Ed and Al's obsession consumes everything in its path, including the parts of themselves they don't even realize they're losing. The show doesn't ask if they're right to chase the Philosopher's Stone. It asks what they're willing to destroy to get it back, then makes you watch them destroy it anyway. By the time you understand what equivalent exchange really means, the brothers have already paid a price the show will never let them forget.

Two brothers set out to repair the damage a forbidden act of alchemy did to them. Edward and Alphonse Elric tried to bring their dead mother back through human transmutation, and it failed badly. Edward lost two limbs, and Alphonse lost his whole body, his soul now bound by Edward to a large suit of armor. Alchemy runs on equivalent exchange, where gaining something means giving up something of the same worth, but the fabled Philosopher's Stone is said to let an alchemist break that law. A year after the accident, Edward becomes a state alchemist and uses the military's resources to search for the stone, hoping to give both brothers their bodies back. The stone turns out to be more than it first seems, and the search draws them into a far darker struggle than they expected. The result is an action fantasy drama about loss, cost and the price of power.