On February 14 the film will be released in our local cinemas Alita: Angel of the Battle (of which you can read our review here) directed by Robert Rodriguez and under the supervision of the mangaka creator of the original work Yukito Kishiro. In this article, however, we are going to explore the origins of the character of Alita and her story. Who is Alita? Alita is the cyborg protagonist of the story of Ganmu, located as Alita - Angel of the Battle. The original name of the work was changed for a pronunciation factor by the American insiders and then it was translated literally in our country. In fact, even the original name of the protagonist was changed, in fact in the original version of the comic her name is Gally. The story of Alita (o Gally that is) comes from the mind and pen of Yukito Kishiro in the distant 1990 and is originally published in the journal Business Jump up to 1995. The creator of the saga, in 2001 she decided to also give birth to a second series called Alita - Last Order, instead published in the magazine Ultra Jump, because dissatisfied with the hasty ending reserved for the first series.
Kishiro also started a third series dedicated to the cyborg, that is Alita - Mars Chronicle, of which the first publication dates back to 2014 in the magazine Evening and is currently still in progress and consists of just five volumes. Alita - Angel of the Battle came later in 1997 and was published in 18 issues (double the original Tankobons) by Planet Manga up to 1998. The same publisher also took care of the publication of Alita - Last Order from 2003 al 2013 for a total of 38 numbers. The publication of Alita - Mars Chronicle it started instead in 2017 (always from Planet Manga) and is still in progress with the same number of volumes as the original. The series of Alita - Angel of the Battle finally obtained a complete reprint (in 9 volumes) similar to the original in 2016 always by the same publishing house.
The work of Yukito Kishiro it also received a readjustment OAV of two episodes of about forty-five minutes each in 1993, this too then brought and dubbed in our language. Finally to date Alita has also arrived on the big screen with a Hollywood re-adaptation of the original story which, as mentioned at the beginning, will arrive in our local cinemas next February 14.
Exploring the landfill city
The story is set during the twenty-sixth century, inside a dystopian city called Landfill City, which stands under the most sumptuous and important flying city di Salem. The story itself is about our cyborg being thrown down by the latter, and where a named cyber-screener later on Daisuke Ido he decided to refurbish it by giving her a body rebuilt from scratch, allowing her to continue living.
This initial premise then leads to complex human dilemmas on the nature of man, on the substantial difference between machine and human being and on other equally important issues. All carried out in a story of futuristic combat, crazy robots, illegal sports, secrets about the mysterious flying city and tales of the colonies of Mars. The series also features fearsome enemies on the verge of sanity, as in the case of Desty Nova, archenemy of the cyborg.
Within the various volumes, Alita she experiences typically human emotions even though she is a robot on balance: she falls in love, she feels defeated and overwhelmed, she feels apprehension for others and for herself, and so on. However, the first comic series ended abruptly, leading the creator to review the ending, to exclude the last issue of the same from the canonicity to give life to Alita - Last Order, which deserves the saga of a valid conclusion, only to then kick off the third series that we have already mentioned.
To conclude this quick excursus on the history and on the character who “set the tone” for the creation of the film adaptation as it is Alita: Angel of the Battle, it is necessary to say that in and of itself the story that has been decided to summarize in just over two hours of film is decidedly complex, full of philosophical content and more, and that in short it will never be very faithful to the issues addressed in about twenty years of comics.
Now that you have a clearer idea of the figure of Alita and her story, you can certainly enjoy the film taken from the work of Yukito Kishiro, bearing in mind that cinema is a totally different means of expression compared to comics, and that therefore the film cannot return an experience identical to that lived as a reader.
