EX-ARM - Vol. 4 Ch. 26 - Chaos Man
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He stopped a city being destroyed by a fuel air bomb and possibly world war 3, also stopping a rogue murder machine that had killed thousands.
The only issue that arises is the political fallout from wanting to use this to score favours to protect the ex arm.
The only issue that arises is the political fallout from wanting to use this to score favours to protect the ex arm.
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I mean yeah having someone that can just hack into other countries militaries is very hard to justify
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yeah, he fucked up really bad, wasn't it a manga, it would be set in a place with no access until they can dissect and control it
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@kaminomikan It's either a massive shitstorm or a half-dead country to deal with, so Akira has a pretty solid defense if the bigwigs decide to make a stink about it. What's more worrisome is the possibility of him getting "decommissioned" since they finally realized exactly how dangerous he could become.
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Air traffic problems I can kind of understand, barely, but regular drivers shouldn't be causing accidents if their GPS aren't working right. "Oh well Siri just told me to turn left here, guess I'll drive right into this building". And it wouldn't make sense for driverless cars either, since those prioritize the radar and cameras more than the GPS.
Honestly the real problem is justifying his existence from here on. Because he just showed them, and the world at large, exactly how dangerous his Ex-arm ability is in their modern world that relies on hackable tech. the political fallout from this is gonna be a nightmare.
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HiRock isn’t the best writer. He tends to follow clichés, overdone tropes, include (unnecessary) fan-service nudity, etc. Definitely has room for improvement. On the other hand, however, he manages to establish gripping mysteries (and satisfying conclusions to them), relatable characters, existential dilemmas and some really cool scenes and concepts. There are moments where he completely takes me by surprise at how good of a writer he actually CAN be.
In this specific case, I’m referring to the flashback of Molau, from Elmira’s perspective. HiRock just nails “show don’t tell” in all the right ways. In only A SINGLE PAGE (not even a whole page, mind you), with zero dialogue, he manages to convey to us the reason why Molau ended up the way he did. So many writers have their villains be evil for the sake of being evil, without any real reason behind it. HiRock only had us believe the same is going on here. But he shattered our expectations in the best possible way, breaking away from clichés and predictable story directions. HiRock tackled this with realism. You might call Molau a monster, but all he is, is a human being. Everything has a reason for being the way it is.
We can see that Molau was elected through, what we can assume was, a democratic election. The people of Muanji were cheering him on. With his position came a lot of responsibility. Under (to us) unknown circumstances, his ratings were falling and he was being abandoned by everyone. The only loyal companion that remained by his side was Elmira. An android. He was a man under a lot of pressure. Pressure that, tragically, got to him. He snapped.
Now, am I defending Molau’s actions? Not one bit. I’m merely pointing out that he was but a flawed creature, like everyone else, which could be why he was so obsessed with his dream of an android utopia. A place devoid of strife, pressure and emotions that lead to conflict. I though that Leon was going to be the only tragic character here, but Molau somehow managed to overtake that position. Very unexpected, indeed.
This is just speculation, but I think that there’s also some social commentary mixed in here. People tend to look at things from only one perspective. In this case: “Molau is a monster!” We rarely ask: “How/Why is Molau the way he is?” We often look at the news and blindly accept the surface information we’re given as definitive proof of something being true/false or right/wrong. We don’t look further than what’s in front of us. In this stories’ case, the world, Leon and the protagonists only see Molau as a twisted, psychotic dictator. They only see one side of the coin. They don’t know, or will know, that he was once a “normal” man who simply couldn’t bear the wight of responsibility and the despair of failure. He was just a human.
This is excellent storytelling!
In other news, I’m glad that the whole “what does it mean to be a human/android” conundrum, that all the characters were going on about, came to a close. I was fearing that we wouldn’t get some kind of conclusion for that (at least in this arc). I’m also interested to see what the consequence is for all that has happened with NORAD and the satellites. And we can’t forget Nguyen, of course. What was his end goal? It appears that the protagonists secured both EX-ARMs.
While the first arc was undeniably lackluster, the second one was a big step forward. This arc, however, sets the bar WAYYY too high, imo. There’s virtually nothing bad I can say about it (maybe a reread will reveal something, although I highly doubt that). Nevertheless, I’m excited to see where the story goes, as long as the writing remains this good (or becomes even better).
@Talon13184 Thank you so much for scanlating this series! It’s clear that I’m in love with it. I only hope that you’re enjoying it yourself, as well, and aren’t forcing yourself to scanlate it. Can’t wait for the next arc!
In this specific case, I’m referring to the flashback of Molau, from Elmira’s perspective. HiRock just nails “show don’t tell” in all the right ways. In only A SINGLE PAGE (not even a whole page, mind you), with zero dialogue, he manages to convey to us the reason why Molau ended up the way he did. So many writers have their villains be evil for the sake of being evil, without any real reason behind it. HiRock only had us believe the same is going on here. But he shattered our expectations in the best possible way, breaking away from clichés and predictable story directions. HiRock tackled this with realism. You might call Molau a monster, but all he is, is a human being. Everything has a reason for being the way it is.
We can see that Molau was elected through, what we can assume was, a democratic election. The people of Muanji were cheering him on. With his position came a lot of responsibility. Under (to us) unknown circumstances, his ratings were falling and he was being abandoned by everyone. The only loyal companion that remained by his side was Elmira. An android. He was a man under a lot of pressure. Pressure that, tragically, got to him. He snapped.
Now, am I defending Molau’s actions? Not one bit. I’m merely pointing out that he was but a flawed creature, like everyone else, which could be why he was so obsessed with his dream of an android utopia. A place devoid of strife, pressure and emotions that lead to conflict. I though that Leon was going to be the only tragic character here, but Molau somehow managed to overtake that position. Very unexpected, indeed.
This is just speculation, but I think that there’s also some social commentary mixed in here. People tend to look at things from only one perspective. In this case: “Molau is a monster!” We rarely ask: “How/Why is Molau the way he is?” We often look at the news and blindly accept the surface information we’re given as definitive proof of something being true/false or right/wrong. We don’t look further than what’s in front of us. In this stories’ case, the world, Leon and the protagonists only see Molau as a twisted, psychotic dictator. They only see one side of the coin. They don’t know, or will know, that he was once a “normal” man who simply couldn’t bear the wight of responsibility and the despair of failure. He was just a human.
This is excellent storytelling!
In other news, I’m glad that the whole “what does it mean to be a human/android” conundrum, that all the characters were going on about, came to a close. I was fearing that we wouldn’t get some kind of conclusion for that (at least in this arc). I’m also interested to see what the consequence is for all that has happened with NORAD and the satellites. And we can’t forget Nguyen, of course. What was his end goal? It appears that the protagonists secured both EX-ARMs.
While the first arc was undeniably lackluster, the second one was a big step forward. This arc, however, sets the bar WAYYY too high, imo. There’s virtually nothing bad I can say about it (maybe a reread will reveal something, although I highly doubt that). Nevertheless, I’m excited to see where the story goes, as long as the writing remains this good (or becomes even better).
@Talon13184 Thank you so much for scanlating this series! It’s clear that I’m in love with it. I only hope that you’re enjoying it yourself, as well, and aren’t forcing yourself to scanlate it. Can’t wait for the next arc!
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Thanks again for one more nice chapter!
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When I was translating the double page with Elmira trying to talk to Molau, I admit I got a bit choked up. It just seemed so tragic and depressing. At the same time, I was asking myself why I was feeling so bad for her. After all, she's a mass-murderer at this point. Was she a slave to her programming? Or was she using her own free will when committing these terrible acts? I dunno, but it was a sad scene nonetheless.
The assumption throughout this story is that Elmira was just obeying her programming, but I think it went deeper than that. I think she was genuinely in love with Molau and was following his orders completely by choice. This isn't too uncommon in human nature. People often become fixated on their spouse or whomever, to the point of doing things they normally wouldn't do in the name of their love for that person.
I thought Minami's reaction was interesting when she was trying to save Elmira. She said that she was just following orders. My Japanese is not good enough to be sure if she meant she was doing what she was told by choice or if she was simply following a programming routine. Depending which she meant, it tells a bit about Minami's true feelings about androids. Of the main cast, she is most open to the idea of accepting androids as people, but if she believes that Elmira was a slave to her programming, does she truly believe in their humanity? Contrarily, if she meant she was following orders by choice, as a human would, that further indicates her belief that androids are a new type of human. I wish I could be more certain on that translation.
I really got into this storyline which is why I churned them out a bit faster than usual. I never look more than one issue ahead so I've skimmed over the raws for issue 27. Without giving anything away, I'll just say it looks pretty dang interesting. I think it may turn out to be a good arc...fingers crossed!
The assumption throughout this story is that Elmira was just obeying her programming, but I think it went deeper than that. I think she was genuinely in love with Molau and was following his orders completely by choice. This isn't too uncommon in human nature. People often become fixated on their spouse or whomever, to the point of doing things they normally wouldn't do in the name of their love for that person.
I thought Minami's reaction was interesting when she was trying to save Elmira. She said that she was just following orders. My Japanese is not good enough to be sure if she meant she was doing what she was told by choice or if she was simply following a programming routine. Depending which she meant, it tells a bit about Minami's true feelings about androids. Of the main cast, she is most open to the idea of accepting androids as people, but if she believes that Elmira was a slave to her programming, does she truly believe in their humanity? Contrarily, if she meant she was following orders by choice, as a human would, that further indicates her belief that androids are a new type of human. I wish I could be more certain on that translation.
I really got into this storyline which is why I churned them out a bit faster than usual. I never look more than one issue ahead so I've skimmed over the raws for issue 27. Without giving anything away, I'll just say it looks pretty dang interesting. I think it may turn out to be a good arc...fingers crossed!
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If the whole world knows a single city has a technology that can pretty much hack anything with a wireless connection, everybody is going to want a piece of that ass. Can't wait to see how the mangaka portrays this potential political shitstorm.
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Because some people might not be aware of the severity of what Akira did with the NORAD, I'll explain: in space, there is a huge satellite network that keeps an extremely detailed track of earth's geography, commonly known as Global Positioning System or GPS.
This network is being constantly monitorated and updated every second so that it can be safely used by countless organizations across the world in calculations and stadistics in many different fields, and that info relies in the fact that every satellite remain perfectly synchronized with the rest with a margin of error of 0%, so Akira altering one of them has pretty much screwed up the whole planet's logistics to a catastrophic level.
To put some examples of how bad things will be, every airship currently on air is now basically flying blindly and every flight has to be cancelled indefinitely because all their info is now unreliable; weather forecast and tide control is non-existant because the protocols rely on knowing exactly where is everything; without mentioning that every single space mission, from simple star mapping to rocket-launching, has been jeopardized and quite possibly permanently ruinned because their coordinates are no longer trustworthy.
Sooo... yes, things will be difficult from now on.
This network is being constantly monitorated and updated every second so that it can be safely used by countless organizations across the world in calculations and stadistics in many different fields, and that info relies in the fact that every satellite remain perfectly synchronized with the rest with a margin of error of 0%, so Akira altering one of them has pretty much screwed up the whole planet's logistics to a catastrophic level.
To put some examples of how bad things will be, every airship currently on air is now basically flying blindly and every flight has to be cancelled indefinitely because all their info is now unreliable; weather forecast and tide control is non-existant because the protocols rely on knowing exactly where is everything; without mentioning that every single space mission, from simple star mapping to rocket-launching, has been jeopardized and quite possibly permanently ruinned because their coordinates are no longer trustworthy.
Sooo... yes, things will be difficult from now on.
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@Fallenstreet01 Great info. Thanks so much for that! That really summed it up nicely. I kind of suspected that disruptions would be along those lines, but your explanation was extremely helpful! I'm glad the author is taking to time to recognize what a total disaster this would cause on a global level and isn't just ignoring it to kick off the next story arc.
Someone was asking why there would be lots of car wrecks going on since we can ignore our GPS when it is wrong. I think part of the problem there would be simple human error making the situation worse. When the mapping app tells them to turn left, but there is no side street to turn left onto, people will instinctively start grabbing at and looking at their phone for clarification. Eyes off the road, they cause a wreck. Then you'll have people who simply get lost in the middle of nowhere because fold-able paper maps pretty much are a thing of the past and, without an app, we have no reliable way to get from point A to point B. So, people will end up stranded, out of gas, over heated, etc. causing traffic slowdowns and whatnot. Then you'll have people who notice, at the last second, that their app didn't tell them to exit the freeway so they suddenly veer across 3 lanes to make the exit rather than going to the next one and simply u-turning. That's going to cause more accidents. Eventually, we'd adapt and figure out that the map apps aren't any good anymore and accidents would decrease, but initially, there would be chaos.
All-in-all, losing GPS (or any other modern luxury) without warning would cause a massive disturbance in day-to-day life on earth!
Someone was asking why there would be lots of car wrecks going on since we can ignore our GPS when it is wrong. I think part of the problem there would be simple human error making the situation worse. When the mapping app tells them to turn left, but there is no side street to turn left onto, people will instinctively start grabbing at and looking at their phone for clarification. Eyes off the road, they cause a wreck. Then you'll have people who simply get lost in the middle of nowhere because fold-able paper maps pretty much are a thing of the past and, without an app, we have no reliable way to get from point A to point B. So, people will end up stranded, out of gas, over heated, etc. causing traffic slowdowns and whatnot. Then you'll have people who notice, at the last second, that their app didn't tell them to exit the freeway so they suddenly veer across 3 lanes to make the exit rather than going to the next one and simply u-turning. That's going to cause more accidents. Eventually, we'd adapt and figure out that the map apps aren't any good anymore and accidents would decrease, but initially, there would be chaos.
All-in-all, losing GPS (or any other modern luxury) without warning would cause a massive disturbance in day-to-day life on earth!
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It works for me. Maybe try on a different device?
