Multitasking

So, I've had a pretty full week. Anime Detour was the 3rd-5th, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood started on the 5th, and the past few Naruto chapters have been quite interesting.

Detour went as well as could be expected. I had a good time, though I would have prefured if the stairs weren't the only means to get around on a 22 story building. Yes, there were elevators but you had to be lucky enough to catch one and then have that one be empty enough for you to get in it. Not something that happened often enough with 4,000 people in one place. So in the end a lot of the time was spent catching my breath up in the room rather then running about on the convention floors. Still, it was totally worth the trip.

Naruto, while seeming to be wraping up is doing it's best to string us along oh so slowly while it works it's way through the plot. Still the chapters will hold your interest and just when things seem to get a shade to boring a new twist get's thrown in to keep you waiting for the next chapter.

Now for the big news: FmA: Brotherhood. I finally got a chance to sit and watch it. The art and animation are amazing. Voice work is good too [though some were off in places]. However this is where my compliments end for now. Sadly, I was unimpressed with the first episode. Again we were treated to an exclusive story, which was interesting but ultimately irrelivent.
The episode was used to [re]introduce us to characters we already know. I, honestly, can't imagain a need for this. I don't see people who haven't either seen the first series or read the manga picking up the series here. Then there was an unnessisary amount of humor shoved into the episode and the multitude of the characters were made to mistake Alphonse as the Fullmetal Alchemist.
It was almost to easy to forget the story when you're thinking about all the old sceens that corespond to all the old jokes that got shoved in-- Al's the Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed is short, Roy is useless in the rain, Armstrong loves his muscles and hates his shirts, Hughes is obsessed with his daughter, Kimblee (Kimbley) loves to blow crap up-- all of which, and more, were brought up at least twice in a 24 minute episode.
Then they tried to give the story a place in the timeline... ugh. It's sometime just after the Lior dealings. We know this because they used a similar scene from another episode where Lust gets a phone call and tells Gluttony not to eat... whoever it was he was munching on.
The only way to actually spoil this episode is to tell you about Issac. Which I won't. If you want to know who he is you'll just have to watch the episode. I did it, you can too. It's quite easy, just get your butt over to the FUNimation website, they're showing subtitled episodes for FREE. [Here, a link to the show's video list page.]
Then we were given a preview of Episode 2, entitled "The First Day". What's it about? How the brothers came to be in their current state. Do we really need another "How Mom died and they just wanted to see her smile again" episode? Hasn't this been explained and refrenced enough yet? Apparently the answer is no cause here we go again.

I love this series to death, I really do but I was hoping for so much more in these first few episodes. I figured since there was already one series out we'd just skip right along to the part where it derailed in the first go around (maybe even back track a little from there to get everyone up to speed) then move through the manga storyline I was told it was suppose to be following.
Now I'm not so sure what storyline they're going to use and I have a feeling we'll probably see a couple dozen episodes of regurgitated information before finally getting to "the new stuff" this second series is suppose to be all about. I'm gonna ride it out though and see where all of this leads.