This is the fourth of my series of long posts about the Amestrian Military. This is the speculative part of this meta. Little is known about the training the Amestrian soldiers receive, the most we have seen about it comes from the OVA “Another man's battlefield” and a few scenes in the manga. However, as we have seen through this series of posts, Arakawa took a lot of inspiration from the real world. The Imperial Japan military training seems to match a lot of what we see in FMA. Brace yourself, this is long and history heavy.
Once again, I'm not a historian and I'm not fluent in Japanese. Please let me know if there's anything I missed or got wrong.
To see the rest of this meta series check out the Main Post.
First a little background about the Empire of Japan. It was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. Its history is divided in three periods named after the emperors that presided over them: Meiji (1868-1912), Taishō (1912-1926) and Shōwa (1926-1947).
This is a period of transformation for Japan, where they opened to the world and tried to modernize themselves and catch up with the western nations… by copying them. Meiji Japan is almost a pseudo European country. Their laws, government organization, education, etc. was reformed and modeled after the contemporary European nations and the United States of America. The influence of the third French Republic was especially strong in the early Meiji period, with it getting revised and remodeled in favor of other systems — mostly German as the relationship with the USA and its allies soured — throughout the years.
This is also the case in their military education.
Officers training
During the early Meiji, the military cadets (meaning candidates to become officers) received a French style training which was later changed to a German style cadet system. The main difference between the two systems is that the German style required for the cadets to gain experience as Non-commissioned officers before graduation, while the French one didn't.
Based on what we see in Fullmetal Alchemist they follow the German style system that lasted from 1887 to the American intervention in 1945. The main indication of this is that we see Riza Hawkeye in Ishval as a NCO.[1] She would've never been there under the French system. The time frame of the German style training also matches what we see in FMA. I'll explain this a bit later.
For now let's concentrate on who and how someone could enter the Imperial Japan Army Officers Academy.
Three types of students could enter the academy: graduates of the Army's Children School, graduates of Junior high school (both these schools covered ages 12 to 16), and selected active Non-commissioned officers who applied for officer training.
The graduates of the army's children school didn't need to pass any exam to enter the academy, but only the best were selected. They had to compete for positions with the external candidates, those aged 16 to 19 who passed the recruitment exam (which required at least a junior high school education). Both of these students would enter the academy as cadets.
While the program was revised many times, the longest standing program was the 2 courses 4 years system.
In this system the cadets would first take a two year military officer preparatory course that was equivalent to regular higher education. They were taught science, history, geography, etc. by civilian teachers. Their rank (the equivalent of private first class), military branch, and unit were designated upon graduating the preparatory course.
After graduation the cadets would serve in their designated unit for six months (during which time they were promoted to corporal), afterwards they would be given the rank of sergeant upon entering the main military officers course.
The main course was 1 year and 10 months long, and it was where the actual military training happened. The cadets would be taught tactics, military history, military system, weaponry, marksmanship, etc. they would also receive training in camp duty, shooting, swordsmanship, gymnastics, horsemanship, etc. in addition field trips were also conducted.
Upon graduating they would become Apprentice Officers (a rank equivalent to Sergeant Major, the highest of the NCO ranks) for a trial period of about six months. Afterwards they would be officially appointed as 2nd Lieutenant (the lowest of the officers ranks) on the recommendation of their original troop's officer corps.
Now you might be wondering why I think Arakawa used this system (or rather one inspired by it) in Fullmetal Alchemist. I have a few reasons.
The first is the characters' ages. We know Roy and Hughes are 18 in “Another man's battlefield”, and we see them training in marksmanship and military tactics. We also see they have upperclassmen which implies the course is longer than one year.[2] We also know that Roy is 20 years old when he graduates the academy and visits the Hawkeye family, thanks to brotherhood giving us the date of Berthold's death.[3]
This all matches with the imperial Japan German style cadet system, where the majority of students would enter the preparatory course at 16 upon graduating from junior high school or the military school, they would then be 18 at the time of starting the main course, and 20 upon graduating from the academy. The ages of the characters and what we see on screen matches the system’s time frame.
Riza Hawkeye is yet another example three years after her father's death and conversation with Mustang, during the Ishval war, she is yet to graduate from the academy.[1][3][4] Either the Amestris academy lasts more than the two years we see Roy and Hughes go through, or she waited about two years to enter the military Academy (otherwise she would have already graduated by Ishval). I don't think it makes sense for her to wait so long to join the academy, specially if it has an age cap (of 19 in Imperial Japan). So assuming she entered right after her father died, that would put her in the last year of the German style system by the time we see her in Ishval, perfect for getting pulled into a war with her already assigned unit.
This brings me to my second reason for believing Arakawa is using this system: the ranks.
I mentioned before that the cadets in FMA don't seem to have a rank, this makes sense when you consider that in imperial Japan they were given ranks that do not exist in FMA. Instead of adding ranks or messing up with the system Arakawa might have just completely skipped them (much like she seems to have done with the military police).
I also mentioned that graduates (the so called Apprentice Officers) are assigned a temporary rank of Sergeant Major. In FMA we know that you graduate with a rank of Warrant Officer[1][3][4]. But hold on, that's not the same… well not in name, but yes in practice. Sergeant Major was the highest NCO rank in Imperial Japan. It's not in FMA, that's Warrant Officer. So technically they're equal ranks. Furthermore, It doesn't make sense for a graduate of the OFFICER school to be officially assigned an NCO rank, unless that's for a trial period like in the German style cadet system. For reference, the French style system assigned graduates the rank of Second Lieutenant (the lowest officer rank) upon graduation, since it didn't require the cadets to gain NCO experience. The fact that we are shown both newly graduated Riza and Roy with the rank of Warrant Officer can only mean there is also a trial period in Amestris.
Further proof of this is that within a year of us seeing the freshly graduated Warrant Officers Riza Hawkeye in 1909[1][3], she's already a full fledged 2nd Lieutenant by the time we see her in Resembool in 1910[5], and again she's a 1st Lieutenant a year later when Ed becomes a State Alchemist[5]. Riza is good, but that's a lot of promotions in a short time. It makes more sense if you think that she was officially assigned her 2nd Lieutenant rank after completing her 6 months trial period, and then she was promoted around the same time as Roy got his Colonel promotion, perhaps for her work in Ishval + whatever cases they worked together. Now, that seems a lot more reasonable than Riza averaging a promotion per year in her early military days.
Another hint towards this system is the number of 2nd Lieutenants we meet: Havoc, Breda, Ross, Catalina, Henschel, Darius, Heinkel, Jerso, and Zampano. This is the rank we see the most of, and it makes sense if they all got it by going through the Officers Academy. We know this to be true for at least Havoc and Breda.
Havoc's and Breda’s graduation.[6]
Now you might notice I haven't mentioned the third type of student, the active non-commissioned officers (aka Second Lieutenant candidates). This is because while they go through the academy too, they're very different from the cadets:
They must be under the age of 38 and pass the Army Preliminary Course recruitment examination, which is different from the cadets exam.
They do NOT live on campus.
Their training only lasts 1 year (during peacetime), unlike the cadets 4 years.
Because they are older than the cadets at the time they become officers, their promotion ceiling is lower as they hit the active duty retirement age before achieving high ranks.
Falman would fall into this category as he was a Warrant Officer for more than six months and clearly looks older than the rest of team Mustang. However, a year does not pass between him getting appointed to the North and him getting his promotion. My explanation for that is that the North has a shorter program for Second Lieutenant Candidates. In imperial Japan not only was the program shorter during war time (10-2 months), but the time also depended on which branch, region, and school you enrolled in. Since the North is quite hostile and is technically in a cold war with Drachma, it makes sense their Second Lieutenant Candidate program is short. The other explanation is that Falman started the program before being transferred.
That more or less covers the Officers military training and education. Feel free to ask me if you want a more day to day explanation of the cadets’ life at the academy. You can also check this article. There's at least one documentary about it, available on Amazon Prime Japan.
Non-commissioned officers training
NCO’s training in Imperial Japan was first performed by the training corps (1871–1899), then by each unit (1899-1927), then after a decline in quality it was done at a training school (1927-1938), and finally back to the training corps until the American intervention. It's impossible for me to know if Arakawa used this system for the NCOs, and which period she chose to use, given how little information we have about the NCO characters. I still mentioned it in case anyone was curious about Fuery’s training. The training school lasted just one year and it was focused on general education, military education, and technical training.
The military police
To end this, I will mention that the military police had their own academy separate from the officers’. They also had their own ranks equivalent to those of the army, i.e. Police First Lieutenant. It is possible this is the case in FMA. They're at the very least not trained together with the military personnel.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please don't hesitate to reach to ask questions or just rant about this. I love discussing FMA.
The ova Yet Another Man's Battlefield explores why Mustang can never settle down and get married like Maes Hughes.
He asks Hughes, "Can you really hold the woman you love with blood-stained hands?" And it's not just a manifestation of his guilt. There's truth to the fact that Mustang is not a good person. Mustang is terrifying. And people are right to be afraid of him.
The same thing applies to Riza, only Riza has the horrible bonus of having the Alchemical equivalent to nuclear launch codes on her back. Sure, Roy may have burned off the most important information of her Father's research, but the tattoo still lingers, and there will still be questions from the people who see it. And Riza can't give them answers that won't lead back to the numerous deaths she is responsible for.
It's no wonder then, that neither of these two characters are ever canonically romantically linked to anyone else.
Neither Riza nor Roy even really meaningfully touched anyone else until Episode 59. When the Gold-Toothed Doctor has Riza's throat slit.
It takes a near-death experience for Roy to hold the woman he loves, and for Riza to finally let herself be held.
But in a strange sense, it finally lets Roy hold the woman he loves with blood-stained hands.
As Close As We Can Get [Colour ver.] || @kimichicha
I feel this render adds so much depth to the initial sketch. The warm lighting really sets the tone and I love how it turned out! I like to think this takes place when Riza is working under King Bradley and they have to try their hardest to avoid communications. But Roy couldn’t resist… ☺️
Happy New Year! 2024 has already promised to be a year of pushing boundaries and stepping out of my comfort zone, in both work and personal life. With lots of exciting stuff on the horizon, I decided to kick this year off by taking some time to explore new mediums and subjects for my art. So far this has helped me to be less rigid with my sketches and to embrace the imperfections that come with just putting something on the page. I hope to continue to create art this way throughout the year. Looking forward to sharing more! I feel like it’s gonna be yet another life changing year!
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