If you kidnapped me, drove me to an underground broker far away from civilization, put a gun to my head and forced me into choosing the greatest manga/ anime of all time, first of all, please don’t do this, and secondly, I probably wouldn’t have much of a hard time saying Fullmetal Alchemist. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re going to say, “but what about *insert manga name*” and maybe you’re right, but let’s be honest; there are very few series that can hold a candle to the highs and lows of FMA.
It’s got it all! Misguided but talented brother protagonists on a quest to get their bodies back, an incredibly fantasy world with one of the most original magic systems around, a centuries long mystery, and a surprisingly tight critique of the US’ invasion of Afghanistan. I just can’t think of a manga that holds up better honestly, but since it finished in 2010, its creator Hiromu Arakawa has gone under the radar a bit for most.
Arakawa hasn’t been sitting idly in that time, she’s completed several works since then, one of the best being the slice-of-life, coming of age farming manga Silver Spoon, but outside of FMA, you don’t hear her name uttered that much outside of superfans. That’s a mistake for several reasons, especially because she has a relatively new manga that she’s actually been working on for a few years now, one that FMA fans really shouldn’t miss out on: Daemons of the Shadow Realm.
