Squire by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas VS Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

Reviewed by Perihelion

Last year I read Squire, this graphic novel I kept seeing around. It was totally underwhelming and I thought to myself, “You know what did this better? Fullmetal Alchemist.” Then when I went to mark Squire as read on Goodreads, I saw that one of its comp (comparison) titles was…………..Fullmetal Alchemist. So let's comp these titles! It's time for BASTARDREVIEWS SMACKDOWN!!!

The cover of Squire.

Watch out for spoilers, I guess. There’s really not much to spoil in Squire, to be honest, but I’ll try to put warnings up for Fullmetal Alchemist.

Squire’s Goodreads summary:

Aiza has always dreamt of becoming a Knight. It's the highest military honor in the once-great Bayt-Sajji Empire, and as a member of the subjugated Ornu people, Knighthood is her only path to full citizenship. Ravaged by famine and mounting tensions, Bayt-Sajji finds itself on the brink of war once again, so Aiza can finally enlist in the competitive Squire training program.

It's not how she imagined it, though. Aiza must navigate new friendships, rivalries, and rigorous training under the unyielding General Hende, all while hiding her Ornu background. As the pressure mounts, Aiza realizes that the "greater good" that Bayt-Sajji's military promises might not include her, and that the recruits might be in greater danger than she ever imagined.

Aiza will have to choose, once and for all: loyalty to her heart and heritage, or loyalty to the Empire.

Squire is about Aiza, a girl who is a member of an ethnic group called the Ornu, who are currently at war with the big empire she lives in. She wants to become a Squire and later a Knight for the empire, because she has been exposed to Propaganda That Makes Knights Look Cool, but also because Squires get privileges that she, as Ornu, does not (like owning land, citizenship…). So she goes to Squire School, promising her parents she’ll keep the tattoos that mark her as Ornu covered up. She makes some friends, enemies, etc etc in School. Eventually she finds out that students who don’t pass the Squire Training get sent to the front lines as infantry…she has to deal with Conflict because she can’t be having anyone find out she’s Ornu…she gets really magically good at swordfighting thanks to training with a janitor who used to be a knight. Et cetera.

First off, I’ll say the art is fine. It’s nothing special. I remember being a little confused by what emotions some of the facial expressions were meant to convey. The characters are all easy to differentiate though, and a lot of graphic novelists aren’t great at that, so that’s a plus.

The writing, on the other hand…

This book is an attempt to show that imperialism is bad. It does so by taking a bunch of flat cardboard cutouts of characters and pushing them around a flat cardboard cutout background like paper dolls saying “Imperialism is bad, kids!” None of the characters have any depth to them, nor do they exhibit any growth or change throughout the whole 300-something pages.

The premise also does not make a lot of sense when you look at it for longer than three seconds. What’s the point of wasting all these resources and time on all these kids who are going to end up as infantry on the front lines of the war anyway? They don’t need no education for that. It’s silly to only have one person become a Squire–if the knights are so important, you’d need to have a steady supply of them. And, again, if the whole thing is just a front to churn out infantry, which is how it’s presented in the book, it’s a huge waste of resources and time. This is not how militaries work. Especially not militaries that have supposedly built an empire. Incentives (like the chance at citizenship) for joining the military? Yeah, obviously. But you wouldn’t structure it like this.

I realize that comic format makes for a faster, less in-depth story, but c’mon, 300 pages is a lot for a graphic novel, and I’ve read much shorter comics with much more interesting characters and settings that had more thought put into them.

So how does Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA) relate to this?

Volume 1 of FMA, featuring the eponymous protagonist Ed Elric and his little brother Al (the suit of armor)

Fullmetal Alchemist is a manga by Hiromu Arakawa that ran from 2001-2010. It has been adapted into 2 anime series: one from ‘03 which I have not seen, and one from ‘09 which I have seen multiple times since I was a kid. I am currently in the process of reading the original manga (alas, my hometown library did not have it) but the ‘09 anime is very faithful to the comic so I know the whole story already. If you’ve spent any amount of time Online at all you’ve probably heard of it, but I’ll post the goodreads blurb anyway:

In an alchemical ritual gone wrong, Edward Elric lost his arm and his leg, and his brother Alphonse became nothing but a soul in a suit of armor. Equipped with mechanical “auto-mail” limbs, Edward becomes a state alchemist, seeking the one thing that can restore his and his brother’s bodies...the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.

Alchemy: the mystical power to alter the natural world; something between magic, art and science. When two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, dabbled in this power to grant their dearest wish, one of them lost an arm and a leg…and the other became nothing but a soul locked into a body of living steel. Now Edward is an agent of the government, a slave of the military-alchemical complex, using his unique powers to obey orders…even to kill. Except his powers aren't unique. The world has been ravaged by the abuse of alchemy. And in pursuit of the ultimate alchemical treasure, the Philosopher's Stone, their enemies are even more ruthless than they are…

Ed and Al Elric are from a country called Amestris, which is a military dictatorship that has been expanding its empire for ages. The Elric brothers, like ummmmm *scrolls up because I forgot her name already* Aiza from Squire, are teenagers who have joined the military of an imperialist power and are now in service to forces that (due to their age and naivety) they don’t quite understand, and are often in direct opposition to their own values. This is the main point of both stories (although FMA includes magic and an overarching plot involving a Sinister Magic Bad Guy) and frankly, FMA engages with its themes much more effectively. Granted, it is over twenty volumes long, and Squire is only one book, but again: over 300 pages. That’s a lot for a comic. I’ve read single Calvin and Hobbes strips that pack more punch than Squire did.

Squire tells you imperialism is bad. It barely shows any imperialism to support this, aside from saying that Aiza’s family lives in a refugee camp, and an incident where some kids are mean to her because of her heritage in the very beginning of the book. The setting clearly draws from the Ottoman Empire, but I did not get the sense that the authors did any sort of in-depth research into the history of this (or any real-world empire) to flesh out their story. And despite the threat of being sent to the front lines that is supposed to be hanging over the heads of Aiza and her squire-trainee friends, the book never actually grapples with the reality of war–its only real attempt is a scene towards the end where Aiza and her friends get into a fight with some Ornu, but this scene is so bland and contrived that it has no impact. Overall, when Squire says “Hey kids, imperialism is bad!”, its voice is too tame and timid to catch your attention.

***SPOILERS FOR FMA AHEAD***

At first I thought "well, maybe Squire is meant for a younger age group than FMA," but it includes too many swears for me to think it was meant for middle grade. I checked and B&N lists Squire’s intended audience as “14-17 years,” whereas FMA is listed as “13-18 years.”

Fullmetal Alchemist faces the horrors of empire-building and war head-on. The magical element of the Philosopher’s Stone is a manifestation of this evil: the Elric brothers find out, during the course of the story, that the Philosopher’s Stone they're searching for is created with human lives. Later it is revealed that episodes of violence in the history of their country were incited by the military with the express purpose of harnessing this power. It’s not a very subtle metaphor, but it’s done well, in a way that a reader of the target age group can make the connection to the real world.

Arakawa also does not shy away from portraying the brutality inherent to the subject, unlike Alfageeh and Shammas. War, violence, and the consequences are portrayed on-page and the characters are not shielded from it. And unlike Squire, it is clear that FMA was written with careful and intentional research into war crime and real militaries (it’s not hard to see Germany in Amestris). She drew inspiration for the Ishvalan people in FMA from Japan’s treatment of the Ainu, an ethnic group native to the region she is from.

That’s not to say FMA is perfect. I haven’t gotten to this point in the manga yet, but towards the end of the show things go off the rails as the fantastical elements get a little too ambitious. Sometimes it’s corny. But I have great respect for authors like Arakawa who write for young adults and children while not being afraid to tackle tough themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to their readers. I find Squire to be part of a larger trend in books meant for younger readers nowadays, where authors seem to feel the need to dumb down their topics and skirt around anything that might be even a little bit scary or upsetting. Teens (and children) don’t need that. For one, they’re smart, and they can decide for themselves what is too upsetting for them. It’s easy to put down a book and close it if it’s too much. For another thing: teens and children exist in the real world, and the real world is full of things that are scary and upsetting. I can say without a doubt that if I had read Squire when I was the age of the target audience, I would have found it childish and condescending compared to much of the YA and middle grade stuff I had read or watched at the time--like FMA.

To summarize: if you’ve read FMA you don’t need to read Squire, and if you haven’t read FMA, you should do that.

Squire: 2 out of 5 not-really war criminals

FMA: 5 out of 5 real 100% genuine in-universe war criminals