It looks like someone has gotten over his subtitleophobia. You learn more Japanese that way... I've learned a number of really useless phrases thanks to FMA. Can't really see a need for me to ever ask about the philosopher's stone (kenja no ishi)...
SP is excellent for the honorifics. It uses the most common ones often enough that you should pick up when/why they're used.
:-) I didn't really have subtitlephobia :) I used to watch old German movies and Kung Fu movies in subtitles all the time. But I've been so busy lately and when I watch on the computer it ties up my computer, so I've been putting it off.
Yeah, I'm definitely picking up the honorifics from SP--actually that's the main thing I'm picking up, vocabulary-wise. I'm also finding the cadence easier to follow in this than in other animes I've watched, for some reason. I don't understand the words but at least I can hear the "breaks" between syllables/words better, which helps. Once I get that down I figure it'll be easier to tell root words from prefixes/suffixes.
I'm halfway through Episode 6 now. The part in 5 where Pacifica almost died and asked her brother to hold her hand was really touching. I paused at the part in 6 where she's offering the minstrel her arm for her brother and sister's life. . .
BTW I don't know if you saw it, but I had a manga question I posted while you were out I was hoping you could help me with (for something I'm laying out to draw). I was asking if manga typically uses a 1-panel layout on the first page (like US comics) or a multi-panel layout. Also do you know how many pages a typical manga is and is it broken up into "issues" like a US series is?