Why the chibi slapstick?


I don't consider myself a big anime fan, but I watched this series happily all the way through. At first it didn't convince me at all, but after a few episodes it picked up steam.

But one thing bothered and annoyed me the whole time: the completely out of place, cheesy slapstick humor which often took me out of the experience. Having the characters suddenly turn into their chibi forms, yelling like they're at a metal concert or crying rivers of tears, it just never felt appropriate in any of the situations. It felt more like a way of underlining the comedy, almost like saying: "THIS IS FUNNY. YOU SHALL NOW LAUGH AT THIS. LAUGHTER OF 3.5 SECONDS PERMITTED."

Why did they have to include it? I understand it's in the manga (which I haven't read), but was it really necessary to be loyal in that regard as well? When you have a show which has genocide, an effectively militarist state, people getting burned to cinders, impaled, shot, having their brains blown out from the inside and losing limbs, having that kind of kindergarten-level slapstick feels really out of place. It's not like they were actually making this show for kindergarteners, so why couldn't they just leave the slapstick out?

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You've asked the question i've been asking myself since i started watching Brotherhood and i still don't know.

"Human kind can not gain anything without first giving something in return- Alphonse Elric

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It's kind of a Japanese anime/manga thing. When someone is embarrassed, goofily angry, or humorously in love, that happens in many animes, not just this one. It's just a way of lightening the mood from an otherwise violent and dark series. That's just Japanese humor :D

I am starting to believe that this Fuzzy fellow doesn't exist.

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I think you're right. Kids watch these shows.


Sheldon:"Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? Because you might have been watching Nickelodeon".

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[deleted]

it was exactly as you say and i think that's why the original left it out for the most part. i'm only 5 episodes in and it is insanely distracting. the comparison brotherhood gives to the original series has cemented my belief that it is absolutely okay, even necessary, for anime series to deviate from the manga.

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I found it distracting too, at first. I think it's nice to have a little break from the serious stuff; it'd be pretty dour if none of the characters had any sense of humour. Anyway, I kind of forget about it once things get serious again.

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Agreed. I usually don't mind chibi or anything like that, but I feel like they use it at all the wrong times..

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Completely agree. This was the only downside to Brotherhood. I kinda get why they did it but at the same time it does nothing but detract from the story and characters. Japanese humor I guess.

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I had the same reaction. I really enjoyed the series overall, but the chibi-slapstick stuff was an obstacle. It was probably intended to add humour into the mix, but at times it just made the series feel tonally inconsistent.

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That's just the way they are. It's like how we Westerners have our own brand of humour and they probably don't get it. xD It's all about differing cultures. Personally I'm not bothered by the humour in the show. I find it hilarious.

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Well firstly, a lot of japanese anime tend to portray humor with chibi characters doing weird random *beep* it's there in naruto, bleach and a lot of other anime shows which can't seem to come to my mind because my my memory's weak. But I just think it's kinda cute and lightens the mood from all the seriousness going on in that particular episode so I like it ^.^

But I'm solely judging from brotherhood's take on comedy because I haven't seen fullmetal alchemist.

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Couldn't agree with you more OP. As soon as I began watching, that stupid chibi stuff as i guess it's called started to really take me out of it.

As someone else noted, the more you watch, the more you just sort of ignore it.

I came into Brotherhood with high expectations due to all the praise it seems to received - and don't get me wrong, I'm loving it (Since episode 15 or so when we see Bradley has some serious sword fighting skills, I've been absolutely addicted) - But I think the Chibi stuff is going to keep it out of my top few anime series'.

Still have 8 Episodes to go tho, so we'll see how it ends up before I make a final decision on that.

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That anime mixes serious and dark stuff and funny, cute and lightearted stuff is one of the many reasons why i think anime is way better than most western movies and TV shows nowadays so i dont agree with you at all.
Here in the west it seems people think stuff should either always be serious all the time or funny all the time and that things should have a set tone that is always the same but i dont like that at all with most stuff.
Anime can have a serious and dark story and still have funny and cute and lighthearted things in it and anime comedy shows can still have a serious story, interesting characters and emotional moments.
Its just way more fun and enjoyable to me when a show or movie mixes serious and fun stuff instead of being the same during the entire thing and i think it gives it way more charm and personality and makes it feel more special and memorable.

The old Simpsons episodes for example are about comedy but they tried to tell interesting storys and tried to make you care about the characters so they felt way better and way more memorable than the new Simpson episodes that are only trying to be funny and nothing else and Family Guy, American Dad and other American animated comedy shows nowadays dont even care about telling an interesting story or make you like the characters for any other reason than them being funny.
With the old Simpsons episodes it was fine to have a serious story on a Comedy show but now people would complain that it cant decide what tone it should have and i really hate all that annoying talk about tone.
Most shows and movies dont need a set tone and changing it up makes it more fun and interesting.

So i love that anime mixes serious and dark stuff with funnny and cute stuff and like i said before its one of the many reasons why i think anime is way better than most western media nowadays.
And i love chibis and think its very fun and enjoyable to see the characters change into those more funny looking and cute forms during funny and lighthearted moments and its great to both have the characters normal serious look and different funny looks.

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Comic relief has been around since Shakespeare and beyond. The thing is the Chibi stuff really isn't funny, in general, to a western audience. It's just grating. Fullmetal Alchemist has lots of great hard-hitting philosophical and emotionally charged material and then you have Ed screaming "AAAAAAAAAAAAGH I JUST CALLED MYSELF SHORT!" There's nothing wrong with reminding your audience every once in a while that Ed is in fact still a child and therefore very immature but the way they do this feels excruciatingly forced at times (particularly in the first ten episodes or so) as if they made the episode and were reminded by their superiors that they had to include some humour and they went back and just shoehorned it in retroactively. The humour never feels like a part of the story, it feels like something that was tacked onto it.

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