Who designed the characters for the Fullmetal Alchemist anime?
Fullmetal Alchemist begins with one artist: Hiromu Arakawa created, wrote and drew the manga, so every character's face, silhouette and automail mechanism originates with her. Television anime, however, needs model sheets that hundreds of animators can reproduce, and that translation job, the character design credit, went to two different Bones artists for the two series.
For the 2003 series the designer was Yoshiyuki Ito, who also served as chief animation director. Ito softened Arakawa's sharp, angular manga line into rounder faces suited to the series' melancholy tone and early digital production, and his Edward, shorter and younger looking than the late manga version, is the design a generation of fans met first through the 2003 broadcast and its film.
Brotherhood, produced in 2009 after the manga's style had matured, brought in Hiroki Kanno as character designer. Kanno tracked Arakawa's later art much more closely: sharper chins, leaner bodies, more mechanical detail on the automail, and designs for the Xingese cast and other late manga characters who had never been animated before. Side by side, Kanno's sheets sit visibly closer to the tankobon pages than Ito's.
The distinction matters beyond trivia. Merchandise, figures and art books are licensed per series, so a figure's face tells you which production it belongs to: rounder Ito features signal 2003 goods, angular Kanno features signal Brotherhood. Key animators at Bones, including both designers, also drew promotional art that circulates as posters and box art, and those pieces credit the anime staff, not Arakawa.
Directors divide the same way: Seiji Mizushima directed the 2003 series and its film, Yasuhiro Irie directed Brotherhood. Music splits too, Michiru Oshima scoring 2003 and Akira Senju scoring Brotherhood. The franchise is a clean case study in how one manga becomes two distinct staff made objects.
