call that fma posting

FMA03: “there will never be a war that isn’t in some way caused by all of us”

in 03, the narration happens before the opening on every episode - except episodes 1 and 51 - and it's mostly the same every time. al's voice gives a textbook definition of equivalent exchange before connecting it to his and ed's life, and it's said over music, with images of pictures of the boys as they grow up, which are slowly taken away by an encroaching fire. it's grounded and personal and becomes very familiar, then the show then changes this narration in the final season (in the dub they even change it to be ED narrating instead of al), adding more intense drums in the background, and adding a picture of ed and al as we currently know them at the end. it's a consistent repeating pattern that you can come to expect, so when it does change, like at the beginning of the final season or when the final episode cuts straight to the opening, you're like, oh shit! things are getting intense! and when the final episode wraps up with al quoting the exact thing he's been saying at the beginning of every episode, but this time coming to a different conclusion, it's such a nice bookend

brotherhood meanwhile has an opening narration by the unseen narrator giving a textbook definition of alchemy before stating that human transmutation is forbidden. it's cut with very literal imagery and a choir singing in the background. it's authoritative yet disconnected from the reality of the show -- these images we see are completely non-diagetic, with visuals of DNA strands, alchemy circles, and even pictures of ed and al just floating in space, whereas the 03 portraits (and voices) are characters and settings that we know. and worst of all, it only shows up during the first season and never again. it's not consistent enough to become familiar, and they never do anything interesting with it since it drops off before we ever even see the second opening, so it just leaves you wondering... what was the point of having it in the first place?