"Merle the cat-girl is always yelling "Van-sama" piteously."
Oh, is that the equivalent of when in the dubbed version she cries "Lord Van!" at least three times every episode? :) I think I mentioned that to you at the time but I didn't know the Japanese equivalent so I didn't realize it related to the Van-sama thing. I was cracking up over that--I actually found myself going around the house after watching that hearing "Lord Van!" pop into my head at random intervals :)
Er, yeah. Not the same. Dubbing=evil.
Interestingly, a couple characters in FMA use "-dono" - the only place I've seen it besides Ruruoni Kenshin - though the fansubbers don't always translate it. It's kind of hit-or-miss. And I picked up a good combo to use on the brothers: "chibi-chan", which more or less means "little one" or "kid".
Every anime presents new opportunities for learning random Japanese words! Heh. I don't think I'll use "gun no inu" (dog of the military) anywhere though... shame...