Rating: 
Summary: Whoa this guy's good....
Review: I really liked this manga! The art is very well drawn. The storyline is very intriguing... Yukito Kishiro is a very intelligent guy! If you just look at the cover, you'll see how hard it must be to draw all those parts. The book has a lotof that... lots of metal trash... its amazing. The characters are well developed... and the villains... nothing spectacular about them, but not bad. The story is fine. However, there is a little question of overdoing the violence. Multiple heads go rolling/get skewered/are eaten (one of the characters is an addict to a chemical made in the brain)/get crushed/ have half gone..... et cetera. And they show a boy's body rotting in the sewer(he lives, at least). But the old man and the dog... I think they do live... they are shown at the bar later. Still, it is kind of disturbing and I would rate it 16+ at minimum...IF you have a strong stomach. But even if you dont, youll like Alita and it's interesting... i recommend getting!!
Rating:
Summary: Beginning of a manga epic
Review: Battle Angel Alita is one of the best manga I've ever read. Plot, character, action, and art are all sharp. Strong characters and their development are the pillars of the story. In between are instances of dark humor, bizarre science and history references, and the epic struggle of ideas. The series is comprised of nine graphic novels about a woman's epic search for herself and the underpinnings of life, despite, and inspite of, the dystopia she's stuck in.
The first volume is an introduction to the story as a whole, the series write large, and one of the best. In a decaying city a cyberdoctor revives an amnesiac cyborg, "Alita," who remembers only the "Panzer Kunst," a martial art for cyborgs. Deciding that fighting is the best way to regain her memory, she becomes a bounty hunter, squaring off against the brain-eating criminal Makaku.
The three-dimensional characters constantly vie against themselves and each other in the fantastically violent Scrapyard, a life-is-cheap world that drags everyone down, forcing the strong characters to struggle constantly. Above it all is Tiphares, the utopian heaven in the clouds that is a mystery and a destination. Alita represents self-discovery and growth fueled by righteousness and power. Her father-figure, Ido, is conflicted in his role, trying to reconcile his hopes for her with her own free will while dealing with the dark side of his personality. Best of all, Makaku and later evil-doers are complex characters who work evil for more than just nihilism. Here, Makaku represents terror and domination, but with a purpose. His fight with Alita has a touching scene where Alita stops herself from killing him and later realizes that she wants to know what drives him, and eventually feels pity despite his horrible crimes.
Dystopia and giving a powerful character amnesia has been done before, but nowhere have they been done so well, or with such awesome art. Though the story has some inaccuracies in translation (the series is originally titled "Gun Dreams," Alita's real name is Gally, and Tiphares is actually "Zalem," which makes much more sense in the context of the story later), these are minor points that can be cleared up with some Web research. In the meantime, enjoy this post-apocalyptic Odyssey.
Rating:
Summary: New edition
Review: Viz has just come out with a new, cheaper ($9.95) edition of the book. Click the "All Editions" link to go to it.
Rating:
Summary: Battle Angle Alita vol.1
Review: ok, here goes,first off a character named Ido is looking for robot parts at a scrap yard,when he notices Alita,he awakens her but she has lost her memory and was given the name Alita,Ido has a secret life he wishes to hide from Alita(that he is a bounty hunter).Ido hunts wanted criminals(cyborgs), for chips and uses the cyborg's limbs for Alita,but Alita wonders how he gets her limbs and follows him to find out he is a bounty hunter and somehow finds out she has fighting blood in her and wants to become a hunter like Ido,and she does(Ido is angry by this,but understands),Alita goes after a dangerous criminal(which looks like a worm)and has a harsh battle,thats all(dont want to spoil it)but later in the story,Alita goes after the criminal to save Ido's friend's baby,all I can say is that this is a gory book,but leaves crawling back for more,it is very cool,I recommend it(but its better to get the whole series)
Rating: 
Summary: humanistic cyber violence
Review: Alright, this is the first of nine books with the femme fatale cyber babe Alita, also known as Battle Angel Alita. It all starts with doctor Ido finding the smashed to pieces cyber body of Alita on a mountain of garbage. He fixes her up, and she awakens. But she remembers nothing. Ido introduces her in the profession of bounty hunting. And she proves to have a talent for it. This is a pretty gory story. Lots of blood. But most of the time the violence isn't performed in the usual hollywood nihilistic fashion "no questions asked: da bad guy is dead". The villains are often portrayed in some sort of humanistic perspective. And the main character is very lovable, developing throughout the series. And she doesn't stay a bounty hunter for the whole time. The books are intriguing and after you've finished the last one, you can hardly wait to start all over again to see how it all could end like that. If you like cyberpunk, action and Manga, this is probably in your taste. The fifth star is lost because of sometimes exagerated violence and some too wierd cybervillains. But its very good.
Rating:
Summary: New edition
Review: Viz has just come out with a new, cheaper ($9.95) edition of the book. Click the "All Editions" link to go to it.
Rating:
Summary: Awakening and Compassion
Review: There are several manga series that enjoy popularity in the US, but have never completely broken through to best-seller status here. We seem to be too much influenced by the availability of a corresponding anime film or series. With manga like 'Battle Angel Alita,' this is a particular shame since I think the comic would make a perfect transition to automation. Yukito Kishiro's art is graphic and finely detailed, there is a tremendous amount of action, with plots that are full of unique twists.The story opens with Ido Daisake, part time hunter-warrior, part time humble repairman, pawing through piles of technological super junk for robot parts. Unexpectedly, he finds the head and torso of an attractive cyborg and sets out to rebuild her. After some work collecting what he needs, Alita (named for his dead cat) is up, about, and in trouble. Alita, it turns out, has surprising battle skills, and sets out to become a hunter-warrior herself. The second half of the manga tells the story of Alita's first major conflict - with Makaku, another cyborg who is all head and tail (except when he is 'borrowing' what parts he pleases). All of this takes place in the ground level (and sewer) of a Bladerunner-esque under-city called the Scrap Yard. It is the industrial plant and trash can for Tiphares, the upscale city in the clouds where jury-built cyborgs never get to go. Most residents are at least partly artificial and many are like Alita, a brain and central nervous system inside a mechanical contrivance. Despite all this dehumanization, Alita manages to be more than a machine operator. Somehow, her ethics and humanity have survived the fall to make this series much more than a choreographed hack and disassemble story. This is a manga with exceptional artistic and narrative values.
Rating:
Summary: Greatness in a book
Review: Battle Angel Alita is one of the best manga I've ever read. The art is incredible. Ignore any reviews that say it's not great. It's very violent, though. Not quite as much in the first as in some others, but the first is still really violent. The art is some of the best I've seen, by the way. I would DEFINITELY suggest this book for anyone who likes a good action anime or manga. However, it's not just action. It has a really great storyline along with everything else.
Basically I can sum it up by saying this: Great art, great story, great everything.
Rating: 
Summary: not even entertaining
Review: After hearing the hype about Alita, I actually bought the first volume of the series. And what can I say. Annoying , silly looking heroes, a stupid giant villain who does little more than laugh constantly. Speaking of the so called "ultra violence", I didn't see any. Sure, there are pictures of the bad guy eating brains, but the character design is so ugly that it just fails to be disturbing. I can put it this way: the violence in Alita is equally disturbing to the scene in Shrek where lord Farquad tortures the gingerbred man. I couldnt care less about the characters, they were too stupid and too full of tired old cliches and sentimental junk to be interesting. "Somewhere deep inside me is a heart bla bla bla". Reading the reviews here makes me wonder if we really read the same book. oh well.
Rating:
Summary: Good storyline and even better art
Review: After reading the first book in the Battle Angel Alita series all I can say is WOW! From the moment it starts you are drawn into the futuristic heap of a city known as the Scrap Yard. It is located under the floating city of Tiphares, and is an opposite of the gleaming, floating structure, full of brothels and endorphine junkies (you'll find out about that later on in the series), where there is no police force and crime is enforced by bounties placed on criminals. The book opens as Dr. Ido, a loveable scientist with a dark side, stumbles upon the remains of a cyborg while digging through garbage for parts. She remembers nothing of her past, so he takes her under his wing, naming her Alita.
There's not many bad things to be said about this book. It draws you into to its futuristic yet strangely realistic world with its dark, grungy atmosphere and keeps you convinced in its realism with characters that are so well developed you'll be questioning who are the real heroes and villains. It does rely a lot on the battle scenes(pointed out by the title and by the fact that the chapters are called battles) which leads me to think that anime might be the better medium for this story, and it also is extremely gory, featuring decapitation, blood, and sadistic villains. These drawbacks aside, Battle Angel Alita is one of the best manga I've read and I would strongly recommend going out and buying it.
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