Unboxing: Fullmetal Alchemist – The Complete Series (Blu-ray) [US]

Shortly before Anime Limited announced that they had acquired the UK distribution rights to Fullmetal Alchemist i purchased the ‘standard’ american version; was it a good move? In terms of upgraded picture quality and ‘shelf awareness’ then YES but lets not forget this US release of the series is Region Locked. So.. with all this being said what can you expect from the standard version of Fullmetal Alchemist – The Complete Series? Well lets take a look in this unboxing!

One would suggest that i was unfortunate to purchase the American set just days before the UK announcement; but seeing as i’m not usually a fan of Anime Limited’s design choices (excluding Fate/Kaleid as that is fantastic) i do not see it in that way. In any event the standard blu-ray release of Fullmetal Alchemist – The Complete Series is just like any other FUNimation release; a standard amaray box with the discs inside and a carded sleeve around it. It’s nothing flashy or over-the-top; it’s plain, simple and effective. As you can see the front cover features Edward Elric with the americanised Fullmetal Alchemist logo; the back on the other hand continues this simplified approach but features an extensive amount of product info, screenshots and bonus features – everything you would come to expect from a FUNimation release.

The inside of the packaging however is where things get interesting; for starters after removing the carded sleeve you will be welcome with singular character artwork – the front featuring Alphonse Elric with the back featuring Edward Elric – and upon opening the case up you will receive five coloured discs (which is once again starting to become the norm with FUNimation produced titles) with each disc featuring a different type of transmutation circle. If you’ve watched the show then each circle will have significance and it actually adds to the whole presentation. The reverse sleeve on the otherhand is character sketch artwork; some of which i’ve never seen before but fits quite nice into this overall presentation.

I won’t talk too much about the disc content but one can expect all 51 episodes in re-mastered High Definition quality with both 5.1 English and 2.0 Japanese audio tracks. The usual selection of bonus content has been included, of which have also been remastered, as well as a seleciton of content pulled over from the previous DVD releases – such as (now extremely out-of-date) character interviews and such. In short it’s a nice presentation; both packaging and artwork, but it will be interesting to see how Anime Limited proceeds with their release.