This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/anime by /u/tanjirostreaming on 2025-06-23 08:45:51+00:00.

I recently rewatched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which I last saw when I was maybe 16. Back then, it was all about the fights and the cool story. But now, years later, it hit totally differently.

I actually stepped away from anime for a long time — when my wife got pregnant, life got real fast. Between work, diapers, and trying to be a decent husband and dad, anime just… faded out of my routine. Not in a bad way, it just wasn’t where my mind was anymore.

But now my kid’s a bit older, and one day he asked what kind of cartoons I liked growing up. That cracked the door open. We started watching some lighter stuff together (Pokémon, My Neighbor Totoro, a bit of Naruto), and it pulled me right back in.

So I decided to revisit FMA:B on my own — and man, it wrecked me. The grief, the choices, the weight of responsibility… it all hits different when you’re older, when you’ve been through stuff. Even the sibling bond between Ed and Al feels so much deeper now that I’m a parent myself.

I’m curious — has anyone else come back to anime after a long time and found it hits you in ways it never did before? Especially those of you who are parents now — how has it changed the way you watch?