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Jan. 7th, 2010 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo, I was planning to wait until I was all caught up on the FMA manga to make this post . . . but seeing as I still have around sixty chapters left, that will probably be a while. And I am impatient!
I knew when I started watching the new Full Metal Alchemist series that it was a shounen show about a pair of angsty brothers and a military officer with ambitions. And that is fine, and also accurate! But nothing that I had heard about the show prepared me for what would happen: that I would fall completely in love with the story's surprisingly full complement of badass women. With a few exceptions, FMA has surprised me again and again with how consistently awesome its female characters are, whether they are leads or just passing through the storyline. And because I am sure I am not the only person here who loves awesome ladies: here, have a picspam!
If you hear about one female character in Full Metal Alchemist, it will probably be 1st. Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. And with good reason: RIZA HAWKEYE IS A BADASS. Military sniper and aide to Lt. Colonel Mustang, she's a bit like Zoe from Firefly, if Zoe actually got backstory - 100% loyal, 100% capable of taking down anyone who threatens her superior officer . . . and trusted by said superior officer to take him down, too, if he crosses the Moral Event Horizon to the point where it becomes necessary.
The moment when I first fell madly in love with Hawkeye involves a DRAMATIC SHOWDOWN between Mustang and series antagonist Scar early in the series. "This is my fight!" Mustang declaims, starts to pull on his Special Solar-Powered Flame Gloves, steps forward . . . and Hawkeye body-slams him out of the way and opens fire. Mustang: "WHAT THE HELL, LIEUTENANT!" Hawkeye, calmly: "You're useless when it's raining, sir." Mustang: *goes off into a corner to grow mushrooms*
If Hawkweye is the Zoe of the show, Winry Rockbell is the Kaylee . . . okay, and I swear I'll stop with the Firefly references now. Anyway. Winry is the Elric brothers' childhood friend and mechanic; she and her grandmother fitted Ed out with his automail leg and arm, and she gets called in to make repairs any time there's damage (which she is NOT happy about. Her displeasure tends to involve throwing wrenches at people. Also, sidenote: another thing I love about the show is that it never forgets that while metal prostheses may do cool things, they're still prostheses, and prone to inconveniences like mechanical failure. But that's another story.) What I love about Winry is that she is a full-fledged machinery dork; she gets hearts and stars in her eyes when she sees new and exciting kinds of automail!
The show does have an unfortunate tendency to damsel Winry at times and privilege her innocence to a ridiculous extent; she is, after all, our designated Cute Teenaged Girl. On the other hand (as I will proceed to demonstrate!) there are more than enough physically badass ladies in the show, and not everyone has to be a super-hardcore fighter - and the show never forgets that Winry is very competent at what she does, while at the same time avoiding Unearned Specialness. Winry's very talented, and she's also fifteen, and still learning about her trade, and I really enjoy that part of her character arc.
You know how every epic fantasy saga has The Master, The Most Hardcore In The Land, The One Who Taught Our Heroes Everything They Know By Beating Them Upside The Head One Million Times And Nearly Killing Them But That's Okay Because They Learned From It And Respect The Master All The More?
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Master is IZUMI CURTIS.
Yes, I have linked this picture before, and I don't care. Izumi is fabulous. She is, so far as I can tell, the most badass person in the FMA universe. What's that, you say, Elrics? Your training is hard? Izumi did her training alone for a month in the FROZEN NORTHERN WASTELANDS! WITH BEARS! It's okay, though, these days, Izumi is perfectly happy to hang out in the kitchen with her husband, Not-As-Badass-As-Izumi Curtis, and throw knives back and forth. (My FMA OTP: CURTISES. <3333 They are so cute! Hearts and sparkles and sharp things follow them everywhere they go!) It bears mentioning that Izumi is also missing a good percentage of her internal organs, and occasionally has to pause in her task of dominating everyone else with her badassery to vomit up copious amounts of blood. But does this stop her? NO, IT DOES NOT.
I'm not going to lie: between the name and the va-va-voom outfit, I definitely had some major feminist concerns about antagonist Lust. And . . . yeah, there are certainly issues there. However, there were way fewer issues than I was expecting going in. Name and character design to the contrary, Lust is not played at all as a representation of dangerous female sexuality; instead, she appears to be the most competent member of Team Evil, and her clashes with Team Good generally involve her giving as good as she gets in non-sexualized fight scenes. The one time we see her using her looks to get information out of a hapless Team Good member, it is all surprisingly downplayed - Lust is dressed demurely and they go to a nice outdoor cafe and talk. There are flowers! The rest of the time, Lust is generally portrayed as a respect-worthy opponent, considered dangerous by her enemies and respected and cared for by her teammmates. I kind of appreciate that, and therefore, Lust earns a rank on the Awesome Ladies list.
Tiny adorable Mei Chan crossed the desert alone (except fr her tiny adorable panda Xiao Mei), searching for the secret to immortality. She's the smallest and least valued of the Xingese emperor's children, but she's determined to take the succession and gain respect and security for her mother's clan. I'm not sure how old she is - my guess is somewhere between 8 and 12 - but she's skilled in alkahestry, her country's version of alchemy, and can use it to heal wounds. However, she's still a little girl, and, like many little girls, she is also prone to developing RIDICULOUS crushes on very little evidence, which, uh, I find kind of hilariously endearing. Also, she carries a large number of knives.
Hey, remember that time that Mei Chan was in the hospital, saw a member of a rival clan in the hospital bed next to her, and launched immediately into a knife fight? I DO! :D :D :D
Speaking of that rival clan member . . . Lan Fan is the bodyguard to another one of the emperor's sons, Ling. She is from a long family line of bodyguards (her partner is her grandfather), incredibly loyal, and SO HARDCORE I DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS FOR IT. Or at least, not any that are non-spoilery.
(Although even she is bemused by the sheer number of severed limbs in this series.)
At this point, you might be saying to yourself, well, Becca, all these bodyguards and military aides and so forth do seem very hardcore, but wouldn't it be nice if we could get a lady who was actually in charge? I know I was! Fortunately, sometimes Arakawa likes to make me happy.
This is Olivier Mira Armstrong, General of the North. SHE RULES WITH AN IRON FIST. An iron fist of AWESOME. Her men are completely devoted to her, and with reason. Once, one of her soldiers brings up - completely hypothetically - the possibility that he might defect. THAT'S FINE, says General Armstrong, AS LONG AS YOU CAN DEFEAT ME IN SINGLE COMBAT. The possibility is never mentioned again. And she's middle-aged, and an ambitious career soldier, and still going strong! I would have an enormous girlcrush on her if my heart was not already taken up with Izumi and Hawkeye . . . okay, maybe I still do have kind a girlcrush on her.
Is that a bazooka? MAYBE.
Don't cross General Armstrong, is the point. YOU WON'T WIN. As the bad guys will learn to their peril. (Also, hilariously, when General Armstrong is discussing the possibility of allying with Mustang, Armstrong is like "hey, he works with Hawkeye! HAWKEYE IS AWESOME! Mustang, he is kind of lame.")
And dude, guys, these women are all main, featured-in-the-opening characters! (Well, except Izumi. Izumi is so awesome she TRANSCENDS opening credits.) Anyway, I haven't even gotten to the minor characters yet!
Pinako is Winry's tiny, badass, pipe-smoking grandma, and surrogate grandma to Our Protagonists. She is (presumably) an automail mechanic who has trained Winry up as her partner.
Once upon a time, she was less tiny, but no less badass and pipe-smoking! I have not seen too much of her backstory yet in what I have watched and read, but we have intriguing hints of it - we know she was an old drinking buddy of the Elrics' dad who knows most of his secrets, and we also know that the mention of her name sends other cranky old automail mechanics into a state of terror. >:D
I fell in love with 2nd Lieutenant Maria Ross when she politely asked a (fifteen-year-old) officer of superior rank permission to speak freely; when it was granted, BITCHSLAPPED HIM ROUND THE HEAD and chewed him the hell out for putting himself in danger; and then waited to be court-martialed. Uh, that is not really super characteristic; most of the time Ross is a good soldier! She's perfectly happy with where she is and feels no need to stick her nose where it doesn't belong and get involved with complicated conspiracies and so forth, so it's really just her bad luck that she gets stuck with the Elrics. But when called upon to cope, she copes with a spine of long-suffering steel!
I'm pretty sure Sheska is Yomiko Readman's unacknowledged twin sister. She loves books! A LOT. She had a job in a library! Then she got fired for reading all the time. Basically, she is a blatant geek self-insert, and who doesn't love that? :D However, Sheska also has a perfect memory for everything she's read, which saves the day more than once. She's a good example of a character who is very cool without having to be physically badass.
You know how Grindhouse had Rose McGowan with a bazooka-prosthesis, and everyone thought it was incredibly awesome? Yeah, Paninya did it first. Paninya lost her parents and her legs in a train accident as a kid (seriously, most limb loss of any series EVER), and proceeded to become the grumpiest tiny amputee in the world. Until she was picked up by an even grumpier mechanic who fitted her with BAZOOKA LEGS. Now Paninya has vowed to pay him back! But for some perplexing reason he will not accept her pickpocketed money! Paninya can out-maneuver both Elric brothers together; it takes Winry (and Winry's obsession with SHINY AUTOMAIL) to take her down. After which they become adorable BFF. <3
Martel used to be a soldier. Then she was wounded in the war and experimented on by the military, and now she is part snake. Unsurprisingly, she then decided to join a secret rebel underground group of other experimented-upon people (she is better off than the guy who is half dog!). We don't see all that much of her, but from what we do see, it is clear: a.) she is very clever and rather unscrupulous with unorthodox battle techniques; b.) she is fiercely loyal to her team; c.) she is brave to a degree of a hundred and twenty percent.
Even with this epic list, I am pretty sure I am forgetting people; others who know the series can feel free to chime in!
I will say that the series is in no way perfect with feminist issues; although there are, as demonstrated, a whole lot of awesome female soldier characters, the background military characters tend to default male, and there are a few (three, to be exact) female characters who seem to exist for no other purpose that I can see other than to be sweet and motherly angels in the house whose lives center around their husbands and children. Still, for me, that is counterbalanced by the sheer number of insanely awesome female characters, who kick ass, take names, and in many cases drive the plot.
In other words: I HAVE A CRUSH ON EVERY GIRL.
I knew when I started watching the new Full Metal Alchemist series that it was a shounen show about a pair of angsty brothers and a military officer with ambitions. And that is fine, and also accurate! But nothing that I had heard about the show prepared me for what would happen: that I would fall completely in love with the story's surprisingly full complement of badass women. With a few exceptions, FMA has surprised me again and again with how consistently awesome its female characters are, whether they are leads or just passing through the storyline. And because I am sure I am not the only person here who loves awesome ladies: here, have a picspam!
If you hear about one female character in Full Metal Alchemist, it will probably be 1st. Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. And with good reason: RIZA HAWKEYE IS A BADASS. Military sniper and aide to Lt. Colonel Mustang, she's a bit like Zoe from Firefly, if Zoe actually got backstory - 100% loyal, 100% capable of taking down anyone who threatens her superior officer . . . and trusted by said superior officer to take him down, too, if he crosses the Moral Event Horizon to the point where it becomes necessary.
The moment when I first fell madly in love with Hawkeye involves a DRAMATIC SHOWDOWN between Mustang and series antagonist Scar early in the series. "This is my fight!" Mustang declaims, starts to pull on his Special Solar-Powered Flame Gloves, steps forward . . . and Hawkeye body-slams him out of the way and opens fire. Mustang: "WHAT THE HELL, LIEUTENANT!" Hawkeye, calmly: "You're useless when it's raining, sir." Mustang: *goes off into a corner to grow mushrooms*
If Hawkweye is the Zoe of the show, Winry Rockbell is the Kaylee . . . okay, and I swear I'll stop with the Firefly references now. Anyway. Winry is the Elric brothers' childhood friend and mechanic; she and her grandmother fitted Ed out with his automail leg and arm, and she gets called in to make repairs any time there's damage (which she is NOT happy about. Her displeasure tends to involve throwing wrenches at people. Also, sidenote: another thing I love about the show is that it never forgets that while metal prostheses may do cool things, they're still prostheses, and prone to inconveniences like mechanical failure. But that's another story.) What I love about Winry is that she is a full-fledged machinery dork; she gets hearts and stars in her eyes when she sees new and exciting kinds of automail!
The show does have an unfortunate tendency to damsel Winry at times and privilege her innocence to a ridiculous extent; she is, after all, our designated Cute Teenaged Girl. On the other hand (as I will proceed to demonstrate!) there are more than enough physically badass ladies in the show, and not everyone has to be a super-hardcore fighter - and the show never forgets that Winry is very competent at what she does, while at the same time avoiding Unearned Specialness. Winry's very talented, and she's also fifteen, and still learning about her trade, and I really enjoy that part of her character arc.
You know how every epic fantasy saga has The Master, The Most Hardcore In The Land, The One Who Taught Our Heroes Everything They Know By Beating Them Upside The Head One Million Times And Nearly Killing Them But That's Okay Because They Learned From It And Respect The Master All The More?
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Master is IZUMI CURTIS.
Yes, I have linked this picture before, and I don't care. Izumi is fabulous. She is, so far as I can tell, the most badass person in the FMA universe. What's that, you say, Elrics? Your training is hard? Izumi did her training alone for a month in the FROZEN NORTHERN WASTELANDS! WITH BEARS! It's okay, though, these days, Izumi is perfectly happy to hang out in the kitchen with her husband, Not-As-Badass-As-Izumi Curtis, and throw knives back and forth. (My FMA OTP: CURTISES. <3333 They are so cute! Hearts and sparkles and sharp things follow them everywhere they go!) It bears mentioning that Izumi is also missing a good percentage of her internal organs, and occasionally has to pause in her task of dominating everyone else with her badassery to vomit up copious amounts of blood. But does this stop her? NO, IT DOES NOT.
I'm not going to lie: between the name and the va-va-voom outfit, I definitely had some major feminist concerns about antagonist Lust. And . . . yeah, there are certainly issues there. However, there were way fewer issues than I was expecting going in. Name and character design to the contrary, Lust is not played at all as a representation of dangerous female sexuality; instead, she appears to be the most competent member of Team Evil, and her clashes with Team Good generally involve her giving as good as she gets in non-sexualized fight scenes. The one time we see her using her looks to get information out of a hapless Team Good member, it is all surprisingly downplayed - Lust is dressed demurely and they go to a nice outdoor cafe and talk. There are flowers! The rest of the time, Lust is generally portrayed as a respect-worthy opponent, considered dangerous by her enemies and respected and cared for by her teammmates. I kind of appreciate that, and therefore, Lust earns a rank on the Awesome Ladies list.
Tiny adorable Mei Chan crossed the desert alone (except fr her tiny adorable panda Xiao Mei), searching for the secret to immortality. She's the smallest and least valued of the Xingese emperor's children, but she's determined to take the succession and gain respect and security for her mother's clan. I'm not sure how old she is - my guess is somewhere between 8 and 12 - but she's skilled in alkahestry, her country's version of alchemy, and can use it to heal wounds. However, she's still a little girl, and, like many little girls, she is also prone to developing RIDICULOUS crushes on very little evidence, which, uh, I find kind of hilariously endearing. Also, she carries a large number of knives.
Hey, remember that time that Mei Chan was in the hospital, saw a member of a rival clan in the hospital bed next to her, and launched immediately into a knife fight? I DO! :D :D :D
Speaking of that rival clan member . . . Lan Fan is the bodyguard to another one of the emperor's sons, Ling. She is from a long family line of bodyguards (her partner is her grandfather), incredibly loyal, and SO HARDCORE I DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS FOR IT. Or at least, not any that are non-spoilery.
(Although even she is bemused by the sheer number of severed limbs in this series.)
At this point, you might be saying to yourself, well, Becca, all these bodyguards and military aides and so forth do seem very hardcore, but wouldn't it be nice if we could get a lady who was actually in charge? I know I was! Fortunately, sometimes Arakawa likes to make me happy.
This is Olivier Mira Armstrong, General of the North. SHE RULES WITH AN IRON FIST. An iron fist of AWESOME. Her men are completely devoted to her, and with reason. Once, one of her soldiers brings up - completely hypothetically - the possibility that he might defect. THAT'S FINE, says General Armstrong, AS LONG AS YOU CAN DEFEAT ME IN SINGLE COMBAT. The possibility is never mentioned again. And she's middle-aged, and an ambitious career soldier, and still going strong! I would have an enormous girlcrush on her if my heart was not already taken up with Izumi and Hawkeye . . . okay, maybe I still do have kind a girlcrush on her.
Is that a bazooka? MAYBE.
Don't cross General Armstrong, is the point. YOU WON'T WIN. As the bad guys will learn to their peril. (Also, hilariously, when General Armstrong is discussing the possibility of allying with Mustang, Armstrong is like "hey, he works with Hawkeye! HAWKEYE IS AWESOME! Mustang, he is kind of lame.")
And dude, guys, these women are all main, featured-in-the-opening characters! (Well, except Izumi. Izumi is so awesome she TRANSCENDS opening credits.) Anyway, I haven't even gotten to the minor characters yet!
Pinako is Winry's tiny, badass, pipe-smoking grandma, and surrogate grandma to Our Protagonists. She is (presumably) an automail mechanic who has trained Winry up as her partner.
Once upon a time, she was less tiny, but no less badass and pipe-smoking! I have not seen too much of her backstory yet in what I have watched and read, but we have intriguing hints of it - we know she was an old drinking buddy of the Elrics' dad who knows most of his secrets, and we also know that the mention of her name sends other cranky old automail mechanics into a state of terror. >:D
I fell in love with 2nd Lieutenant Maria Ross when she politely asked a (fifteen-year-old) officer of superior rank permission to speak freely; when it was granted, BITCHSLAPPED HIM ROUND THE HEAD and chewed him the hell out for putting himself in danger; and then waited to be court-martialed. Uh, that is not really super characteristic; most of the time Ross is a good soldier! She's perfectly happy with where she is and feels no need to stick her nose where it doesn't belong and get involved with complicated conspiracies and so forth, so it's really just her bad luck that she gets stuck with the Elrics. But when called upon to cope, she copes with a spine of long-suffering steel!
I'm pretty sure Sheska is Yomiko Readman's unacknowledged twin sister. She loves books! A LOT. She had a job in a library! Then she got fired for reading all the time. Basically, she is a blatant geek self-insert, and who doesn't love that? :D However, Sheska also has a perfect memory for everything she's read, which saves the day more than once. She's a good example of a character who is very cool without having to be physically badass.
You know how Grindhouse had Rose McGowan with a bazooka-prosthesis, and everyone thought it was incredibly awesome? Yeah, Paninya did it first. Paninya lost her parents and her legs in a train accident as a kid (seriously, most limb loss of any series EVER), and proceeded to become the grumpiest tiny amputee in the world. Until she was picked up by an even grumpier mechanic who fitted her with BAZOOKA LEGS. Now Paninya has vowed to pay him back! But for some perplexing reason he will not accept her pickpocketed money! Paninya can out-maneuver both Elric brothers together; it takes Winry (and Winry's obsession with SHINY AUTOMAIL) to take her down. After which they become adorable BFF. <3
Martel used to be a soldier. Then she was wounded in the war and experimented on by the military, and now she is part snake. Unsurprisingly, she then decided to join a secret rebel underground group of other experimented-upon people (she is better off than the guy who is half dog!). We don't see all that much of her, but from what we do see, it is clear: a.) she is very clever and rather unscrupulous with unorthodox battle techniques; b.) she is fiercely loyal to her team; c.) she is brave to a degree of a hundred and twenty percent.
Even with this epic list, I am pretty sure I am forgetting people; others who know the series can feel free to chime in!
I will say that the series is in no way perfect with feminist issues; although there are, as demonstrated, a whole lot of awesome female soldier characters, the background military characters tend to default male, and there are a few (three, to be exact) female characters who seem to exist for no other purpose that I can see other than to be sweet and motherly angels in the house whose lives center around their husbands and children. Still, for me, that is counterbalanced by the sheer number of insanely awesome female characters, who kick ass, take names, and in many cases drive the plot.
In other words: I HAVE A CRUSH ON EVERY GIRL.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 07:09 pm (UTC)I've always loved the sheer amount of awesome chicks in this series, though manga!Lust lost serious points with me when she pulled the Havoc stunt, because I love the State Military as much as I love the women and basically this is me gushing because this post is so much how I feel about this series. It is so awesome, isn't it? Isn't it isn't it isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 07:49 pm (UTC)I love the State Military also . . . and I love the women IN the State Military! \o/ EVERYONE IS AWESOME TO THE UMPTEENTH DEGREE. (Also, to jump off your icon, though I love BSG, I find the military characters in FMA way, way more identifiable than the ones in BSG. They are such ordinary-albeit-badass people!)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 02:02 pm (UTC)I think it's because most of the State Military aren't alchemists, so in comparison to the *special* alchemists (who come across as slightly removed from reality), they seem a lot like us. Whereas in BSG everyone is in the military and they are super special!!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 02:50 pm (UTC)Yeah, exactly! I always felt sorry for everyone in the cast who wasn't in the military in BSG (all . . . two of them), because it was so clear that to be Super Special and Useful in that context you needed to be in the military. (Or to be Laura Roslin, admittedly.) Whereas I feel sorry for everyone who's in the State Military.