I had a few ideas for how I could tie anime and Father’s Day together for tonight’s post. Anime is rife with interesting discussions of fatherhood and family. From Ash Ketchum’s missing father in Pokémon to Piccolo’s superior parenting skills in Dragon Ball Z, anime approaches the subject of fatherhood from almost every angle. I decided, though, that the best approach would be to talk about just one series: Fullmetal Alchemist.
Fullmetal Alchemist was created in 2001 by Hiromu Arakawa, and the manga completed in 2010. With 27 volumes of manga, two anime adaptations (both over 50 episodes), a live-action film adaptation (that I refuse to watch), animated films, light novels, audio dramas and video games, it’s safe to say that there’s an awful lot I could write about FMA.
The story follows the Elric brothers, two gifted young alchemists searching for a way to restore their bodies after a disastrous attempt at restoring a human to life via alchemy. If you haven’t seen it or read it and don’t know more than that, I’m not going to ruin the story for you. I recommend you stop reading here and find somewhere you can read it or watch it. You can watch the second anime adaptation Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood free, legally and dubbed in English on Crunchyroll. It is a significantly closer adaptation of the manga and my preferred version. If you have experienced FMA, I’m not going to retell the story for you.
Set in an alternate reality in a time period not dissimilar to the 1920s and ’30s, FMA covers a lot of ground. FMA deals with the dangers and pitfalls of unchecked ambition, the nature of the human soul, scientific ethics, the horrors of war, and the importance of family. This last theme is the one I’m drawing upon for tonight’s post.
Fatherhood comes up a lot in the story. The Elrics are estranged from their own father, Van Hohenheim, but they have a tendency to find father figures throughout their journey, for better and for worse.
The tragically villainous Shou Tucker is the subject of frequent jokes in online anime communities. These jokes have never been funny or clever and make light of a story arc that brings together many of the diverse and difficult themes of the series. Tucker’s use of his own daughter in a horrific experiment serves as a sort of microcosm of the shows larger conflicts between familial relationships and relentless greed.
Meanwhile, military officer Maes Hughes is a doting father to his young daughter and treats the Elrics as if they were his own children right up until his heartbreaking death.
Atop the military hierarchy is Fuhrer King Bradley, a Manchurian Candidate of sorts who has, along with the shows primary antagonist, curated the image of the father of a nation. Bradley plays the swaggering military hero and the benignly mischievous father to his men. But at least in the main series, even his son is a deception.
The distant Hohenheim is a well intentioned figure who isn’t really ready to take on the full responsibility of fatherhood until it is very nearly too late.
His mirror image, the inhuman arch-villain of the series, calls himself Father and is easily the darkest archetype of the father in the show. Father manipulates the dangerous homunculi he created and orchestrates the rise of an entire nation, all with the intent of sacrificing them for his own gain.
These are really only the most striking and important examples. From false prophet Father Cornello to the epitome of manliness Alex Louis Armstrong, FMA tackles the subject of fatherhood from almost every conceivable angle, but that’s all I’ve got for tonight. Until tomorrow, when I’ll write about… something.
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