100 Fun Facts About Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Which studio animated Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Bones was set up in 1998 by three Sunrise staffers who had been working on Cowboy Bebop and split off to form a studio of their own.

Who directed Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Yasuhiro Irie had been animation director on the 2003 series' opening titles, and six years later he was handed the whole second adaptation to run.

What does every State Alchemist carry as proof of the title?

A silver pocket watch: Edward's is stolen by a pickpocket, and when Winry looks inside it she finds the date the brothers burned down their house.

Why did Fullmetal Alchemist get a second anime adaptation after the 2003 series?

The first strayed from the manga because it overtook the chapters then in print and had to invent its own story, so Brotherhood started over and followed the comic to its end.

Who wrote and illustrated the Fullmetal Alchemist manga?

Hiromu Arakawa is a pen name with a masculine ring, and she learned her craft as an assistant to the creator of the comedy manga Mahōjin Guru Guru.

Which US network premiered the English dub of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in February 2010?

Adult Swim, where the 2003 series had been a staple for years, gave the dub the midnight spot in its Saturday anime line-up, and much of the first dub's cast came back to record it.

Which State Alchemist fuses his daughter Nina with the family dog to keep his licence?

Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist, had won his licence two years earlier with a chimera that could talk, and Edward works out that he made that one from his wife.

In which remote village are the Elric brothers raised?

Resembool is where the brothers set fire to their own house on the day they leave, so that neither of them has a home to turn back to.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is set mainly in which fictional country?

Amestris grew into a near-perfect circle through centuries of border wars, each one staged so that the bloodshed would mark out a transmutation circle the size of the country.

What is the name of the Elric brothers' mother?

Trisha died of an illness while the boys were small, and years after they try to bring her back, Edward digs up what they made that night and finds it was never her at all.

What is the name of the Elric brothers' absent father?

Hohenheim began life as a nameless slave, Number 23, until the tiny creature grown from his blood taught him to read and gave him his name.

Who taught the Elric brothers alchemy before they tried to revive their mother?

Izumi Curtis only agreed to teach the boys after stranding them on an island for a month, without alchemy, to work out the riddle 'one is all, all is one'.

What does the failed transmutation take from Edward before he trades his right arm for Al's soul?

Left leg was the price of what he was shown that night: ever since, Edward has been able to transmute with a clap of his hands, no circle drawn.

What are the mechanical prosthetic limbs in Fullmetal Alchemist called?

Automail has a weakness the plot leans on: ordinary steel limbs can give their wearer frostbite in the far north, so Edward has to be refitted with a cold-weather set.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, which law of alchemy says nothing can be created without all its parts present?

The Law of Equivalent Exchange even frames Edward's clumsy proposal in the finale: he puts marriage to Winry as an alchemist's trade, and she accepts.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, what is the godlike being that confronts anyone attempting human transmutation called?

Truth appears as a blank white copy of whoever stands before it, and the toll it takes is aimed at whatever that alchemist valued most or was reaching for.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, a philosopher's stone is made by trapping what?

Thousands of human souls go into every stone, a secret Dr. Marcoh hid in research notes disguised as a cookbook that the brothers spend days decoding.

Roy Mustang holds which rank for most of Brotherhood, as Edward's commanding officer?

Colonel is only a step for Mustang: sickened by what he was ordered to do in the Ishval war, he means to climb all the way to Führer and change the country from the top.

Which State Alchemist title does Roy Mustang hold?

Flame Alchemist Mustang learned his craft from notes his teacher had tattooed across his own daughter's back, and after the war she asks him to burn them off.

What are Roy Mustang's gloves made from?

Ignition cloth throws a spark when he rubs his fingers together, so his team calls him useless in the rain, yet he only needs some other way to strike a light.

Which Fullmetal Alchemist serial killer targets State Alchemists to avenge his people's genocide?

Scar kills with alchemy, the very science his people's faith forbids, working it through the tattooed right arm his dying brother gave him.

Which homunculus murders Maes Hughes?

Envy corners Hughes at a phone booth, takes the shape of his wife Gracia, and shoots him in the second he hesitates.

In Brotherhood, King Bradley, the country's Führer, is secretly which homunculus?

Wrath was once an ordinary boy, raised with other candidates to become the perfect ruler, and having started out human he still ages, so his body struggles to keep pace with what his eye foresees.

Which character from Xing becomes the new vessel for Greed?

Ling Yao lets it happen: he came west hunting immortality to win his throne, so when the stone is forced on him he hands over control willingly.

Which homunculus does Roy Mustang kill in Brotherhood?

Lust has left Mustang for dead when he sears his own wound shut, then burns her again and again until she can no longer regenerate.

What kind of animal is the tiny companion that rides on May Chang's shoulder?

A panda, kept cub-sized by an illness, and May's only escort: her clan is too poor to send bodyguards, so the two of them crossed the desert from Xing alone.

Who discovers that Bradley's son Selim is the homunculus Pride?

Riza Hawkeye was working as Bradley's personal assistant by then, a posting meant less as a promotion than as a way to hold her hostage against Mustang.

What is the northern fortress the Elric brothers travel to called?

Fort Briggs is a wall built across a mountain pass on the Drachman border, and when a Drachman army is tricked into storming it, the garrison wipes the attackers out.

Which general commands the northern fortress in Brotherhood?

Olivier Armstrong runs her fortress on the creed 'survival of the fittest', and to fight the conspiracy she works her way into the Führer's inner circle while her own troops slip into the capital behind her.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, what astronomical event does Father's plan require on the Promised Day?

A solar eclipse joins the alchemical sun, read as male, with the moon, read as female, into one 'perfect being', which is why Father has waited centuries for this single day.

What happens to Roy Mustang when the homunculi force him to perform human transmutation?

He is blinded, and when a philosopher's stone is later offered to restore his sight he insists it be used first to get his paralysed lieutenant Havoc walking again.

What does Edward give up to fully restore Alphonse at the end of Brotherhood?

His ability to perform alchemy goes when he offers up his own Gate, and the being that guards it, delighted, tells him he has finally found the right answer.

In Brotherhood's final battle, which homunculus dies helping the heroes bring down Father?

Greed lets himself be pulled into Father, then turns his armour power on his captor, making the villain's body the most fragile carbon there is: the opening Edward needs.

Which city is Roy Mustang's base before his transfer to Central?

East City is where Mustang runs his team when the story opens, and when he is transferred to the capital early on he takes five trusted subordinates with him.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, Xing's medical form of alchemy is called what?

Alkahestry draws on the earth's own flow of life energy rather than on tectonic force, so it goes on working when Father shuts ordinary alchemy down.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, which fallen kingdom did Father destroy four centuries before the story?

Xerxes's ageing king was promised immortality, but the creature who designed the ritual centred it on himself instead, and the king's whole people paid the price in a single night.

Who voices Edward Elric in Brotherhood's Japanese version?

Romi Park kept the part from the 2003 series, as did Rie Kugimiya as Alphonse, even though Roy Mustang, Winry and others around them were given new voices.

Who voices Edward Elric in the English dub of Brotherhood?

Vic Mignogna, a lifelong Star Trek fan, went on to make his own fan series, Star Trek Continues, and cast himself in it as Captain Kirk.

Who replaced Aaron Dismuke as Alphonse in Brotherhood's English dub?

Maxey Whitehead inherited the armour because Dismuke's voice had broken since the 2003 dub, and he returned in the same series as the brothers' father as a young man.

Who voices Roy Mustang in Brotherhood's English dub?

Travis Willingham played Mustang in both English dubs, and in 2011 he married Laura Bailey, who voices one of the show's villains.

What keeps Alphonse's soul bound to his armor?

A blood seal drawn by Edward is all that ties Al to the steel, and it is his one weak point: when another armoured soul's seal is scratched out, he dies on the spot.

What does Winry repeatedly hit Edward with in a running gag?

A wrench is the tool of her trade as his mechanic, and she throws it with deadly aim whenever he pushes her temper too far.

Who performed 'Again', the first opening theme of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Yui had stepped away from public life the autumn before, and 'Again', picked as the show's opening theme, was the single that brought her back in 2009.

Who composed the score for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Akira Senju recorded the score in Poland with the Warsaw Philharmonic, where he found that one of the players was already a fan of the series.

What is the title of the 2011 Fullmetal Alchemist film that followed Brotherhood?

The Sacred Star of Milos reached cinemas a year after the finale but is set in the middle of the story, with both brothers still hunting for a way to get their bodies back.

In which magazine was the Fullmetal Alchemist manga serialized from 2001 to 2010?

Monthly Shōnen Gangan had already printed its author's debut, the 1999 one-shot Stray Dog, which won the magazine's newcomer prize two years before the series began.

Which video game company publishes the Fullmetal Alchemist manga?

Square Enix inherited the manga in 2003, when Enix, the Dragon Quest publisher that had launched it two years earlier, merged with Final Fantasy's maker Square.

What historical era inspired the look of Fullmetal Alchemist's world?

The European Industrial Revolution hooked the author when she read about it, England's most of all: she was struck by how different the period's culture, buildings and clothes were.

What kind of agricultural business did the family of Fullmetal Alchemist's creator run in Hokkaido?

Dairy farm work kept her at home for seven years after high school, and only in 1999 did she leave for Tokyo to make manga her job.

Which series ended Brotherhood's eight-year run atop Anime News Network's ratings in March 2024?

Frieren had already passed it on MyAnimeList, where other shows had briefly taken first place before, only for Brotherhood to climb back each time.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what do the Elric brothers do to their childhood home before setting out?

They burn it down as a vow that there is no turning back: with no home to return to, the brothers can only press on until they have their bodies back.

How does Edward Elric trigger his alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood without drawing a transmutation circle?

By clapping his hands, Edward can transmute on the spot, a gift he gained during the failed attempt to bring his mother back to life.

Which State Alchemist in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fuses his young daughter Nina with the family dog?

Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist, made the talking chimera to keep his licence, and the one that first won him the title had been his own wife.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where is Maes Hughes shot dead just after uncovering the homunculi's plan?

In a phone booth, Hughes dies trying to warn Roy Mustang. The author said the scene made her readers cry, and that she had to apologise for it.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which kind of weather leaves Roy Mustang's fire alchemy useless in a fight?

Rain leaves his gloves too wet to spark, as his lieutenant bluntly reminds him when he tries to fight a killer of State Alchemists in a downpour.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the Ishvalan people are marked out by brown skin and eyes of which colour?

Red eyes mark the Ishvalans, a religious people whose population was mostly slaughtered by the State Military in a civil war before the story begins.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what kind of animal is Xiao Mei, the tiny pet of Xingese princess May Chang?

A panda, Xiao Mei stays tiny because a disease stopped her growing, and she is the only company the princess brings, since her poor clan has no bodyguards to send.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which personal trait sends Edward Elric into a rage whenever someone mentions it?

His height is the sore spot: Edward explodes at anyone who calls him short, which is why a visiting prince who is both younger and taller gets under his skin.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what did Winry Rockbell's parents work as before they died in the Ishval war?

Doctors, the Rockbells were killed in a frenzy by a wounded man they were treating, a fact their daughter only uncovers years later.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Roy Mustang gives his most trusted subordinates code names taken from which game?

Chess supplies the names: his sharpshooting lieutenant is the Queen, and the four men who serve beside her are the Knight, Rook, Bishop and Pawn.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what do two rival royals from Xing travel to the Elrics' country to find?

Immortality is the prize: their emperor is failing, and each heir hopes that bringing it home will persuade him to name them his successor.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what can Solf J. Kimblee turn any object into with his inked palms?

A bomb is what Kimblee makes of anything in reach, a talent that won him fame in the Ishval war and a prison cell once he killed his own commanding officers.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which little girl's photos does her doting father Maes Hughes show to everyone?

Elicia is the daughter Hughes cannot stop bragging about, pestering Roy Mustang at work to say how cute and talented she is.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, what is the dog adopted and sternly trained by Roy Mustang's sharpshooting lieutenant called?

Hayate, in full Black Hayate, is house-trained the hard way: when he has an accident indoors, she fires warning shots all around him.

Which young bodyguard in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood cuts off her own arm so she and her prince can escape Bradley?

Lan Fan amputates her wounded arm to get away from the Führer, then rushes back to her prince's side the moment a metal replacement is fitted.

Despite his laziness, the giant homunculus Sloth in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is which of these among his kind?

The fastest of the homunculi is Sloth, who finds everything tiresome yet spends the story digging the vast circle Father needs beneath the nation.

Which fugitive in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood hides in a small town, healing the sick with stolen stones?

Tim Marcoh, once the Crystal Alchemist, fled the military's Philosopher's Stone project after it sacrificed Ishvalans, and later points the Elrics to his hidden research.

Which actor voices the muscle-flexing Strong Arm Alchemist in the English dub of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Christopher Sabat, also heard in English as Vegeta and Piccolo in Dragon Ball, plays the tearful major who sheds his shirt at every chance.

Why did Aaron Dismuke, Alphonse in the English dub of 2003's Fullmetal Alchemist, not reprise the role in Brotherhood?

His voice had deepened: Dismuke was 12 when he first played the armoured boy, so in Brotherhood he voices the brothers' father as a young man instead.

The Fullmetal Alchemist manga that Brotherhood adapts was published by which company better known for video games?

Square Enix serialised the story for nine years and collected it in 27 volumes, and the anime's finale aired only weeks after the last chapter appeared.

Which band performed both the first ending theme and the final opening theme of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Sid sang Uso over the first 14 episodes' credits and came back with the fifth and final opening, which gave the band its first number one on Japan's daily singles chart.

Which soldier in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is framed for killing Maes Hughes and smuggled abroad by Roy Mustang?

Maria Ross is the scapegoat: Mustang stages a jailbreak and fakes her death so she can flee to Xing, and she later comes back to help him storm the capital.

Which bookworm in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood rewrites a destroyed library's research from her perfect memory?

Sheska was sacked from the library for reading on the job, but her word-for-word recall earns her a year's pay from the Elrics and a new post under Maes Hughes.

Which smoker on Roy Mustang's team in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is left unable to walk after being stabbed?

Jean Havoc is stabbed through the spine by a homunculus he had unknowingly been dating, and afterwards backs the team with supplies from his family's shop.

In which town do the Elric brothers expose the fraudulent priest Cornello in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Liore is where Cornello's secret confession goes out to the whole town over a microphone he did not know was live, exposing his Church of Leto as a sham.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, how does Kimblee lure the army of Drachma into a doomed attack on a fortress?

By posing as a defector, Kimblee leads Drachma's troops to the slaughter, and their deaths supply the bloodshed that completes Father's nationwide circle.

Isaac McDougal, a rogue alchemist invented for the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, fights with what?

Ice is his weapon: the Freezing Alchemist, a deserter created for the anime, tries to bury the capital under it before Führer Bradley kills him.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what kills the Elric brothers' mother, driving them to try a forbidden ritual?

An illness takes her after a long decline, with their father long gone, and the boys later come home from their alchemy training set on bringing her back.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where does Führer King Bradley hide the Ouroboros mark that betrays what he is?

Under an eyepatch sits his Ultimate Eye, which bears the mark and lets him read an opponent's next move before it comes.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which prized possession of Edward Elric is stolen by the pickpocket Paninya?

His pocket watch, the badge of a State Alchemist, is snatched soon after he arrives in town; when Winry gets it back she peeks inside and finds the date the brothers gave up their home.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what does Winry Rockbell do for a woman cut off from hospital by bad weather?

She delivers her baby safely, and the woman's father-in-law, a master engineer who had refused to train her, then points her to a mentor of her own.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where does the Elric brothers' alchemy teacher strand them for a month as a test?

On an island the boys must fend for themselves before she will accept them, a trial modelled on the month she once had to survive in the frozen north.

Pride, the eldest homunculus of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, is left helpless when deprived of what?

Light is what Pride needs to cast the living shadow he fights with, so his enemies trap him in darkness, though too bright a glare stops him just as well.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where did Roy Mustang's lieutenant carry her father's secret fire alchemy research?

Tattooed on her back were the final notes of the man who taught Mustang; after seeing that power used in the Ishval war, she begged him to destroy the design.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what event staged by a disguised homunculus sets off the Ishval civil war?

A slain child lit the fuse: a homunculus dressed as a soldier did the deed, and the war that followed gave Father one of the sites of carnage his nationwide circle required.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, whom did the Elric brothers' teacher once try to revive with human transmutation?

Her stillborn son was the one she tried to revive; the attempt took some of her organs, and with them any chance of another pregnancy.

Maes Hughes, the doting desk officer of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, is a skilled fighter with which weapon?

Throwing knives are the hidden talent of an intelligence officer who seems to spend his working days bragging about his family.

Which actress plays Winry Rockbell in the English dubs of both the 2003 series and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Caitlin Glass never meant to audition for Winry: she read for four other parts, Alphonse among them, and won the role after speaking a single line of it.

Which rock band performed Shunkan Sentimental, the fourth ending theme of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Scandal, formed by four high school girls in Osaka, released the song as their fifth major single in February 2010 and set off on a spring tour the next month.

Which actress plays Alphonse in the Japanese versions of both the 2003 series and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Rie Kugimiya kept the part when most of the Japanese cast was replaced, and fans call her the Queen of Tsundere for the prickly heroines she plays elsewhere.

Which manga set at an agricultural high school did Fullmetal Alchemist's creator launch once her epic had ended?

Silver Spoon follows a student from Sapporo who enrols there to escape his strict father's demands, and it ran in a rival publisher's weekly magazine.

Which general, who once met Roy Mustang disguised as a woman, ends Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood as Führer?

Grumman takes the top job once the fighting is over, and two years later he is seen calling on Bradley's widow, who is raising young Selim again.

Which major among the northern fortress's most loyal soldiers is part Ishvalan in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Miles is a quarter Ishvalan, and says he serves in order to change, little by little, the way the country thinks of his people.

Heinkel, who turns on Kimblee to help Edward in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, is a chimera of which animal?

A lion in his beast form, Heinkel hunts Edward on Kimblee's orders until his master nearly kills him, then fights on the brothers' side to the end.

Funimation once paused its Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood simulcast because an episode of which anime leaked early?

One Piece was the show that leaked, uploaded before its Japanese broadcast, so new Brotherhood episodes were held from the site for a few weeks.

Which band performed Hologram, the second opening theme of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?

Nico Touches the Walls landed the slot after their Naruto theme drew attention, and Hologram returned over the closing credits of the very last episode.

Before taking human form, the villain Father of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was known by which name?

The Dwarf in the Flask could not live outside its glass vessel, so it tricked a king into a ritual that sacrificed his people and gave it a body.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which weapon does Führer King Bradley favour despite ruling a nation of alchemists?

Swords are all he needs: even when a dying captain traps his blade in the final battle, he simply fights on with daggers.

In Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, whom does Rosé believe the Church of Leto will bring back to life for her?

Her boyfriend had died, and the church's promise kept her devoted until the Elrics exposed its founder; she later cooks for the crews rebuilding the town.

At the end of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, what do Yoki and the chimeras Darius and Heinkel appear to join?

A circus is where the trio lands, a soft landing for two former enemies of Edward and a disgraced officer who spent the story as comic relief.