The best part of Episode 37 for me is probably the "kawaii" simplified cartoon-drawing of Hawkeye and Black Hayate saying Ed likes Winry.
God Hawkeye is hot. I've been away from the PC for most of the last four days so I've no idea what (if anything) of C77 is already out, but I'm hoping for the best. (Hawkeye from FMA, Kanako from Nyan-koi, and Cecily or Aria from the Sacred Blacksmith.)
I don't understand why there would be
any need whatsoever for Wrath to pretend to adopt Pride. Why, why,
why? If the explanation is, "To shed doubt on Pride's true identity once people discover Wrath's," this is ad hoc in the extreme. What if Pride's identity had been discovered first? And wouldn't the discovery of one or the other of the homonculi's identities, once made, draw even
more attention and scrutiny towards all others directly tied to him? It just seems unnecessary practically and inappropriate tactically. :\
Pride also seems too powerful and too well-made to be the first.
The fact that he seems to have the least love of (or display of affection towards) Father is also somewhat peculiar.
Not because the first homonculus couldn't be the least Father-worshipping of the bunch (for indeed he surely could!), but because Selim Bradley very obviously pretends to honor (if not genuinely honors) King Bradley; and he genuinely
does revere Edward Elric. Why would a homonculus named Pride (i.e. one who is so proud he ought to suffer from something of a Narcissistic complex) have any degree of reverence for mere Edward?
And why Edward and not Father!? This, specifically, is what I don't understand. Either Selim should be just as Father-slobbering as the others or else he should be completely self-absorbed.
Hooray for cool Kimblee development. Hooray for cool plot advancement. Hooray for cool Edward and Alphonse development. Minimal in the first and third sentence examples, but still present all the same. The plot advancement is very welcome -- we've suffered enough character development for a long time, me doth protest.
Thoughts on whether Kimblee was purely manipulating Winry in the car or whether he was at least partially sincere about his regret about the Rockbells? (I think he was sincere -- but only insofar as their deaths were on his record, and he seems to be rather intent on having an exceptional record with no loose ends.)
Thoughts on Kimblee's chat with Edward about Kimblee's allegiance with the homonculi despite his (quite frankly) honest and semi-cooperation with Young Master Elric? Very, very interesting to see Edward lie to Kimblee about taking the assignment -- and very, very, even MORE interesting (I'm predicting) to see that Kimblee is only too aware of the boy's deceit and couldn't care less --
because he wouldn't want the little runt taking all the fun out of his job anyway!! Kimblee lives for manslaughter. There's no WAY he'd let Edward perform the Briggs massacre. No effing way. Both men are lying, and at least one is aware that the other is lying. Maybe both are. A really effing cool faceoff. It's a lot like the film
Casino Royale.
Back to the honesty point, though: it took me aback but in a good way to see just how honest Kimblee was about certain things with Ed. I mean, Ed can't know for certain that what he's hearing is the sincere truth, but we as the audience know, and that's what matters to me, to us, in appreciating this scene. Once again, it shows that Kimblee is not a psycho devoid of rational thought -- he is quite calculating. Nor is Kimblee an outright evil traitor -- evil he may be, but not for the crime of treason. His is not even an opportunistic allegiance with the Homonculi. He
purely wants to see the Homonculi's best pitted against himself and humanity's best -- and he's cold enough to not care if that means humanity's extinction, including the end of his own life, so long as it happens as the result of the Homonculi being the superior lifeforms. He's less "psycho unabomber" at this point and more "science laboratory madman." He's like the archvillain who says, "Hey, I'm happy to be human, but I want to arm the homonculi with the fucking A-bomb, because I want to see if I'm man enough to beat them even at those odds." Reckless. Evilly so. Sociopathically dismissive of the value of other human beings' lives and desires. But rational, understandable. So, so much better than Original FMA Anime Kimblee! @_@