I started reading Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita: Last Order on the course website, and found myself so completely engrossed right away, that I had to read the original series before I got too far into it. I ended up reading the entire thing within three days, so I think it's pretty safe to say I was enjoying myself.
I've actually long had an interest in transhumanist fiction, and Kishiro pushes the concept to ridiculous and creative lengths. Roughly 99% of the cast is a cyborg in some way (including a few characters who don't even realize it) and as such, there is dismemberment of fake limbs and smashing of parts on a regular basis. As bleak and gory as the manga gets, the humor involved almost never really goes away, and the level of research that went into it really shows. There's even several author notes in the margin explicitly explaining the mechanics and science behind certain concepts presented.
What really got me about this series though, is how likable most of the cast is, and the very morally grey territory they all touch upon. Alita/Gally herself is cute as a button with her big eyes and perpetually pouty lips, but she's also a honed killing machine, both figuratively and literally, with a shockingly dark past, and she makes her living brutally killing bounties and turning in their heads. And Professor Desty Nova, the "antagonist," so to speak, is an eccentric man who performs horrible experiments, but at the same time, his antics are so ridiculous and entertaining, and he's so clever in his plans, that it becomes very hard not to like him.
I would definitely recommend Battle Angel Alita to anyone who has an interest in sci-fi and speculative fiction, or anyone who enjoys action sequences and black comedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment