Battle Angel Alita Volume 1 – Rusty Angel by Yukito Kishiro VIZ Media LLC ISBN: 1-5693-1824-7 248 pp
Manga are far more respected in Japan than european produced works. They are read by all demographics and are viewed as an art-form like any other. It is visual storytelling, using panels of pictures with speech and sound effects.
Battle Angel Alita, volume 1, was published back in 1991. After writer-director James Cameron finishes his magnum opus, Avatar, he will turn his attention to adapting to the silver screen this wonderful sci-fi action-adventure. When reading this manga note that, although translated into English, the book is “printed in the original Japanese format in order to preserve the orientation of the original artwork”. So you read right to left, back to front.
Right from the awesome image of a robotic woman with angel wings on pages two and three, we are thrust into the world far, far into the future. This is a future where cities float in the sky, and shift in their moorings to the ground according to the moon. Like much manga and anime, technology has advanced exponentially to almost unrecognisability, and there is an exploration of the nature of humanity. Here the relationship between human and machinery has blurred. Artificial intelligence exists, where robots are just as sophisticated as nature. Humans are revived and augmented and are now cyborgs happily living (though the health-care system is only for the wealthy). The influence of writers Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? aka Blade Runner) and Isaac Asimov (I, Robot) are felt.
Volume 1 focuses on the scrapyard city below the floating utopia of Tiphares. Those that have not, it seems, live below Tiphares. Environmental damage that has been on the forefront of many minds in Japan currently has taken root, and this scrapyard city is a sea of neon and metal, with no signs of vegetation or birds or animals (except dogs). I wonder if that is the reason why this manga is drawn in shades of black and white, without any colours – which potentially represent nature, as well as hope?
While the environment has apparently suffered, on the other hand scientific knowledge has grown. There is a mechanics genius whose shop sign reads: “Daisuke Ido, Mechanic • Cyborgs • Androids • Robots • Repairs of all kinds, Tuning & Maintenance Cybernetic Repair Workstation”
A main Character Mad-haired Dr Daisuke occasionally wanders into the mountain of scrap looking for robotic elements to build from. He comes across the head of a robotic girl, with a neck and part of her torso still attached. She is 200 or 300 years old but her brain is intact and he manages to revive her, and then constructs a body for her. She is without memory and so Daisuke names her after his dead male cat, Alita, until she remembers her given name.
The police no longer exist. Instead ‘Factories’, administrative centres, register bounty hunters who catch criminals for a fee. Like much Japanese originated sci-fi, there has been a societal breakdown. Fearsome criminals now roam the streets. Daisuke, is not only a scientist, but one of these vigilantes, who captures criminals “for the rush” – showing that not all computer whizzes are nerds.
Alita follows him one night and is forced to help him. In protecting him she unleashes and unknowingly unveils her gifts as a fighter and decides to become a bounty hunter herself while she learns who she really is. This theme can be seen also in James Cameron’s post-apocalyptic television show, Dark Angel, where a genetically modified woman (Jessica Alba) fights for good while on her own journey of self-discovery. This society is not in good shape, what with vampire serial killers, and drug-addicted cyborg murderers. This latter killer is in fact a nutty Nietzsche-spouting snake-borg, Makaku, who eats the brains of humans and dogs to get their natural endorphin chemicals. Daisuke is right, when he says, “Damn, he’s scary!” So bounty hunters Alita and Daisuke lock horns with Makaku in a grand, brutal struggle.
There is plenty of action, though it unfortunately can be a bit confusingly portrayed at times; while the violence is tempered by the imagination on display and the lack of colour.
Battle Angel Alita is a stunningly drawn comic book with a heart, and a gripping mystery story at its core. I rate this 4 stars
“There’s nothing in this world of value…nothing worth risking our lives for…except, perhaps…what little we can create ourselves. Without you Alita my life has no value,” says Daisuke. A reference perhaps, to not only children, but to also art, and job satisfaction?