Frankly speaking, I have very mixed feelings about this manga. I disliked many things about it but loved at least as much.

First of all, the art is excellent. Very meticulous drawings, great panelling (with quite a few amazing double page panels) and really cool designs. I’m not a big fan of action-heavy manga in general as I often find the action sequences a bit difficult to follow, but it didn’t seem to be the case here. The author somehow managed to draw them in a way that I could imagine the movement behind the still drawings with not much effort. It’s certainly one of the best looking manga I've read so far. 11/10 lol

The next thing I absolutely love is the world-building. Kishiro-sensei created an incredibly interesting setting. I found myself very curious about the world itself – especially the story behind the "floating" city of Zarem. Too bad that manga failed miserably at satisfying that curiosity though. One of my biggest complaints in that matter (a minor spoiler, I guess):

That's just one example of the kind of thing I really disliked about this manga – too often it feels like something is/happens the way it is/does just because it's convenient for the author at the moment, with little reason behind it. But well, the author himself admits that he hadn't had a real plan for the story from the start and was just making things up as he went so I guess that's what we get.

That was a big let-down for me. Not because the story is particularly bad. No, it's very engaging for the most part actually and filled with a lot of very interesting ideas. But there’s also no shortage of rather dumb or questionable scenes. Oh, and the ending is a severely lacking in context mess. Overall, I can't help feeling that there's a lot of wasted potential here.

As for characters, I'm really unsure if I like Gally or not. When she's cool she's cool as fuck but sometimes I would find her behaviour very irritating and hard to stomach. She acts like a spoiled brat way too often for my liking. But she becomes more likeable as the story progresses, to be fair. There’s one thing for sure though – I love her best when she goes on a killing spree.

Most of the other characters are fine, some really interesting. I liked Ido a lot, he's a cool guy. And I love the main villain – that's how you write a mad scientist lol He's not evil for the sake of being evil, he's just truly insane and very convincing in his insanity. A despicable guy you hate with all you've got but can't help feeling some weird kind of admiration towards him at the same time. Definitely a strong point of the series.

All in all I love Gunnm, it's really cool. But it had the potential of being so much more and I hate it for wasting it.