Fullmetal Alchemist: a review of sorts

Edit: 2008 October 18 (oddly enough I swear it's just coincidence) I don't necessarily agree as strongly with this view now regarding Edward's English voice actor. I think that probably child Edward and 12 year old Edward should have been voiced by a younger boy, or a woman, as I got into the series further I have to admit that Edward's VA developed Edward's voice pretty well after those first few episodes. I think the reason I took such exception really was those first few episodes did include enough flashbacks to when Edward should have had a younger voice that it sort of soured me on the voice all together. That and really, it's a lot to ask to stack up to Romi Paku, and her voice is the voice I was used to for Edward, so the change was rather a shock for me.

Let me just state for the record that I find the English dubbed dialog track (and soundtrack in general) of this Animé (as with most) to be completely inferior to the original Japanese.  The VA choices for the main characters seem to be the worst of all of them.  I'll pick on Edward in this case since he's the lead, and his voice presumably the MOST important one should obviously be the best, and frankly it's one of the very worst ones.  (sort of like Himura Kenshin's English speaking voice... in fact, they are almost identical, though I dislike the choice for different reasons in Kenshin's case, and still prefer his Japanese VA.)
( This might get lengthy so click to read on: )