A Brief Analysis of Gally in MTCFF Ultra

Probably out of all the characters in Ultra, Gally is my
favorite. Not by any wide margin, I'm also a long-time fan of
Morrigan, and reading Ultra has made me fans of (in the fic, at
least) Dan Hibiki, Mr. Satan, and Lilith. Other characters have
been gratifying to see, good or bad.

But Gally comes from my favorite manga, so I think it's only
natural that she's held at a higher standing than the others. (Or
I'm just another raving fanboy who's deluding himself. ^^;;;) Be
whatever it is, I've had the urge to look into her character a
bit more than normal.

I've theorized about where in the manga 2F took her from when he
put her in Alpha. I don't know how much of an exposure to her he
had, but I've determined fairly assuredly that it's somewhere
between her run in Motorball, and her fight with Zappan (the guy
in the Berzerker body). Or, for people familier with the Viz
volumes, between vols. 4 and 5.

The evidence for this is fairly simple to break down. Gally has
mentioned that she still lives in Scrap Iron City, and is still
in contact with Ido. This means it has to predate her battle with
Zappan. After that, she was a TUNED Agent for Tiphares, and only
saw Ido once in the last four volumes. At that point, he had
wiped his own memory, so he did not remember her; he also didn't
live in Scrap Iron City.

Also, Gally mentioned that she had done Motorball in the past.
These events took place in vols. 3 and 4.

What we're left with is somewhat interesting. Save the 10 years
that passed between vols. 5 and 6 (roughly) the most unseen time
we have in the manga is between vols. 4 and 5. We have a good
idea what happened there (Gally became a singer/songwriter), but
few specifics. If anything, it was probably the least tumultous
time in Gally's life.

Enough time had passed that she probably wasn't as passionate as
she was in vol. 2 with Hugo, but she still posessed the youthful
idealism (to a degree, it's hard to be an idealist in that world
^_^) and not quite the hard military spirit she had in the late
volumes. This gives us a Gally that's relatively unattached (Ido,
yes, but enough time had passed, I think, that he wasn't as close
a father figure as he had been in vols. 1 and 2.)

And, since she hasn't met Figure 4, yet, she hasn't got the
second primary romantic interest to worry about.

Since we're talking about Ultra, I'd say that Gally - physically
at least - is in her second worst body of the series (just above
the Motorball body she had... which suffers from
overspecialization). Her experience and skill has increased,
somewhat, from the early volumes. In any case, she compares
poorly in just about every department compared to herself as a
Tuned Agent or as she was in vol. 9 (Mach 17! WOOHOO!!!)

Depending on how extensive the changes that Washuu has brought
about for her would determine how she would fare against her
"ultimate" manga form (mid/late vol 9.

That brings us to "how Gally fights". There's relatively few
things to remember about Gally's fighting style, at least as it
applies in Ultra:
1) She's fast. Not insanely fast. She didn't break the sound
barrier until relatively late in the manga (that doesn't mean it
couldn't happen... just that she didn't do it.) I'd say that this
still gives her an edge over any other person in Ultra. (Before
any Ranma fanatics start disagreeing with me, I'll just say this:
Gally broke the sound barrier - even if it was after her Ultra
appearance, she's still noteably fast - and the physical effects
of this were noted. No physical effects of the same were noted in
Ranma, ergo I'll assume that no sound barrier was broken.)
 
2) She's strong. I don't know how strong, but certainly enough to
rip cybernetic limbs apart. (I've gotten one response that
Gally's about 50 times stronger than a normal human. This would
probably give her a top lifting strength of 10 tons, but
bench-pressing isn't the only measure of strength.)

3) The larger the opponent, the better she is. Panzer Kunst is
designed to take on large foes. Since - save chibi Orochi, when
he was around, Gally's one of the smallest person in Omega, this
gives her a fairly significant advantage... And the size granted
by The EVA units wouldn't be helpful, even with their increased
strength. She's taken on people the size of large buildings and
come out on top. 

4) Agility. Not quite the same as speed, but Gally's not insanely
tough (especially not in her Ultra body... assuming Washuu hasn't
done significant changes to it.) She uses the tactic of not
getting hit (or at least, hit hard) to stay standing. In Volume
1, she was able to dodge attacks that moved at Mach 4.

5) Despite that, her Panzer Kunst training allows her to keep
fighting despite the loss of significant portions of her body.
Yes, it did happen after the split off to Ultra, but against
Zappan she lost her entire lower body at the waist and one of her
arms, and was able to function long enough to win. Since I doubt
anyone in Ultra has the kind of power he had (at least, not for
the duration he could have gone for) she's lethal until she's
REALLY down.

6) She's ruthless. Partially from her environment, partially from
her forgotten past as a terrorist/mercenary, Gally goes for the
jugular, and has few compunctions about taking an opponent out
fast and hard. (This could, ironically, lead her to become a heel
of sorts in the future.)

7) Her fighting is instinctive. Gally doesn't remember her past,
and all her martial arts are essentially hardwired into her
brain.

Hopefully this will help people understand Gally's character
better, and give some ideas for how to use her. If anyone wants
suggestions, I'm glad to give ideas. I'm not an expert on her, by
any extent, but unlike a lot of people, I've read the manga and
paid attention quite a bit.

anyhoo... AIM: DamienRoc ICQ: 13528364

Damien Roc
Alita/Gally fan
Water Dragon Productions
Umi's Chamption/Nuriko's Honor Guard