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Imagine a world in which Alchemy is not only possible, but used frequently. Alchemy, though, is a science, and with all sciences there are laws that must be followed. Welcome to the anime, Full Metal Alchemist. The story begins about two brothers, Alphonse (left) and Edward (right) Elric. Ever since they were young they had practiced the science of alchemy. You follow their journey of being alchemists and their quest to regain that which they have lost.

Their father was a well recognized alchemist, which is probably where their knack for it comes from. However, when they were young their father left, and they remained in the care of their mother. One day their mother died, and in their innocence and ignorance, they attempted what was forbidden, human alchemy.

What happened next, they were obviously not prepared for, and in the aftermath the brothers lost more than just their mother. In the freak accident Alphonse loses his body, and in a moment of panic Edward ties his brother's soul to a piece of armor. Edward himself loses an arm and a leg, a costly reminder of what has happend.

Edward Elric, the older of the two brothers, is charactaristically short. But following the principles of equvalent trade, what he loses in height, he gains in his abilities as an alchemist. Edward becomes the youngest state alchemist in history, a prodigal genius.

As all state alchemists have, he is given a codename, Full Metal Alchemist, rooting from his auto-mail (artificial metal) body, his arm and leg.

In order to recover his original body, along with his brother, he travels to find the philosopher's stone.

Alphonse Elric is the younger brother to Edward. He too has a profound knack at alchemy, but is not a state alchemist, which allows him to do certain things that Edward cannot do.

Of the two brothers, Alphonse would be the kinder and more understanding of them. Through their trials and tribulations, he keeps his reckless brother out of too much trouble.

The auto-mail specialist and childhood friend of the Elric brothers, Winry lives with Aunt Pinako. She is the creator of Edward's auto-mail and its mechanic.

Orphaned by the death of her parents during a civil war, Winry stays with Pinako learning the tricks of the trade in terms of auto-mail.

She lives with her grandmother and pet dog in Resembool.

Flame Alchemist

Name: Mustang, Roy

Rank: Lt. Colonel

Specialty: Flame

Roy Mustang is a state alchemist, specializing in flame alchemy. He has
achieved his rank from his prior achievements during the eastern Ishbal war.

His alchemy resides with the use of his fiber-synthetic gloves, that have a transmutation circle sewn into them.

At first glance, Roy is nothing more than a cocky man who would jump at the chance to see women in skirts, but in reality he is a determined person, who is not so easily defeatable.

Name: Hawkeye, Riza

Rank: First Lieutenant

Specialty: Pistols

Riza Hawkeye is Roy Mustang's subordinate, acting as his advisor and his aid.
Hawkeye is very skilled in the use of firearms. She is always calm and cool, and not easily perturbed by many things. However, she is secretly feared by her peers.

She is the only one of Mustang's subordinates that can talk back to him without any consequences. Perhaps it is because she has kept him in line on his steady rise through the ranks of the military.

This above average and well done anime follows the story of Uzumaki Naruto, a boy trodden upon in his village. His village however, is a special village dedicated to the arts of Ninjutsu, and many powerful ninjas emerge from it.

Born and infused with a demon nine tailed fox, Naruto was hated with passion by many of the older villagers. Even their children picked up on it and started to hate him as well. Naruto however, felt loneliness and sadness in his life, a pain that isn't normal. He wants to be acknowledged and pledged on becoming Hokage, the title of referring to the strongest ninja in the country.

But he has a long way to go. And will meet many people he calls friends in this world of ninjas, where allegiances shift quickly as lightning. Join Naruto on his journey on becoming Hokage, or perhaps even greater.

Naruto is the number one loudest ninja of the Leaf Village. He is loud, hyperactive, clumsy, kind of stupid and he dreams of becoming hokage. Although Naruto definitely isn't the smartest or most talented ninja of the Leaf Village, he does have one hell of a lot of chakra at his disposal.

Twelve years before Naruto graduated from the academy a powerful demon called Kyuubi terrorized the Leaf Village. The Fourth Hokage managed to seal the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox within Naruto, but unfortunately he didn't survive the battle himself.

The Fourth wanted Naruto to be seen as a hero, a boy who saved the village from Nine-Tails. But unfortunately that wasn't meant to be. Many of the older villagers saw Naruto as the Nine-Tails himself, and hated and ignored him for it.Because of this, Naruto desperately seeks for acknowledgement for his existence. He is a first-class prankster and he tells everyone he will someday become the hokage of his village. Because of this, Naruto desperately seeks for acknowledgement for his existence. He is a first-class prankster and he tells everyone he will someday become the hokage of his village.

The first person to really acknowledge Naruto's existence is teacher Iruka. Ikura really looked after Naruto and taught him the values of life. If it wasn't for him, Naruto probably wouldn't be where he is now. In combat Naruto isn't exactly what you would call a genius. He is more the type who would charge in head on to his opponent, although from time to time Naruto does have his moments with some deceiving tactics he comes up with. But Naruto is not to be underestimated. He has a lot of chakra at his disposal, especially when he learns to tap in to Kyuubi's chakra. This huge amount of chakra makes him able to go berserk (like he did against Haku) and summon Gamabunta.

Sakura is on the same team as Naruto and Sasuke, so another one of Kakashi's students. Altough she's one of the main characters in the series, she plays a more supportive part in the beginning. When we see her, basically things get focused on her love for Sasuke. But as the storylines continues she adventually gets strongers too. She's a very smart student, and graduated from the academy with top grades. She has a perfect control over her Chakra, but lacks the will to become an excellent ninja. She has no unique skills, nor do we see her do any training in the series. But Kakashi do said that she has some skill in genjutsu. So if we would have to expect Sakura learning new skills, it'll probably be in that area.

She has quite a history with Ino too. Sakura is somebody who got picked on because of here wide forehead when she was little. Ino was one of her first friends, and said if she didn't hide her forehead so much, she wouldn't get picked on whole the time. She also said 'Sakura, you will bloom into a beautiful flower one day.'. From that day on, they became best friends.

But the day Sakura told Ino she was in love with Sasuke too, she also said to Ino that from that day on they couldn't be friends anymore. Now they're rivals who compete over Sasuke's attention and love. Now when Sakura meets Ino, it's more like 'Ah, Ino-Pig...'. But as the series continues, Sakura undergoes some changes. Her obsession on Sasuke will lessen, and her respect towords the "not-so-cool" group like Naruto and Lee will grow. But not only will she gain some some respect towards other people. She also gets a little envious, and remembers that she should also try her best, too.

Sasuke is one of the few survivors of the Uchiha Clan, one of the most powerful clans of the Leaf Village. He is the number one rookie genin and is considered a genius. Sasuke has a very mysterious and bloody past, and his only goal in life is revenge.

Sasuke is a dark and serious kid. This makes him look cool to all of the girls in his class, but he doesn't care about that. Sasuke only cares about revenge, and to do this he needs to become strong, very strong. The exact reason for his lust for vengeance is still unknown, but it does have something to do with his elder brother and parents. His father and Mother along with the entire Uchiha clan other than Sasuke were murdured by his older brother Itachi. Sasuke has sworn to take revenge and kill Itachi. He was willing to do anything to get enough power to do so.

Sasuke is teamed up with Naruto and Sakura. At first Sasuke wasn't to happy about his little group, with Sakura having a huge crush on him and Naruto being the number one loudest ninja of the Leaf Village. But after some life and death battles they fought together Sasuke came to respect them. Especially Naruto, at first Sasuke thougt of Naruto as a loser, but then Naruto saved his life in the battle against Haku and Zabuza. Naruto defeated an enemy Sasuke himself couldn't handle. His pride was hurt, but he started to respect Naruto and started seeing him as his rival rather then some useless loser.

Because Sasuke is a descendant of the Uchiha Clan he possesses it's Bloodline. This gives him the ability to use the Sharingan. With his Sharingan, Sasuke is able to see through an opponent's strategy and counter it. He is also able to copy moves with it and improve them, like he did with one of Lee's TaiJutsu moves. If you ad up the fact that Sasuke was already a very talented ninja even before he could use his Sharingan, you have a very powerful ninja who improves really fast and has even greater potential.

Kakashi is the sensei of Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. He is known as "the Copy Ninja Sharingan Kakashi" all over the world, and it is rumored that he has memorized over 1000 jutsu. At first glance you would never guess Kakashi is a very powerful jounin. He's very relaxed and sometimes even somewhat slow. He also loves to read his romantic (or is it dirty?) book "Come Come Paradise". However, in this case, appearances can be deceiving. Kakashi is known throughout the world as a formidable adversary and he was an apprentice of the Fourth Hokage.

Kakashi is a very good but very strict teacher. Prior to Naruto's team, he had never allowed any of the teams he was to teach become genins. He uses the same teaching methods the Third and Fourth Hokages used, and he emphasizes teamwork above all else. He feels that someone who does not understand teamwork is not worthy of becoming a ninja.

Kakashi has a sharingan in only one of his eyes. This is unusual because normally sharingan affects both eyes. The most likely explanation for this is that it was surgically implanted.
The sharingan gives Kakashi a huge advantage in battle. He is able to read and copy his opponents moves with it. Almost all of Kakashi's moves are copied from other ninjas. The only exception is the Chidori. The Chidori or "Lightning Edge" as Kakashi nicknamed it, is Kakashi's sole original technique.

Team 7 Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi

Team 7 is a group of ninja affiliated with the village of Konohagakure, and it is composed of the series' primary characters. Due to Sasuke Uchiha's departure from Konohagakure at the end of Part I, the team is disbanded. During Part II, the team is reformed with two new members, Sai, who occupies Sasuke's position, and Yamato, who acts as Kakashi's replacement when he is briefly incapacitated and later stays with the team when Kakashi returns.

Kiba is part of the Inuzuka clan which specialize in beast type of attacks and pairing up with other animals to successfully complete their missions. Kiba is a very strong character but at the same time still is a soft character who cares for his friends.
Kiba fights with his partner Akamaru the faithful dog who willingly abides by the commands Kiba sets forth for him, the 2 are a devastating duo who cause considerable amounts of damage to the enemies. When we first see them fight as 1 is when they are pit up against Naruto in the Pre-fights for the chuunin exam, their strength together was enough to cause considerable damage to Naruto, but their weakness is their heightened sense of smell, which enhances all smells 1000 times that of its original smell.

Personality wise Kiba seems to be very caring for his comrades and at the same time can be a jerk, this makes Kiba become more of a variable character of the series, not so much has really been released about Kiba thus far, though in time there will be a more in tuned and more integrated part of Kiba in the series.

Akamaru is the faithful dog of Kiba, who usually sits on top of Kiba's head. Kiba uses him as a tool in combat and Akamaru has proven to be useful to do various things. For example: He can pick up the scent of enemies and determine wether they're hostile or not. He can also perform combo jutsu's together with Kiba. But to kiba, Akamaru is not just a tool or ninja-dog, they have become very close, as a matter of fact Akamaru threw himself in front of kiba to protect him from an attack.

Hyuuga Hinita is part of the family branch of the Hyuuga clan, and is the daughter of Hyuuga Hiashi Neji's uncle. She is very shy towards people and has a very low self esteem. She has a huge crush on Naruto in the anime and is pretty much always Secretly encouraging him through his trials when she witnesses him.

Hinita also seems to not really want to be a ninja at all but she goes along and is very obedient to people. She would seem better off doing home type of activities then fighting and in time the show may put her in a more of a 'house? wife position.

Behind Sasuke and Naruto, Shino is one of the strongest of the Nine Leaf Rookies from Hidden Leaf, yet, oddly enough, remains quite stoic and impassive. He is very quiet and rarely talks. He talks only if he absolutely has to, and not because of lack of intelligence. Rather, he is quick to pinpoint advantage's and weakness's when he fights. Not quite on Nara Shikamaru's, but closer than the other rookies.

From birth, people of the Aburame clan make a pact with an insect known as Destruction Bugs. In exchange for a lifetime of chakra which the insect's use for food, the host in which the bugs live in can call upon their service whenever they need to. Shino is no different, and has thousands of the insects living inside him. Aburame Shino utilizes the insects by having them sneak attack his enemy, while he distracts them with simple taijutsu. He could also have a clone of himself performed when in danger, or use a female bug as a tracking device hunting down fleeing pursuers.

Shino's first documented fight against Zaku Abumi demonstrates Shino's cool demeanor and strength, as well as his ability to think ahead of his opponent. After the fight, many people, including Naruto and Hyuuga Neji were impressed, but still, much remains unknown about him.

Yuhi Kurenai is the sensei of Team 8, consisting of Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba and Hyuuga Hinata. Upon taking her pupils on, she has recently became a Jounin herself. She is very experienced in Genjutsu techniques, she can perform high level Genjutsu to trap and deal damage to her enemies mentally. She fought alongside Asuma and Kakashi to hold off Itachi and Kisame and trapped Itachi with her Tree Bind Technique, it of course, didn't affect Itachi and it was reversed against her.

Piczo