| “ | You asked who I am? A HOUSEWIFE!!! | „ |
| ~ Izumi Curtis |
Izumi Curtis (neé Harnet), is a supporting protagonist in the anime/manga series Fullmetal Alchemist. She is the teacher of Edward and Alphonse Elric who agreed to train the brothers to hone their alchemical abilities after their mother died. She expands their training with a regimen of philosophy, martial arts, and living off the land. She is also the wife of Sig Curtis.
She is voiced by Shoko Tsuda in the Japanese version of the anime, and by Christine Auten and Muriel Hofmann in the English version.
Appearance[]
Izumi is a rather attractive and deceptively young-looking woman despite being middle-aged. She is fairly tall and fair-skinned with dark-eyes, a slender frame with a curvaceous yet well-toned figure, and upperback-length black hair worn in box braids. On the left side of her collarbone is a Flamel tattoo. She normally wears a long white collared-blouse with a flowing backside, form-fitting grey pants reaching her ankles, and opened-toed sandals that have the letters "W.C." on them.
Personality[]
Although Izumi takes apparent pride in being a simple housewife and introduces herself as such to anyone who asks, her attractive and humble exterior belies such a fearsome disposition that Ed and Al become terrified at the mere thought of aggravating her. She is prone to swift acts of violence and is often seen dealing out physical harm.
However, despite her frequently aggressive nature, Izumi is a remarkably caring, wise and perceptive woman always willing to help those in need, especially children.
That being said, she is also a great advocate of helping people to make their own way and will usually only intervene on behalf of those with the will but not the means to help themselves. Though she has a great deal of alchemical skill and faith in her alchemical power, Izumi frequently values the idea of working hard and only using alchemy for things that cannot be done by hand, stressing to others that alchemists are still only human and have human limits.
Additionally, Izumi appears to greatly enjoy travel (a trait she may have passed on to Edward), as many of her appearances in the series find her journeying outside her hometown.
Abilities[]
Izumi Curtis remains a capable martial artist and alchemist despite losing her reproductive organs and part of her digestive tract to the Truth.
Izumi is among the strongest characters in the series. An extremely powerful martial artist, both in terms of armed and hand-to-hand combat, she boasts shocking physical strength and proves herself capable of easily subduing multiple enemies in a flash and overpowering larger opponents such as mountain grizzly bears, and even the Homunculus Sloth.
Though Izumi appears as an unbeatable paragon of fearsome power, most acts of overexertion on her part are followed by a crippling regurgitation of blood linked to an internal injury from a failed Human Transmutation several years before. As a result of this, she is one of the few characters able to perform alchemy without the aid of a Transmutation Circle. By merely touching her palms together, she creates an energy circulation with her arms and transmutes by using her own will as a substitute for the necessary runes. This remarkable talent makes Izumi's transmutations both instantaneous and incredibly versatile, allowing her to use alchemy to its fullest potential in direct combat. Later in the manga storyline, her internal organs are rearranged by Hohenheim to improve her health, relieving her issues with physical overexertion.
Her specific alchemy-style seems to focus more on her immediate surroundings and how best to use them to her advantage. She also shares with Edward the same preference for creating spears to wield with deadly proficiency.
History[]
Manga and 2009 Anime[]
Backstory[]
Izumi Harnet was born and raised in the Western region of Amestris. At the age of 18 years old, she ventured from her home to the northern region of Briggs in order to formally learning alchemy as an apprentice to the famed alchemist, Silver Steiner. There, Izumi was told that she wouldn't be accepted as Steiner's apprentice unless she survived for one month alone on the fearsome Briggs mountain range with nothing but a machete.
Izumi braved the elements, nearly dying several times from the extreme cold, wild animal attacks, and assaults from Briggs Mountain Patrol. They even assumed that she was a Drachma Spy because she constantly stole their rations and supplies. In her time there, Izumi would eventually come to forge her own theoretical belief of "One is All, All is One", an alchemical concept of the Universe. Though she was never captured, the rumor of a mysterious "mountain woman" raiding Fort Briggs would continue to circulate in the region for nearly twenty years.
After the month was up, Izumi ventured back into town and declared to Steiner that she was now fit to be his alchemy apprentice. However, the shocked man learned of his misunderstanding and told her that he was Gold Steiner—the older brother of Silver Steiner, who had died several years before— and that he was known for hand-to-hand combat instead of alchemy. In great fury, Izumi assaulted him and knocked him unconscious, setting out to continue her alchemy training on her own. It may be inferred from this that she is a self-taught, yet extremely skilled and knowledgeable, alchemist.
One day, Izumi bumped into a young Sig Curtis, causing her to drop the freshly-dead bear she was carrying, which he picked up. According, to the two, it was love at first sight. Eventually, the two became closer, got married and moved to the southern town of Dublith. Once settled down there, Izumi finally got pregnant with Sig's child after numerous attempts, though the pregnancy was a very difficult one as she was constantly ill. Tragically, their child died during childbirth, rendering her deeply depressed and desperate enough to try to revive her stillborn child through Human Transmutation. Due to the teachings of the Truth though, the "toll" Izumi was required to pay for opening the Gate resulted in some of her internal organs being removed. Although still able to function without her missing organs, the loss left her often anemic, prone to bloody coughing fits and completely incapable of ever becoming pregnant again.
On a trip through the Eastern region of Amestris several years later, Izumi and Sig stopped in the small town of Resembool where torrential rains had caused the river to overflow and threaten to flood the village. She decided to intervene on behalf of the frantic villagers, thus transmuting a large earthen dam to corralling the overflow with ease. Grateful for her help, the people of Resembool town offered the couple a place to rest when her illness began acting up. While there, Izumi was approached by two small boys named Edward and Alphonse Elric, who asked to be taken on as her alchemy apprentices. Though refusing first, she acquiesced a bit upon learning that the two boys were orphaned, thus instead offering a trial period in which to prove their worth as apprentices before making her final decision.
With the boys in tow, Izumi and Sig returned to Dublith and made arrangements for their test. She took the Elric brothers to Yock Island, gave them a large knife and informed them that they were to survive on the island alone for one month without the use of alchemy, all the while trying to decipher the meaning to her creed "All is One, One is All". Secretly leaving Sig's assistant, Mason, on the island to both watch over the boys' safety and make sure they honed their physical combat skills, Izumi departed for Dublith without them.
When she returned in a month, Izumi was pleasantly surprised to find the boys not only in great shape, but having properly understood her alchemical creed. Fulfilling her promise, Izumi accepted them into her tutelage, instructing them in both alchemy and martial arts for six months before deeming them knowledgeable enough to return home and continue practicing on their own.
Meeting the Master[]
Izumi is introduced to the story in Chapter 19 when Edward and Alphonse make a long overdue visit to her home in Dublith to ask her what she knows of the Philosopher's Stone. After reprimanding the boys for becoming lapdogs of the State Military and letting their training slacken, she explains that the Stone never interested her and therefore did not become a focus of her study, but also states that she had met an alchemist in Central City recently who had known a great deal about it—an alchemist by the name of Van Hohenheim. When Alphonse reveals that Hohenheim is the boys' long-lost father, Izumi perceives it as a great chance for them in more ways than one, but Edward angrily refuses to accept help from Hohenheim, the subject is dropped save for Izumi's addition that Hohenheim had mentioned something about his lifelong dream soon coming true.
The boys stay for supper and regale Izumi, Sig, and Mason with tales of their travels—including their experience in Rush Valley helping to deliver a baby, which Izumi says softly is a good experience to have. But when Ed and Al show off their improved transmutation skills, Izumi is shocked to see Edward perform alchemy without a circle. She demands immediately to know by what means Edward saw the Gate of Truth, revealing to the boys her own experience with Human Transmutation and that she had known all along merely by observing them that their bodies had been mysteriously maimed.
After they explain how they used her instruction in an attempt to resurrect their dead mother which rebounded, taking Ed's left leg and right arm, as well as Alphonse's body as toll, and then joined forces with the State Military so as to receive access to restricted alchemical documents which may someday lead to their own restoration. After comforting them and lamenting that they made the same mistake that she did, Izumi expels them both from her tutelage for directly disobeying her prohibition of Human Transmutation. Of course, the expulsion renders the Elric brothers her colleagues rather than students, opening a new relationship for the three alchemists. Realizing this, the boys consult Izumi openly about ways to restore their bodies and she posits that Alphonse may have learned a great deal more from his sojourn into the Gate than either Edward or herself because Al gave his entire physical form as a toll rather than just a body part. But when Alphonse reveals that he has absolutely no recollection of seeing the Gate or the Truth, Izumi suggests that trauma-induced amnesia may be to blame and consults a doctor acquaintance while the boys make themselves at home in the Curtis household.
Soon afterward, Edward departs suddenly and temporarily to renew his State Alchemist license while Alphonse remains in Dublith to help around the shop. But when Al mysteriously vanishes, Izumi, Sig, and Mason investigate around town to find the armor boy's whereabouts, only to learn that he has been kidnapped and taken to a shady nearby bar called the Devil's Nest, where a new local gang has been holding court. Izumi storms the gang's basement stronghold, deftly trouncing just about all of the members (and scolding Al for letting his guard down so easily) before coming across the gang's boss—a stylish man by the name of Greed. However, when she attacks Greed, she discovers—at the cost of her finger bones—that his body is rather strange, covering itself with a thin coating of nigh unbreakable armor when attacked. Alphonse explains that Greed is a Homunculus—much to Izumi's incredulity—and that the man wants to make a deal with the Elrics to help them fashion a body in exchange for information about Al's Soul Binding. He urges Izumi to forgo her urge to fight and bring Ed to the Devil's Nest for negotiations upon his return. Izumi leaves reluctantly, threatening to personally annihilate Greed and his men if Alphonse is harmed in any way. Ed arrives soon afterward and Izumi delivers Al and Greed's message, staying behind while Ed goes alone to "negotiate". (In the 2009 anime, the scenes are moved around and Izumi arrives to back Edward up, her initial encounter with Greed having been removed.)
That night, when the Elrics return from battling Greed and his men with the help of a Southern military platoon led by Major Armstrong and the Führer, King Bradleyhimself, Bradley compliments Izumi's skills as an alchemist and teacher and offers her a place in the State Alchemist program, which she politely refuses. He departs, leaving the offer on the table and causing Izumi to wonder concernedly why the Commander-in-Chief would come to personally deal with such a trivial matter.
Requiring automail repairs in Rush Valley and further information in Central City, Ed, and Al leave Dublith the next morning.
Gallery[]
Images[]
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External Links[]
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