16 Years Later, ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’s Best Quote Still Defines the Series

Image via MBSTVJP Published Aug 30, 2026, 6:49 PM EDT Rotten Tomatoes | Letterboxd | Metacritic Carolyn Jenkins is a voracious consumer of film and television. She graduated from Long Island University with an MFA in Screenwriting and Producing where she learned the art of character, plot, and structure. The best teacher is absorbing media and she spends her time reading about different worlds from teen angst to the universe of Stephen King. Sign in to your Collider account A decade and a half after its release, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood still lives up to its reputation as the greatest anime of all time. That may be a tall order, but when a series delivers one of the best stories, it’s hard to compete. Alphonse and Edward Elric’s journey to get their bodies back after the death of their mother is moving and can be summed up in the quote that defines the series. “You can’t gain anything without losing something first,” Ed says during the show’s finale. Fullmetal Alchemist delivers many lessons throughout the course of the series, but after everything the Elric brothers have been through, this one rings truest. This is a lesson hard-learned and learned at an early age. When the boys attempt to bring their mother back from the dead through alchemy, Al loses his entire body while Ed loses an arm and a leg. The concept of sacrifice is a common one, echoed in the Law of Equivalent Exchange and throughout the tragedies that occur in the series. Fullmetal Alchemist has one of the most satisfying conclusions when Ed can accept that this is a lesson he needed to learn, and it went on to be the most important quote of the series. The reputation that Fullmetal Alchemist has of being the best story in anime is still intact after all these years. That is because it has one of the most fulfilling character arcs and emotional stories in the genre. Ed reinforces this when he finally understands that sacrifices are a necessary part of life. His final speech at the end of the series isn’t just the perfect way to end the show, but sums up the story in a way that no other show is really capable of. "There’s no such thing as a painless lesson. They just don’t exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can’t gain anything without losing something first, although if you can endure that pain and walk away from it, you’ll find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle. Yeah, a heart made fullmetal." This has been a lesson the series has been trying to teach the Elric brothers since they first lost their bodies when attempting the taboo of human transmutation. They suffered for it but still don’t learn this lesson until the very end. Ed comes a long way throughout the narrative and learns that to get Al’s body back, he has to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Fullmetal Alchemist sacrifices his alchemy so Ed can become human again. At the beginning of the series, this would not have been possible. Ed defines himself through his identity as the Fullmetal Alchemist and fully believes that working for the government is the only path to reclaiming what they had lost. Through their suffering, the boys learn that there are no easy answers and that sacrifices are a fact of life. This is an idea that may have saddened the brothers at the beginning of the story, but the conclusion of Fullmetal Alchemist paints this as a positive. By the end of the anime masterpiece, Ed sacrificing his alchemy is a triumph. He finally learns the most important lesson, and his brother can live a full life because of it. Sacrificing his alchemy didn’t mean he was less of a person. In fact, it made him stronger for it. Throughout these hard lessons, he became a person of endurance and could find closure for the grief he and his brother felt for all those years. Fullmetal Alchemist succeeds in its completion of this arc and dares any other anime to do better. Its emotional character progressions and devastating plot points all come together to create the greatest anime of all time. Release Date 2009 - 2010-00-00 Cast Maxey Whitehead Alphonse Elric Vic Mignogna Edward Elric