Review of Battle Angel Alita Vol 1 Fight 001

A robot repairman finds the head of an android in a junkyard and starts fitting new body parts on it. He calls her Alita and it turns out not only was she in hibernation for hundreds of years but she also knows a special form of Martian Martial Arts.

Issue: Battle Angel Alita Vol 1 Fight 001

Name: Rusty Angel
Published: 2017 by Kodansha Comics

Blurb:

Creators:

Writer: Yukito Kishiro
Artist: Yukito Kishiro

Characters:

The Good: Daisuke Ido, Alita, Gonzu
The Bad: Mutant Serial Killer

My Reading:

Daisuke Ido is a cyborg repairman who lives in a place called the Scrapyard. One day while wandering past broken down cars and discarded electronics he finds the head and upper torso of a female android and he brings her back to his shop to fix her up. It seems she’s been in some kind of hibernation for 2 to 3 centuries but she’s lost her memories. He names her Alita.

Since she’s just a head and shoulders, Ido begins a hunt to find her a body but he’s not finding much in the scrap piles. We next see a woman with beautiful arms hanging out in the city at night and as she gets her head blown off, we see that Alita now has the same arms. A few days later and a few late night outings by Ido and she’s got a new pair of legs. And then we see Daisuke’s friend Gonzu mentioning that a serial killer is attacking women. As Ido continues his late night outings and shows up each day with new body parts for Alita, she begins to get suspicious that something is up. Could Daisuke be the serial killer?

She follows him out one night and watches as he prepares to attack a woman. But as she stops him from hurting her, the woman turns around and attacks…she’s no woman, she’s some kind of mutant. She attacks Ido and Alita goes into action demonstrating kickass martial arts moves. Somehow Alita knows Panzer Kunst Martian Martial Arts, which is the strongest martial arts practice designed for humanoid cyborgs.

Well now that we know Ido isn’t the killer, we see what he’s really been up to. Apparently there aren’t any police in this world and in their place, “The Factory” puts out bounties on criminals and hunters chase them down to make money. Daisuke is a hunter and he’s been using the bounty money to buy parts for Alita.

What did I learn:

• It seems like Zalem, the floating utopian city up above, is where the rich people live while the poor live down below in Scrapyard.
• There are no police in the Scrapyard.
• Ido supplements his income by hunting down criminals for their bounties.

My Thoughts:

This is a great setup for the start of a new manga. I really liked how they set up the world as kinda Blade Runner and kinda Wall-E. Alita is an interesting character and I like the fact that she’s not just a dispassionate robot…she is inquisitive and has a conscience. I can’t wait to learn more about her origin and background since it’s been hundreds of years since she was made.

My Rating: A-

This comic can be found on Comixology or at your local comic book shop.

Daily Ramble 276.3 | Comics – Manga – Battle Angel Alita Vol 1 Fight 001