survivor of old!Greed's chimera minions and this has some serious ramifications for new!Greed. I'm very interesting to see where we go with this. Also, we have some family drama with the Armstrongs as Olivier takes her power play further. I do wonder how much her contempt for her brother is genuine and how much of it is just her trying to protect him in her own roundabout tough love way. For spoiler reasons, I didn't mention it earlier, but I like how the Elrics flipped two sets of chimera soldiers. Kimblee really should treat his men better. The Elrics will have a whole army if this keeps up.

Art:
As always, you can expect great things from the action sequences. The fight with Envy is quite good, but it's a shame we couldn't see the Armstrong siblings' duel in all its glory. Too much concentrated awesome for the readers' delicate senses, I'm sure. The design of Envy's core is rather apt, I thought.

Other:
We get one 4-koma this time around.

Conclusion:
This was a fairly big volume for both Envy and Greed. I'm interested in seeing what these two are going to do from here on out. It'll also be interesting to see how far General Armstrong's game will get her. Give this one a read.

Rating:
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