I've watched Soul Eater all the way through three times, and certain episodes I've seen more than that. As much as I love Soul Eater, it was beginning to grow old watching it over and over again... I needed to find something else to watch. You know, I've wondered why people who like anime never seem to just like one... I guess it's because they like cartoons, and they want to watch something geared toward older audiences that isn't stupid and immature like South Park or Family Guy or whatever. I can understand that. But that doesn't mean I'm going to watch every stinking anime there is, like a lot of people seem to do. And seriously, I could care less about where anime is from. A lot of people tend to glorify Japan because that's where anime comes from... there are many degrees of this admiration, and the most severe is what we call being a weeaboo... these people devote their lives to Japan. These are the people who watch any anime they can find and read any manga they can get their hands on. They refuse to watch dubbed shows, because they automatically think all English voice actors suck and all Japanese VAs are idols just because they're Japanese. This admiration turns into obsession, not just with the cartoons and comics, but with every aspect of the whole Japanese culture. They think Japan is superior to every other country, which is actually only because of their out of hand obsession. Some people go as far as to say they hate the country they were born in because their obsession with Japan is so strong. Trust me, I know people like that. And it sickens me. This entry isn't supposed to be about bashing weeaboos, though. Getting back on topic, I wanted to find another interesting cartoon to watch. I never really hear about animated shows from other countries, so I guess I had no other choice but good ol' Japan. There's obviously a huge selection of anime available on the web, most of which I would never care to watch. But I knew something in that wide variety would capture my interests. I did some research in attempt to find something decent to watch... I Googled something like "good anime" and read through a bunch of lists and forum posts and stuff filled with peoples' opinions. It was mostly the same titles coming up over and over again... "Naruto", "One Piece", "Bleach", "Yu-Gi-Oh", "Pokemon", "Dragonball"... but I also Googled "worst anime" and those names came up frequently there as well. From what I've seen, all of those shows are terribly overrated and very long. I don't know much about those other animes, but I know for one thing that Pokemon is ridiculously long and because of that it has the same plot every episode. I didn't want to watch something like that. That would be a complete waste of time, and besides, none of those shows even looked good. On the other hand, I bet most weeaboos would watch all of them anyway, just because they're Japanese... I wanted to find a show that wasn't stretched out ridiculously, but I didn't want to watch one only a few episodes long, either. And it needed to have a good plot that isn't childish, based completely on fighting, or destroyed by the amount of episodes. I would've preferred some violence, but not so much that the storyline is buried under it. It should have some humor, but not so much that it's campy or it destroys the plot. It should be somewhat serious, but not so serious that it's boring to watch. I'd really like if it didn't have anything like Blair in it, but it seems most animes that contain my desired qualities are geared toward guys, so chances are there'd be some fan[dis]service involved. Well... after researching some more, I think I found something that fit my wants.
Fullmetal Alchemist. That one came up a number of times when I browsed through message boards for good animes, but not quite as much as Naruto and whatever. It's more obscure, but not so obscure that no one knows about it. It's sort of on Soul Eater's level, though I never hear about it at school. There are two series, one of which is a remake of the original. One series has 51 episodes, and the other has 64. Perfect-- not too long, not too short. I wasn't sure if I'd like it based on what I read about the story, but it didn't completely turn me off like One Piece and whatever. I gave it a shot. I decided to watch the remake (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood) because it stays faithful to the manga all the way through, meaning that's how the author wanted it to turn out. By the time I had finished the first episode, I was sort of confused... thankfully, the second episode cleared a lot of things up for me. At first I wasn't so sure if I liked it or not. But then it began to grow on me. I believe I'm on episode seventeen at the moment, and I do like what I've seen so far. It has a definite plot, action and violence in decent amounts, a good balance between seriousness and humor (it's more serious than Soul Eater, and there's emotional scenes practically every other episode... but at the same time, there's still humor when appropriate), and no fanservice, amazingly. I think I've found the right show.
Jo doesn't like FMA, I believe. She thinks it's boring. She only likes how one of the main characters is voiced by the person who voices Crona, and she calls him "Crobot". I'm not sure what my mom thinks about it... she's only seen bits and pieces of like two episodes. I don't know if she'll want to watch it like she did with Soul Eater... she keeps telling me that she wants to watch Death Note, though. o3o When Rainy found out about me watching it (after I made her guess which anime I was trying... she went through like fifty different things before she guessed it =P) she said that she refused to watch it, and it sounds really stupid (even though she told me she wasn't going to bash it if I gave away what it was... that's why I was afraid to say it in the first place). That's exactly how I feel about My Little Pony except I actually tried watching it, so I guess we're even there. I'm not sure if she'd like it, but if her desired qualities in anime are anything like mine, I'd recommend it.