Overall Rating: ASynopsis: Battle Angel Alita tells the story of an amnesiac female cyborg named Alita. Alita's head and upper torso are found in a state of suspended animation by cybermedic/bounty hunter Daisuke Ido while he is searching for useful scrap. After giving her a new body, Alita begins to learn how to live in the Scrapyard, the home of the poor and out-of-luck, who live in the shadow of the floating city of Tiphares, where the rich live. Although she has no memory, Alita soon realizes she knows the legendary Martian martial art, Panzer Kunst. The series follows Alita as she recovers her past and uncovers the secrets of Tiphares.
My only complaint about Battle Angel Alita is that the story can get a little slow over the 9 volumes. Aside from that, there is a lot to love. For a series that was written in 1991, Battle Angel Alita holds up surprisingly well as a science fiction story.
Set in a futuristic dystopian society, Alita shares the stage with some excellent supporting characters as well. Along with her father figure, Ido, there is Desty Nova, an insane nanotechnologist, and Kaos, Nova's son, a frail and troubled radio DJ with psychometric powers. These characters make Alita more interesting as a character as she struggles to retrieve her memory.
I definitely recommend checking the series out if you're into Science Fiction. It may not be as much fun if you aren't a sci-fi nerd like me, but give a shot and see what you think. Battle Angel Alita is a classic manga that's worth trying.
2 comments:
I always loved the sprinkling of other bits of contemporary horror/scifi that Battle Angel Alita includes, makes it worth scrutinizing all the little details of the background artwork.
The 2nd series Last Order is much more enjoyable though, it sort of rewrites the epilogue ending to this original series but then picks up and goes way the hell off into space/nanotech, but also into the philosophy of existence and shows how Kishiro did a fair amount of research for developing the ideas he puts forth.
And you forgot to mention Alita is being made into a movie by James Cameron, due out... eventually. Hopefully it will be much better than the slightly rewritten Vols 1&2 that was already animated and Vol 3 that was done in CGI.
Shhh...you're giving away a later review. Just kidding, yeah Last Order is very good, and I'll be reviewing it in more depth in the near future.
Also, I'll believe there is going to be a James Cameron adaptation when I see it. How long have they been saying he is going to be doing that now? That being said, I would love to se a good adaptation of the series, whoever it's by.
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