Battle Angel Alita
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Battle Angel Alita, called GUNNM (銃夢, "Gun-Mu") in Japan, is a manga (or graphic novel) series created by Yukito Kishiro in 1991. It was originally published in Japan by Shueisha's Business Jump magazine until 1995. The original title GUNNM ("Gun Dream") was changed to Battle Angel Alita by Viz Communications (now VIZ Media), as it was adapted for North America. The nine-volume comics were adapted into two anime original video animations in 1993.
In 2000, Kishiro announced GUNNM: Last Order, called Battle Angel Alita: Last Order in North America, which skips the end of the last graphic novel and tells the story as he originally intended. Last Order is also being translated to English by Viz, with 7 volumes published as of June 2006, and 9 planned in total, with the english volume 8 out in december.
In July 2005, James Cameron announced the Battle Angel film, which is scheduled to start filming in 2009. Although the film will be live-action, Alita herself will be computer generated.
Battle Angel Alita tells the story of Alita ("Gally" in the original Japanese version), an amnesiac female cyborg. Alita’s intact head and torso are found by Daisuke Ido while searching for scrap. The rebuilt Alita soon discovers that she possesses instinctive knowledge of the legendary Martian martial art Panzer Kunst, although she has no other memories of her previous life. Alita must learn to navigate, exist, and fight in the Scrapyard, whose inhabitants themselves live in the rubbish of the tantalizingly close floating city, Tiphares.
Story
Daisuke Ido, a cybermedic expert searching for some useful scrap, finds the intact head and upper torso of a female cyborg in a state of suspended animation. Amazed by his discovery, Ido quickly returns home and works to revive her. Upon finding that the girl has lost her memory, Ido names her Alita, the name of his recent deceased cat.
Ido builds Alita a new cyborg body, but she begins to suspect that the parts have been obtained from a series of murder victims. She follows him one night, hoping to discover the true nature of his midnight activities. She watches him lie in wait for what appears to be an approaching woman, and intervenes. The woman turns out to be a berserk mutant woman with a bounty on her head. She attacks Alita and Ido.
Alita fights the woman, and suddenly delivers a killing blow. Ido recognizes the technique as an ancient Martian martial art known as Panzer Kunst ("armored arts"). Ido reveals that he is a hunter-warrior, or bounty hunter, and Alita decides to become one as well. This begins Alita's quest to discover her true identity. Her journeys take her across the Scrapyard and surrounding areas, as she tries to recall more of her past.
Major characters
Gally / Alita - Battle Angel Alita's protagonist. A female cyborg found in a junk pile, she has no memory of who she was before, except for her instintual knowledge of Panzer Kunst, a legendary art created specifically for humanoid cyborgs, and considered the most deadly of all. Extremly powerful, yet emotionally fragile, Alita's quest to reclaim her idenity takes her through a great deal of both pain and joy.Daisuke Ido (イド・ダイスケ Ido Daisuke) - Ido is a doctor of the Scrapyard who finds and restores Alita. He is also a bounty hunter, and is particularly proud of his success despite a human body and being armed with only a rocket hammer. It is revealed that the symbol on his forehead signifies a citizen of Tiphares. Upon learning that another man in the Scrapyard possesses the symbol, he is surprised that he is not the only one exiled from Tiphares, and that another former citizen could and would choose to survive there.
Desty Nova - An former citizen Tiphares who has used his extensive scientific knowledge to save Makaku and Jashugan. He has fled Tiphares to obtain the freedom necessary to experiment on humans in the Scrapyard. Although he is generally villainous in Battle Angel Alita, he exists as much more of a neutral, ambigous figure in Last Order. A dream sequence shows that had his situation been different, he could have easily been a loving, protective father figure for Alita. He has injected himself with nanomachines that can repair dismemberment and give him pseudo-immortality.
He possesses knowledge of the secret of Tiphares, one that could drive its citizens mad if released.
Kaos - Desty Nova's son and a popular late-night radio host. He is extremely fragile. He only sees at infrared wavelengths and hears and speaks at radio wavelengths. Those that see him in person must use special transceivers for communication. Kaos is an expert of psychometry, a unique talent to read the memories of inanimate objects. He can channel the memories of a katana to learn sword skills and the memories of a computer to hack it.
Setting
Battle Angel Alita takes place in a highly futuristic dystopian world, reflected in its full Japanese title GUNNM: Hyper Future Vision. The Scrapyard is a sprawling expanse of buildings and other structures centered around a massive scrap heap. The heap consists of garbage ejected from the floating city of Tiphares (Zalem or SalemBesides renaming Gally to Alita, the North American version of the manga also changed the city of Salem to Tiphares. Since Kishiro also used the name Jeru for the city neighboring Salem, Jeru was renamed Ketheres in the translation. To further develop the Biblical theme in the original series, SalemThe Scrapyard reflects the cyberpunk ethos. Many inhabitants became cyborgs working for the factories, while others use cybernetics to enhance their physical abilities. Firearms are outlawed; non-projectile weapons are permitted, and exist in great variety. Public entertainment is of a violent nature; Motorball's fusion of racing and gladiatorial combat is a prime example. Fights erupt spontaneously on the streets. Violent criminals lurk in shadowy alleyways and through the tremendous extent of the sewers.
Bounty hunters called "Hunter-warriors" are the enforcers of Factory Law in the Scrapyard, since there is no actual police force. These mercenaries respond to "wanted" notices posted by the Factory. Hunter-Warriors are required to register with the Factory, and are uniquely identified by a barcode on their brain. Factory forces will sometimes assist Hunter-Warriors, although this is rare. Outside the Scrapyard is desert, with some oasis-like locations called Farm Factories for resource production.
Movie
James Cameron, director and writer of films such as Terminator, and Aliens, has currently been working on a movie based off the Battle Angel manga. The script is being written by James Cameron and the writer of manga, Yukito Kishiro. No cast has been announced and the film is slated to begin filming in December 2009.This film will be shot completely in 3D for its entire length.
Related works
- GUNNM Gaiden, a collection of side stories of GUNNM;
- Haisha, also known as Ashen Victor in the United States, a prequel set a decade before the beginning of Gunnm. It primarily tells the story of a Motorball player and it sets the evolution of the game into what it becomes in the main story.
- GUNNM: Last Order also known as Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, a continuation published monthly in Ultra Jump.
- GUNNM: Martian Memory, an Action RPG videogame by Banpresto.
Trivia
- There are a few references to Judas Priest to be found in Battle Angel Alita and Last Order.
- *Some of the original volume names of the Gunnm series appear to have been influenced by the song Angel of Retribution. Any connection has not been confirmed, however.
- *The support character Sechs has the words "Blood Red Skies" and "You won't break me" written on the undersides of her new boots during the ZOTT tournament. This appears to be a clear reference to the song "Blood Red Skies," which seems to mirror themes of struggle in a torn world.
- There are also several references to another rock band, Blue Oyster Cult, scattered throughout the series.
- *The character Zapan has the Blue Oyster Cult logo on his forehead.
- *The name Desty Nova is quite similar to "Desdinova," a character from Blue Oyster Cult songs.
- *The new body presented to Alita in issue 8-6 is called the Imaginos, which is also the title track of a Blue Oyster Cult concept album.
- The setting of the series appears to take place in the United States. In the map presented in the eighth volume, the locations closely correlate to particular cities:
- *The Scrapyard = Kansas City
- *The Necropolis = Colorado Springs
- *Radio KAOS = Dallas/Fort Worth
- *Alhambra = Alhambra, California
- *Farm 21 = Sweetwater, Texas
- *Farm 22 = Garden City, Kansas
- *Alita goes with her friend Figure to his coastal hometown Alhambra, a place in Southern California.
- *In addition, the same volume states that Desty Nova's Granite Inn was built out of a military base from the former era, located underneath "NORAD Mountain."
- Although for the longest time the exact dates of when Battle Angel Alita takes place was a total mystery, it was later revealed that the latest events take place 591 years after the launch of Sputnik 1, which was in 1957. In fact, that is the dating convention used by the characters in the story; years are given as ES (Era Sputnik). Now since it has been about fourteen years since Daisuke Ido discovered Alita in the first graphic novel, that means the entire Battle Angel Alita takes place mostly between ES 576 and ES 591, or 2532 and 2547.
Notes and references
}External links
Official sites- [Yukito Kishiro's homepage]
- () Shueisha's [Ultra Jump]
- [Gunnm: Broken Angel]
- () [GUNNM-cyclopedia]
- () [Gunnm-Zone]
- () [GunnM_blaise_Alita]
- [Marco's Gunnm FAQ]
- [The Kudos! List], a collection of pop-culture references within Battle Angel Alita.
- [Yahoo! Battle Angel Alita Group]
- [Battle Angel Alita: Last Order preview at Mangareviewer.com]
- [Battle Angel Alita review at Mangareviewer.com]
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