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The art is fantastic, but that's about it.

The story is more or less a loose commentary on capitalism, tackling loneliness, cyclical generational jadedness/rosy-retrospection, having meaning in life, and coping with a loss of said meaning - providing a look into the "real" inner workings of the manga/entertainment industry.

Overall, the protagonist just fills the aching void in his soul with "the pleasures of the flesh" for like half the narrative. Most of the other characters are just concerned about preserving their professions - as you'd expect of any self-loving professional or anybody for that matter.

I think there's very little payoff for reading it beyond becoming needlessly ... depressed with the "realism."

I cannot drive this point home enough, but I found Edward to be absolutely insufferable. This is key, because he is our protagonist, and if you can't make nice with him and enjoy his time on-screen within the first, say, 5 episodes, your time watching this show for a full 64 episodes will be painful. If you enjoy random, poorly-timed, mood-breaking comedic bantering, this show is for you. If not, carry on, have a nice day, you are simply here to window shop.

Aside from the poor comedy, the story is generally the classic growth/redemption journey - there's an issue (Edward performs forbidden alchemy), bad things ... happen (limbs are lost), Edward and company set sail on a voyage to make things right (find the Philosopher's Stone). It mostly becomes the case of a bad guy appearing, Edward and company beat the bad guy, they continue on their journey. You discover some of their growing pains and get more attached to them, and so forth. It's a perfectly serviceable story - a classic formula. 5/10.

Animation is classic 2000s style. Backgrounds are well detailed, characters do leave much to be desired on detail and shading, there is some variance in facial structure, which is nice to see. I'd say 6/10.

Audio is perfectly fine. SFX (explosions, armor clanking, etc) gets the job done, voice acting (dubbed) was again fine (no real standout performances, beyond maybe Armstrong), OST wasn't terribly memorable, but the opening was pretty darn good. I'd say a 6/10.

As far as characters, you already know my stance on Edward. As for everyone else, such as Alphonse, Roy, Maes, even Riza, I thought they were all strong characters with good differentiation and things to appreciate about them. They made the pain of Edward if only slightly bearable. Sadly, they cannot counter the weight that Edward has as the main character - 4/10.

Again, if you can take a single thing away from this, liking/disliking Edward will likely drive a good part of your impression and enjoyment of the show, at least it did for me. 5/10

I would suggest Youjo Senki over FMAB all day, every day as something fairly similar to watch in the fantasy/military genre.

From what I've watched/read, if you enjoyed Osamu Tezuka's and Naoki Urasawa's previous works like Monster, Metropolis and even Astro Boy, you'll more than likely adore this show. If not, I'd say move along. In the admittedly little I've indulged in this so far, Pluto largely becomes a show with predictable and formulaic plot progression (essentially, fight of the week) by the end of the first episode, so not the best start. The hardly enticing mystery elements like the human-robot ambiguity of the antagonist and the arguably silly "natural disasters" don't give that yearning feeling to keep watching.

The story is fairly run-of-the-mill mystery-wise, but Osamu's ... take on the sci-fi, near-future, human-robot symbiotic society/world is really the reason why Pluto should be tried. The approach to human-robot and robot-robot relationships was very compellingly and intriguingly presented. The world-wide scope of the story is also very appreciated, breaking up the mundanity of the abundance of stories solely set in Japan. However, the blatant and recurrent nods to Roman and Greek mythology and symbolism was pretty on the nose, such as the obvious "Pluto." It's like, "I get it, you're familiar with Western literature." I'd say the story is a 5/10.

The animation is superb, no complaints, beyond nitpicking. Shadows, VFX, edges, background detail, landscapes, character facial structure, and skin texture are on point. The 3D CG is especially good - some of the best I've seen. An easy 9/10 for the animation.

The audio is entirely serviceable. Music scores are well performed, SFX (driving, walking, flying, combat) gets the point across, voice acting is well done. 6/10.

The characters are solid, but they are hard to become meaningfully attached to (in some instances), given the premise of the story - "conspiratorial plot to dismantle the eight specialized robots." They are a vessel to try and empathize with, but your mileage may vary. As for Gesicht, he is a fitting protagonist for the sci-fi, mystery detective setting, no glaring complaints. 6/10.

Generally, this adaptation does quite faithfully adapt the manga, and I think it does it justice. But, the story can really only be as good as the source material. And, for that, I feel fairly indifferent toward this show, but I score it a 7/10 - largely because of the great animation quality.

I'd suggest watching the Psycho Pass franchise, instead.

A really insightful look at the lesser-known campaigns of the Japanese in southeast Asia, that aren't often covered in Western movies and documentaries of WWII. As the name suggests, the show centers around the decision[s] (Ketsudan) of the commanders of the campaigns (the successes and failures) from both sides of the conflict and synthesizes these lessons-learned into easily digestible bits at the end of each episode.

The story is a historically accurate (aside from some questionable side-stories between the Japanese Navy and Parachutists) retelling of the Japanese Pacific campaign, not much else to say.

The animation style is par for the course for a 1970s animated show ... - fairly grainy, manually moved frames to communicate action or explosions, lots of noticeable animation loops, and some occasional rough sketch work. Actual wartime footage is also sporadically mixed in to limited effect. The footage caught me by surprise, but I don't feel it added all that much to the show overall.

As for audio, there are numerous, noticeable repeated sound bites throughout the show - gunfire effects, "to-arms" horns, explosion effects, running effects. It starts to get tiresome after a few episodes. The voice actors did a solid job communicating the struggles and emotions of the conflict, albeit a lot of the time it was just them yelling orders (fire!, to battle stations!, what?!). It's also important that the translation (at least the one I managed to find) be mentioned. There is a lot of rough translation, grammar errors, confusingly translated words, words translated to romaji and not proper English ("Gum" versus "Guam," "Labaul" versus "Rabaul," "Naked" versus "Without Aircover." You have to have a pretty good understanding of frequently used Japanese words, important locations of conflict, general naval/aviation terms, and cultural Japanese context to fully appreciate the show with this translation.

On Characters (historical figures), a good number of lesser-known commanders and admirals make an appearance (particularly the British), again making this a very educational watch. But, there are also the must-haves like Yamamoto and MacArthur.

I generally enjoyed the show, particularly the coverage of the lesser-known southeast Asian Japanese campaigns/struggles. However, the rough translation, generally poor quality of the 1970s animation (as compared to Zipang for example), and annoyingly repeated audio bits detract from the enjoyment in my eyes.