List of Fullmetal Alchemist episodes
Fullmetal Alchemist is an anime television series loosely based on the manga series Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is one of the most advanced scientific techniques, the story follows two alchemist brothers named Edward and Alphonse Elric, who want to recover parts of their bodies lost in an attempt to bring their deceased mother back to life through alchemy.
Produced by Bones and directed by Seiji Mizushima, the series aired in Japan on MBS and TBS from October 4, 2003, to October 2, 2004. It later aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block in the United States from November 7, 2004, to March 19, 2006. An anime film titled Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa, a sequel to the television series, premiered in Japanese theaters on July 23, 2005; and it premiered in the U.S. on August 24, 2006. A series of five original video animations were also released. The majority of these OVAs are side stories and do not expand on the plot. In 2009, an anime television series reboot, titled Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood for the English release, started broadcast on MBS and TBS, being directed by Yasuhiro Irie. Brotherhood is an independent second adaptation that directly follows the events of the manga and ignores the original anime's continuity.
The first series has been released in a series of thirteen DVDs from December 17, 2003, to January 26, 2005, in Japan. Funimation also released the same series of DVDs from February 8, 2005, to September 12, 2006, in the United States. MVM had released the first eight volumes in the United Kingdom; however, Funimation gave the rights over to Revelation Films. In March 2006 a DVD featuring the OVAs was released in Japan with the name of Fullmetal Alchemist: Premium Collection. Funimation acquired and dubbed the Premium Collection, which was released on August 4, 2009. During January from 2009, Bones released a "DVD box archives" of the anime. It includes the first anime of 51 episodes, the film, the CD soundtracks, and guidebooks from the series.
Eight pieces of theme music are used for the episodes. Each of the theme songs was performed by artists under Sony Music Entertainment Japan's label, whose anime distribution unit, Aniplex, handled the production and music production for the series. The music score was composed and arranged by Michiru Oshima. For episodes 2–13 the opening theme is "Melissa" by Porno Graffitti and the ending theme is "Kesenai Tsumi" by Nana Kitade. Episode 1 also uses "Melissa," but it uses it as an ending theme, and it doesn't have an opening theme. For episodes 14–25 the opening theme is "Ready Steady Go" by L'Arc-en-Ciel and the ending theme is "Tobira no Mukō e" by Yellow Generation. For episodes 26–41 the opening theme is "Undo" by Cool Joke and the ending theme is "Motherland" by Crystal Kay. For episodes 42-51 the opening theme is "Rewrite" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation and the ending theme is "I Will" by Sowelu. All episodes that originally opened with "Melissa" and "Undo" had "Ready Steady Go" shown in place of those songs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and YTV's Bionix. The DVD releases from Funimation include all openings in their original places and format.