Fullmetal Alchemist

Fullmetal Alchemist is a Japanese manga and anime franchise created by Hiromu Arakawa, serialized from 2001 to 2010, set in a fictional world where alchemy functions as a scientific discipline, and following brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric as they search for the legendary Philosopher's Stone to restore their bodies after a forbidden alchemical ritual to revive their dead mother goes catastrophically wrong. The manga's roughly 27 collected volumes sold more than 80 million copies worldwide, and it was adapted into two separate anime television series, the original 2003 series, which diverged from the still unfinished manga into its own ending, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which began in 2009 and followed the manga's story to its completion, both accompanied by theatrical films. The franchise is frequently ranked among the best regarded anime and manga series ever produced for its tightly constructed plotting and its treatment of themes including war, sacrifice and the ethical limits of scientific power, and Brotherhood in particular is consistently cited among the highest rated anime series on major audience aggregation sites.