The basic premise of the show sort of follows an I, Robot way of a storyline. What I mean is that the entire story is set up around a law that can't be broken (for those are Asimov-challenged, I mean the 3 Laws of Robotics). This immutable truth of the law becomes just as much an antagonist as any of the villains do, which is partially why I'm so attracted to the manga. The concept is summarized at the beginning of each episode of the anime, and it becomes absolutely heartbreaking when you start realizing its implications.
Of course, once you realize which character is delivering this monologue at the beginning of each episode it becomes even more haunting.
But today, we are not going to talk about the anime. No we are not. Why? Because I only own the manga, and it's pretty different from the anime. Why is this? Well, the mangaka, Hiromu Arakawa (who I automatically like because she's from Hokkaidou), sold the rights to do an anime early on in the series, but she would not tell the animators what the plot was after the volumes that were already produced. It makes sense though. Why would read the manga if you already know how it's going to end. She was protecting her creativity and product in a very smart way. I actually wonder the same thing about animes. Since I always read manga, there seems very little point in me watching the show when it's almost the same thing (I'm looking at you, Naruto). In any case, there is the manga, which is the original story, there is the first anime, which is true to the manga for about eight episodes, and there is the second anime called Brotherhood, which follows the manga. There's also a movie that acts as a sequel to the first anime series...oh, and a series of audio dramas...but I digress.
Shall we to the grammar point?
Yet again, I'm all sorts of classy and I used my digital camera instead of walking ALL THE WAY downstairs and booting up a crappy old computer to scan this. Why don't I just put the scanner on my computer? you ask. It's just that old, I reply. Plus, there aren't any drivers for a mac.
This is the pivotal scene that puts much of the plot in motion, at least for the main characters Edward and Alphonse. They try to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life, but while they have everything that is important to making a body (salt, potassium, etc.) they don't have anything to give in exchange for a soul. Edward has lost his leg, and Al has lost his entire body in creating a monster that only sort of looks like their mother. Edward, in a last act of desperation realizes in order to save his brother's soul he has to attach it to a suit of armor.
Our grammar point in question is here:
Do you see it?
- アル。。。 オレのせいだ
SEI DA (DESU) means "fault". Anytime you want to say anything is the fault of something, you use that word. Knowing this, then, means that it is pretty easy to guess what this particular grammar point means.
- Al... It's my fault.
Though, I would probably translate this as:
- Al... It's all my fault.
From what I can tell, there isn't really way to include that "all" in a SEI DA sentence, but I find that to be more fluid than just saying "It's my fault". Oh the liberties translation can take.
Ed loses an arm attaching Al's body to the armor, and suddenly it makes a lot of sense why the series is called what it is. Those are two very metal alchemists. Almost full metal, I'd say.
Just knowing that SEI DE uses the TE form probably leads you to know that you can write a lot longer sentence. And... while I'm sure FMA uses it at some point in the manga, I'm not going to go searching for it. It'll just make me sad that I don't have the last five tankoubans (volumes). So, instead, I'm going to talk about something really different.
With this phrase:
- 私のせいで負けました
using this video that used it as its title.
Honestly, I wouldn't watch the video for more than ten seconds. I only used it because I want to talk about the game a little bit. I know it's a POD (Panoramic Optical Display) game, and it is just so Japanese.
So I took the following image from this link that sort of talks about the game.
That, my friends, is a video game. It also made me hella dizzy and motion sick the one and only time I played it. I'm not real certain if the above video is GUNDAM, but I'm relatively sure it is because I'm a nerd, and I recognize the alert sound from Gundam Wing.
In case your wondering, playing games in Japan is really just that awesome.
But I'm going to stop myself from talking about things like Pop'n Music, and actually get on with this incredibly long post.
- 私のせいで負けました
- Watashi no sei de makemashita.
- It's my fault we lost.
So basically it goes like this:
Who or what's fault? + What happened = SEI DE sentence.
I should probably also mention that anything can go with SEI. But here are the rules for each one:
- Verb - appropriate tense
- I Adjective - add i
- Na adjective - add na
- Noun - add no
Nice, right?
