Arguably one of the best G-Gundam fics out there. Absolutely *awesome*. There were a few spelling typos, but man, what a story! This is so much better than the Rain/Domon drivel that has flooded this section. Rock on and keep writing!

"The Forecast Is Insanity"? More like "The Forecast Is Awesome"!

In all seriousness, though, this is definitely one of the strongest CDS showings yet, and well worth the wait. I'm glad to see our talks had some effect; Maria Liguori is fast emerging as a force to be contended with, and while she's definitely not a character the reader is inclined to LIKE, she's nevertheless credible as a power player. A golf clap for bringing Trippy under her wing; Michelo's new foes up to this point have been a group lacking in structure - building a hierarchy among them makes the story flow more smoothly.

The introduction of a shadowy new subplot also is total win. Michelo's military background, his past with Wong, and the Chapman connection, all in one tantalizing teaser? Ah, Nicotine, you teasing fiend.

Fleshing out Mirabeau was also a good call, and I'm really digging the conflict between Wong and Master through their respective proteges. With a showdown between Michelo and Mirabeau imminent, the next chapter promises to be a nice little slugfest that will give us some more Michelo - one of the consequences of fleshing out Maria and Mirabeau was a dearth of screentime for Michelo himself, although the Wong/Michelo scenes were executed masterfully.

Finally, the decision to quantify Michelo's fighting style. Daring. And accurate to a tee. Hopefully, depending on where you intend on taking this thing, we'll be able to see Michelo as a truly capable opponent - one of the pet peeves I've long had with G is that they really neutered Michelo and Chapman both in pretty much all their respective fights to make their opponents look better. From a purely technical standpoint, the Nero's has the armaments to take on any of the four Shuffles and give the Shining a much better fight than it got the chance to. Hopefully, you'll rectify that.

Looking forward to your next update, as ever.

Getting to read the revised Chapter 4, I have to say I felt mostly relief throughout. Your decision to take down the entire thing surprised me, and I worried that you might decide to ditch some of the good scenes. I shouldn't have worried - you keep everything that made the original Chapter 4 great, and add in some intriguing new stuff. Andre no longer comes across as an idiot; rather, he seems to be the voice of reason for the Chariot boys. Whereas the original Chapter 4 was primarily Lete-centric, here both of Michelo's top men get the limelight. The story is the better served for it.

The full-blown gang war the chapter now opens to is a welcome change from the sudden dropping off of the suspense, although I was surprised the Corvys didn't target Michelo directly. It'd be anticlimactic, though, if Michelo just goes off to train with Master without the violence reaching a point of resolve, unless you intend to build up the suspense by having Michelo come back and clean house, so to speak.

In short, an excellent revision, and here's hoping Chapter 5'll be out before March comes to a close. I still want to see that Michelo "Peace" fanart, but in the meantime, here's what inquiring readers (Read: Me) want to see from future chapters.

*: More military Michelo tidbits. The connection is still largely unexplored, and it's a tantalizing dangler.

*: More Wong. Because you can never have enough Wong.

*: Let's see the 'true villains' of the Michelo family get fleshed out. Not that Michelo himself isn't villainous. But by the standards of this fic, he's the protagonist, if not a hero. His boys have now been fleshed out, with the exception of Cameron I believe. But, more pressing to me right now are Antonio Chariot and Maria Liguori. How far does their influence extend? What are their goals? Is Tony even still alive or is he the same Tony that got whacked?

There's more, but those are the big three for now.

Chapter 4 was entitled 'The Melancholy Soldier,' but it could have been called 'The Lete Chapter' just as easily: already Michelo's two-dimensional lackey in the original has a full personality by this point in the fic, but Chapter 4 makes him into a main character in and of himself. My sentiments as regards his absence in Neo Hong Kong are only bolstered by his powerful characterization here, which leads me to wonder if this fic is intended to be placed in traditional G Gundam canon, or is intended to be a reworking of the series to some extent as time progresses. It'll be very interesting to see where it goes from here.

After the exposition with the various members of Michelo's family and the Corvy brothers in Chapter 3, their total absence here was somewhat disappointing, but you make up for that with a strong opening fleshing Lete out fully into his own and leading into a well-written test of wills between Michelo and Master Asia. This is the Undefeated of the East's strongest appearance so far, and it shows perfectly the origins behind the mutual dislike the two characters have for one another both in G, and I strongly, suspect, in later chapters here. Master sees Michelo as beneath him, even after glimpsing the true depths of his rage and will to power. In turn, the naturally vindictive Michelo could never forgive Master for his slights against both he himself and his home nation, regardless of whether or not Master's insults were meant for anything other than to provoke Michelo. His association with Domon only drives the stake deeper.

Lete benefits enormously, but Andre comes across as a bit of an idiot here, despite Michelo's policy against fools. He feels that Domon's actions against Michelo were purely impersonal competition, but a look at Domon's other matches reveals quite a different story: no one else Domon fought did he leave so humiliated. In the cases of his future Shuffle Alliance partners, he openly spares them to fight again, and other foes he also treats with some measure of restraint. Only in his match against Michelo does Domon actively seek to not just defeat, but disqualify, his opponent.

It was also a nice and ironic touch to have Michelo telling his boys "Peace." I now have the image in my mind of a fanart of Michelo dressed in fatigues and armed, but flashing the peace sign. Too bad my drawing talent is minuscule compared to my writing skills.

Overall, a worthy update, and you can be sure I'll be looking forward to future updates.

Chapter 3 begins the first of the completely new chapters, and it starts by exposing quite a few more details about the Chariot family. The new Chariot family members were hit-and-miss for me: Maria Liguori was delightful, a calculating female villain (a character archetype sorely lacking from the original G Gundam) who made me think of Adrienne Frost of Marvel Comics, but Sophia Giamonna, after all the hints, left quite a bit to be desired. She brought to mind Giselle from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie more than anyone else. For all the details revealed of them, Christiani and Antonio came across as largely interchangeable - minor powermongers. Of the two, Antonio was the more menacing, although Christani definitely takes the win when it comes to characterization. So far, Antonio's pretty much cardboard.

I liked the touch about Michelo being a bastard - it made my vision of Michelo's youth a bit more reconciliatory with your vision. The Michelo Gang also were made of win here - you've taken characters so thin you could get paper cuts from them and given them each a full set of personalities, motivations, and unique character traits. Lete in particular benefits from this infusion of personality, to the point where right now in the story one wonders why he, at least, didn't go on to accompany Michelo to Neo Hong Kong.

The brief appearance (in a fashion) of Wong was also well written. One's first thought is that the Prime Minister would be loathe to personally sign a letter to a currently-untried collaborator. However, if Wong and Michelo have a past - and the hints that Michelo may be suffering from amnesia have at this point in the story made that possible again - it explains perfectly well why the Prime Minister would be willing to take such a risk. He knows Michelo won't let that letter fall into the hands of anyone it shouldn't. He trusts him, at least as much as a man like Wong ever trusts anyone.

The highlight of this chapter was Michelo's dream-showdown with Domon. It was somewhat reminiscent of the fight between Ryu and Evil Ryu in the Udon Street Fighter comics, and definitely full of awesome. As a brief aside, the portrayal of Michelo here also bolsters the idea of him as a 'soldier at heart.' It surely wasn't lost on you that the Nero's Gundam was based off of Roman legionnaires. It was also, to put it frankly, about time that Michelo's hatred for Domon was referenced, seeing as how it became such a central part of his character as the original series progressed.

Sorry, but the Corvy brothers didn't come across as even remotely intimidating. Even with their Spanish-styled names, with the choice of names and the twin status I envisioned the Wonder Twins of that old Superfriends comic dressed like Agents from the Matrix. Fucking twin stereotypes. Obviously, as its so early in their appearance, they can be made into a fearsome threat: the key to do this is, (1), to emphasize their different personalities and character traits as much as possible, and (2) Give us a scene that shows how formidable they are. Minor disagreements between the two over things that show their differences will also help.

Looking forward to reading the (currently) last chapter.

After the near-complete rewrite that was the first chapter, the second chapter is more of a mishmash of old and new. In terms of pure volume, this is a plus. But volume is hardly the judge for quality in fanfiction. So, the question: have the new additions been an improvement?

Somewhat. With the bulk of Chapter 2 as it originally was intact, you've revised your portrait of Michelo Chariot slightly. It's clear you elected to keep your original concept of Michelo as a man clearly suffering from a few mental ailments. However, with the suicidal aspect gone, the overall characterization of Michelo fares much better. At this point, with the hints at his past that are alluded to, Michelo's 'fits' could just as easily be the results of a traumatic event in his past as just a genetic defect. Personally, I lean heavily towards the former option, as the picture of Michelo as suffering somewhat from PTSD fits well with your image of Michelo as 'soldier mafioso' and frankly, makes Michelo a stronger character than if his quasi-insanity were just the result of bad genes. Madmen who are mad purely for madness's sake are rarely interesting characters, and I have no hesitation in saying that, were Michelo written that way, I would lose a great deal of interest in him as a result.

It seems you also decided to delete the past between Wong and Michelo that was present in the first iteration of this fic. I will tell you frankly I disagree with this: as I said before, Wong says plainly that he knows Michelo and Chapman as 'longtime friends,' a choice of words that would infer an association well before the 13th. Of course, this could just be Wong talking out his ass - as G Gundam makes clear to us and you pointed out as well, the Prime Minister can talk a good line when he needs to. But at the point in that point in the series, Wong had no need for subterfuge. Michelo and Chapman were already restored to eligible Gundam fighters with no challengers to Wong's decision, and it is safe to say that the two of them have been performing very well in their matches. Wong would not have been anticipating the match between Domon and Michelo so if Michelo had had his ass handed to him already in the Battle Royale, so I'm fairly certain that he, like Domon, was undefeated up to that point. If Wong was meeting with someone like the Neo Japanese delegation of Karato, Urube, and Mikamura, he might pull out such a line then. But running into Domon and Allenby in his restaurant? Indeed, Wong's choice to reveal his associations at that time made him look bad - not that he particularly cared what Domon thought of him, even if whether the same thing could be said of Allenby is a different matter. In any case, I think Wong's comment had a ring of truth to it - hence why I don't really like the concept of Wong and Michelo being strangers prior to the 13th.

Any other quirks? Two. One, Michelo using Japanese swearwords in addition to English and Italian. Unless he has an association with someone from Neo Japan or has been there, it seems out of place. Two, the choice of names for Neo Italy's current Chairman. It's a nice hail to the most prominent Italian leader of the past century, but it's also a little bit... well, blatant. It'd be like the Chinese emperor in Episode 38 being named Emperor Mao. A reference to an Italian who has made his mark on history is a good idea, but not one so recent, nor as infamous. A good source of possible candidates would be Dante's Inferno, although I have an optimistic suspicion that you've already read that.

As for the rest? I approve of revealing Michelo's past in bits and pieces, as opposed to an all-you-can-read-in-one-sitting pile. As any artist knows, it's always better for detail to be served as a dessert should be, in small servings. Too much too soon leads to a dilution of quality. The characterization was also consistently stellar; even if I didn't agree with Wong and Michelo's past being retconned, your depiction of the Prime Minister captures him to a tee, and Master Asia was written true to form as well. Even Lete, a bit character if ever there was one, was given scope and depth here. I approve.

(Somewhat off-topic tangent: you write Michelo with a somewhat traditional Italian mafiososo upbringing, but I always imagined the Neo-Italian crimelord as a boy to be not so much Michael Corleone as a bit of an Italian Kaneda (from the classic anime Akira, on the 0.01 percent chance you didn't know who I was talking about.)

Well, I promised this review a ridiculously long time ago, but hey, better late than never, right? Rather than review the whole thing all at once, which would devalue the hard work you've put in recently in my opinion, I've opted to give each chapter my full and complete scrutiny. Let's start, shall we?

I must say, I was surprised almost from the get-go. Just a few paragraphs into it, and it was clear what I was reading was no minor update, but rather a near-complete re-do. And, for the most part, Ceilo de Spada fares much better for it. One of the things that irked me most about the first iteration of this fic - hence my lax response in getting feedback out there - was Michelo's depression and suicide attempts. Admittedly it humanized him, but it also weakened him as a presence, and I had a hard time not reading it and imaging all those ridiculous black-clad idiots from high school with their scarred wrists and their laughably
pathetic infatuation with death, and seeing Michelo's face on their bodies. It wasn't a pleasant mental image, but because Michelo, like the so-called 'lesser characters' of G Gundam like Wong and Urube, has a dearth of fanfiction (much less good fanfiction, and Ceilo de Spada had potential, I didn't want to discourage a potentially skilled writer. Aside from the problems with Michelo's characterization, Ceilo de Spada showed promise.

However, it seems you've come to the same conclusions I did and decided to rectify them, which just makes me all the more certain your input as regards my decision regarding Ambition's Debt will be quite invaluable. The Michelo of this new first chapter captures perfectly the Michelo of G - temperamental, ruthless, and entirely without scruples. The portrayal of Mezzina as a closet homosexual added some nice depth to an otherwise cardboard character, and the Italian language that proliferated set the scene vividly - displaying an attention to detail and professionalism lesser writers wouldn't have bothered with.

By far my favorite addition was the brief scene with Michelo 'meeting' the Devil Gundam. Many of G's fans regard the obscenely powerful machine as the true villain of the series, and the scene you painted had some striking similarities to Stephen King's The Shining, a parallel I thought very fitting in regards to the relationship between these two.

Of course, with good comes some bad, and of course you know the part that would irk me most is the deletion of the scene showing the meeting between Michelo and Wong. Wong tells us in the manga version of G Gundam that he and Michelo (Michelo and Chapman both) are "longtime friends," implying that they have known each
other since well before the 13th Gundam Fight. Michelo's absence from his defeat in the first episode until the Battle Royale arc and Wong's completely anonymity for the first half of the series makes it pretty clear, to me at least, that there's some untold stories there. We'll wait and see if my Prime Minister makes an appearance in future chapters.

At this point I'm pointedly neutral on the way Michelo is written with military associations - in the first iteration of this chapter, his meeting with Wong had him enrolled in a military academy as a youth. Here, Michelo explicitly thinks of himself as a 'vigilante soldier.' Yet the Michelo of G Gundam seemed the very picture of rebellion: he answered to no one in his debut appearance, doing as he pleased and laying waste to his home city with impunity, actions which hardly exhibit discipline or professionalism. Later, in the Battle Royale, it was clear that he didn't really care for Master Asia, the self-styled 'commander' of the Devil Corps, and ironically, preferred to take orders from Wong instead. Michelo with military associations is a concept that can work, but it will need some fine-tuning. The relationship between Michelo and Wong, or possibly Michelo and Chapman (seeing as how Chapman was a soldier himself, and perhaps the finest one in the world of G Gundam at one time, at that) could be used here. Flashbacks, too, although these must be used sparingly: the last thing we need is a Fukuda-fic.

Hell. Yes. And here I thought there were no more good stories to be found in this section.

I didn't see any errors that stood out to me. You delved further into this relatively simple show with a heaping amount of research and development and yet you stil maintain the elements that make this Gundam.

You. You effin' rock.

Finaly a fanfic dedicated to Michelo my all time favarite Charactor. It's well written to with great motifs and refrencess what more could i ask for?

Gracia Ciao

Nice story. I see Michelo in a whole new light now. :)

Great story. update soon.

Nothing beats your Michelo fics; you really get into his head. Good job!