This is the weirdest comp title I may or may not get to use: BRIDGERTON x FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST. You see, The Name and the Key is what you get when you use Bridgerton for your setting, style, and romance, and Fullmetal Alchemist for your magic system and philosophy.

Comp titles are ideally with books for books, or authors with authors, but both of these are television series that helped shape The Darkening Gate, the trilogy I’m working on now.

Though I don’t read or watch as much romance as I should, I remember the hype surrounding the coming of Bridgerton to Netflix, and I binged the first season while living in Japan. I loved the costumes, the manners, the actors, and the love story overall (despite some odd choices along the way).

I watched the second season of Bridgerton, too, and loved that one even more than the first. It had a closer vibe to Jane Austen when it came to the love story, and I do love a good relationship where people start off annoying each other/competing with each other, then coming to fall in love from that. I wouldn’t call it a full on enemies-to-lovers plot, but maybe a tamer version of that? I just know that dislike turned to like turned to love, and that was a fun ride to be on.

I admit I’m far behind on the rest of the series. I haven’t watched Season 3 or 4 yet, and I mean to, but what is time? I have 500 other things in my watchlist, and tons of grading and writing to do. I’ll figure something out at some point, though.

I don’t know specifically why The Name and the Key got set during the Regency other than I love the costuming. It was my thesis novel back in 2013, and even then it was inspired by the Regency, although I was so subtle about it, people couldn’t tell the time period very well.

I’m still subtle about it in the book coming out in July, but I use a lot more historical terminology, describe the fashions more often, and even mention the Season–not quite the London Season, since there is no London in The Name and the Key, but a summer Season where the rich make their way to Mariner to take in the sea air and socialize in the upper class area of town known as Highgate.

I don’t call the rich or nobles “the ton” in the books because I think that’s too on the nose of a reference to Bridgerton. I might be wrong, but I think the show might be many people’s first introduction to that phrase, more so than the readers of the series. It might be popular in Regency romances written by other authors, too, though.

I don’t recall Regency films like Pride and Prejudice (2005) or Sense and Sensibility (1995) using the phrase “ton,” either. But these movies have been out for decades, and my memory can only go so far.

Anyway…the clothing, the technology, the atmosphere, the romance, the setting, and the social life all come from the Regency, and are Bridgerton-like.

So where does something completely different like Fullmetal Alchemist come in?

Admittedly, I haven’t read the manga because the anime series are just so good (my favorite being Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, which follows the manga storyline closely). I don’t think reading the manga will hurt my opinion of the anime at all, it’s just, the show was a big time investment, and the manga will be equally so. Maybe someday I’ll sit down and read it.

Anyway, the first time I saw Fullmetal Alchemist (2003-2004), my mind exploded. It’s an incredible story of family devotion between brothers and their desperation to use alchemy to bring their dead mother back, only for their magic to bring them horrific consequences. Edward, the older brother, loses his arm and leg. Alphonse, the younger brother, loses his entire body, and only “exists” because Ed uses alchemy to tether Alphonse’s soul to a suit of armor, which serves as a replacement body.

The story produces a variety of emotions in the viewer/reader, and it gets really, really dark at times. And it is also heartbreaking.

I didn’t care for the 2003/2004 series ending, and then I found out that a 2009 version of the series existed: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. It consists of 64 episodes and lasted into 2010. I heard that FMAB followed the manga pretty much exactly, but I wanted to see the Elric brothers again, so that was my motivation to watch.

While the core of the story–brothers trying to save each other after using failed alchemy to bring their mother back–was the same, as well as some major incidents, FMAB on the whole is vastly different than FMA, which chose to diverge from the manga and make an original story. FMAB proved to be the more satisfying of the two, and I loved the ending. That show is considered a near-perfect anime, for good reason. An absolutely satisfying series.

Sorry about the enthusiastic gushing. This show is in my top five, and may be my number one anime.

The magic system and all the esoteric stuff that popped up in Fullmetal Alchemist really drew me in. There’s a lot of artwork and symbolism from real alchemical texts that appear in the series; the idea of removing parts of yourself to create a godlike being through the alchemical process really, really stuck with me.

In the series, the character known as “Father” has used alchemy to remove the impurities known as the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth) from his body, and he crafted them into homunculi (another alchemical concept, this one derived from Paracelsus) to serve him — they are his “children,” in a way. “Father” started out as a slave centuries ago but delved into alchemy when a creature in a flask asks him to give him blood. As ages pass, “Father” grows into more power until he becomes something like a god, and is willing to sacrifice the entire world to achieve such means.

I might have gotten some of that wrong. I haven’t watched the show since 2012 so I’m going off of my memory.

Anyway, in The Name and the Key, Andresh wants to stop death, and his demon Isabelle tells him that alchemy is the only way to do it. He has to sacrifice the parts of himself that make him human at each step of the alchemical process, pass through the Gates of Alchemy each time, and then he will become a god. And only a god can stop death.

See how this is similar to Fullmetal Alchemist? I don’t deal with the Seven Deadly Sins (which was such a brilliant idea, by the way) but I do consider things that are considered to be both good and evil in mankind, depending on how it is expressed and interpreted. And desire seems to be a fully human aspect, too. That, and I wanted to tie it in to the romance between Andresh and Lily to up the stakes between them.

While Bridgerton may be a great comp–it’s wildly popular and well known and beloved–Fullmetal Alchemist may not be the best choice because anime lovers, while growing in popularity, are still considered somewhat niche. However, it’s exactly where my magic and my philosophy comes from, so I can’t help but comp it.

If you heard that a book was a cross between Bridgerton and Fullmetal Alchemist, would you give it a go? Or does the combination sound too weird?