Our Cyborg season continues as we cover 'Battle Angel Alita', also known by its original Japanese title 'Gunnm'. This manga would go on to inspire James Cameron to produce a Hollywood adaptation. Skip synopsis @ 4:32
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066: Battle Angel Alita vol. 1
Chapters 1 to 6,
'Rusty Angel' and 'Battle Angel'
By Yukito Kishiro
Translation by Stephen Paul
Lettering by Scott Brown
Dr Ido finds the broken body of a mechanical girl, he revives her, names her Alita and over time acquires new limbs for her,
Soon Alita begins to suspect that Ido is killing cyborg women and giving their mechanical parts to Alita, unsettled by this, she sneaks out during the night to find out that Ido is not a killer but in fact a part of a bounty hunter society, one that represents the justice system of their junkyard town. Their paths cross as they run into the vicious mutant, the true culprit of the killings. Alita is able to kill the mutant through her instinctual use of a martial art known as 'Panzer Kunst' and soon she decides to become a bounty hunter like Ido. Yet unknown to Alita, Ido himself is a vigilante killing for his own satisfaction.
Which is the case when he manages to kill a servant of Makaku, a giant cyborg who eats the brains of dogs and humans so to consume the Beta Endorphins within. Luckily one dog, Fang gets to live another day. But some humans, not so much.
It's not long until Alita faces a challenge in apprehending the vile Makaku, although Alita is able to cripple Makaku, his head is able to flee from the rest of his body akin to a worm. Due to the battle Ido manages to replace Alita's injured body with a humanoid war machine known as a Berseker. Meanwhile Makaku attacks the gladiator Kinuba, steals his body and claims his powers as his own, especially his retractable grind cutter claws.
Alita and Ido go to the Kansas bar to request help from bounty hunters, When Alita calls them out for their cowardice a fight breaks out, with Alita being the victorious one. Soon Makaku shows up looking for Alita and the two continue their fight,
Makaku takes a baby and breaks a hole through the floor of the bar, he goads Alita to chase him down into the sewer system. Dr Ido is afraid for Alita and Makaku threatens to cripple and wear Alita as his own personal screaming pendant.
Makaku refers to the sewers as his home and shows jealousy towards the baby. But Fang the dog comes to attack Makaku, and whilst disorientated Alita gets Fang to carry the baby and run to safety, then ready for battle, she dips her fingers in tar and makes war paint for her face.
Topics:
- James Cameron's history with the movie rights for Battle Angel Alita. Also, James Cameron Actually Made Alita: Battle Angel Twice (screenrant.com)well. kind of!
- Comparison to scenes in the movie, starring Rosa Salazar and directed by Robert Rodriquez.
- Violence in manga, and how violence can be used in creating manga stories.
- The archetypes of Alita, specifically the Pygmalion myth (Seen in movies such as My Fair Lady) and the David and Goliath inspired fight between Alita and Makaku.
- The mechanics of Makaku eating brains, possibly inspired by the movie 'Return of the Living Dead'. The human brain does secrete endorphins however a brain must be alive to do this and since this endorphin is a neuropeptide it binds itself to the central nervous system of the possessor of the brain. In theory the human digestive system can't absorb endorphins through the gut. The gut would just distinguish the brain proteins as simply that, protein, and maybe fatty acids. An exception is that Makaku does not have a human body and his gut maybe able to extract endorphins, this would make sense if you think of Makaku's base body as a killing machine. The implication that he maybe attracted to Alita would also imply that Makaku's brain can secrete its own endorphins, meaning his use for eating brains is simply born out of addiction. A codifier of such a trope may have been zombie movies but it would have been a particular episode of the Simpsons that would have given it popularity, according to this Gizmodo article here.
Trivia:
- The original Japanese title of Battle Angel Alita is Gunnm, pronounced 'Ganmu', it's a portmanteau of the words "Gun" and "Dream".
- Alita's name in the Japanese text is Gally.
- Makaku's name is derived from the word "Demon", he spells it using the Kanji.
Other references:
Hunt for Red October (1990) both the "caterpillar drive" in that movie and the Alita's body use a Magnetohydromic Drive or an MHD accelerator for short. This mechanic is a type of conductive liquid or gas that is used as a propellant.
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