Let's talk of one of my favourite manga of all time! Hyper Future Vision Gunnm! Oops, er... Battle Angel Alita! Oops... GUNNM! Yeah, this one has a lot of problems with the translation.
I really don't know why, but the first time this came out, there was a mess in the translation. The original japanese title is Hyper Future Vision Gunnm. Then it was translated as Battle Angel Alita. Why Alita? Oh, because they changed the name of the protagonist from Gally to Alita. And no, there's no explanation for that. There were even worse translation problems, that I'll address as it goes.
I really don't know why, but the first time this came out, there was a mess in the translation. The original japanese title is Hyper Future Vision Gunnm. Then it was translated as Battle Angel Alita. Why Alita? Oh, because they changed the name of the protagonist from Gally to Alita. And no, there's no explanation for that. There were even worse translation problems, that I'll address as it goes.
Nowadays, since the manga is still going, in the third instalment of a very long series, it's usually called GUNNM.
So, lets start with this Gunnm stuff.
Gunnm, as Mr. Kishiro stated, means 'gun dream'. Strange, huh?
Remember that I said that I love cyberpunk? Yeah, it still stands and always will. I cannot get enough of a good old dystopian future. And this one takes the top in terms of dystopia.
Did you love the bleak streets of Neuromancer? This is better. Do you love the concept of 'street samurai' from all these games in a cyberpunk setting? This is WAY better. Do you like moral, philosophical and emotional construction of an amazing character? I present you Alita/Gally.
This little and beautiful cyborg is the deadliest cyborg you'll ever know! But not right away.
She's found in a junkyard, on standby for who knows how long. (later, way later, we find out she's there for probably over 300 years!!) The guy that found her, Daisuke Ido, appears to be a good doctor that treats cyborgs in a humane and decent way. The opposite of the street doctors, that would find a man/woman injured on the streets and operate then without authorization till he/she became a cyborg and then charge the costs for the operation. And that is a good prospect. Sometimes they create an opportunity for someone to get hurt and became indebted to them. Since they are doctors registered with the government (which is operated by androids and follow the law strictly) you can't even complain... (Bleak enough for you? Believe me, it'll get worse as it goes.)
In particular I really have to congrats Mr. Kishiro. The world of Gally (I'll call her that from now on. I hate most of the translation alterations), is amazingly detailed. It always feel very real, very tangible. It's a really well-constructed world, with it's own culture, sports and media. In a world full of cyborgs, and where life is really cheap, the violence levels are off the charts. And at the same time, feel very, very familiar...
Well, Ido finds Gally, and without any knowledge of who she is or why she was there, decided to restore her. After all she's so cute with those permanent puckered lips...what harm could she do?
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| Is she always puckering or are they really that tick? |
Well, soon we discover that the answer to that question is A LOT of damage... but first, we are showed a cyborg prostitute (or should it be a prostitute cyborg?) being brutally murdered. And the next day... Gally has a new pair of arms that looks really familiar. Is Ido the killer? Obviously not. But it sets the theme very well & very early in the story: no one is 100% reliable, no one is totally trustworthy in this world. This is one of the most beautiful things in this series: not even Gally is trustworthy. That's another thing I love about this manga: it breaks tropes. Usually, manga is associated with heroes, that even if they fail, they would get stronger and beat the enemies. Here... Gally fails. And even when she wins, sometimes those victories leave scars worse than a defeat.
Gally confronts Ido, asking him to not kill anymore. But what she didn't know was that Ido was, in fact, a hunter warrior, or in layman terms: a bounty hunter. World explanation: to make things even darker, there's no police (but as we will see, there is still The Police) and since the governmental droids are stuck with paperwork, justice is done by bounties. And Ido is one of then. In the middle of the conflict between Gally and Ido, the bounty he was chasing attacks. And Gally shows one of the first truly amazing things of this universe: Panzer Kunst or Armoured Arts. Panzer Kunst is a martial arts developed exclusively for cyborgs. In the link you can get a profound view of this art. Basically it is developed in zero gravity and are focused against human & cyborg, armed or disarmed, hand-to-hand or against guns. It relies on the fact that they are cyborgs and take martial arts to a whole new level. Amazing, huh? The downside? If used with weak parts, the power generated may destroy those parts...
Gally decides that she wants to fight and became a bounty hunter. Ido is against it, since it goes against his ideals for Gally. And they fight. Yeah, the father-daughter conflict is explored in this. Gally goes and became a registered hunter warrior. Why she wants to fight? Because it's the only moment she feels alive and that's something that connects her to the past she doesn't remember.
We are introduced to a monstrosity called Makaku, an addicted to endorphin, with a preference for 'drinking it' directly from the brains of his victims. We go for Ido and how he copes with his dreams for his daughter being destroyed. We see that he is not a good guy, since he hunts for the thrill of the hunt. And then... the first amazing battle of Gunnm: Gally vs Makaku. Oh boy! It's fucking amazing!
As soon as it starts, Gally chops Makaku in half. In exchange, he torn Gally apart, leaving her with only one arm. It usually would end there... but no! They keep going! And it is amazing. The sense of movement, despair and violence is incredible! Gally spinning with her arm elbow deep in Makaku's eye is chocking. Unfortunately, her arm couldn't handle the centrifugal force and snaps and Ido came to the rescue. Makaku's body is destroyed, but low and behold! He's actually a worm-like cyborg that infects the body of those he consider strong, and the capabilities of his mind are linked to the body he infects. He goes away, casually quoting Nietzsche & swearing revenge...
Well, his daughter has a death sentence. What is the solution that Ido choose? Give her a military-grade body called berserker, of course! It may seems strange, but in the future, when we discover who exactly Ido is, it would make sense. Now, Gally has a body on par with her skills, but she's still haunted by the memory of Makaku. Meanwhile, Makaku invades the coliseum of the city to take the body of the current coliseum champion. Now, he believes, he can finish what he started with Gally.
One mention, now that it became a little relevant, the city they live is called Salem in the original and was translated as Tiphares, based on the sphere Tiferet of the Kabbalah. It is the supporting base for the floating city of Keter, Jeru in the original. As someone that understand a little of kabbalah, I found it stupid. In particular knowing the other instalments of Gunnm. There is something above Keter in the tower, so the naming is stupid, as the Keter sephirah is the ultimate point in the kabbalah. The JeruSalem thing was mostly a wink, not something to push so much symbolism on. But I digress.
With the new body, both Gally and Makaku went hunting. She, for allies, since Ido is injured, and he for her. This marks the first encounter with Zapan. He will be important. They find each other in the Kansas bar and start the fight right there. They seems pretty matched, till Makaku stole a baby, Koyomi, and threatens to eat her. He destroy the floor and take the fight to the sewers/subterranean area of Salem. Ido pleads to Gally to let it go, but she decides to go anyway. Gally is afraid, but must go on. There are very subtle notes on Gally's feelings and what she's thinking. She goes after the cries of Koyomi and met Makaku. They discuss and we discover the backstory for Makaku: he was literally flushed away as soon as he was born. Gally trowing his life in line to save the baby is a personal offence for him. He attacks and she responds instinctively.
Now we get two points: Gally's fighting abilities are part of her 'muscular memory', part of who she was. It is a very instinct-based reflex. One of these is the costume of passing something on her face, like a mask, in this case, she used tar. This look is very emblematic for Gally, basically her usual look. At this point, she don't understand fully the techniques she's using. She will understand it, but one step at a time.
Second: she understands the functionalities of her new berserker body and start to use it more fully, plasma included. The fight goes on, beautifully as all of them are in this manga. And the dialogue is incredibly deep. One example: "I walk in faith! The faith that we choose who we want to be... and grow into that identity, ugly or beautiful!" This. This is what stand out in this manga. The art is excellent and the dialogue is on par.
Gally wins, but Makaku, mortally wounded, tries to take her with him. An explosion occurs, but since it's fire, the electromagnetic capabilities of her new body protects then. They talk, before his death. And, even if he was a monster, you sympathize with him.
His life was worth of nightmares, suffering beyond limit. His only wish was that someone, anyone, took notice of him. And Gally did. Oh, he wasn't always like this. He was made into this worm-like android. By someone that bears the same forehead sign as Ido... Makaku dies happy. He and Gally knows that he would never be forgotten by her. And then, time passes.
One mention, now that it became a little relevant, the city they live is called Salem in the original and was translated as Tiphares, based on the sphere Tiferet of the Kabbalah. It is the supporting base for the floating city of Keter, Jeru in the original. As someone that understand a little of kabbalah, I found it stupid. In particular knowing the other instalments of Gunnm. There is something above Keter in the tower, so the naming is stupid, as the Keter sephirah is the ultimate point in the kabbalah. The JeruSalem thing was mostly a wink, not something to push so much symbolism on. But I digress.
With the new body, both Gally and Makaku went hunting. She, for allies, since Ido is injured, and he for her. This marks the first encounter with Zapan. He will be important. They find each other in the Kansas bar and start the fight right there. They seems pretty matched, till Makaku stole a baby, Koyomi, and threatens to eat her. He destroy the floor and take the fight to the sewers/subterranean area of Salem. Ido pleads to Gally to let it go, but she decides to go anyway. Gally is afraid, but must go on. There are very subtle notes on Gally's feelings and what she's thinking. She goes after the cries of Koyomi and met Makaku. They discuss and we discover the backstory for Makaku: he was literally flushed away as soon as he was born. Gally trowing his life in line to save the baby is a personal offence for him. He attacks and she responds instinctively.
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| The art is simply beautiful |
Now we get two points: Gally's fighting abilities are part of her 'muscular memory', part of who she was. It is a very instinct-based reflex. One of these is the costume of passing something on her face, like a mask, in this case, she used tar. This look is very emblematic for Gally, basically her usual look. At this point, she don't understand fully the techniques she's using. She will understand it, but one step at a time.
Second: she understands the functionalities of her new berserker body and start to use it more fully, plasma included. The fight goes on, beautifully as all of them are in this manga. And the dialogue is incredibly deep. One example: "I walk in faith! The faith that we choose who we want to be... and grow into that identity, ugly or beautiful!" This. This is what stand out in this manga. The art is excellent and the dialogue is on par.
Gally wins, but Makaku, mortally wounded, tries to take her with him. An explosion occurs, but since it's fire, the electromagnetic capabilities of her new body protects then. They talk, before his death. And, even if he was a monster, you sympathize with him.
His life was worth of nightmares, suffering beyond limit. His only wish was that someone, anyone, took notice of him. And Gally did. Oh, he wasn't always like this. He was made into this worm-like android. By someone that bears the same forehead sign as Ido... Makaku dies happy. He and Gally knows that he would never be forgotten by her. And then, time passes.
What is very interesting in this early part of the manga, is how this horrible city creates people like this. And the next part is a very, very sad story. Gally meets a boy. Hugo. He's a street urchin, good natured and obviously she falls for him. Oh, remember Zapan? He tries to warn Hugo that Gally is more than meets the eyes... But remember what I said? No one in this city is reliable. Hugo doesn't kill people like Gally. He just maims them in order to stole their backbones and spinal cord. Why? Because he wants to go to Jeru, and is in league with a underworld lord that has ties with the floating city.
I'll cut it short, since it's a pretty tragic and overused story: Gally discover his dream, they work together, she's unaware of his crimes, (which is punishable by death), he's found out, by Zapan, she bands with Hugo, they go to the underworld lord and... yes, it was a false promise. Hugo loses it and decide to climb the cables that connect Salem to Jeru. It is also punishable with death, and dies in the arms of Gally... It's a very traditional story, a very predictable and overused pattern in all media. But it's very well told, at least. There's the twist where Hugo was almost killed, but was kept on stasis by Gally's body. Zapan notices, tries to go for the kill, but one of the governmental droid warns him that stealing a bounty is a crime and Gally cuts out his fucking face off. After Hugo's death, it's time skip time.
We met Ido wandering the streets looking for Gally and we found that she's a runner on the most famous sport of this new Earth: motor ball. This point of the manga is very long, deep and meaningful. Oh, and full of bad ass fights on the motor ball circuit. In this part, we go deep in Gally's search for what it means to be strong, in a very philosophical way. It's also where she finds her 'soulmate': a Damascus blade. With the blade and lots of life-or-death situations, she starts to understand the techniques she posses and to truly make then hers.
I won't cover this part in deep for two motives: first, it's very graphical. Second, it's a very traditional trope in the manga universe. We even get teammates that are basically past enemies that she won over with her charisma & skills. Very traditional pattern.
In the final confrontation with Jashugan, the 'emperor of motor ball', she has a small flashback of her past and we find out her real name: Yoko. And that's it. Back to the fight, in a very deep battle of techniques, Gally loses to Jashugan. She's delighted by this incredible fight and wants to keep battling him, but Jashugan died as he transcended his own limitations. Which makes Gally the victor, but an empty victory that will, literally, forever haunts her. Way in the future, in a galactic fighting tournament, she will remember this fight over and over...
More time skip, and we found that Zapan, without his face, became very unstable. In one of his fits about his face, he kills a woman that he was involved. Cuts to Gally singing The Police in the New Kansas Bar. She is leaving a normal life, reading a lot of philosophy and high literature, playing music for a living and keeping it cool while teaching people how to defend themselves. Zapan is trying to get revenge on Gally, while being hunted by the father of the woman she killed. Ido was informed that the berserker body was bought by someone and goes to buy it back. And he finds the man that has the same forehead mark as he: Desty Nova. We get a glimpse that both of then came from Jeru. Shocking..? Not to me. Obviously that some one that acts with such noble intentions and with dark desires wouldn't be from Salem. Ido has all the signs of someone that sacrifice his life for the sake of others...
Nova is one of the most interesting characters in this series. He was expelled from Jeru because of his bizarre experiences and for his understanding of what exactly is Jeru, but at the same time, they want him back. Even if we see him as a monster, the more you see him, listen to him, you start to sympathize. He is not an enemy per se. He just want to understand the forces of fate and destiny: karma. And he does some real gruesome experiments with his genius-grade understanding of nanotechnology. He picked the brain of Zapan (scooped was the better term) and gives him the berserker body. Chaos ensues... Ido dies in the process, but Nova says that he can bring Ido back and that is only a minor inconvenience. What is really important is the conflict of Gally and Zapan. She kills Nova, which is immediately bring back to life due to his nanobots. Meanwhile, Zapan destroys the New Kansas Bar (poor owner... and it's not even the last time) and goes berserker in the city, looking for her. Gally decides to go confront him, with a nice biblical passage to capture the moment and obviously they fight. In a, once again, very deep and philosophical battle, she destroys Zapan and the berserker body, at the same time that one of his memories invades her mind. A memory of Zapan and the woman he killed, the woman he loved. Gally understands that she must take it all, accept strength & weakness, good & evil. She must accept that life is full of tribulations and that mercy is the basis of all... but she can't. As she says, her heart is not big enough... and with it, we go to the last part of this series.
She is manipulated to become an agent for Jeru, handling earthbound problems and, supposedly, hunting for Nova. She accepts and another time skip ensues.
This time, the time skip consists of many years, and we find a Gally very different from last time: she has given up his humanity, focusing on the thrills of combat. She has no more ties and the only human interaction she has is her 'operator'. Meanwhile, we are presented to the most amazing guy ever: Figure Four. He's fully human and master of a fighting style that makes him able to fight cyborgs on par. He's amazingly cheesy, socially clumsy, funny & charming.
I'll cut it short, since it's a pretty tragic and overused story: Gally discover his dream, they work together, she's unaware of his crimes, (which is punishable by death), he's found out, by Zapan, she bands with Hugo, they go to the underworld lord and... yes, it was a false promise. Hugo loses it and decide to climb the cables that connect Salem to Jeru. It is also punishable with death, and dies in the arms of Gally... It's a very traditional story, a very predictable and overused pattern in all media. But it's very well told, at least. There's the twist where Hugo was almost killed, but was kept on stasis by Gally's body. Zapan notices, tries to go for the kill, but one of the governmental droid warns him that stealing a bounty is a crime and Gally cuts out his fucking face off. After Hugo's death, it's time skip time.
We met Ido wandering the streets looking for Gally and we found that she's a runner on the most famous sport of this new Earth: motor ball. This point of the manga is very long, deep and meaningful. Oh, and full of bad ass fights on the motor ball circuit. In this part, we go deep in Gally's search for what it means to be strong, in a very philosophical way. It's also where she finds her 'soulmate': a Damascus blade. With the blade and lots of life-or-death situations, she starts to understand the techniques she posses and to truly make then hers.
I won't cover this part in deep for two motives: first, it's very graphical. Second, it's a very traditional trope in the manga universe. We even get teammates that are basically past enemies that she won over with her charisma & skills. Very traditional pattern.
In the final confrontation with Jashugan, the 'emperor of motor ball', she has a small flashback of her past and we find out her real name: Yoko. And that's it. Back to the fight, in a very deep battle of techniques, Gally loses to Jashugan. She's delighted by this incredible fight and wants to keep battling him, but Jashugan died as he transcended his own limitations. Which makes Gally the victor, but an empty victory that will, literally, forever haunts her. Way in the future, in a galactic fighting tournament, she will remember this fight over and over...
More time skip, and we found that Zapan, without his face, became very unstable. In one of his fits about his face, he kills a woman that he was involved. Cuts to Gally singing The Police in the New Kansas Bar. She is leaving a normal life, reading a lot of philosophy and high literature, playing music for a living and keeping it cool while teaching people how to defend themselves. Zapan is trying to get revenge on Gally, while being hunted by the father of the woman she killed. Ido was informed that the berserker body was bought by someone and goes to buy it back. And he finds the man that has the same forehead mark as he: Desty Nova. We get a glimpse that both of then came from Jeru. Shocking..? Not to me. Obviously that some one that acts with such noble intentions and with dark desires wouldn't be from Salem. Ido has all the signs of someone that sacrifice his life for the sake of others...
Nova is one of the most interesting characters in this series. He was expelled from Jeru because of his bizarre experiences and for his understanding of what exactly is Jeru, but at the same time, they want him back. Even if we see him as a monster, the more you see him, listen to him, you start to sympathize. He is not an enemy per se. He just want to understand the forces of fate and destiny: karma. And he does some real gruesome experiments with his genius-grade understanding of nanotechnology. He picked the brain of Zapan (scooped was the better term) and gives him the berserker body. Chaos ensues... Ido dies in the process, but Nova says that he can bring Ido back and that is only a minor inconvenience. What is really important is the conflict of Gally and Zapan. She kills Nova, which is immediately bring back to life due to his nanobots. Meanwhile, Zapan destroys the New Kansas Bar (poor owner... and it's not even the last time) and goes berserker in the city, looking for her. Gally decides to go confront him, with a nice biblical passage to capture the moment and obviously they fight. In a, once again, very deep and philosophical battle, she destroys Zapan and the berserker body, at the same time that one of his memories invades her mind. A memory of Zapan and the woman he killed, the woman he loved. Gally understands that she must take it all, accept strength & weakness, good & evil. She must accept that life is full of tribulations and that mercy is the basis of all... but she can't. As she says, her heart is not big enough... and with it, we go to the last part of this series.
She is manipulated to become an agent for Jeru, handling earthbound problems and, supposedly, hunting for Nova. She accepts and another time skip ensues.
This time, the time skip consists of many years, and we find a Gally very different from last time: she has given up his humanity, focusing on the thrills of combat. She has no more ties and the only human interaction she has is her 'operator'. Meanwhile, we are presented to the most amazing guy ever: Figure Four. He's fully human and master of a fighting style that makes him able to fight cyborgs on par. He's amazingly cheesy, socially clumsy, funny & charming.
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| But has some serious fashion problems |
He meets Gally as a mercenary and they went into a mission together. Lots of Mad Max battles goes on and we basically see Figure trying to impress Gally. And in a way, he succeeds. His fighting abilities impress her, as his goofy personality. At the same time, her missions catch on with they and more creative ideas are presented. Oh, her mission is to discover the position of the leader of a rebellion against Jeru: Barjack.
All in all, what I wanna focus is the relationships she has now. Figure would become the man Gally loves and ends with. It's very nice, since his main theme is freedom. Freedom of being, of ties. This ideal, obviously attracts her, since it is something that she never could attain: she's always bounded. Be it her relationship with others, her duties, Gally is always restricted. And the only way for her to be free, is this bad ass goofy fighter. His personality is very simple, as his ideas and decisions.
On the other spectrum, there is the son of Nova: Kaos. He is the opposite of Figure, since he is very duty bounded. And way immature. I could say lots of Figure, but he is a man. Kaos, even after all the events in this series, is not. At maximum, he is a young adult trying to impress the world. Kaos is also only part of a man, since Barjack/Den is part of him.
Being the son of Nova, obviously would give some psychological scars. Kaos is mute, only able to project his voice thru radio waves. He also has psychometry, which helps a lot in a world half destroyed. One of the most beautiful passages of the manga is the relationship of Nova & Kaos and a little bird Nova gives him. Read it, it'll be worth your time.
Kaos is unaware that Den is part of him. The discovery that all his hatred and anger against the injustice of the world created what he considers a monster gives birth to his understanding that the circle of violence can only be overcome by reconciliation and creation... yeah. Cheesy as hell.
That's the main point of Kaos/Den. They are out of place here. As Kaos, he's too immature to handle and truly understand the world, his powers are a crutch to his emotional evolution. As Den, he is immature in his understanding of how the world works, assuming that destroying Jeru & Salem, the world would become a better place. The inner fight of then, to me, is a natural fight every teenager has to come to terms with: fight the system or try to change the system. Kaos intentions of 'putting himself to use' thru his powers is a good initiative, but totally unrealistic in the long term. But this unrealistic settings on manga are very common.
In general, there is what is called the Jump Code, based on the most famous publisher ideal: hard work, friendship and honour. Usually in manga, there's a main group/character that solves all the problems thru this: battle, friends and honour. In comics, is usually the same thing, but with a focus on the moderator: someone that solves the problems by discussing or making agreements. I'll explain those patterns in future reviews. But mainly is the following: the Western Lands fiction tries to solve things on a political level, since, in fact, we usually fight wars to solve our conflicts. The Eastern Lands fiction tries to solve things thru combat, but in the real life it's always on a political solution. It's very interesting to observe this pattern. Specially when we compare the most famous examples: Superman/Batman never kill. Goku on the other hand, has a huge body count...
Remember that Ido was a father to her? And that Nova told her that he would bring him back? Yes, he did. Gally found him, but he doesn't remember her. Why? He discovered the secret of Jeru and couldn't handle it, erasing all his memories. With that, we came full circle: Gally has to come to terms with the suicide of her father and the loss. It is a very short chapter, but it's very touching. With that, we can say that Gally is finally a full mature woman. And it reflects on the attitudes she takes in the end.
An interesting comeback is Koyomi. Yes, the baby she saves in the first arc. She's a teen now, almost a grow woman, which gave you a nice nod to how much time Gally spent on her battlefield and gives weight to the changes we saw in her. Koyomi bands together with Barjack, registering all the events of the war. In the end, she's a curious and interesting perspective of the good that Salem was capable of creating: she's pure, immature, but at the same time, a representation of the hope in the future.
I won't spoil the ending. I will just say that it is beautiful.
As I said, this is my favourite manga. There are others that I really like, but this one stays with me.
It has deepness, beauty, sadness. To me it is the epitome of cyberpunk: change the system, fight it even if you don't know how. Even if you have to became a cog in the machine. But keep your head high, maintain your standards and push forward. The world is a bleak place, but you can still find love, friendship and even redemption if you push hard enough. It won't be easy, it will be painful, full of despair and challenges.
But when you succeed... there's nothing like it.
Read it.
Anyway you can.
The sequels are more focused on combat, but still has a great deal of philosophy, in particular zen and transcendence.
Gunnm is still going on. Twenty and six years at the moment. And it's still interesting. Lately the release are not fixed and the story is a little bit strange & vague... but I gotta go till the end.
Hope to have some company.
Phew. That one was huge. That's what you get when you try to explain something you love.
The worse part? There will be others that will be even bigger. Specially with what I have in mind for the future. I briefly touched on the differences between the East & West. Next week I will go a little deeper on this topic. But for now, that's it.
All in all, what I wanna focus is the relationships she has now. Figure would become the man Gally loves and ends with. It's very nice, since his main theme is freedom. Freedom of being, of ties. This ideal, obviously attracts her, since it is something that she never could attain: she's always bounded. Be it her relationship with others, her duties, Gally is always restricted. And the only way for her to be free, is this bad ass goofy fighter. His personality is very simple, as his ideas and decisions.
On the other spectrum, there is the son of Nova: Kaos. He is the opposite of Figure, since he is very duty bounded. And way immature. I could say lots of Figure, but he is a man. Kaos, even after all the events in this series, is not. At maximum, he is a young adult trying to impress the world. Kaos is also only part of a man, since Barjack/Den is part of him.
Being the son of Nova, obviously would give some psychological scars. Kaos is mute, only able to project his voice thru radio waves. He also has psychometry, which helps a lot in a world half destroyed. One of the most beautiful passages of the manga is the relationship of Nova & Kaos and a little bird Nova gives him. Read it, it'll be worth your time.
Kaos is unaware that Den is part of him. The discovery that all his hatred and anger against the injustice of the world created what he considers a monster gives birth to his understanding that the circle of violence can only be overcome by reconciliation and creation... yeah. Cheesy as hell.
That's the main point of Kaos/Den. They are out of place here. As Kaos, he's too immature to handle and truly understand the world, his powers are a crutch to his emotional evolution. As Den, he is immature in his understanding of how the world works, assuming that destroying Jeru & Salem, the world would become a better place. The inner fight of then, to me, is a natural fight every teenager has to come to terms with: fight the system or try to change the system. Kaos intentions of 'putting himself to use' thru his powers is a good initiative, but totally unrealistic in the long term. But this unrealistic settings on manga are very common.
In general, there is what is called the Jump Code, based on the most famous publisher ideal: hard work, friendship and honour. Usually in manga, there's a main group/character that solves all the problems thru this: battle, friends and honour. In comics, is usually the same thing, but with a focus on the moderator: someone that solves the problems by discussing or making agreements. I'll explain those patterns in future reviews. But mainly is the following: the Western Lands fiction tries to solve things on a political level, since, in fact, we usually fight wars to solve our conflicts. The Eastern Lands fiction tries to solve things thru combat, but in the real life it's always on a political solution. It's very interesting to observe this pattern. Specially when we compare the most famous examples: Superman/Batman never kill. Goku on the other hand, has a huge body count...
Remember that Ido was a father to her? And that Nova told her that he would bring him back? Yes, he did. Gally found him, but he doesn't remember her. Why? He discovered the secret of Jeru and couldn't handle it, erasing all his memories. With that, we came full circle: Gally has to come to terms with the suicide of her father and the loss. It is a very short chapter, but it's very touching. With that, we can say that Gally is finally a full mature woman. And it reflects on the attitudes she takes in the end.
An interesting comeback is Koyomi. Yes, the baby she saves in the first arc. She's a teen now, almost a grow woman, which gave you a nice nod to how much time Gally spent on her battlefield and gives weight to the changes we saw in her. Koyomi bands together with Barjack, registering all the events of the war. In the end, she's a curious and interesting perspective of the good that Salem was capable of creating: she's pure, immature, but at the same time, a representation of the hope in the future.
I won't spoil the ending. I will just say that it is beautiful.
As I said, this is my favourite manga. There are others that I really like, but this one stays with me.
It has deepness, beauty, sadness. To me it is the epitome of cyberpunk: change the system, fight it even if you don't know how. Even if you have to became a cog in the machine. But keep your head high, maintain your standards and push forward. The world is a bleak place, but you can still find love, friendship and even redemption if you push hard enough. It won't be easy, it will be painful, full of despair and challenges.
But when you succeed... there's nothing like it.
Read it.
Anyway you can.
The sequels are more focused on combat, but still has a great deal of philosophy, in particular zen and transcendence.
Gunnm is still going on. Twenty and six years at the moment. And it's still interesting. Lately the release are not fixed and the story is a little bit strange & vague... but I gotta go till the end.
Hope to have some company.
Phew. That one was huge. That's what you get when you try to explain something you love.
The worse part? There will be others that will be even bigger. Specially with what I have in mind for the future. I briefly touched on the differences between the East & West. Next week I will go a little deeper on this topic. But for now, that's it.
Next week: back to the Blue Ant Trilogy, lets discuss Spook Country! Hit or miss for Mr. Gibson?
See ya
