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Fullmetal Alchemist

Japanese manga series

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ189562 ↗
Source-derived summary

Fullmetal Alchemist (Japanese: 鋼の錬金術師, Hepburn: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi; lit. 'Alchemist of Steel') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. It was serialized in Square Enix's shōnen manga anthology magazine Monthly Shōnen Gangan between July 2001 and June 2010; the publisher later collected the individual chapters in 27 tankōbon volumes. Set in a fictional universe in which alchemy is a widely practiced science, the series follows the journey of two alchemist brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, as they search for the philosopher's stone to restore their bodies after a failed attempt to bring their mother back to life via alchemy. The steampunk world of Fullmetal Alchemist is primarily styled after the European Industrial Revolution.

The manga has been adapted into various anime—two television series, released in 2003 and 2009, and two films, released in 2005 and 2011, all animated by Bones—as well as light novels. The series also includes original video animations (OVAs), video games, supplementary books, a collectible card game, and a variety of action figures and other merchandise. A live-action film based on the series was released in 2017, with two sequels in 2022. In North America, the manga was localized and published in English by Viz Media. Yen Press has owned the rights for the digital release of the volumes since 2014.

Fullmetal Alchemist has received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike and is considered one of the greatest manga series of all time.

Editorial summary

“Fullmetal Alchemist” enters the record as japanese manga series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fullmetal, Alchemist and Japanese can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2001, 2010, 2003, 2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Fullmetal, Alchemist and Japanese.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Fullmetal Alchemist” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Fullmetal, Alchemist and Japanese provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q189562. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2010, 2003 and 2009.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Locating named sources
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  2. Expand the search: follow Fullmetal Alchemist primary sources, Fullmetal Alchemist archive and Fullmetal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Fullmetal Alchemist” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.