It’s not very often that I get the chance to see an anime movie in theatres. Aside from one Pokemon movie when I was 10, the chance really didn’t arise until Funimation started putting the Evangelion movies in theatres. Obviously I jumped at the chance to see them. Unfortunately the theatre in my area clearly didn’t know how to use whatever they had to use to for the projection and the image was faded and dark. But still, seeing them in theatres was a nice experience and I was hoping I’d get to do it again. When Funimation first announced the theatrical dates for Sacred Star of Milos I was disappointed because the “nationwide” Canadian screening only covered half the nation. But then they added more and I got to see it and the projection wasn’t shitty, so might as well review it I guess.

When a prisoner with only a few months left on his sentence breaks out, the Elric brothers set out to track him down. Their search leads them to Table City, a city on the border of Amestris and Creta. When the pair saves a young alchemist named Julia from the escaped prisoner they get caught up in a rebellion to restore the nation of Milos to its former glory.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos follows in the footsteps of movies like Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and Trigun: Badlands Rumble. All three are movies for series that had endings that would be hard to follow with a sequel, so they end up being random filler that takes place sometime during the series itself. This means the movie has no bearing, and really no connection at all, to the actual story from the series.

The movie really goes out of its way to hammer this point home by practically taking place in another country and having next to none of the major characters from the series returning. Winry is there, but all she does is worry about Ed, then fixes his arm. Mustang is there, but he just reads documents most of the time and kills a couple chimera’s offscreen. Hawkeye is there, but all she does is shoot a gun out of a guys hand towards the end of the movie. Aside from Ed and Al, no characters from the series really participate in the story.

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