My Favourite Stories - Part 1: Fullmetal Alchemist

I’ve decided this year to begin a series of blogs called My Favourite Stories. As the title suggests, I’ll be sharing my ten favourite stories and explaining why they are so meaningful to me. These will be published in no particular order of preference. I will write these posts so as to minimize any potential spoilers.

This month I am beginning with Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s a safe one to start with, as I’ve met dozens of people who consider it to be one of their favourite stories as well.

I have a laundry list of reasons as to why Fullmetal Alchemist is peak fiction. I could mention the immaculately-structured plot, the compelling character development, the rich worldbuilding, or inspired magic system. 

That being said, what really sets this story apart for me are its themes. Ultimately, it’s a story about the complex dynamic between science and religion, and at a deeper level - reason and faith.

Fullmetal Alchemist does something incredibly unique: it creates a fascinating inversion of rationality and spirituality. In the universe Arakawa has created, scientific concepts like the law of conservation of mass are given a religious significance through the alchemists’ mantra “All is one, One is all.” At the same time, religious concepts like the human soul can be scientifically measured, extracted, and weaponized as though it were an element on the periodic table.

What is most impressive is how this story conveys all these profound ideas entirely through action and character. There was no need for philosophical monologuing in order to present these ideas, since they were all embodied by the characters and the ways they acted.

The reason Fullmetal Alchemist has such a close place in my heart is because it was the first story that started to pull me out of my belligerent atheist phase when I was sixteen. Had it not been for this incredible work, I never would’ve blossomed into the belligerent agnostic which I am today.

I’d like to pay some credit to Thomas Ambrosini and Jared Bauer for these revelations as well, as the interpretation of Fullmetal Alchemist which I have shared is not mine entirely. They have a video essay posted on the YouTube channel Wisecrack which I would highly recommend.