| Week | Start Date | Pages | No. of Pages | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | March 08 | 7–52 | 45 pages | 第 22 話 |
| Week 2 | March 15 | 53–98 | 45 pages | 第 23 話 |
| Week 3 | March 22 | 99–144 | 45 pages | 第 24 話 |
| Week 4 | March 29 | 145–186 | 41 pages | 第 25 話 |
Start Date: March 08
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Only four chapters in this volume - but each has more pages than the ones in volume 5. At least they are all equally long!
I’m amused at how the scary island man looks like a huge beefy mountain… except it turns out it’s just regular-sized Mason, seen from a frightened kid’s point of view.
They normally have four chapters - it’s just volume five that broke the pattern. 
I completely forgot where we left off a few weeks ago so it took me a while to remember why I was reading a manga adaptation of Lord of the Flies all of a sudden.
I didn’t really see the “twist” coming, but in my defence it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you think about it for more than 2 seconds. Still thought it was an entertaining chapter, although once more completely pointless from the point of view of the overarching narrative. We even already had Ed discuss his philosophy of the nature of existence in the first chapter, so this isn’t new, although I suppose it works as an origin story.
We also already know where this path will lead him so there’s not a whole lot of suspense. Judging by the chapter titles we’ll get there soon enough… I wonder if we’ll get new info that will reframe the events of the attempted resurrection of their mother. I’m not particularly looking forward to seeing two kids getting completely rekt while attempting to save their mum but I guess we had to revisit that at some point.
Start Date: March 15
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Page, uh… I’m gonna say 76, the design on the gate is Robert Fludd’s depiction of the Kabbalist Tree of Life (a copy of which can be found a bit less than halfway down that Wikipedia article).
Well, we had to reach this part of the story at some point. It was interesting to learn a bit more about what happened.
I did get a little confused about the flashback structure of this chapter and about how their abilities are developing, so I hope you don’t mind if I check my understanding of the chapter with you because it seems like a pretty significant chapter 
So, the chapter starts with them getting home and fixing a barn (which did strike me a little as a “hey welcome back, but hey, could you, like, fix a problem for us, like, right now?” situation 
).
Anyway, on page 60 they say that sensei can do it by just clapping her hands without a 錬成陣. Probably that word came up before, but I’d forgotten it. That’s the big symbol that they draw on the ground, right?
Then the panel at the bottom fades into a flashback and then the bottom middle panel on page 66 fades back out of the flashback, right? This is where I got confused because I didn’t get it that the flashback had ended… 
Then on page 67 Ed is complaining that he still can’t perform Alchemy by just clapping his hands, right? In other words, that’s definitely something that he can’t do at this point yet.
Then we get a montage and that’s just to indicate that some significant amount of time has passed, I guess, and then we go into the whole debacle thing.
If I got anything wrong, let me know! 
And simple recipes!
Yep, all that sounds pretty accurate.
It’s about a year - the montage is packed with little clues of the seasons passing. Top of 68, there’s some leaves falling = it’s autumn. Top of 69, the tree is bare, and they’re wearing scarves = it’s winter. Next panel, guy’s plowing his field = it’s spring. Panel below that, there’s a cicada on the tree = it’s summer.
You noticed, I presume, the moment when he does perform alchemy by clapping his hands?
Thanks for confirming! I’ve had plenty of times in the past that I felt sure about something only to be proven wrong 
Ah, indeed! Of course. Apparently that panel was so big that I glossed over it
I did notice but what does it mean precisely? That they use their own body as “sacrifice” in order to have an equal exchange? Is that why the sensei is so sickly? But then why do it so casually as we’ve seen multiple times so far? I’d rather draw circles…
I suppose that would explain why Alphonse can’t do it, he doesn’t have much left to barter with…
Start Date: March 22
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I wonder how many Japanese readers know that “bow-wow” is a sound that dogs make in English…
I’m not sure I understand Alphonse’s sentence here, although as I was writing this question I think it finally clicked: he’s saying that alchemists are supposed to help the people, not the army, and Mustang replies “indeed, therefore they’ll call you ‘army dogs’”, right?
It’s the ためにあるもの that confused me I think. I don’t fully get why ある is used here.
I understood it like that too.
It’s the thing that exists for general public.
Sounds ok to me 
Yeah I suppose that makes sense, it just felt odd to use に with ある but at this point I should know better than to use my western grammar mindset with Japanese.
I don’t know that I would have made the connection had I not read your comment first.
