Aren't we getting a bit too much Dragon-ballish?

[MrFaber]

What do i mean?

I think Dragon Ball is the prototype of everything a shonen manga should (and, even more, shouldn't) be.

We meet this kid Goku who is a fairly big promising ass kicker. He has his journy and he begins to meet big guys that have to be punch in the face. Eventually someone bigger shows up, and he has to put him down and then find out he, himself, become bigger. Then an even bigger guy shows up, so Goku has to get bigger again and crash him, but see! Another utterly big guy! Time to get bigger again! And see! This time the biggest guy in the 'verse himself came to Earth, let's get insanely big! But no, wait! The biggest guy in the 'verse himself came to Earth! (But wasn't the last one the biggest guy in the 'verse?).. An so on. Add allies who, also, get to get bigger and bigger, fusions, afterlife senseless training and there's Dragon Ball.

The first Gunnm arc was very different, despite it's most definately a shonen manga. Gally is The big guy since the very beginning of the story. She is revived, she has no memory and she has not the right body, but as soon as she can get her braincells on a beserker body, the games are done.

Makaku isn't a real challenge to her. Even when he steals Kinuba's body he puts on a decent fight but we never see Gally in a real danger.
Hunter Warriors are in a way lower league.
Motorballers can put her down a few times, but, in the end, she is superior.
Even the whole barjack army seems little more then a nuisance.

In the end, there are only 3 adversaries who are at her level.

Of course Jashugan, which is, so far, the only character who totally, ultimately defeated Gally in 1 to 1 combat.
Then Den/Chaos, even if he face an hasty defeat.
And Zapan in the form of the Berserker Monster, who challenge the heigths of Gally's fighting spirit and selflessness with the depths of his madness, regread and self despair and almost destroy her.

A mention of honor goes to Alita Replica #2 who uses her own skills and tuned equipments agains her, while she was, we must admit, in the wrost condition to substain a fight.


How damn cool is this?

We have a world where there is a cap on how much powerful can a fighter be. An those at the top are roughly at the same level, without the need to learn a brand new power technic so perfect to defeat the latest ubervillain.

But then we got Gunnm Last Order.

And we have Sechs who try to best Gally, but she/he can't. Ok
We have Sachumodo, but he really can't do much.
But soon after Mbadi has superhuman hacking skills that Gally can't oppose (she will, with the bigness upgrade of the fata morgana)
Then we meet the space karateka who are suddenly very challenging and Toji is so damn big (i all regards) that Gally no longer know what to do and she needs a backup from Zazie to... draw? Win? Lose? we don't even know.
But then Toli is just a promising emerging champion, while Caella Sanguis/Wilma Fachiri is just on another planet. Way over Gally.
We have Gally's former comrade that begins one step ahead of here and gets bested quickly.
We meet Zekka the uberasskicking anarchic bastard who is massive destructive who try to turn Sechs as damn big as him
But he is cleary smaller then Donphyr (or Don Fua or whatever) who can open DAMN BLACK HOLES out of nothing to avoid Zekkas ability to TROW ANTI-MATTER PUNCHES!

Ok, the whole ZOT was a kind of incident the fault of which is mostly former kishiro's editor's.

But now, in Martian Chronicles we meet Erika who is at last as big as Gally who overbigged everything that was in Last Order and we now meet this Master Gergt who, i smell, will prove far bigger then then two of them teamworking.


Isn't it escalating too much? Let's say.. Dragon bally?

[SightlessReality]

Not really, Zekka & Tunpo (Don fua) can still be considered the top of the top.

Despite what it may seem Alita is still not on their level. I'd still put the current fight a little bit above Alita's fight with Toji after his possession though not on as big a scale of course.

[Pablolein]

I think calling this scheme "Dragon Bally" is a little bit too much, since this pattern of fighting bigger opponents each time is found on many, many tales in history. You can find it in Dragon Ball, yes, but also in Saint Seiya, Rurouni Kenshin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and countless others, and I think it has something to do with some kind of "monomyth cycle", over and over again. I get what you're saying, but I think it's unfair to reduce GUNNM to just a character fighting bigger bad guys each time. I believe this "cycle" helps to tell the story, to see how Alita evolves as she discovers more about her past and who she really is (while fighting guys who are constantly getting bigger/faster/stronger).
I see your point, but I don't share it at all.

Cheers!

[urza]

If you realy want to find somthing, you will find something.
But for me is alita, alita.
So don't look for it.

[MrFaber]

Of course Gunnm is way above of being just "punch the next bigger guy". I was just pointing out how the power excalation wasn't an element of Gunnm and now it is.

[Caboclo Guerreiro]

Please, MrFaber, stop calling Caerula Sanguis "Caella" (I get goos bumps of disgust just typing it) as you are embarrassing Italy. Panini Comics translation and adaptation is total rubbish (not to mention paper quality and the fact that the first 4 volumes were ridiculously pixelated). "Caella" was a huge mistake based on the fact that they interpreted the RU + RA katakana characters as a double L. Only badly unprepared Italian editors could make such a mistake as they pronounce latin the medieval or church way. So they say /tcherula/ instead of /kaerula/ when they read the latin word CAERULA (which means "blue"). So they didn't recognize the correct word and, instead, interpreted KA-E-RU-RA as Caella which, in katakana would be written KA-E-tsu-RA. Rendering RU-RA as -lla is a HUGE mistake. They even had a hint when Ping Woo got the password of Fata Morgana explaining that Caerula Sanguis means "blue blooded" in Latin and, in fact, they made a mess of the translation on that issue. I wrote two times to the editors explaining their mistake but had no answer whatsoever. Caella means nothing in any language (apart from old Sicilian "giacca da camera").
Wilma Fachiri's pseudonym is CAERULA SANGUIS and can't be otherwise! Having myself a Master degree in linguistics and being a fan of both Latin and Japanese I find "Caella" as an offense to basic intelligence!!!

[MrFaber]

Ops, sorry. I wasn't aware that "Caella" was one of the many messes of Panini's adaptation. I though it was just the name. I guess that happens when u have read half of Last Order in italian and half in english. I recall they even called "Ano Maru" the nanomachines monster "Anomaly".

No1 should ever read anything translated in italian by professional translators (Think about A Song of Ice and Fire...) And that is pretty weird, since amateur translators always do a great job. (Well, almost always.. )

[HumanRage]

amateur work can be judged by the piece, but commercial work will always be at best imperfect, at worse rubbish

french print is scandalous too, so i can relate.

[litchi master]

Please stop bashing Dragon ball, is it formulaic? yes, but most shonen is, there are exceptions of course, but that's what the targeted audience is expecting. And it worked so much that no one here, even though we are all from different parts of the world, is clueless about it.

Now about, the fighting ever stronger opponents, it makes sense storywise, Alita's opponents are not straight out of a magician's hat.

When you think about BAA's world as a whole it makes sense.
Earth has been cut off from the rest of the solar system for centuries and the transmission of knowledge has been interrupted, or at least reached a slump. A lot of things have been lost too. this includes martial arts. Some were preserved, ('the arts practiced by the hunter warriors), some were "salvaged"( Kaos's swordsmanship) and others were created: Jashugan's Machine Clash, which was the only one that had been thought for anti cyborg combat and thus is the most evolved as it is more adapted to reality.
So in this world, Machine clash should rule over every martial art, and it did.

Now, comes an outsider who is the heir of a martial art, whose transmission has never ceased, and that was devised to fight cyborgs too. It is only natural that this outsider should prove superior to almost any one in this secluded area.
Except of course, true masters like jashugan or den, or someone practicing the very same art as the said outsider: gr 2 and sechs.

But you are forgetting one thing, it is the the fact that more than once Alita was advantaged by her body. had she kept her berserker body even Jashugan would not have been a threat to her. Its alien technology made it more durable and powerful than any body available on earth, it was the combination of her body and her knowledge of panzer kunst that made her so strong.
Even though this knowledge was far from perfect.
The only time she was at a disadvantage was against Zapan, otherwise she was either at the same level (jashugan) or had a stronger body (more advanced in den's case but not as durable). And both Jashugan and Den were superior to her technically.

Now let our outsider return from this secluded area, to get back to the solar system. While she was sleeping both martial arts and technology evolved.. And even though she now has the best body she's ever had so far, we find she is no longer that exceptional: she only prevails over the space karateka through her technique (gavit) and xazi's help (thus mirroring her fight with jashugan where she would have been utterly dominated if it wasn't for Jashugan's illness and Tigel's intervention).

But she isn't struggling against every opponent either, she litterally crushes Qu Tang, and prevails over xazi and Tzykrow due to her technique only. Caerula, though inferior to her in body is the pinacle of technique and toji is gradually reaching the mastery of his art. they are tough opponents.
Now for Zekka and Don fa, they seem to be true masters as well, but they got something more. Like Alita they both have extraordinarily advanced bodies, the specificities of which they use to prevail in battle. Alita has plasma, zekka has the antimatter thingy and Don fa has the weird teleporting deus ex machina thing. So like Alita their strength lies both in their bodies and in their technique.

I think they were here to show there is always someone stronger, and many things we don't know in Baa's universe.
I really don't see a problem in that, on the contrary Alita needs to be challenged. Provided that the series keeps being as deep and interesting as it has been until now.
You may be your gym's star boxer, and be totally insignificant at the national level that's basically the same thing.

[Ziken]

I think you guys are forgetting something that makes Alita's world different from DB...

While it true that Alita had a lot of growing up to do, and as she slowly regain her memories and rebuild, while at the same time, her body is adapting to her mind and her memories, here is the ONE critical things that set it apart from DB.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, comes back from the dead, unless they've been cyborgied (is that even a word? but I'll use it). However, if I remember my history of BAA world, nearly all of Alita's allies are either dead, reformed or crippled. And don't forget her first real love, a human, who died.

Then, let not forget, she doesn't have a brain anymore but a chip, and unlike DB, she is also an experiment that is being experimented by that, pardon my profanity, asshole doctor, who insist that everything has a cause and continue like it was nothing.

DB has nothing on BAA world. DB doesn't have anything lost, as they've always used DB to revive the allies or Goku. And remember, Alita get stronger as she begin to recall her memories along with her martial arts moves, and how to best use them. And let not forget, she DID absorb that one giant robot and is now powered by the biggest energy source and has Fata Morgana assisting her with computing power.

Then, there also the fact that she probably no longer has any organic parts left in her body (I think, but correct me if I'm wrong) and remember, IF she decided to get her body back, chances are, she probably won't have her original body anymore.

[MrFaber]

Well, Gally, Zapan, Ido, Lou and The Salem Survivors get resurrected by Nova, and Nova himself... Don't make me start..

[Silvery]

The only moment when Gunnm came off as similar to DB/DBZ to me was when I realized that, as much as I liked Sechs, I had enough of the ZOTT. I was actually glad to learn later that it was the publisher who forced Kishiro to prolong it, as a tournament arc is a very shonen thing.

Well, okay, that and the moment in which it became apparent to me that Kishiro overdid it with Gally's power level (and arrogant/blasé behaviour... and that damn kitschy tail). But it was also when other characters got plenty of spotlight, and I think it was interesting to see Gally in a different role - less that of a heroine and more of a powerful and stand-offish character in the background. And my intuition tells me that he will tone it down a bit in Mars Chronicle, anyway.

Also, maybe it's just me, but at times Gunnm feels more like a seinen rather than a shonen manga.

Not that I think that being classified as a shonen manga is an offense. I used to enjoy DB/DBZ manga when I was a young teen, I still think that the first dozen or so volumes of One Pieces are full of humorous takes on various shonen clichés, and yes, I admit it, I'm still fond of Naruto. Last time I checked, most of the Gundamverse was also usually classified as shonen, and many of my favourite manga/anime are shonen. There's plenty of good stuff in the genre, though I wish that there was a lot more important female characters - probably one of the reasons I love Gunnm so much.

[Vendigo]

Gunnm was always supposed to be a seinen manga. I can´t imagine YK being happy about turning the series into shonen... I suspect having one of the enemies being a penis the size of a bus was an attempt to get the studio annull his contract. I found it deliciously bittersweet when Kishiro disowned the ZOTT *hard* by dismissing all character development made to the AR series (which was the only thing ZOTT contributed to) with a single unceremonious sentence abput how things are way they were before. He might just as well had put perforations into the ZOTT pages.

[justsomeguy25]

Not really. The Scrapyard is a bunch of poor people with very old technology they barely know how to maintain. Ido's a genius by Tipharean standards and he found alita and gave her the Berserker body, it's over 200 years old technology yet better than what's produced anywhere on earth ( including tiphares )

Then you realize the solar system has still been developping better and better technology for centuries while earth was left behind. It's kinda like the boxing champion of Senegal or whatever deciding to challenge the world champion, of course she won't be all powerful because her berserker body is an outdated model in ketheres. Caerula got 700 years of experience, Zekka has an attack that could destroy asteroids, Mbadi can hack just about anything etc etc.