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Feature

After a mysterious prisoner with only a few weeks left on his sentence breaks out of prison in Central City, the Elric brothers attempt to track him down. The search leads them to Table City in the southwestern country of Creta, where Alphonse rescues a young alchemist named Julia from the very man they are trying to capture. In the thick of the fight, they literally tumble into Julia's home turf, the slums of Milos Valley, and are embroiled in the grassroots rebellion of her people.

Video

Full Metal Alchemist Movie 2: Sacred Star of Milos comes with a bold, sharp and colourful HD presentation. The fairly sketchy art style doesn't feel quite as high end as I thought it would but for a TV show that's reached out to a second feature length movie it's still an impressive looking anime flick. Edges are razor sharp but given the sketchiness of the designs there's not a great deal of detail in the wider shots beyond the painted backgrounds. That said, some of the more detailed close ups are intricate and the presentation shows them off in a crisp fashion. Generally the use of light, whether from powers or fire glows off of the screen and the costume colours and skin tones feel a little more muted. This is another fine 2D animation presentation overall and Blu-ray really celebrates the artform once again.

Audio

The big bumps here are the action sequences, with a wider audio attack and some punchy bass. Outside of that this is largely just a playing field for dialogue and basic sound effects such as footsteps or opening doors. This makes some of the longer scenes feel a bit flat and it feeling like it needs something to kick off to lift the mood a little but everything that is here remains crisp and clear throughout. Balance wise, I found it all a bit frontal (largely down to the basic dialogue) but rear speakers are used well at times.

Extras

The 'Making of' (01:04 HD) is long and extremely detailed. Charting the prodcution from planning to the finished article. It's all split down into easy to digest chunks for each element such as writing and animation departments and really is a complete chronicle of the making of Full Metal Alchemist Movie 2: Sacred Star of Milos

The U.S. cast commentary has a sort of a cute approach initially but as it moves on it offers a real background to the U.S cast's experiences with the Japanese production. The track is light, fun, full of behind the scenes stories and a nice companion piece to the movie and the world of Full Metal Alchemist in general.

The rest of the extras are a collection of U.S trailers, TV spots and a web promo.

Overall

I seem to have arrived at the Full Metal Alchemist party a bit late in the game but I liked what I saw. The steam punky mystery adventure elements were enjoyable and the characters are largely easy to like. I'd really need to see more as I can't say that this movie got its hooks into me as a stand alone piece but with a great presentation in HD and some fantastic features, this is an easy release to recommend to fans of the franchise or indeed anime in general.

* Note: The images below are taken from the Blu-ray release and resized for the page. Full-resolution captures are available by clicking individual images, but due to .jpg compression they are not necessarily representative of the quality of the transfer.