r/Gunnm

1st photo (not edited). 2nd photo (no unimportant text & its shadows)

So recently I heard that Tezuka’s (the goat/father of manga to many, creator of astro boy) famous dark series Black Jack has a plot point very similar to Mars Chronicle. In particular the Maske Tumor. I always when I first read MC found the idea of the tumors so insanely disturbing yet fascinating and the twist that Yoko was basically one is one of the most ground shaking twists in the series. It’s a twist you can tell he was building to for an awfully long time.

I started reading Black Jack out of curiosity for this despite never having read one of his works and so far it has been really cool. Great art and body horror. Great paneling. Great premise.

In it, the titular Black Jack is an underground surgeon that does sketchy but precise surgeries that most people dont offer. In one, he removes a tumor from a woman that is sentient and contains the growing embro of her twin sister with fully formed body parts and brain. He puts the parts into a shell and lets the literally cancerous sister live a new life similar to the way Yoko came about.

The origin of Pinoko also kind of reminded me of the very start of GUNNM with Doc Ido being a similarly sketchy yet heroic character giving Alita/Gally a new shot at life.

On top of that, the series does have strange bruises/sores that have faces on them unrelated to the tumor storyline. I had no idea until now that these face shaped sores are a kind of youkai/folktale in Japan.

Considering how big a deal Tezuka and Black Jack are in manga and in japan and considering the timeline, I guarantee this series had an influence on Kishiro. It’s such a specific plot point that I can’t see how it wouldn’t connect. I’d like to research more about the yokai too.

Sorry for the huge ramble but I guess what I’m trying to get at is that nothing is truly original even my favorite story ever (GUNNM) and every story and idea has its own lineage and I love learning about these kinds of things and wanted to share this with others (im sure someone else has posted about this before i just havent seen it)

Excited to read more Black Jack tbh.

WOW. Just WOW. I did not think it would be this good. It genuinely was an amazing experience. Between all the existential horror and questions to the action to the beautiful ending it was a really emotionally intense experience.

My favorite moments:

Alita’s journey in the space station where she regains her memories fully. From the downright gorgeous cruelty of Yoko’s violence in the flashback to finally learning how she ended up on earth it was amazing seeing Alita remember and come to terms with herself just to reach Melchizedek and find out her brain was a chip setting about another existential “what is a human question” was just amazing.

ANY and I mean ANY moment with my GOAT Sechs. From the moment he appeared on screen I was hooked by the concept and he just kept getting better as a character. I LOVED his warrior’s journey his fight with Niz was a highlight in particular the art there was so good. (Also having a trans character in such a good story made me really happy.)

The ending was just beautiful. From seeing alita grow wings to symbolize her moving forward whilst also calling back to the angel motifs that were so heavily present in the original series was amazing. All the way to the ending where she lets the alita residing in the original brain to have her happy ending with figure four while the alita we’ve been following the whole manga continues on to journey in space (which I’m sure will be where mars chronicle kicks off) was just such a nice have your cake and eat it too moment.

In conclusion I think this is my favorite manga I’ve ever read. I’ll definitely read mars chronicle and think a LOT about all the philosophy in this one. I’d LOVE to talk about this with people so that’s why I made this post. PLEASE DO NOT SPOIL MARS CHRONICLE FOR ME I WANT TO GO INTO IT BLIND.

Thank you for reading :D

The character depicted is Gally.

A novelization of Gunnm was written by Yasuhisa Kawamura and illustrated by Yukito Kishiro. Also titled Gunnm (銃夢), it was published by Shueisha JUMP j-BOOKS label in 1997.

My copy of the novel version of Gunnm written by Kishiro’s former assistant Yasuhisa Kawamura and illustrations are by Yukito Kishiro

I haven’t read it as I can’t read Japanese, but looking online this seems to be a retelling/alternate version of the first volume “Rusty Angel” which includes two new characters “Calico”(the only second female hunter-warrior) and Norinco a former hunter-warrior turned serial killer. Both characters only appear in this novel.

Since this is a novel there’s only a handful of illustrations and is mostly writing.
If anyone knows of an English translation let me know cause I’d like to read it!

mommy🥺

I wasn't quite able to get the right coat or glasses, disappointingly. (I got pretty close, but the hair would have been less accurate) Now that I think about it, both are pretty similar - I wonder who's the smartest and who's the maddest one?

Did the same with Alita now is Kenshiro’s turn.