The combat resolves itself in a way that is mostly alien to our Western imagination. (FMA is somewhat westernized, but I'm going to treat the eastern elements.) Our villains are rarely attracted to the good side. In this anime (and in other Japanese anime films that I've seen) the villains may join the good side at any time, but the switch is not caused by a crisis of conscience. Rather, they realize that their best interest lies in allying themselves with the hero.
From the start, the villains have their own ends and ambitions, only vaguely related to either their master's plans or those of the hero. Thus they make far more interesting -human- villains, who can sustain hours of dialogue and development. They generally have some secret which is the cause of their ambition, and if the hero can discover it, he can use it to persuade them to join him, not because they'll believe in the right, but because with him, they can get what they want. The only villains completely invulnerable to his persuasion are (logically) the ones who are dedicated to the ruination of the project he has at hand.
The villains may even tag along and help the hero accomplish his mission, as long they will have a chance to kill him afterwards. It seems that even the 'boss' villain can be persuaded to change, and the storyline can randomly end with the hero and the ultimate evil just agreeing to stop fighting.
It has some similarity to the Platonic idea that knowledge is equivalent to virtue - when you know enough, you choose rightly. But a person can be unprepared for too much knowledge, because knowledge forces you to choose, and a person is not always prepared to make a difficult choice. Thus masters often hide things from their pupils. The sublime greatness of the pupil usually appears when he makes the right choice in the face of unforeseen knowledge.
An ethical comparison of the characters looks something like this:
Chaos
c) Desiring some good, but have forgotten the Way
b) Desiring some good
a) Desiring some good, and with an inkling of the Way
The Way
Characters develop in either direction, perhaps change direction, through the course of the story. The conflict is between combinations of all three types. Sometimes two characters dedicated to the Way end up fighting, both for the right reasons. This way, there is a possibility of a beautiful fight, and beautiful death; and from the possibility of the beautiful death you get the warrior, whose life is dedicated to war, for the sake of the beauty of war. This is the most alien notion of these anime - the locality of the good. Good can come into conflict with other good. (Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, has the Christian solution - ''There may be shrines and shrines on any land, and sanctities of many kinds. For you will notice, Grizzlebeard, or rather you should have noticed already, having lived so long, that good things do not jostle.") Though the Japanese do have some notion of universal peace - I think this may be the promise of the Emperor of Japan.
The combat makes sense given Aristotle's ancient claim, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things aim at some good. All these characters do aim at some good - and it's not only some perceived good, but some real good.
Nevertheless, the greatest of the characters choose the best of the real goods, and on a rare occasion, they choose to live in the Way, which is to live according to no individual good, to have silence and absence of volition in the centre of being, and therefore to be able to honor every individual good as it deserves, and never to be swayed by the selfish interest. I've an idea that for the Buddhist, individuality is imperfect. And that's as much Eastern philosophy as I shall attempt.
Shrike - Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese swordsman, painter, and philosopher)"The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways...but if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything"
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