I saw the first anime before and liked it a lot, so now I am thinking about watching FMA Brotherhood to get the full FMA experience. However I want to know which is better anime or its original - manga.
I heard that in terms of story manga and anime are pretty much the same, so i wanted to hear what you guys think

Those of you who have both read the manga and watched FMA Brotherhood, which is better?
If you were to choose one what would it be?

Depends
The anime follows the story quite well and it is mostly whether or not u would like to see it animated or not, frankly i loved the anime but ofc i loved the manga to

It really depends on what you prefer.

If you prefer melodramatic, bittersweet, main-characters-only-driven stories, then 2003 anime is best.

If you want a full-blown epic legend with a beautifully woven plot, love for both major and minor characters, no fillers, development with both story and all characters, deep meanings/themes, slapstick humor, and a satisfactory ending with everything that makes sense, then the manga or FMAB is best.

I think you should watch FMAB/read manga, whether you've watched the first anime or not. 🙂 It's a wonderful story and will not leave you with regrets.

I personally would choose the manga or Brotherhood. The anime was okay, but not my personal taste as the ending did not do it for me and I found the manga to be on a whole new level in epicness. Mostly because of the ending, though - the first anime's plot didn't really make that much sense to me, and when I watched Brotherhood, everything was cleared up perfectly.

I mean, there's a reason that it's the highest rated manga here on mangaupdates. And even though it's already over (for over a year), it's still retaining that position.

But whatever you decide! It's up to you.

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The anime is almost exactly like the manga.It just depends on whether you prefer watching or reading. Or you could just do both 🙂
btw, the new anime has an amazing soundtrack and incredible animation.

The first anime has a completely different story, which I didn't like that much. Personally, I prefer the manga, but if you want to watch it, FMAB is very good too.

I loved FMA Brotherhood and the manga. I didn't like the other FMA at all.

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I personally preferred the original anime over brotherhood. The original has better character development. The ending imo was better than brotherhood. It ends on a high point where brotherhood kind of stretches everything out and meanders around a bit.

I saw the old anime version (2003) first and like it even despite lot of fillers. It was dark and bittersweet. I watched movie after it and then the Brotherhood series which I dropped after 15th episode. I read full manga series this year and I feel very disapoited about it. I mostly read seinen series but I gave chance FMA because philosophic aspects a recomendation from friends. After 7th volume I felt realy tired of all those fighting and somewhere about 16th volume I started missing the philosophy. I have feeling that the end of series has something to do with motherhood of author. I think FMA manga is above avarege in shounen genre but in whole manga category it's nothing special. My favorite manga series are Hellsing, Trigun, Litchi Hikari Club and Doll: IC in a doll, so there is big possibility I'm not the right type of reader for this kind of serie.

I love the manga so I prefer FMAB because I can see the amazing scenes come to life with an amazing soundtrack. However, that doesn’t make my love for the manga any less.

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Personally I prefer the manga even to Brotherhood. The anime really struggled to keep a good pace after it caught up and should have included the chapters it dropped as they were changed anyway for the first chapter and made the darker chapters more bearable and would have given them more time. It has its flaws but is overall a great manga in my opinion, managing to balance its dark subject matter well while also making you laugh when needed. If you go into it expecting something mind blowing, it won't be that, but it's still really good. Not everything has aged well, like the 2000s slapstick but the rest holds up well.

Ep 1-13 of Brotherhood are a rushed mess and adapted 7 full volumes with only 12 episodes. The pilot is pure filler and should be skipped, episode 27 is also a recap filler and Vol 15 is rushed through and adapted out of order. The order of events is changed throughout btw. The Brotherhood film that came out during the show (The Sacred Star of Milos) is more middling non-canon filler. All 4 OVAs are based on bonus chapters from the manga but the expanded length and changes lead to issues there too.
The show gets great with episode 14 and never drops. The readaptation fumbling 7/8 out of 27 volumes, while finding time to create the mentioned non-canon nonsense, puts the manga ahead. A short epilogue chapter was also left unadapted and the last chapter or two were adapted from rough drafts as the manga and anime ended at almost the same time but that is negligible. I lastly remember the first show having better music but Brotherhood is the better product.
Manga > BH > FMA 03

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