I watched episodes 3, 4, and 5 recently.
Episode 3 was the same as the original series' Episode 1 (or maybe Episode 1 + 2, I can't recall). It was when Ed and Al go to Lior, meet Rose, take down the bad priest dude who's using a sorceror's stone fake he got from Lust, etc. I thought the episode was much inferior to the presentation in the original series, both in its artstyle and in its storyboard. Disappointing.
Episode 4 was the episode where the boys meet Shou Tucker, the Sewing-Life Alchemist, and his daughter Nina. I don't remember if in the anime this was a two-part story or just one episode, but either way, the new series wrapped up the entire story in one episode. And this time, it did an
excellent job, MUCH much better than the original episode! I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it, but I'll say this: there is a major character in the original series who never died but who does die in this episode, and I thought it was way, WAY more appropriate the new way than the old way. It made a lot more sense for this character to die when they died where they died. This was the second episode since the series premiere which got me excited for the rest of the series. Two thumbs way up, even though Shou Tucker creeps me out and I'm not a big fan of the author's obsession with chimeras. :\
Episode 4 was also the episode which introduced us to Scar, and they did so in a way that was very appropriate and didn't take away too much time from the Shou Tucker and Nina storyline.
Episode 5 picks up where Episode 4 left off with regards to Scar, newly-arrived in the Eastern Capital of the empire and having already slain five State Alchemists and one civilian since his arrival. This one was a mixed bag for me. In a lot of ways, it was inferior to the original presentation, but in a lot of other ways, it was far superior too. It had its good moments and its bad moments. Ultimately, I think I prefer the new version better. But it's a tough call. I'm not a big fan of how much non sequitur comedy there is that punctuates the drama and the action scenes. :\ But the animation in most of the fight scenes is undeniably crisper than the animation anywhere else in the series, and it outshines the original series in this regard, too. The fight between Ed, Al, and Scar was
really well-animated. The problems I have with this episode were more to do with character development and plot: like the episodes before it, this episode assumes familiarity with the FMA story and really,
really clumsily glosses over the Ishbal civil war at high speed. Maybe my mind's rusty, but I didn't know that the boys' hometown of Resembool was that far east -- it's shown as being the town
DIRECTLY ADJACENT to Ishbal. Sort of
odd then, wouldn't you say, that the boys were never affected by this war? (Is it because they were training with their sensei in a far-away region of the empire at the time the war took place? Please point this out to me if that's the case.) Also, again ... maybe my memory is just rusty, but they made it seem like Maes Hughes is a military man with zero alchemical abilities. Is this true? I could have sworn that he was a State Alchemist just like the others, but come to think of it, I can't remember what his power(s) were from the original series, if he had any at all. Is he really a powerless military man? And if so ... are there are others like that? I thought that all of the so-called "dogs of the military" were State Alchemists? No? Guess not. :\
Overall, it's not too bad. Episode 6 is going to be the one where Louis Alex Armstrong and the boys are assigned to escort Flint Marco, the medical alchemist who (if memory serves) is a traitor or a spy or something and that's why they need to escort him? I forget. Anyway. It's that episode with Marco. So the new series does seem to be going through the plot at a faster pace than the original series did. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing. Only time will tell.
