began before that of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime series. Hiromu Arakawa, the author of the original manga, oversaw the story of the game and designed its characters, while Bones, the studio which would be responsible for the anime series, produced 30 minutes of animation. Themes emphasized during the creation of the game include the bond between Alphonse and Edward, as well as the series' basic concept of Equivalent Exchange, which states that "man cannot gain without sacrifice". The developers looked at other titles for inspiration, particularly Square's action role-playing game Kingdom Hearts, in addition to other games based on manga series, such as Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece games. The biggest challenge they had to overcome was to try to make the title a "full-fledged" game rather than a simple "character-based" game. Tomoya Asano, the assistant producer for the game, noted that development spanned more than a year, unlike most character-based games. In Japan, the game was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2003, the first time that Square and Enix had appeared at the show as a single company. In the United States, the game was showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo of Los Angeles in May 2004, with the presence of Asano. For the North American version of the game, the developers made the difficulty level more challenging and aggressive. A novelization of the game was also written by Makoto Inoue on July 30, 2004, with Arakawa providing illustrations. Since Square Enix wanted the game to be released during the show's broadcast on Adult Swim, Funimation had to begin casting, and recording (at Okatron 5000 under director Chris Sabat) for the English dub for the game long before they were set to record a single episode for the show. Audio The score for the game was composed by Makoto Suehiro, Isao Kasai, Kenji Tani, and Tomohiko Sato. It includes three vocal songs: "Flowers of the Hearts" sung by voice actress Motoko Kumai, "Emotionally" sung by Saori Yamada, and a remix of the first TV ending theme song, "Kesenai Tsumi" (Inerasable Sin) sung by J-pop singer Nana Kitade entitled "Kesenai Tsumi~raw“breath”track~". The soundtrack was published in Japan as a copy-protected album by Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, on February 18, 2004. Reception The game was popular in Japan. It sold 250,000 copies as of 2004. However, critical reception has been mostly mixed with the