There are an incredible number of mangas in
the world that attempt to bring the full experiance of Cyberpunk to the
reader. Shirow Masamune's Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed,
the Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash series, even the
famous Robotech all have their roots deeply embedded in the soil of the Cyberpunk genre.
But none of these titles - or any other, for
that matter - has depth of the Cyberpunk experiance than Battle Angel
Alita.
Originally entitled "Gunnm" (or
"Gun Dream"), Battle Angel Alita is set in a stark, grim
world of rust and decay. Here, humanity is frail and cheap - the 'soft'
human body is often discarded in favor of steel fists and chrome limbs.
Those who do not trade flesh for steel often find themselves at a
disadvantage in this world, swiftly becoming victims to the tide of
entropy. The artist and writer, Yukito Kishiro, not only brings this
comic his incredible art, but also a knack for storytelling that goes
above and beyond other Cyberpunk genres.
The main setting is a city known only as 'the Scrapyard,'a perfect example of that gritty,
polyethnic society that all Cyberpunk stories have tried to describe.
Above the scrapyard floats Tiphares, a
heavenly city and an icon of human intelligence. The Scrapyard survives on
Tiphares' scrap and waste - hence the city's name. The sole
connection between the Scrapyard and Tiphares are the Factories - a
pseudo-governmental force that runs the Scrapyard and generally keeps the
voice of the populace at a dull whisper. While a few workers are employed
by the Factories and have their share in how the Scrapyard is run, the
majority of the Factories are run by grotesque deckmen; bizarre cyborgs that bear little or no resemblance to humans whatsoever, lacking limbs and
legs on their cylindrical bodies. They are the voice and hands of
Tiphares, and their word is law in the Scrapyard.
Outside the Scrapyard is barren wasteland.
The most important aspect of Battle
Angel is not the stage on which it is played, but rather the
characters who play on it. Indeed, the series takes its namesake from the
main character - a Cyborg named Alita.
Alita is a bit of a mystery. The first comic
opens with a Daisuke Ido, a young cyber-doctor, wandering through the
rubbish of Tiphares and picking through the piles for spare parts. While
he searches, he finds the damaged torso of a female cyborg, her brain deep
in hibernation but otherwise whole. Overjoyed, Ido brings the cyborg back
'on-line.' Unfortunately, the cyborg has no recollection of her life
whatsoever. Her past, her life, even her name have been lost to her. Whatever person she might have been was lost a long, long time ago.
Not one to be daunted, Dr. Ido gives the cyborg a new name -
Alita.
However, even forgotten, Alita's past still
influences her. She's a fighter in her heart. Even in the very beginning
of her new life, Alita feels the rage of battle deep within her,
struggling to get out. Her soul is a warrior's soul, fiery and strong.
When she finds out that Ido is secretly a "Hunter-Warrior" - a type
of bounty hunter employed by the factories in lieu of an organized police
force. She registers without Ido's knowledge, and becomes an official
Hunter-Warrior.
When Ido finds out, though, he is less than
thrilled. He had remade Alita to be a perfect, innocent girl, not a
killer. His dreams are shattered when it turns out that Alita is not his
'doll,' in her own words. She is something much, much more, and only then
does Ido realize this.
It is from this point that Alita begins to
grow in the comic, searching for the past she never knew. The entire
series is essentially a metaphor for Alita's search - after her first
run-in with Makaku (A body-stealing cyborg), the body Ido gave her is
destroyed. Ido gives her a new body - a body better suited to the rough
work of a Hunter-Warrior. It lacks the beauty of the first body Alita
was given, but it has power that the other could not hope to contain.
In essence, Alita becomes herself when she
accepts the new body. She casts off the dreams of others and accepts only
what she knows is herself - the Warrior. Everything else is mere fraud.
Alita's life is one full of tragedy and loss.
She finds love only to loose it; She seeks release and only finds it
limits herself more; She tries to leave her life behind only to see it
chase her down. Alita is a character of more emotional depth than any I've
ever seen in Manga. That's what Cyberpunk is about - not just to show off
neat technology or draw nifty female cyborgs, but to really examine the true emotional grit that a person experiances when faced with a
world built on decay. Yukito Kishiro has created a truely unique world in
Battle Angel Alita, something other manga writers can only dream of
doing.
Welcome to a Handful of Rust.
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Alita- The main character of the story, as you plainly know. Born of
scrap, given life by a man who both healed and killed, and possessing an
unimaginable amount of power in her untapped memory, Alita creates a
powerful presence for the story to revolve around. She is a conundrum -
capable of great love and emotion, yet equally capable of committing the
most cold-blooded acts to stay alive. This dichotomy of personality, this
war between who she might have been and who she wants to be fuels her
resolve to survive. The only sure tie to her past is the martial
discipline of panzer kunst, a combat form that had been
specifically developed for cyborg bodies ages before Alita was discovered
in the scrapyard. Everything else is hidden to her, buried under a shroud
of forgotten memory.
Dr. Daisuke Ido- Alita's 'father,' in a way
of speaking. He was the one who pulled Alita from the ashes of Tiphares
and gave her a new life, even if it was not the life he had expected her
to take. Ido is an interesting character in and of himself - an outcast of the floating city, Ido works as a cyber-docter in the scrapyard,
rebuidling and healing the citizens who come to him. By contrast, he also funct$
hunter-warrior, trading in the heads of criminals for the few chips he can
get. It is obvious he cares a great deal for Alita - even when she
disappears and joins the dangerous sport known as 'Motorball,' he follows
her, never giving up hope of finding her. There is an enigmatic quality
about Ido, as well. Why did he leave Tiphares if the city was as perfect
as rumor states? Why doesn't he talk about the floating city? In many
ways, Ido is just as mysterious a figure as Alita.
Makaku - A twisted cyborg who grew up in the sewers of the Scrapyard.
Once, he had been a small, weak creature; after a brutal attack by some
Scrapyard punks, he was given a nightmarish 'maggot-body' by Dr. Desty
Nova, a body he used to wreck havoc on the Scrapyard's citizens. He is
almost a personification of the dual emotions of pity and hate, wrapped up
in one diseased body.
Yugo- Alita's first love. Yugo was a
street-rat in many cases - he lived by taking what jobs he could, often resorting to the shadier sides
of the black market to get his chips, even sinking as low as committing
spine theft. And he didn't do it for the chips, no - he did it to pay his
way into Tiphares, the city above the clouds. Alita's relationship with
Yugo was an intense and emminently tragic one; he dies only a few weeks
after she meets him, chewed to death in the tines of rotary gear. His
death was what fueled Alita's decision to join the Motorball circuit.
Zapan- One of the more cold-blooded of
Hunter-Warriors, Zapan was the one to rat out on Yugo in the first place.
He has a serious grudge against Alita, one that fuels him to the absolute
limits of vengeance. Even after he is defeated by Alita in the second
novel, he survives to be a part of Desty Nova's cybernetic experiments -
providing him the ultimate means of revenge against Alita.
Emporer Jashugan - The King of Motorball.
Emporer Jashugan rules the
motorball arena with his amazing Maschine Klatsch (Machine fist)
technique and his incredible control over the body's natural chi. Desty Nova implanted a special 'combat brain' implant that increases
Jashugan's chi - unfortunately, this implant also places Jashugan's body
dangerously close to death every time he uses it. When Alita meets
Jashugan, there's a definite tension between the two, the kind of energy
that can only exist between two warriors who share the same mind. When
Jashugan is finally defeated by Alita in Motorball, there's a profound
sense of loss that the reader can't help but feel. I personally wish Mr.
Yukito hadn't killed Jashugan - he's one of my favorite characters in this
novel.
Shumira - Jashugan's younger sister, Shumira is a far cry from the
cool competence of her brother. She's...well...a little less intelligent,
for one thing. (But she more than makes up for this in cuteness!)
Careless, lovable, and utterly charming, Shumira sounds a note of
much-needed humor in this otherwise dark comic.
Desty Nova- Ah, Desty Nova. Much could be
said about this insane, flan-eating genius - Nova,
like Ido, left the floating city of Tiphares to live on the surface world. However, where Ido left to help the citizens of the scrapyard, Nova left
for the freedom he needed to conduct his 'experiments' with cybernetics,
using the non-Tiphareans as guinea pigs in his never-ending exploration of
Karmic Science. He was the scientist who designed both Makaku's body and
Jashugan's chi-increasing implant; he was the one who connected Zapan to
Alita's old 'bezerker' body; he was the one who originally created the
monstorous Den from the psyche of his own son, Kaos. His insanity plays a
strong counterpoint to Alita's own stoic resolve. His is the madness of a
man pushed too far - the secret of Tiphares (that the brains of all those
older than 13 are replaced with nuerotronic chips) was more than he could
bear, and he spiraled into the madness he revels in today. It's hard for
the reader to know what to feel for Desty - one minute you hate
his guts, the next minute you sympathize with him, and the minute after
that you're laughing at the way he eats his flan. (Oohh...FLAN...)
Elaii- Desty Nova's assistant. Little is
known about Elaii's past; it is assumed that she is the result of one of Desty Nova's experiments. Physically flawless, emotionally ruthless,
Elaii is a predatory, dominating woman who revels in the powers of the
flesh.
Kaos - Kaos is the only son of Dr Desty
Nova; he is a strong counterpoint to his father's madness, a creature of
emotion, sensitivity, and - in many cases - whining. At first glance, he
seems a weak-willed individual who cares only for himself. However, after
meeting Alita, he begins to grow past this stage, moving beyond the bad
experiances that his childhood with Nova imprinted on him. There is a dark
side to Kaos, though - in a very literal sense. (See Den.)
Den- Den is the other half of Kao's persona$
Nova's bad parenting, Kaos developed two very distinct personalities; one
of them being Kaos, a passive, weak-willed poet, and Den, a seething mass
of rage and anger. When Nova discovered Den's existence, he 'separated'
the two personalities by giving Den his own body - a slave module that was
run by a remote EPR emitter that Nova implanted in Kaos' chest. In essence, this freed Den of Kao's weak body; with his new robot form, he
travelled the wasteland, searching for the source of his anger. When he
found it in Tiphares, he resolved to bring the floating city down. It
should be noted that once Den died in the later issues of BAA, Kaos's
personality 'rounded out,' as if some part of him that he'd needed
suddenly returned.
Koyomi - Koyomi was the adopted daughter of the$
New Kansas bar, a popular hang-out for Hunter-Warriors in the
scrapyard. Alita meets her again later in her life in the sandy wastes
outside of factory control. Koyomi is a reckless, unpredictable youth;
her rebelliousness eventually leads her to the Barjack, where she joins
Den's massive army against Tiphares.
Figure Four - In the fifth book, Alita descends from Tiphares as a
member of 'the tuned,' and in her travels meets a buff, well-skilled
martial artist of considerable ability. Even though Figure hasn't the
advantage of a cybernetic body, he still manages to hold his own against
the metallic denizens of the Scrapyard. Figure is an unusual character for Mr. Kishiro to create - he seems awfully...er...goofy.
I wish I had enough spare time to write all of this!!
Images
These are pictures that I feel are among Mr. Kishiro's best.
(These are different images than the ones on the character synopsis.)
Gally Infatuation
and Addiction- Another really good page for Gunnm. It's more dedicated
to OAV than the manga, but it still kicks major butt.
GUNNM: The Anime vs. The Comic.
As most of you out in the world of Gunnm
fandom, there is a Battle Angel Alita OVA out on the shelves. (In fact,
it's been out for some time - if you didn't know that, get out of your cave more often.) Although Battle Angel (the anime) is a remarkable
work of animation, it is under heavy criticism by some Gunnm fans for its
deviation from Yukito Kishiro's original story.
Personally, I can relate with those people who
prefer a manga-based anime to remain true to the story. If I'm a fan of
Urusei Yatsura or Ranma 1/2, I want to see Lum lose her temper or Ranma
act like a complete jerk. After all, that's why fans watch the videos
anyway - they expect to see their fan idols on the screen, acting 'in
character,' as it were.
However, Battle Angel is not that much
of a 'bastardization' of the original series as some people would claim.
There were only two movies made, after all; each movie was a mere half
hour long, which meant that a great deal of script had to be cut and
changed in order to keep some central cohesion in the story. Anime rarely
runs over an hour and a half in length, usually averaging out at
forty-five minutes or so - that's a pretty tight window to be cramming in
the Gunnm series, let alone the first two volumes!
Also, there is this wonderful thing called
'marketing.' Japanese comics are much different from japanese animation.
I've often noticed that the comics hold more of the writer's more personal
beleifs and opinions in them - they're more personal coming straight from
the author to your eye. But in the anime's, there are whole teams
of people trying to make a cohesive film. In cases like these, a great
deal of the artist's original material is changed or simply cut
altogether, to better fit into the movie. After all, anime is much more
corporate than manga - they have certain 'requirements' in their movies
that have to be filled out, if only for tradition's sake. (For example,
the character of Chiren was only placed in Battle Angel so she
could show off her body; she has no counter-part in the original series at
all, and she barely makes much of an impact in the movie.)
But even with these drawbacks, I consider
Battle Angel a rather well-made anime. It was the first real anime film I ever watched - until then, I'd had to make do with Robotech
and Speed Racer reruns on the television. Besides, the film has enough
going for it on its own; good animation, convincing voice actors, and a
definite sense of storyline, even if it does deviate from the accepted
Gunnm synopsis. The only complaint I really have is the character of
Chiren; she's just a cheap ploy by the marketing branch to suck in the
horny, desperate perverts who'll watch anything as long as it has breasts
in it. (Although I do feel thankful that they didn't make Alita strip for
this requirement. I'd have to kick some corporate ass if they did..)
I think the part of the movie that makes me
love it so much is that it's in color. Gunnm is a black and white
comic. I love black and white comics, but after a while you start asking
yourself "why doesn't he ever color this!?" The movie solves that for me -
and it does it convincingly. There's a definite sense of grittiness in the
movie, which pleased me greatly. (Most anime end up using bright, flashy
neon colors. Bleck.)
My word of advice: Don't slam the OVA. Sure,
it's not as cool as it could have been, and yes, they changed some stuff.
But it's still an excellant anime. I mean, it could have been a LOT worse
- look at what happened to Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell.
GUNNM LINKS
GUNNM:
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