Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 6

But isn't it a nice flashback? This volume gives a lot of clarification on some plot points, you get to see Little!Ed and Little!Al, and you even get into some philosophy. Definitely worth reading, I ate right through it.

This volume explains a lot (not that they don't all, it's just that in this one its the main point). Arakawa-sensei deserves a round of applause.

Ed and Al's flashback to how they were trained in alchemy by Izumi Curtis continues as they try to survive for a month on a deserted island with no conveniences and no food except what they can hunt for themselves. They also have an unwanted companion, a masked strongman with a wooden club who beats the snot out of them and steals their food whenever he gets the chance! And don't forget that this is just to earn the right to BEGIN training! We also get more information about what happened the night that Ed and Al tried to bring back their mother from the dead and what Ed encountered in those moments that took his arm and leg. Bringing us up to the present, the extended flashback also shows how Mustang came looking for the boys, after hearing about their powers. I thought this volume worked really well. It's not often that an entire volume of a manga is a flashback but some plot points in Fullmetal needed some more clarity. But don't get me wrong, there are still a ton of mysteries left that I look forward to seeing revealed. I liked the sequence on the island because when Fullmetal is at its best, it raises some hard questions about the nature of life, of how we are just specks in the universe of small consequence and how there are powers out there that we will never understand.