Fullmetal Alchemist Box Set [ペーパーバック]

I titled my review this because the box set is completely awesome, and it's at least $60 cheaper than the other sites I browsed (at the time of release). It's certainly cheaper than buying all 27 volumes individually!

What you get, and comments about each:
(If I seem to nitpick, then sorry, but I like to be extremely specific and thorough, letting you know precisely what I received.)
I. All 27 Volumes of the Fullmetal Alchemist Manga in Paperback
--1. These aren't new editions or anything, they're the same versions you can already purchase individually from VizMedia, but all in one set for one heck of a price! The set also includes Volume 27, which has yet to be relased by itself. (UPDATE 1/8/12: IN THE COMMENTS, SOMEONE HAS INFORMED ME THAT THE TRANSLATIONS AND IMAGES ARE A LITTLE DIFFERENT IN SOME PLACES COMPARED TO THE INDIVIDUAL COPIES YOU CAN PURCHASE FROM THE SAME PUBLISHER. I HAD NO IDEA, AND I APOLOGIZE IF THIS MISLED ANYONE!)
--2. Three or four of my books had EXTREMELY tiny, extra pieces of the cover hanging off of the corners on the spines of the books. It's kind of annoying just knowing they're there, but I'm guessing it's normal for paperbacks. But believe me, it's probably not even worth mentioning.
--3. The first 3 books have holographic covers, and the rest do not.
--4. They're right-to-left style, to preserve the orientation of Arakawa's original artwork. I'm an American and have been reading left-to-right my entire life, but I, personally, haven't had an issue with this. I THOUGHT I would, but I simply haven't.

II. A 2-Sided Poster
--1. Both sides can be viewed on this product's homepage in the photo section.
--2. It's folded in fourths, so there's creases. I have mine hung up though and it looks good to me. I barely-to-don't recognize the creases.
--3. Approximately 10"w x 15"h.

III. The Light Novel "The Ties that Bind"
--1. I'm honestly not sure what this is. I did a little research and I guess it's a novelization of some of the manga chapters?... I really don't know. It IS a novel though, meaning pages full of paragraphs of words. There's only like 3 pages with actual pictures.

IV. The Box Itself
--1. Approximately the size of the poster, and 5 inches deep.
--2. Has 2 shelves (one above the other) that house the books quite snugly. It's kinda hard to get them out sometimes.
--3. Has a hinged "door" that protects the books from dust when closed, stays shut with small velcro circles on the right side, and has a handle on top making it much easier to carry around.
--4. You can see the outside design of the box on this product's home page. The inside of the box is basically the same design as the back of the box.
--5. My box arrived with a few small creases and dents in it, but I suppose this is practically unavoidable when shipping across country.
--6. I'd have preferred a horizontally-orientated version of the box and its contents, but it's a very nice box nonetheless, I must say.

Overall, this product is definitely well worth its price and worthy of being passed down the Armstrong line for generations!!!

Fullmetal Alchemist is arguably one of the most well developed stories since the beginning of time. Everything about the series is perfect. This box set, though nice, is not.

The boxing is perfect. It's colorful, durable, and just looks and feels awesome. It has a handle to let you pick up and carry its heavy self around. It also has a velcro cover that you can open to reveal all the books hidden inside, and seal em back in once you're done. The box is just awesome overall. The only bad side to it, is that the velcrow that holds the flap comes off fairly easy, and you'll probably have to hot glue it to the box to keep it from coming off. Now to the manga.

This is the point where I became slightly disappointed in the package. The mangas are new edition prints for the most part, but Viz did not fix the few translation/other errors from previous issues. By translation issues, I mean translating some of the character names wrong (In one manga it's spelled Dr. Knox, in another other it's Dr. Knocks ect...) The prints decided to use Ishbal as the translation for Ishval too (I was hoping they'd fix this translation in the boxset because Ishval is the correct translation). Besides name inconsistencies, some names are butchered. Xerxes in the manga is a mess of a word that's something like Cselcesse now. There are a decent amount of typos in the manga too, which I can't understand how they still exist in the newest prints. Randomly words will be missing, and blank space will take their place. The words are for the most part easy to predict, so you basically know what should be there, but that's not very professional. Also, there's a time where Edward calls Alphonse Ed. Don't they read the translations before they ship em haha?

Note that the more serious vocal profanities are censored. Those words are replaced with random assortments of symbols like $%&#! "Because I'm #%$&ing Greed!" is an example of when it was used. It kind of ruins the professionalism of the series, but it's in no way a deal-breaker. I must commend Viz on realizing that this boxset is solely for hardcore fans though; They no longer censored the greed on a crucifix scene. Besides an assortment of various typos/translation messups, the actual set is pretty good. The manga itself is so good, that you'll probably ignore Viz's somewhat inconsistent job.

Overall, I think the boxset is worth it. Though, Viz didn't put enough time into fixing previous mistakes (I say they should have contacted Ms. Arakawa for the correct English translations like Mel Bay did with Fairy Tail), new fans won't notice much, but may get confused by some name inconsistencies in the manga. The physical quality of the set is great! Looks awesome in my room, and it's super easy to grab and put away the chapters without dust getting in!
At a much cheaper price then other sites, get it at amazon!

I really like this set . All the books are in great condition and fit very nicely in the shelves . The box was a bit bigger/taller than expected but looks great nonetheless .

Pros: very pretty box art . Includes bonus novel which is must have for FMA fan. Includes awesome double sided poster

Con: I was expecting to get the first three volumes with holographic covers but was disappointed to see they were not unlike previous reviews had mentiond they would be