Gungrave: Is Addictive

Gungrave's Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowell

The story editors for Gungrave manipulated the whole series masterfully from the beginning right to the end.  I'm quite impressed.  For me the most unique part of this series was that the story points weren't driven by revenge - they were driven by forgiveness that resulted in irreparable damage to the merciful.  Idealistic individuals would continually commit to ideals that their humanity and their familial bonds would rarely let them live up to.

Here's a list of betrayed ideals because of family/friendship bonds:

• Cid's son messes up and instead of killing his son, Cid helps him escape and as a result Cid is assassinated by the family to save the Millennien Organization face.

• Bear Walkin is unable to assassinate Cid, who is like a brother to him, so Brandon steps in to save Bear from betraying the family by not carrying out the order.

• When Harry breaks the Millennion's code of iron, by planning to assassinate Big Daddy, Brandon is unable to bring himself to kill Harry, because Harry has been his closest form of family since they met at the orphanage.  As a result Harry, who is afraid of Brandon's code of honour, murders Brandon immediately after.

• Big Daddy betrays what's best for the Millennien Organization, by approving Harry's role as the organization's boss, to protect Maria and her unborn child.  Eventually, Big Daddy's ideals force him to confront Harry and demand that Harry live up to Big Daddy's ideals at which point Harry shoots Big Daddy and puts a hit out on Maria and her unborn child.

• Bear Walkin sides with Harry even though he knows Harry has betrayed the organization, because Harry is married to Bear's daughter, Sherry, and hurting Harry will hurt her.  Bear then finds himself pitted against Brandon to protect Harry and it ends up to be in vain as Sherry is shot during an assassination attempt on Harry.

All of these story points escalate the conflict and bring the story equilibrium further and further out of harmony until the final showdown between Harry and Brandon.

Harry's pattern of forgiveness in the face of betrayals & danger is consistent up until he murders Brandon while they are ascending the elevator.  Before that Harry always acted benevolent in similar situations - consider how Harry dealt with Balladbird Lee who betrayed him to help his brother Cannon Vulcan.  Because Harry's killing of Brandon, his oldest friend, would be so out of character the story editors took great care in crafting  the entire episode to build up to it and make it believable.  That episode alone makes watching the entire series worth watching.

Maybe this is one moral to this story.  No matter how strong an organizations hold is over people, no matter how they attempt to replace your family, real family bonds always take precedence over procedural doctrine.  The only way this does not apply is when a person has no close friends or family.