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Reviewed by Adam Volk Battle Angel Alita is one of those classic series that seems to have hooked a lot of Western readers who might otherwise have dismissed manga as nothing more than a medium of cute talking animals and characters with unusually large eyes and spastic facial expressions. Like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed, Battle Angel Alita has since become a virtual legend among Western audiences, introducing thousands of readers to the diverse field of contemporary manga and anime. Indeed Battle Angel Alita’s popularity has spawned a virtual cult following of Kishiro fans, and the series has since been developed into two feature length anime films, as well as recent reports that James Cameron is slated to direct an American live-action version of the story (reports that have since been confirmed by Kishiro himself). More recently Kishiro has gone back and essentially re-written his original ending (the initial series was published in the West as a 9 volume saga). Thus far, the new continuity of Battle Angel Alita has been developed into 4 new graphic novels (released in North America by VIZ) creating yet another wave of popularity for the series. The hype, of course, is well deserved and no where is the brilliance of Kishiro more evident than in the opening chapter of his legendary saga: Battle Angel Alita (Volume 1): Rusty Angel. The story begins by following the life and times of a “cybermedic” named Doc Ido, a lone scientist and healer who ply’s his craft amid a sprawling dystopian world known as the Scrap Yard. Built in the shadows of a massive orbital station inhabited by elite human beings known as “Tiphareans”, the Scrap Yard is a place where cybernetic technology meets low tech street thugs, a virtual wasteland where the dregs of humanity congregate and where poverty, violence and crime are all commonplace. It is here that Doc Ido operates, repairing the myriad of run down cyborgs and low-life hustlers who inhabit the Scrap Yard. On a routine visit to a sprawling junk heap (filled with a continual flow of detritus from Tiphares) Doc Ido stumbles upon the remains of a young female cyborg buried amid the refuse. Ecstatic, Ido takes her back to his workshop and is able to repair her, providing her with a new body and reviving her brain activity. The young and naïve cyber-girl wakes up with no memory of her past, and no clue as to how she ended up in the Scrap Yard. With now name of her own, the fatherly Doc Ido dubs her “Alita” (in honour of his now dead cat). Alita soon begins to explore her new surroundings but when Doc Ido returns home with high-end cybernetic body parts, Alita begins to suspect that something darker lies beneath his seemingly altruistic demeanor. As Doc Ido leaves one night to conduct his rounds, Alita decides to follow him and watches from the shadows as he waits in ambush for a seemingly innocent woman. Believing her suspicions are correct, Alita thwarts Ido’s ambush, only to discover that the woman is in fact a blood thirsty mutant berserker with a price on her head. The mutant quickly turns on both Alita and Ido, almost killing the two before Alita instinctively delivers a vicious killing blow. Stunned, Ido recognizes Alita’s deadly technique as the infamous Panzer Kunst (or “armored arts”) an elite fighting style developed on Mars. Ido also reveals that he is in fact a Hunter-Warrior, a group of feared bounty hunters who enforce the law for the Factory (the organization which controls the Scrap Yard in the name of Tiphares). Alita is fascinated with the idea of becoming a Hunter-Warrior and despite Ido’s protests decides to also become a bounty hunter and in the process discover her identity. Soon after she begins looking for her first target, a massive cybernetic monstrosity called Makaku, who satiates his addiction to endorphins by feeding on human brains. Alita’s first battle however, does not go as planned and only the intervention of Ido at the last second prevents her from being killed. Severely injured, Ido takes Alita back to his clinic and decides that in order to kill Makaku he must give her a Berserker body, an advanced form of cybernetics that essentially turns the recipient into an unstoppable killing machine. Coupled with Alita’s Panzer Kunst martial-arts technique, Ido believes Alita will be unstoppable. Alita then hopes to enlist the aid of her follow Hunter-Warriors from a nearby bar, but they quickly dismiss her as a small, young and hopelessly outclassed amateur. Alone, Alita decides to hunt down Makaku herself and collect his bounty. What follows is an epic battle between good and evil which triggers brief flashes of memory for Alita and sets the stage for her future. The result is an incredible opening chapter in an epic saga that combines action and science fiction with a narrative that is expertly told and characters that the reader cannot help but love. Reading Battle Angel Alita (Volume 1): Rusty Angel, it quickly becomes apparent why Yukito Kishiro is known as a master of the genre. The story does something which is rarely achieved in most movies, comic books or television shows: namely it combines frenetic action sequences (complete with the over the top violence and gore) with characters that are believable and substantive. The action and exploding cyborgs are sure to delight fans of the genre, but it is really the lives Alita and Ido, complete with their hopes, dreams and plans for the future, that elevate the work from a simplistic action story into a complex and wonderfully inventive narrative. Alita and Ido’s struggles in the Scrap Yard are complemented beautifully by some of the most well-drawn combat sequences you will likely see in contemporary manga and the result is a comic that must be seen to be believed. In the end Battle Angel Alita (Volume 1): Rusty Angel is a book that is one of the finest examples of manga to date. Writer and artist Yukito Kishiro has woven a complex and heart-breakingly believable Science Fiction world, with characters that the reader will instantly identify with, and action sequences that are almost dizzying in their kinetic style. Even after almost a decade since its initial printing Battle Angel Alita (Volume 1): Rusty Angel remains a classic example of not only manga, but of a brilliant story brought to life. Comment on this review of Battle Angel Alita v1: Rusty Angel on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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