Battle Angel Alita, Vol. 1
Ratings7
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings7
Average rating3.9
Own the manga thrill ride that changed global comics and inspired the James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez's cyberpunk action film Alita: Battle Angel! This new paperback edition features an updated translation in six affordable, 300-page volumes. In a dump in the lawless settlement of Scrapyard, far beneath the mysterious space city of Zalem, disgraced cyber-doctor Daisuke Ido makes a strange find: the detached head of a cyborg woman who has lost all her memories. He names her Alita and equips her with a powerful new body, the Berserker. While Alita remembers no details of her former life, a moment of desperation reawakens in her nerves the legendary school of martial arts known as Panzer Kunst. In a place where there is no justice but what people make for themselves, Alita decides to become a hunter-killer, tracking down and taking out those who prey on the weak. But can she hold onto her humanity as she begins to revel in her own bloodlust?
Reviews with the most likes.
The gore is super gross, the villain hilariously vile, the world extremely sad and depressing, and a dog saves the day. In short, everything about this is great. Everything except the dialogue and story with their big troubled-little-boy energy and the extremely problematic portrayal of Alita as a highly sexualised child.
I can only imagine how transgressive this must have felt when you somehow got your hands on it during the 90s, probably via that one weird clerk at your local comic shop. Hell, even now I wouldn't want my mother to see me reading the panels where Makaku slurps brains directly from bodies like they are Go-Gurts—or almost all of the panels, really.
P.S. The Kodansha Digital Edition is absolutely gorgeous btw., and really lets the art shine. Also there's a list of sound effect translations at the end? Probably highlights how long I haven't read any manga I guess, but that's hilarious. It's six straight pages of stuff like “115.1 - mrrk mrrk (moko moko)” or “152.6 fwip fwip fwip (kyun kyun kyun)”.
Featured Series
9 primary booksBattle Angel Alita / Gunnm is a 9-book series with 9 primary works first released in 1990 with contributions by Yukito Kishiro, Fred Burke, and 2 others.
