Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood- Episode 1.

I was able to watch the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood before everybody else decided that they wanted to watch it too and therefore grinding FUNimation's site to a near standstill.

The animation is spectacular. So far, the production values in this one just blow the first series out of the water. Even on par with the FMA movie, without the crappy CGI of course. I'm really liking this director and I guess that the reputation of FMA didn't hurt when it came to getting the money to fund this series. The art style has been made to be more in tune with the one from the manga. While I am a fan of the manga, they did try and adapt some of the same visual gags and it did seem rather odd seeing that animated.

The musical score shows a lot of promise. But I'm not a fan of the score of the original anime series, so take that for what you will.

The biggest complaint that I have in this anime only episode is that they revealed Ed's automail in a matter of minutes in a rather anti-climatic way. It's really disappointing. You also have to keep in mind that this episode is just fanservice. You're expected to know the characters beforehand and pretty much everything from the first series.

Overall, this show shows a lot promise from the production values side and having read the manga it gives me a lot of hope of what's to come.

Dragon Ball Kai- Episode 1.

I usually don't bother with fansubs simply because the shows that air in Japan that I'm in interested in are bound to be released in the U.S. at some point and I'm still catching up on series that have already been released here. But with the airing on Dragon Ball Kai, I couldn't wait. The 9 year-old in me just had to watch this to be overwhelmed by that sense of nostalgia.

Dragon Ball Kai isn't the Dragon Ball Z series re-animated, it's more of re-editing. Toei decided to cut down on the filler, remaster and re-edit it to follow the Toriyama's manga more closely. Or so they said. The sound effects also got renewed, which it needed seeing as how this show was aired in mono way back when.

Kai starts off with a new opening (Dragon Soul) that brings the same amount of joy as the original opening did to Z. It then starts with the ending of the Bardock special and after that, a short review of the events of Dragon Ball- focusing on how Goku trained and beat Demon King Piccolo and his son. Then it roughly covers the events of the first episode and a half of Z.

The music is solid. While the original Z score is good, it got too repetitive for its good and after a while you could guess what music would be played when. The new music fits perfectly with what's happening and it shows promise for future events. As mentioned before, Toei didn't give this show a modern face lift, but after watching the opening and ending animations, you'd wished that they would have. The animation looks so good that you know that if Toei put forth the budget to re-animate the whole series (and really, who doubts that they don't have the money?) it would look fantastic. Maybe they'll do that 10 years from now.

Even though Toei said that this version would follow the manga closer, it still has some filler in it and it even cuts out some scenes from the manga. The manga scenes that were cut out were mostly just minor exposition, but it kinda makes you wonder what else are they gonna keep in and leave out. But for now, I’ll keep watching Kai just to see how it’ll be handled, but I hoping that FUNimation decides to pick up quickly.