Battle Angel Alita, Bd.1, Rostiger Engel

Rating:
Summary: Innocence and Lots of Fighting
Review: Battle Angel Alita takes place in the technologically advanced future. The story starts when Daisuke Ito, a doctor, finds a human brain in a cyborg head in the landfill beneath his floating city. As a doctor in the future world Daisuke frequently treats cyborgs and so he builds a body for the abandoned girl. She has been in a landfill and so has no memory of her past. Chance gets her involved in a fight and she is really good at it. So for the rest of the book we follow Daisuke souping up her cyborg bodies and Alita trying to "find herself" by fighting. The fighting got a little tedious for me, but it was well drawn and introduced lots of crazy weapons technology.

The book is kind of a mix of innocence and violence. Alita has no memory so she comes off as very innocent and gets into scrapes. But she also really really likes fighting.

Battle Angel Alita is very well drawn. This is good because there are some interesting environments. For example, a good chunk of the story takes place in the underground sewer system, which has huge pipes and lots going on. From the cover art I was expecting more pin-ups etc. I was happy to find not so many and no nudity (well there is one scene but drawn vaguely and not at all suggestive). Its still sexy but in the form of tight black garments. The art style is realistic but more cute. It fits the feel of the story well.

This is an all around cool anime comic book. If you like action and sciencey comics (this one has footnotes to describe the technology in place) or you want to try one out then this would be good. This is also a really good selection for public libraries, because it has no nudity and is totally clean and that is rarer for this genre.