Gunnm - Mars Chronicle 039 (part 1) Is out!

[FluffyMcMittens]

Here's 39.1!

https://mega.nz/file/aRFxDKgC#x1UbJMLyN ... tHauRm-IA4

https://www120.zippyshare.com/v/swB9YpMN/file.html

[00_unit]

Thank you very much, I am surprised team pixie dust translated the chapter so quickly, I am very surprised, guess team pixie dust and Kishiro have been working faster

Man, interesting build up, you have my attention again, I might be getting my hopes up too much but I am now intrigued of where the series is going, hope the payoff is good otherwise I might be pissed and have a tirade somewhere. I am surprised by how kishiro reference some terminology from last order it shows he hasn't forgotten some world building for this universe which I am glad to see, but I don't want him to keep me in the dark for too long

Spoiler:

Also the mention of Gossen, that is one of the five schools I was very curious to see if he would explore this aspect of panzer kunst and unexpectedly he is going to touch upon it. So me mentioning the five schools on mrfabers page I guess that plot thread is coming to fruition

And those are my thoughts thanks once again

[kamugin]

Wow! One entire chapter released at once! (1/2 + 1/2 = 1) I am so excited that I almost peed my pants!

Thank you all, guys!

Nice so it was true, a good source did mention that the series will be bi weekly from now on(3 weeks sometimes due to golden week as that is a given ofc). But glad Kishiro is not rushing the story, I admit I don't like how it is slow(due to the release date being bi monthly, but bi weekly could remedy it now) but I also hate possibly more if you try to rush it too fast as I seen too much series I like get ruin due to abrupt fast pacing.

I am surprised it is going to be at every issue as Kishiro mention at the angouleme france festival that this series is not going to end for a long time (probably 30 volumes), but he admits that he knows how it will end so he has a plan going inside his head.

Man, I really hope that Kishiro catches up speed cuz this is going too slow and is nowhere close to the ending. He keeps introducing characters and elements to the plot instead of tiying the loose threads, the only subject he has closed so far was Alita/Yoko's origin. She was a wart extracted from Nollin's butt... disgusting and lame but at last and least we know now. My dissatisfaction is lessening since those underwhelming kunstles appeared, but hey at least this isn't a treasure hunt anymore and panzer kunst is back.

[MrFaber]

More meat in the pot. I'm positive Kishiro won't live enough to get his work done. And i won't live enough to read it.

[bejelentkezni]

More meat in the pot. I'm positive Kishiro won't live enough to get his work done. And i won't live enough to read it.

You know you've only had negative things to say about Kishiro and his manga for the past several weeks. Have you considered taking a break?

[kamugin]

You know you've only had negative things to say about Kishiro and his manga for the past several weeks. Have you considered taking a break?

Respect your senpai, he was here thirteen years before you. If you think MrFaber senpai is being negative, you don't know me.

[MrFaber]

I don't think i've said anything against Kishiro. I just have wondered about his health, since multile time, even in his young years, he seems to have had periods of major health issues and pointed that he keeps opening new plots in mars chronicle instead of moving toward any closure, which means that the publication is going to be still very long.
Now. I'm no longer young myself and Kishiro should be about 10 years older then me. The publication is being going on for 30 years so far, none of us is getting any younger, i start to wonder if project isn't starting to be a bit too ambitious

[kamugin]

Now. I'm no longer young myself and Kishiro should be about 10 years older then me. The publication is being going on for 30 years so far, none of us is getting any younger, i start to wonder if project isn't starting to be a bit too ambitious

Sergio, our honorable elder, is already gone. Sadly he died even before the movie's first trailer release. I am 48, almost 49, and I've been following this manga since 1998. The Brazilian release of Last Order finally ended (I don't know yet if Mars Chronicles will follow) and re-reading some bits, it's noticeable that the art and plot were better back then. Some of us have a life long relationship with this manga, we do some bashing and harsh comments because we want the story to go back to what once it was before: an awesome badass manga!

[00_unit]

Yeah hope this series doesn't end up like glass mask hate to be those readers who has to be stuck with over a decade worth of hiatus(45 years running). But Mars Chronicles is the type of series that has a lot of buildup(too much for readers that's for sure), but I stick with it because I want to see the payoff as I see series that has a 20 hour slow start only to improve later so i experience slow buildup before. But I do miss the days when battle angel had quotable dialogue that was just memorable and kickass. Gone are the days of the series known to have an introspective narrative. If this series didn't have the battle angel brand on it, I think the reaction wouldn't' be as strong or some would just leave and forget it.

I think the main selling point of Mars Chronicles is the worldbuilding which I do like that kind of thing in my narrative sometimes( some people need action or strong characters instead which mars chronicles has not delivered yet). The art has improved compared to the first mars chronicles chapter(still don't like it back then) as how gelda is drawn now looks a lot better than it did in last order.

Still I am liking this arc so far (dejah thoris arc not muster's arc as that can go to a trash compactor) as I would take the dejah thoris arc over the alternate ending of the original battle angel(I still hate that rushed ending a lot of too many WTF moments and just felt nonsensical).

But still this series should be called battle angel erica instead and she is still unlikable as that is one aspect I don't like so far only interested in Unye and kaufman so far as characters in mars chronicles. Better antihero characters would be goro majima, morgana, sakura ichiko, or Hisanobu Takahashi from REAL etc.

[Lanfeust91]

More worldbuilding.. Some people told in previous threads that Kishiro intended to do a really long saga with Mars, and by looking at the pace and multiple arcs/sides characters/flasbacks I believe it's right, we won't see the end until a while. The thing is we spent so much of our lifetime reading the story (myself since 1997) we want to see the conclusion and move on, but I think Kishiro want to keep drawing for years and maybe he is stuck into Gunmm like Akira Toriyama was stuck with Dragon Ball Z, so he is now taking a break and wandering into new stories, but under the Gunnm label as an excuse. I mean common, what are those "knights" doing here lol.

Anyway I liked this chapter, we are digging into Grunthal and Panzer Kunst territories

[kamugin]

I mean common, what are those "knights" doing here lol.

I agree with everything you said.

About the Knights and stretching a bit, they may be a reference to Aqua Knight, a promising series that Kishiro rushed to end after just 3 volumes in order to work in GLO. Sadly Kishiro isn't one of those mangakas that are able to work on multiple series at the same time... actually he's bare able to work in one series only! LOL

Once I saw a YouTube video about the best mangas (in the opinion of the youtuber) and his top ones were Berserk and Alita that he regarded as "works of a lifetime", that's indeed what they are.

[kamugin]

If this series didn't have the battle angel brand on it, I think the reaction wouldn't' be as strong or some would just leave and forget it.

I think the main selling point of Mars Chronicles is the worldbuilding which I do like that kind of thing in my narrative sometimes( some people need action or strong characters instead which mars chronicles has not delivered yet). The art has improved compared to the first mars chronicles chapter(still don't like it back then) as how gelda is drawn now looks a lot better than it did in last order.

Still I am liking this arc so far (dejah thoris arc not muster's arc as that can go to a trash compactor) as I would take the dejah thoris arc over the alternate ending of the original battle angel(I still hate that rushed ending a lot of too many WTF moments and just felt nonsensical).

But still this series should be called battle angel erica instead and she is still unlikable as that is one aspect I don't like so far only interested in Unye and kaufman so far as characters in mars chronicles.

Indeed, this series has the "Battle Angel Alita" brand, but at the best it's just a spin-off. The main character, Alita, in her adult form is absent for 5 (soon 6) volumes, dammit! And, as you said, this is more about Erica than Alita. This I could accept, since Erica is an ultra badass hottie bitch... in her adult form. The problem is that this series lacks "fanservice". Don't get me wrong, fanservice isn't just about exposed bodies and sex... well, we have seen a couple of cannon penises, but I believe that isn't our cup of tea. Fanservice in Alita is the action scenes, panzer kunst featured fights is what we fucking want. Kishiro seems to have forgotten who puts butter on his bread. Us, the fans! We are like the crowd watching a motorball match, we want to see action, blood and death!... What we got instead was gore in the form of disgusting deformities caused by a mysterious substance of which Kishiro probably won't bother to tell the source and origin, another loose thread among many.

Unye is an interesting character, but will we get to know all about her? Or her “possession” is gonna be another loose thread? Only Kishiro can tell...

I'm getting as frustrated as when I paid a movie ticket to watch the last Star Wars trilogy...

Ok Kishiro, for now you may have your pockets full of royalties money from the movie, but the manga is your actual source of income. I already skipped buying volumes #3, #4, #5 and #6 of Mars Chronicle.

[MrFaber]

I think Kishiro is one of those authors who doesn't really think about of what is going to sell or please the fans, but instead only tells the stories who he feels like telling. And i really respect that. It's actually this kind of authors who make great narrative and not just something that sells and it's easy forgotten. And what Kishiro wants to do now is telling other stories. Which makes sense. Gally's hero's arc have been done already. Two times. The protagonist of Last Order and Mars Chronicle is not even Gally, it's Imaginos AR. So what are we getting now are short (pretty good) stories in the world of GUNNM and not even in the same era from the original serialization which allows Kishiro an ampler spectrum for his plots. I'm not against this, personally. I just hope this won't go on for yet too many years, for i've been on board (happily) for a lot of time already and i'd love to see the closure.

[kamugin]

Gally's hero's arc have been done already. Two times. The protagonist of Last Order and Mars Chronicle is not even Gally, it's Imaginos AR.

I can't agree with you this time. First I'm glad her name is Alita here in Brazil because "Gally" sounds horrible in Portuguese (actually "Gally" was her name when the manga was first released here. The name was changed to "Alita" for the second release in order to relate both manga and movie).
Alita is Alita, even if her brain is no longer organic, just because she defines herself as "human". Zekka no longer have a human brain and yet he is still human. Nova had his many clones and still every one of them was Nova. An AR/tuned agent android isn’t Alita because they aren’t perfect copies of the original, however the full organic being that remained in Earth is Alita? At the best it is just another version of her. The moment a clone or copy is created, it starts to diverge from the original because they don’t share the same experiences, each one ends up becoming a new “persona”. Again Nova is the best example. If someone were duplicated by a copy machine, each of them equal atom per atom, which one is the original? The “me” that exists now isn’t the same “me” I was as a child. This series makes us reflect about what means to be a human being, a unique one. However Kishiro’s idea of a cyborg is dated because putting a brain inside a machine wouldn't be enough, it wouldn't work. Our "persona" is more than our brains alone. Now is known that the brain is tightly tied to the body and even our intestinal bacteria can influence our behavior. Thus the brain importance and sufficiency are overstated in this manga. An imaginos body, a highly sophisticated organic machine, could perhaps emulate the duality body/brain well enough to actually work, however most of the cyborgs depicted in the manga have poorly built junkyard level bodies.

So what are we getting now are short (pretty good) stories in the world of GUNNM and not even in the same era from the original serialization which allows Kishiro an ampler spectrum for his plots. I'm not against this, personally. I just hope this won't go on for yet too many years, for i've been on board (happily) for a lot of time already and i'd love to see the closure.

Here we fall back to the question I pointed three comments ago: Kishiro isn’t able to work in more than one series at the same time. At the best, Mars Chronicles is a compilation of gaidens, or side stories. The "Baron Muster arc" wasn’t Battle Angel Alita at all! It is like Haisha https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=2647 that is set in Scrapyard some forty years before Ido finds Alita’s remains in the junk. However this low quality material being released now keeps the brands “Gunnm” and "Alita" just to promote it more easily and increase the sales, just to fool us into buying it.

Gally's hero's arc have been done already. Two times.

No, it wasn't, or if Kishiro thinks in the same way, the ending was crap because of the many loose threads left untied. Thus we jumped aboard a space ship and time machine headed to Mars in order to end our quest. However we were fooled to dive into other quests by Kishiro.

[MrFaber]

Well, actually the observation you rised is one of the themes, in not "the theme", of GUNNM. What defines a human behing and the self identity? I think that the ARs are actually just standard brainchips made out of Alita's brain (if you prefer the name, it's Alita in the italian edition too, but LO was very poorly translated here). It is never mentioned if those brainchips have been altered in any way. But neither is ever stated if those are standard brainchip copies of the original brain. And i think it was intentional to keep the question on. Also is strongly implied that ARs are 'what if' version of Alita. It is stated that Sechs, for istance, looks for a meaning for his/her life through fight, just like Alita did in the motorball arc. Alita asc Sechs Zwolf and Elf if they even retain any memory of Mars, and they could well do, they must have been copied in the brainchip together with the trauma that caused the amnesia, as it is for Last Order Alita. Also when the incarnations of Nova, each of which is an exact replica of the original, agree that when more the one at one of them is around, each of them is, ultimately, a distinct persona. They even manifest somewhat different behaviors. Is it because copying a person makes a whole new person or because a personality, exposed to different events, developes in a different way? Again, this is the question.

[kamugin]

Well, actually the observation you rised is one of the themes, in not "the theme", of GUNNM. What defines a human behing and the self identity?

If I remember well, what the manga tells about the AR copies is that they share the same standard brainchip of a citizen of Zalem/Tiphares, a chip that emulates a human brain, however an AR agent isn't a copy of Alita's persona because they clearly don't share her emotions and principles. None of them cared about Ido or Figure Four, so I think that only the panzer kunst experience was imprinted in their brains. It would be troublesome for the GIB if all of them were as rebellious as Alita. Each AR was created equal, but they soon start to diverge because the different life experiences. Alita calls Sechs an imperfect copy and tells him that he lacks memories of Mars. It was Nova that restored all of Alita's memory and that happens after the creation of the AR agents.
In the manga present time, there are two different personas called Alita. The one who went to Mars and the one that was cloned on Earth from her organic brain. This persona lacks all the experiences/memories Alita gained in the entire GLO, because her brain can only remember what happened up to when she falls in Nova's trap. In the same sense, the clone of Lou isn't the same Lou that was Alita's friend. Nova tells that to Alita. In face of the technologies available in the Gunnm universe, the line that separates human from machine and what makes a person unique, that line is quite blurry.

I don't like the Brazilian translation of BAA and GLO too. The ideal would be to read the Japanese original, but despite my efforts, I'm still not able to do that. The fans' translations are usually better because they actually care about what they are doing.

[MrFaber]

I think Pixiedust translations are remarkably good. Of course i cannot verify this knowing not japanese myself, but their dialogs are, first of all, in correct english, which is pretty rare in mangas translations. I don't know why translators can't grasp the notion that you have to translate a period in its equivalent english espression, not just literally word by word. And in fact Pixiedust dialogs MAKE A DAMN SENSE, while many translations i've read around are borderline incomprehensible. Now, italian translation do make sense overall. At least it's in correct italian. Yet i remember reading dialogs that where pretty difficult to put in the context of the scene. When i readed them again from Pixiedust i found out that not only the italian translation was questionable but sometimes the meaning of some dialog was totally reversed, and that's why it felt so out of place. I don't know how this can be even possible,

About Gynoid Alita, yes, she has more experences of Original Alita, and also the extra trauma of finding out she no longer has her brain. You know, the same trauma that decimated Salem's population (mitigated by circumstances maybe). But she also has the influx of the connection to the Fata Morgana. Also, one of the food for thoughts Kishiro provided (see Makaku's arc) is that actually the mind, so the personality and the ego, might be influenced by the body very heavely (i think it based on nietzschean philosophy). Makaku points that the mind is the toy of the body and so, when changing a cyborg body the personality is influenced too.

Kishiro seems to want to support this idea. At least, he seemed too in the early chapters of the original GUNMM. Alitas personality significantly and abruplty changes everytime she gets a new body. When she has the doll body she's insecure and childish, then she gets the Berserker body and she becomes confident and aggressive, then she gets the motorball body and she becomes cold and uncaring, then she gets the civil body and she becomes quiet and more unadventurous, then she gets the tuned body and she become loner and unstable.

Yes, every single one of those changes is after a traumatic and pivotal personal growth experience, so, the body could have no part it. In Kishiro's style the question is given but not answered.

[kamugin]

I think Pixiedust translations are remarkably good. Of course i cannot verify this knowing not japanese myself, but their dialogs are, first of all, in correct english, which is pretty rare in mangas translations. I don't know why translators can't grasp the notion that you have to translate a period in its equivalent english espression, not just literally word by word. And in fact Pixiedust dialogs MAKE A DAMN SENSE, while many translations i've read around are borderline incomprehensible. Now, italian translation do make sense overall. At least it's in correct italian. Yet i remember reading dialogs that where pretty difficult to put in the context of the scene. When i readed them again from Pixiedust i found out that not only the italian translation was questionable but sometimes the meaning of some dialog was totally reversed, and that's why it felt so out of place. I don't know how this can be even possible,

My wife, also a manga lover and comics reader in general (besides English, she can read in Italian and French as well), says that a translation always will be a version, a retelling of the original. As a long time manga and comics reader myself, I think that there are good and bad translations, this is plain obvious actually. Often I buy printed copies of some manga that I regard as masterpiece quality in order to support the author and just because I want a physical copy. In the case of Alita’s entire saga, I have it both in English and in Portuguese. For the Hyper Future Vision arc, I also have the first and the second Portuguese translation (Brazilian Portuguese, to be clear). When I cross compare all these multiple versions, they all differ in some degree. I usually prefer the fans translation just because it is what I’ve read first and I’m used to, but also because they are more literal, thus as close as possible to the original. The original names are kept (my only exception is “Alita”) and the translators are fans, they actually read the original and have more respect to it. As much as possible, I think they don’t make up speeches in order to match the English language. This is my guess, because I haven’t compared these translations against the originals. But I am a purist and perfectionist, I really appreciate when the honorifics like “san”, “sama”, “sempai”, “kouhai”, etc. are kept because they don’t have a precise equivalent in English or Portuguese. However I’ve been studying Japanese since 2015 (with interruptions) and I already have a “low intermediate level” of comprehension of the language. The hardest in Japanese is its written form and it also has many peculiarities that don’t exist in English or in the romance languages like ours. Japanese have many levels of displaying courtesy and respect regarding who the speaker is talking to. Its colloquial, day to day form, can be very dry or synthetic forcing the exact meaning to be apprehended from the context. This is the main source of misinterpretation and conflict. The Japanese often omit the subject and object of a sentence. Their verbs lacks declination regarding the persons of speech, like there is in Portuguese and Italian. A Japanese may say to another something like “taberu” that taken without context is just the infinite form of the verb “to eat” (“comer” or “mangiare”). This person may be inviting other to eat or offering something to the other. The exact meaning must be taken from the context. I love their many forms to say “I” (“eu”, “io”) the Japanese has: “watashi”, “watakushi”, “atashi”, “washi”, “boku”, “ore” (these are just the ones I know). Each of them says something about the speaker: its gender, age, status and degree of politeness. Politeness is very important to the Japanese and you may offend or insult another person with the wrong choice of a pronoun or the omission of an honorific. None of this have an equivalent in our languages and can be misinterpreted or lost in translation. That’s why I like when the honorifics aren’t omitted.

As an example, I am reading “Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction” by Inio Asano and I’ve found a speech bubble with opposite meanings regarding the fans’ translation and Viz’. By the context, I suspected that the fans’ was the correct one, so I decided to compare against the Japanese raw. The original is ambiguous because the omission of the verb’s object, however taking into account the character’s (who is speaking) personality, the fans’ interpretation was correct. Also Viz’ version have less information in overall, a lot may have been lost in translation. Foot notes are tiresome, but they are indispensable when reading manga or watching anime. If you really want to avoid any mistakes and omissions, you must learn Japanese and while at it also have an immersion in their culture, there’s no other way.

About Gynoid Alita, yes, she has more experences of Original Alita, and also the extra trauma of finding out she no longer has her brain. You know, the same trauma that decimated Salem's population (mitigated by circumstances maybe). But she also has the influx of the connection to the Fata Morgana. Also, one of the food for thoughts Kishiro provided (see Makaku's arc) is that actually the mind, so the personality and the ego, might be influenced by the body very heavely (i think it based on nietzschean philosophy). Makaku points that the mind is the toy of the body and so, when changing a cyborg body the personality is influenced too.

I remember that Nietzsche quotation by Makaku and applying the same idea to Alita’s body swaps, it may be applicable. However I prefer to think that her behavior changes are more related to her growth process and the building of a new persona because when Ido finds her, her brain is in almost blank state. So the Alita rebuilt by Ido was her infancy, when she receives the berserker body, her adolescence starts, the first love comes, innocent and so juvenile, short followed by its painful loss. The Motorball arc depicts her rebellious phase while still a teenager. When she settles down as an almost average citizen of Scrapyard is the beginning of her adulthood. Then her peaceful world is destroyed by Zapan. Ido’s death is one of her biggest traumas (I myself experienced part of her pain and despair while reading it). As a tuned agent, her hearth hardens, it’s kind of her “Mad Max” phase (it’s my favorite arc until now), and she embraces the madness of the battlefield… until Figure Four appears… sigh, what a pain. Then she finds Ido only to discover that his memories are erased. It is like Ido’s second death, one of the most emotive and painful moments of the manga. Even with two almost unbearable annoying characters like Figure Four (and his useless buddy) and Koyomi, this was the arc was that made me love Alita and place Gunnm as my all time favorite manga (today it’s not even a shadow of those great moments). After she reaches Zalen and then goes to Jeru, she recovers the entirety of her memories of Mars, and takes place in the ZOTT, her adulthood learning is complete and she attains her apotheosis. After this climax, we fall downhill in Mars Chronicle as Kishiro keeps screwing up.

Still, every one of these changes corresponds to a new body, so both things are probably related.

[MrFaber]

Still, every one of these changes corresponds to a new body, so both things are probably related.

I'd say it's an intentional open question. Likely a bit of both.

[kamugin]

To whom it may concern, 39.2 raw

https://manga1001.com/%e3%80%90%e7%ac%a ... a8%98-raw/

[00_unit]

To whom it may concern, 39.2 raw

https://manga1001.com/%e3%80%90%e7%ac%a ... a8%98-raw/

I am surprised you posted raws(especially for GMC) as I would say that is probably out of character coming from you (or maybe I don't know you long enough) but I welcome this kind of surprise thanks.

Spoiler:

Hm it seems the notebook keun is chasing after might relate with clausewitz on war(as mentioned in chapter 13 of GMC). Could it be the first volume don't know.

Were getting somewhere even if it is at a snails pace and a bonus the next chapter is in 2 weeks looks like kishiro is hitting the accelerator button to releasing more chapters now I hope drifters can do the same as the author of drifters has self describe himself as being very lazy

[MrFaber]

Seems like he's still committed to release the volume 8 before the end of the year which would be quite an endeavour by his usual standards. I personally appreciate this a lot.

By the way, poor broken hearted Unye.