Fullmetal Alchemist

The opening installment of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood tells an anime-original tale that lies almost entirely apart from the manga's canon. As the Elric brothers settle into life beside the military, Central City is stalked by the Freezing Alchemist, a fugitive scrawling odd transmutation circles in hidden corners of the capital. Fuhrer King Bradley seizes on Colonel Roy Mustang's visit to hand him the manhunt and nudges him toward enlisting the young Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric, whose planned detour to Reole is now stalled. When Military Police try to box the culprit into the alleys, he uses alchemy to freeze, boil, and reshape the water around him, cutting down several pursuers before Edward corners him, only for the man to wriggle free using circles tattooed on his palms.

Mustang names the quarry as Isaac McDougal, a former State Alchemist who fought in the Ishval Civil War and turned against the government once it ended. McDougal breaks into Central Prison to recruit the jailed Solf J. Kimblee, but Kimblee brushes him off, admitting he killed his own officers out of pure desire rather than any principle. Undeterred, McDougal keeps laying his circles and vows to engineer Bradley's downfall. The next day Alex Louis Armstrong discovers him, their clash draws in Ed and Al, and McDougal slides past Mustang's flames by transmuting water. Reaching one of his sites, he triggers every circle at once, and towering spires of ice burst across the city as a hidden being takes silent note of the strange new energy. Realizing McDougal could only manage such feats with a Philosopher's Stone, the brothers deduce he is shaping a vast glacial transmutation circle centered on military headquarters. While Armstrong and Mustang dismantle the ground circles, the Elrics throw him off balance; in the struggle Isaac knocks loose Alphonse's helmet, sees the empty armor and its blood-rune-bound soul, and grasps that the boys committed human transmutation. He flees a final time into an alley, where King Bradley himself cuts him down with uncanny speed, and a small red stone crumbles to dust in the spilled blood. Far off in Reole, Lust and Gluttony hear of his death and remark that he would have made a fine Human Sacrifice.

Because the story is invented for the anime and crammed with character introductions and foreshadowing absent from the source, some fans recommend skipping it on a first viewing; starting instead with Episode 2 lines the anime's opening up exactly with the manga's. Isaac McDougal is the only character exclusive to the main 2009 series, and the episode's events are referenced just twice afterward, briefly and with little lasting weight. Smaller touches abound: Alphonse begins his running list of foods to eat by adding Gracia Hughes' quiche, and Riza Hawkeye is shown carrying a briefcase of spare ignition gloves for Mustang, a detail that never returns. When McDougal staggers into the alley to meet Bradley, the palette drains to black, white, and gray except for the red glow of Philosopher's Stone energy, a shift some read as a sign that Pride had joined the fight.