Battle Angel
Sex/Nudity: mild
Music: B
Runtime Episodes: 25/2
Overall Rating: B
Artwork: B
Story: B -
Comments: It may seem strange and confusing to some that the main character's name is Gally, while in the manga her name is Alita. When the manga was translated to English the protagonist was renamed to Alita. I guess the translators liked that better. The gally name in this anime was correctly translated as the character's name.
Voice Acting English: C
Voice Acting Japanese: B
Genre: Cyberpunk
Extras: Slide show, production portfolio, previews for Ruin Explorers, Ninja Resurrection, Slayers, Legend of Crystania, Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Battle Angel, Burn up W, Queen Emeraldas, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sakura Wars, and Tekken Sensation Mix.
Date Reviewed: 11/6/09 Last Updated: 7/20/12
Basic Premise: Gally is a cyborg girl of unknown age who was found in the sky city Zalem's dump site by doc Ido, a cyberneticist. She is revived, but with no memory in this dystopian future. Her body somehow discovers that what ever her past life was, it does remember an ancient cyborg fighting technique. She takes on the job of Hunter-Warrior (bounty hunter) where she hunts down The Factory's most hardened and violent criminals. With this job she has rival hunter-warriors, criminals who are more powerful than her and worse, but what does she do if one of her closest friends becomes a wanted criminal?
Review: This is another one of those rare cult classics in anime. There was a time not too long ago where the most inexpensive copy of this DVD went for around $200 and went as high as $400 from some buyers. This kinda made it more tempting to buy bootlegged versions of this, which I did. I must say that this is about the best made bootleg I have and will likely ever see. After much examination I discovered that the only difference was that the ADV logo was removed from the cover.
I have read nearly all of the manga in this series and loved the manga greatly. The manga series is one of the best in the industry and the manga industry is quite large, so my opinion of the anime may be colored a bit from that aspect. There is also the prospect of it being made into a movie by James Cameron as he owns nearly all of the rights to the title. James Cameron may be a lover of manga and anime, but I have found it to be a bit frustrating knowing that anime and movies of this title could have been made many times over if it weren't for that. So be it.
The anime centers around gally, who has almost no memory of her past when she is found in the dumps of The Factory by Ido, a cyberneticist as he is looking for scraps for his cyborg repair business. It is unclear how long she has been in the dumps in a state of hibernation as a head and torso that has been slowly breaking down. It can safely be said that the only human part of her is her brain. The rest of her skull and torso are all cybernetic. While she may have lost all of her memory she does take to a few things instinctively. Her body has a cybernetic fighting style that she seems to remember from her past life as well as the lust for the kill. This disturbs Ido as he does not want to see her corrupted, but eventually Gally takes on the job of Hunter-Warrior.
In the second OAV gally falls for a troubled boy unaware of his dark secret. When Yugo has a bounty placed on his head Gally must decide whether to turn him in or protect him despite the cost.
A very liberal approach was taken when creating this anime. It is still a dystopian tragedy and well told, but you will be disappointed with how very short the series is. If you subtract the credits each episode is about 20 minutes long. The sky city of Salem was renamed in this anime to Zalem. Chiren in the anime never existed in the manga, but appears to be a very loose imitation of the twisted scientist from Salem, Desty Nova. The difference being that Chiren is sane, a brilliant cyberneticist like Ido, but not quite as good, and has a love jealousy relationship with Ido.
Grewicia is an imitation of the manga counterpart Makaku, but Grewicia is a tournament fighter enhanced by Chiren.
Even so, the rest of the storyline is largely the same. The manga elaborates on a lot more and is darker and the artwork is much higher in quality too. In these OAVs the grittiness of The Scrapyard and the harshness of living there is seen in the animations all throughout the anime. This is still a dark anime, but not distinctly sad like Saikano. It reminds me a lot of the movie The Crow.
The average citizen lives in a dump. There is no government except that the sky city pays a bounty for certain criminals in the city and will exchange heads for cash. The music is not great, but is memorable.
I suppose the saddest thing about this anime has to be that it is so very short. Considering the popularity of the manga I would have hoped that it would be made into more of a series or series of movies. I think this still may happen at some point, but not for a some years yet at least.
Conclusion: The company that published this anime ADV, is no more, like Geneon. You can still find copies at rightstuf and anime nation. I would get a copy of this while you can if I were you. A limited number of the authentic version was recently redistributed by ADV shortly before the company closed down.
Publisher: ADV
Related Website: http://jajatom.moo.jp/index02.html
Where Found: rightstuf
Copyright: 1993/1996
Author: Yukito Kishiro
If you enjoyed this anime try: Armitage
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