The Fall 2017 Manga Guide

Battle Angel Alita: Deluxe Edition

What's It About? 

Nothing but a head and partial torso, Alita is pulled from the scrap heap by Dr. Ido. Noting that her brain is still functional, he rebuilds her body and cares for her like a daughter. Since Alita is unable to remember anything about her previous life, cyborg or otherwise, she forges a new personality and life for herself. In the violent world she's been reborn into, however, she soon finds out that she has memories of how to fight and skills that are unique to cyborg warriors. As time goes on, Alita becomes a bounty hunter-warrior, using her talents to help fight the criminals that prey on the ordinary citizens. This job is not without cost, however, as she finds out when she falls in love with a young man named Yugo.

Battle Angel Alita: Deluxe Edition is a new edition of the original manga and will be published by Kodansha in November.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Austin Price

Rating: 5

Battle Angel Alita, Yukito Kishiro's masterpiece, is one of those few titles that deserves the designation of classic, deserves as well the deluxe reissue that Kodansha has graced it with. Yes, it's visibly a product of its time. The elaborate mechanical and urban designs so detailed they verge on the fetishistic; the cast of cartoonishly evil villains who cackle about eating brains; the groteseque ultraviolence: all of it feels of a piece with so many of the aesthetic and philosophical trends that were prominent amongst sci-fi and action manga and anime at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s.

But these aren't demerits. Cybperunk in the eras since has generally been content to adapt the surface level details that have sanitized the genre while abandoning the philosophies that actually gives those aesthetics – and the genre itself – their unsettling power. Rather than trying to transcend these seemingly crass aspects, Kishiro digs deep into them, revels in them, and in doing so excavates what's so fascinating about this genre in the first place.

Maybe this is why his Scrapyard remains one of the most disturbing visions of the future any artist has imagined. Life there is comically cheap, so much so that children are literally flushed down the toilet, that one can only make a living by selling off others' spines or brains and even then just barely: when all anybody has to live on is the refuse from the world above, what else could they hope for? Where do they have to turn, when there's no moral center?

Certainly there are no heroes here worth admiring. While there are those we're supposed to relate to, even the best of them are deeply sociopathic: the good doctor Ido is a bounty hunter not out of any moral obligation so much out of bloodlust. And Alita is more than happy to forgive the crimes of a spine-stealing street urchin because she bears him a childish crush.

It may all sounds grotesque to the point of parody, or like another joyless, “edgy” slog, but it's saved by Kishiro's sincere approach to the material. He doesn't waste time didactically insisting that this world is a grindery, because the tone and art convey perfectly Alita's total loss of perspective as we gaze out with her upon the most beautiful spread in the entire book and see that the Scrapyard is more than the cold metropoli we're familiar with. That it looks instead some kind of gargantuan organism sprawling, tumorous, without direction or purpose. We feel it again panel after panel as we observe the daily lives of these people and the minutiae of every ultra-detailed tableau, and so don't ever need to be told through sophomoric reminders or an unnatural line of dialogue between characters who've long grown hardened to this world that it's somehow wrong. Kishiro may be a pessimist, but he's no scolding God lecturing us didactically about the dehumanizing evils of overconsumption and technology. What he presents here speaks for itself.

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Amy McNulty

Rating:

A classic series known even to the most casual of sci-fi fans, Battle Angel Alita looks sharp in the first volume of its oversized, hardcover omnibus release. The first two volumes of the manga are collected in this edition and they provide a compelling introduction to this dystopian world of cyborgs with a floating city and bounty hunters who work in lieu of police to bring in those responsible for crime. Though Alita herself is rather simplistic and oftentimes single-minded (either on battling or, in the second half, romance), it suits her character since she's a cyborg brought back to life with no memories of her former existence. The hunter who acts as her guardian and doctor, Ido, also makes for a fascinating character, especially after the fake out toward the beginning of the volume and the reveal toward the end.

However, the antagonists Alita encounters—Makaku and Zapan in particular—are cartoonishly evil and grotesque, which makes them flat and a touch dull even when Kishiro tries to provide a backstory for Makaku's actions. Makaku twistedly proclaiming his love for Alita—and Ido seeing the crazed cyborg's “love” for Alita before even then—comes out of left field and does nothing more than add some creepy sexual overtones to their epic battle, though nothing becomes explicit. As someone who captures Alita's heart, mechanic Yugo makes for a better villain, though the motivation for his actions and his burgeoning relationship with Alita ensure he's not an antagonist in the same sense as the other two.

Kishiro pens a dirty, rugged world in great detail, and he excels at action scenes that see Alita up against her latest foe. The background art is often finely detailed, even if there's nothing much of beauty to look at—though that's the point. The characters lean more toward cartoonish than realistic, which detracts from some of the grittiness of the world, though Alita's youth-like design helps convey her innocence and naiveté and it's refreshing not to see her framed as a sexual object at any time. The color pages at the beginning of some of the chapters coat the world in sand-like tones and are quite striking.

There's a sizable Battle Angel Alita/GUNNM fanbase that will enjoy having this higher quality deluxe volume on their shelves, and newcomers will find no better time than now to get their hands on a copy of the earliest arcs in the series. There aren't a lot of bonus features to speak of, and the volume ends rather abruptly, but the crisp, clear prints of the pages alone will make it a worthwhile investment for many.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I have to admit, I never got the love for this series before reading this new edition. That's because previous books were normal-sized, and to be honest, it was difficult for me to really appreciate Kishiro's detailed, fine lines in a cramped space. Now, however, with this oversize reissue, it's easy to really marvel at his artwork, from the little background details of the scrap heaps and random people on the streets to the dynamic action scenes. The inclusion of color pages (which are thicker to the touch than the black-and-whites) is a great bonus – the use of rusty, sepia-toned colors really drives home the post-apocalyptic feel of Alita's world.

As you can tell, this volume, which contains books one and two of the manga, retains the English localizations as far as names go – she's Alita, not Gally, etc. I imagine that for purists this will be an issue, but at this point the series is so well known that it would perhaps be more confusing to change things up. (Although they did it with Sailor Moon, so…) That's the only real potential sticking point here, however. The translation reads smoothly and the original sound effects in Japanese are retained, with smaller English written beside them. There's actually a fair amount of small text in this book, from asides to sound effects to footnotes, which is a definite point in favor of the volume's size: it's the size of a standard American graphic novel from DC or Marvel, with similarly glossy pages. The footnotes, mercifully, are all at the bottom of the page or in the gutters, rather than along the spine as they are in some other books.

As for the story itself, it really does hold up. Alita's rebirth into a post-apocalyptic wasteland where violence is the order of the day and humans and cyborgs do their best to coexist in the shadow of a floating utopia they can never hope to attain has the same resonance today in a world where the haves and have-nots are still sharply divided. Alita's determination to make the best of her lot is a nice juxtaposition to the desperation of those around her, and despite the dangers of the city, we can still see pockets of peace, such as the dog and baby Alita saves and how much they're cared for. Alita represents hope in a hopeless place, and even if it doesn't always work out for her, she still manages to never entirely give up.

There's a reason this series has such staying power, and if, like me, you've not been able to get into it before, do give this new (admittedly expensive) edition a try. By turns exciting and emotional with no shortage of gore and dynamic action scenes, this is definitely worth reading. Plus the dog lives. What more could you want?

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Lynzee Loveridge

Rating:

Revisiting the gritty punk of aesthetic of Battle Angel Alita and Akira in a single month was a real head trip. Both of these manga and their subsequent anime adaptations were formative when I first stepped into the fandom. The intense action sequences coupled with the dingy, post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting and sexualized ultraviolence were hallmarks of what separated anime from cartoons. These are characters lopping people's heads off in between sassy quips. Battle Angel Alita is no different, except the snarky, effective killer is a pint-sized girl in a PVC body suit.

Alita is something that doesn't really exist anymore. It's violence can really only be compared to its peer, Kite, where all the villains ooze the potential to sexually assault the heroine with wagging tongues. The violence is extremely gendered but our heroine Alita is always ready to put her attackers in their place by outwitting and out maneuvering them. The audience is supposed to enjoy her kicking the bad guy's ass but at the same time be tantalized by the danger she's in; the potential that she bit off more than she could chew and just might get 'put in her place'. This isn't a hentai though, so Alita always comes out on top in the end.

This manga, despite its dated sexual action aesthetic, feels newly relevant again after the recent release of Blade Runner 2049. Yukito Kishiro's world of Zalem and the below trash heap that our characters inhabit is serves as the story's backdrop. Mercenaries fill out bars named after late 70s American rock groups, supped up cyborgs battle to the death in betting matches, and there isn't a pure organic human anywhere in sight. Kishiro excels at making the Scrap Yard feel lived in. Each panel is intricately detailed down to the nuts, bolts, and hydraulics that make most the world tick.

Purists will find themselves out of luck with Kodansha's release. As the manga's title implies, this new release is still sticking with the Westernization from the initial release by Viz nearly 15 years ago. Kodansha credits the decision to branding; the English title and character's name is so recognizable to American readers that switching to GUNNM and Gally would likely hurt sales. Not mentioned is the fact that next summer will see the release of the live-action Alita. Undoubtedly the chance for more name recognition played into the decision to stick with the title. However, not all of the original changes continue in Kodansha's hardcover release, like the city of Tiphares is back to being named Zalem.

Battle Angel Alita is a bit of a relic. Not all of its sensibilities will survive scrutiny, especially the way it frames its heroine and her foes. If you have a soft-spot for this particular era, warts and all, Kodansha's high-quality release is definitely worth a pick up.