Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Complete Collection Two is a set that collects the remaining 31 episodes of the series into one release, and it was made available as both a DVD set and as a Blu-ray set.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Complete Collection Two
English Publisher: FUNimation Entertainment
Format: Blu-ray
Release Date: July 17, 2012

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a re-telling of the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime series, and it is supposed to follow the story in the original manga a lot closer than that first series. At this point in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the story is completely different than at this point in the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Because of how drastically different the story has become between the two anime series, it’s truly hard for me to say which one is better. There are some elements from the original Fullmetal Alchemist that I miss in this version, but with the changes in the story, those elements would no longer make sense. However, there are some things about the new elements introduced in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood that I really like. Probably my favorite element in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is the increased emphasis on the Ishvalans and the Ishvalan Civil War.

When it comes to this Blu-ray release, one of my biggest disappointments is the fact that there’s nothing to indicate which episodes are on which discs. There are no inserts that list the episode breakdown by disc, and the episode numbers are not printed on any of the discs.

When it came to the video quality on these Blu-rays, I’d say that the images seemed to look a little brighter and sharper when compared to the video quality of the five Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood DVD sets that I had viewed previously. According to the packaging, the video is 1080p High Definition 16×9 HD Native, and that for audio there is Dolby TrueHD: English 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD: Japanese 2.0. Subtitles are only available in English.

When it comes to the bonus features, it appears that FUNimation Entertainment gathered up the bonus features that were included for the episodes on this set that were on the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood releases that were put out before the complete collections. But like I said in the review of the first set, these were probably all the bonus features that FUNimation had permission from the original Japanese licensor to use. I’d rather have what extras were included than to not have any extras at all.

The first disc includes commentary for two episodes: “The Shape of the Country” and “Homunculus (The Dwarf in the Flask).” The second disc includes commentary for “Looming Shadows,” while there are no bonus features included on the third disc.

The final disc has the most bonus features. There’s commentary for the final episode, “Journey’s End,” as well as three textless opening songs and four textless closing songs. A section called “Outtakes” runs for about seven-and-a-half minutes, and includes actual dubbing errors and humor from when the cast was goofing off in the studio. However, it should be mentioned that there’s some “adult language” included in this feature. There are also trailers for some of the other properties that FUNimation was promoting at the time this set was released.

If you enjoy Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and haven’t added the series to your anime collection yet, the two complete season sets are the way to go to accomplish that. If you have Blu-ray compatibility, I would recommend purchasing the Blu-ray versions of these sets.

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