There are currently two anime adaptations of Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist manga. Rather famously, the 2003 adaptation completely diverged from its source material in its second half in favor of telling its own story, while 2009’s Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood largely stayed true to the manga’s narrative. However, despite how beloved both series are, neither is the adaptation that the manga truly deserves.

Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the most legendary anime to ever air on Adult Swim, and it’s overdue for a definitive remake. The original is a nostalgic classic, and Brotherhood is commonly hailed as one of the best anime of all time, but both suffer from flaws that the manga doesn’t, and change things unnecessarily. A new remake of FMA could serve as a one-to-one adaptation of Arakawa’s flawless manga, while also attracting a brand-new audience to the series with modern animation on par with My Hero Academia’s and Gachiakuta’s.

Arguments over whether the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist or Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is superior have gone on for a decade and a half. While Brotherhood is unquestionably the more popular of the two, having long held the #1 spot on MyAnimeList until the premiere of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, both series have their respective strengths and weaknesses, and neither of them is perfect. There are perfectly good reasons to prefer one adaptation over the other in both cases, and there are reasons why anime fans today may not enjoy either.

2003’s Fullmetal Alchemist holds a special place in the hearts of many older fans, due to its presence on Adult Swim allowing it to become one of the first anime to blow up in the West. For its first half, FMA generally follows the story of Hiromu Arakawa’s manga, with a few filler episodes mixed in here and there. However, even during this portion of the anime, it departs from the manga with its tone. The 2003 series takes a darker and more cinematic approach to its art and direction than either the manga or Brotherhood, and whether this is a positive change or a negative one is subjective. Less subjective is the utter mess that FMA turns into after it stops adapting the manga, and begins telling its own original story. Matching its direction and taking a much darker approach to its narrative, the 2003 adaptation has some interesting ideas, most notably in how it re-imagines Wrath, Envy, and Sloth, but its plot is horribly constructed, and this stands out greatly when the manga and Brotherhood tell one of the best-plotted stories in all of fiction.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is a masterpiece, but there are reasons other than nostalgia that fans of the 2003 series sometimes deride it. Without question, the biggest critique of the anime is its rough start. Brotherhood, despite being created to be a loyal adaptation, begins with a filler episode, which is followed by a flashback to the Elric Brothers’ origins. Only at Episode 3 does the anime reach the actual start of the story in Liore, and the series proceeds to then rush through the events of the manga up until the resolution of the battle at the fifth laboratory. Studio Bones seemingly felt that the first episode needed to be action-packed and to feature all the main characters, and that fans wouldn’t want to sit through a properly paced adaptation of events already depicted in the 2003 anime. None of it is outright bad but, combined with the series’ lack of filler outside Episode 1, it can be tough to get invested in the characters, and everything that happens around them. While the rest of the series from Episode 10 onwards is close to flawless narratively, those who prefer the darker tone of FMA 2003 will commonly agree that Brotherhood’s lighter and more comedic tone doesn’t suit the story at all.

Despite the immense popularity both its adaptations possess, the original Fullmetal Alchemist manga is extremely underrated. Outside Japan, manga in general is drastically less popular than anime, but rarely is the gap between a manga and an anime’s popularity so enormous as with FMA. It’s especially noticeable compared to other titans of the Shonen genre, such as Dragon Ball and One Piece, the mangas of which are very frequently read by Western fans. This is a real shame as, along with missing out on Hiromu Arakawa’s gorgeous art and fantastic action paneling, fans are also left expressing their love for her magnum opus without ever having experienced the best version of it.

Due to the flaws of both FMA 2003 and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the Fullmetal Alchemist manga is the superior way to consume the story of the Elric Brothers. It tells a refined, beautiful story that works on every level, unlike the grimdark, filler-ridden nightmare that is FMA 2003, and it does so without the atrocious pacing issues of Brotherhood. Even 2003 fans who dislike Brotherhood for its tone should be open to giving the manga a shot as, while it is still a lighthearted tale, it’s not quite as goofy and exaggerated in its humor as its second adaptation.

A third Fullmetal Alchemist anime could supplant the manga as the best version of the story, and do so rather easily. All it would need to do is be a one-to-one adaptation of the manga, with high production values. New fans would relish this remake, and it isn’t as if it wouldn’t have anything of substance to offer older fans. After all, there are details from the manga that both Brotherhood and the 2003 anime neglected to include. Likewise, due to the haste with which Brotherhood needed to move its story along, there are actually elements of the manga only adapted by the 2003 series. Most importantly, though, passionate fans would finally be able to recommend FMA without needing to mention that the version they’re suggesting watching either isn’t loyal to the manga, or takes 10 episodes to get good.

A new remake of Fullmetal Alchemist could do much more for the franchise than to simply tell the most refined version of its story. The fact of the matter is that while both the 2003 series and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood feature fantastic fights and animation, they aren’t up to 2025’s standards for Shonen battle anime. The original take on Ed vs Greed is a classic, and Scar vs Wrath in Brotherhood is an all-time great Shonen fight, but these are the best that the two adaptations have to offer and, visually, they don’t hold a candle to fights in anime like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, or Solo Leveling. And, with how much flashy animation tends to matter to younger, modern Shonen fans, there has been a visible decline in the series’ notoriety, especially in Brotherhood’s case.

A new remake of Fullmetal Alchemist can give the series the fresh coat of paint that it so desperately needs, if it’s to preserve its popularity. The franchise’s typical animation studio, Studio Bones, is certainly up to the task of accomplishing things. Since completing Brotherhood, they’ve gone on to animate outstanding, beloved series like Space Dancy, My Hero Academia, and Mob Psycho 100, and they’ve just begun their wonderful adaptation of Gachiakuta. With animation up to the standards set by these anime, a new Fullmetal Alchemist series could easily be the most hype, most emotional, and most popular yet. This is without even taking into account how the popularity of anime as a whole has surged since Brotherhood concluded 15 years ago, meaning a new FMA series would have the capacity to find a larger audience than its predecessors purely by being released in 2025. As loved as Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood were during their respective times on Adult Swim, Crunchyroll would enable a third adaptation of the FMA manga to achieve unprecedented heights of success.

Part of Fullmetal Alchemist’s appeal is that it is a timeless story, and one that will always be relevant. If a remake of the anime were to tell the best possible version of this story, while being presented with beautiful animation up to modern standards, it could easily be one of the best television series of all time. More than enough time has passed since Brotherhood concluded, and this remake is longer overdue.