Fullmetal Alchemist

Full Metal Alchemist is a Japanese anime about two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, who at a young age have taught themselves the art of Alchemy, a form of magic that uses transmutations circles to create objects out of different elements. Edward and Alphonse's father left their family when they were very young and only had their mother to take care of them. But she died when the boys were young. Missing their mother they decided to perform illegal alchemy in order to bring her back.

Their attempt however, went horribly wrong and it cost the young boys. For Edward it cost him his leg and for Alphonse his entire body. In order to save his brother, Edward sacrificed his arm in order to retrieve his brother's soul. Edward was only able to fix Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor. After making their costly mistake the brother's are determined to find the legendary Philosopher's stone, which gives the ability to perform alchemy without transmutation circles, in order to get their bodies back. In order to make the search for the Philosopher's stone, Edward gets a new arm and leg made of automail and joins the military as a State Alchemist.

Hoping to gain access to the libraries of the military he hopes he can find out where to find the stone or how to even make one. But during his search he discovers that he has not been the only one searching for the stone and that it has been made before at a high price. Edward and Alphonse have good intentions but their good intentions run into others with bad intentions during their search. All these boys want to do is put things right. Especially Edward, because throughout the series he deals with his guilt that he put his brother into the lonely situation of being stuck within a suit of armor and he worries Alphonse will be like that forever. Alphonse knows of Edward's guilty feelings and tries to get him to understand that it wasn't only his fault but it doesn't seem to change Edward and just seems to drive him more towards their goal of finding the Philosopher's stone. They try to keep their real intentions secret so they don't get anyone else involved. But others do get involved and there are casualties to friends of the Elric brothers.

This too drives them even more toward fulfilling their goal because they do not want their friend's sacrifices to have been for nothing if they do not find the Philosopher's stone. You begin to feel for the Elric brothers and hope they achieve their goal. They are very young and they are faced with a lot of tough choices that one so young should not have to face. It's sad to watch these young boys lose out on their childhood. You hope that one day Edward and Alphonse will reach their goal and find peace and be able to live out the rest of lives quietly.

It's because of this emotional connection that you form with these characters that makes this a great anime. It is a bit far fetched but what anime isn't! You care for these characters and it's important that you care about what is going on as you watch or else it wouldn't be exciting to watch. I give it a rating of 5!