About the Fullmetal Alchemist live-action

[h_itoshi]

After seeing the first trailer for the FMA live action movie, I feel that I need to settle my feelings about this into text. Because there are already reactions all around me and I will inevitably be upset later on orz. I also need to get this off my chest so I can let it go and actually study for my exam.

I love Fullmetal Alchemist. It's the best manga/anime out there in my opinion. The characters are believable, the relationships don't make me gag and I cry constantly for the last episodes of Brotherhood every single time. It also has a perfect level of horror that gets under my skin but doesn't completely traumatize me (which is difficult, I'll admit, but still).

Edward is the most well written character I've encountered in manga, mostly because he's a shounen manga main character that's not annoying the hell out of me. He's relatable, a good balance between clever and stupid and it's easy to follow his reasoning and honestly I just love him.

And I obviously love Yamada. I think he's a great actor, and I think most people (without being fans) would say he's at least good. I also think he looks the part, that he's hard working and I know he knows the original, so I have all the fate in him to portray Edward in a good way. That's not a problem.

However, I did NOT want these two fandoms mashed together. Or I do, IF it's a high budget awesome amazing film.

But. Live-action adaptions are very rarely high budget awesome amazing. They're mostly flops that nobody even cares they exist (the only exception is like Rurouni Kenshin?). And I don't want that to happen to this movie. Because I cannot stand people I know in real life bash my fandom.

I'm from the convention/anime/manga community to begin with, since I'm a cosplayer, and so most of my friends are well familiar with FMA, and I know they'll watch it. Along with the entire Internet of course but I can handle those. They're just angry opinions.

I am also really really self conscious about my Johnny's fandom, especially Jump, for a ton of reasons that mostly revolve around friends I care about saying mean things about it. And that means it takes months for me to tell people I even like Japanese music. Even longer that they're glittering boys. Because I'm basically an adult and in Sweden boybands are not appreciated, only associated with crazy 13-year-old fans of One Direction and uhm. Yeah. People judge, and I feel like I've been judged enough already.

And so, if this movie comes out bad. I'll still want to protect my fandom, and I'll be labelled a stupid fangirl and everyone I know will throw shit at my favourite group and I'm SO DONE handling that happening. Seriously, I've seen the trailer shared on facebook three times this morning by everyone from my cousin to a Trump-supporting asshole. And I'd rather not hear them google Jump and laugh at them.

I'm not saying the movie will turn out bad. I am actually very carefully optimistic about it. But if it doesn't turn out amazing, there will be haters to handle that I know personally and that never ends well. And so, I will be terrified until after the premiere.