What is the Fullmetal Alchemist Vizbig edition?

Vizbig is Viz Media's omnibus imprint for completed hits, and its Fullmetal Alchemist line collects the entire manga in nine paperback volumes, each binding three Japanese tankobon, published in English between 2011 and 2014. A complete Vizbig set usually costs less than half what the 27 standard singles cost new, which made it the default recommendation for new readers for a decade.

The books are physically bigger than tankobon in every direction: taller pages, much thicker spines and heavier paper stock. Panels gain a little room, and Vizbig volumes include color pages and design extras collected at the back of each book, material the standard English paperbacks printed in black and white or skipped. Each volume closes with character and story summaries that help across the three in one jumps.

The compromises are practical. A three in one paperback is heavy in the hands, the glued binding dislikes being opened flat, and the thick spines crack if a set has been read hard, so condition varies enormously secondhand. The translation matches the standard Viz edition rather than the revised Fullmetal Edition text, and Arakawa's original tankobon covers appear only as small reproductions inside, not as the book covers.

At launch each Vizbig volume sold for $19.99 in the United States at the time, so the whole story cost about $180 at the time, against roughly $270 at the time for the singles. That price gap is why school and library shelves are full of Vizbig, and why clean, uncracked sets are worth checking carefully: many surviving copies were read to pieces by exactly the audience they were priced for.

Buyers should confirm a set runs one through nine with no repeats, a common mix up in bulk lots, and check the hinge of volume one, which carries the most handling. As a reading set it remains the best value in the series' English history; as a display set it loses to the hardcovers.