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This article is about the the original manga character, For the movie iteration, See Alita (Movie)

For Daisuke Ido's cat and Alita's namesake, see Alita (cat).

Alita, known in Japan as Gally (ガリィ Garī?) and originally named Yoko (陽子 Yōko?), is the protagonist and title character of Battle Angel Alita and its sequels, Battle Angel Alita: Last Order and Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle. She is known for her prowess as a practitioner of the powerful cyborg martial art Panzer Kunst. Alita's background and history were shrouded in mystery but was briefly hinted at in Battle Angel Alita; the subsequent series Last Order and Mars Chronicle reveal that Alita was highly instrumental in creating the world of the series. She was trained by several Kunstlers including her original master, Meister Gregt, Tzykrow, and Gelda. Alita is very famous.

Plot summary[]

Alita takes on a variety of roles throughout the series, starting out as a hunter-warrior. She later became a motorball player and ultimately the champion after defeating Jashugan. Two years later, after saving the Scrapyard from Zapan and about to be executed, she was recruited by the Tipharean Ground Investigation Bureau to become an elite member of TUNED, unknowingly serving as the basis for the development for a dozen combat androids known as the TUNED AR Series 2.

In Last Order, Alita learns through past memories that she has been a cyborg since a very early age. She would later spearhead a team called the Space Angels which includes three of her replicas that competed in the LADDER-sponsored Tenth Zenith of Things Tournament.

Appearance changes[]

Alita's appearance is that of a beautiful young woman of below average height with shoulder-length dark hair. She maintains this appearance through her different cyborg bodies. The Japanese version of Angel Redux has a lineup of several characters in Last Order and shows that she is around 150 cm (4 feet 11 inches) tall in her Imaginos 2.0 body. Although she used several cyborg bodies in Battle Angel Alita, her height tends to remain consistent. Alita's cyborg bodies feature permanent eye black beginning with her motorball body, although it did not appear in her first Imaginos Body. In the OVA she is depicted as having red eyes and black hair. Except for her face, which is fair skinned, the rest of Alita's body is typically a metallic grey.

During the course of Battle Angel Alita Alita wore several outfits. In her first cyborg body, this consisted of casual wear in the form of a shirt, track pants, and sneakers. After gaining the Berserker Body, she switched to attire more appropriate for a hunter-warrior that featured black leather in the form of fingerless gloves, a sleeveless shirt, and pants. Combined with knee-high brown boots and a light-yellow trench coat, this is how she appears in the OVA, in which she is transplanted into the Berseker Body soon after she is found instead of her first civilian one. In Gunnm: Martian Memory, the trench coat is omitted.

Alita's motorball body is depicted as purple in color, with the number 99 in yellow on the cover of Killing Angel, the Gunnm 3D special, and Gunnm: Martian Memory. When not on the track, Alita retained the lower half of the body, over which she wore dark pants. She switched out the upper half, over which she wore a jacket, as well as dark fingerless gloves. While using her second civilian body she is first shown wearing a hat, a short black dress, light-colored jacket, dark fingerless gloves, dark pantyhose, and dark boots. She later wore a sleeveless dark top, dark elbow pads, dark fingerless gloves, jeans, and white shoes.

As a TUNED agent, Alita wore a black body suit and body armour, over which she typically wore a cape. The color of the body suit and armour varies. Two illustrations that initially appeared in Business Jump and are reproduced in the Guncyclopedia depict the body suit as being red while the armour is white. The cover illustration of volume 5 of the Gunnm: Complete Edition depicts the body suit as being black and the armor a light green. In Gunnm: Martian Memory the body suit is shown as being dark green with the armor in a lighter shade of green.

Last Order reveals that Alita has been a cyborg since very young, with Mars Chronicle revealing that she has been a cyborg her whole life .[1] She would be given the Imaginos body upon her resurrection and arrival in Tiphares. Later on during the ZOTT, her body would be destroyed by an attack by Super Nova and be reformed into one with a purple body wearing a white trench coat, white boots with accompanying lower leg guards and also developing a prehensile tail.

In Mars Chronicle, It is eventually revealed that Alita never had a 100% human body, having been born as a tumor in the body of a woman called Nollin Sonann, due to a disease called Maske Tumor, and then transplant for a robotic body. Alita is usually seen wearing a white bodysuit with a white jacket over it. She would also have the sentient weapon system Danko wrapped around her upper arm.

She was shown in a human body twice. During the sequence when she was recruited to become a TUNED agent by Bigott Eizenburg, she appeared as a young woman with a human body wearing the long sleeved white top and pants of an institution, although this only occurred within her mind. In the Epilogue of Battle Angel Alita, she was regenerated as a flesh and blood woman with long black hair and appeared to be taller than her typical height.

Gallery[]

Names[]

Alita has had several names, nicknames, and aliases during her long life:

  • A-1 (ALEX) (Japanese: G-1): Her TUNED code name, primarily used by Bigott Eizenburg.
  • Alita (Japanese: ガリィ Gally): The name given to her by Daisuke Ido, after his dead pet cat (in the movie, it was the name of his deceased daughter).
  • Gally (Japanese: アリタ Alita): Her name in the virtual reality Ouroboros Program.
  • "Angel of Death": The nickname given to her by the Barjack during her time as a TUNED agent.
  • "Killing Angel": Alita's moniker during her motorball career.
  • "Kochka": Meaning "cat" in Czech (kočka), this code name was given by the Jovians in reference to Alita's cat-like appearance and nature following her defeat of Tunguska and was used by them during Operation Glass Cat.
  • "Octopus-Lips": A reference to Alita's pouty expression; both Elf and Zwölf were seen using it, although not very often.
  • "Original": Initially used by the three surviving TUNED AR Series 2 androids, Sechs, Elf and Zwölf as a reference to Alita's status as the original TUNED agent on whom they were based.
  • "Sister": Ajakutty began calling Alita this after he conceded their practice match.
  • Yoko: Her original name. After joining the Kammer Gruppe, she was known as Yoko von der Rasierklinge, meaning "Yoko of the razor-blade" in German.
  • HK-BR035: The experiment codename given to her by Dr. Ngema Neubauer after he had extracted her from Nollin Sonann's body.
  • No.99: This nickname was in the movie which was used in the flashbacks Alita has in the movie.
  • Ali: Used by Hugo in the movie.

Relationships[]

Main article: Alita's relationships

Abilities[]

Panzer Kunst: Alita is a highly skilled practitioner of Panzer Kunst although she still has not fully recalled all that she learned. Her memory is usually jogged under the stress of combat or her life is endangered. Although ranked as a Geselle when she carried out Operation Maulwurf, Caerula Sanguis rated Alita as being at least at the Höher Krieger level after she defeated Qu Tsang in Round 1 of the Tenth Zenith of Things Tournament.[2]

Alita also used numerous techniques only once in the original manga which were not named, but later cataloged in Gunnm Works.

Plasma manipulation: Alita is the only Künstler so far to use any plasma techniques, thus her use of plasma may be considered a Seinerweisen. Her use of plasma has always been tied to the cyborg bodies that she uses.

  • Plasma Bissen (German for "Plasma Bite"): Alita generates split-second plasma jets from her fingertips to create undetectable cuts and gouges in the opponent's body. Usually concealed as a punch, swipe, or parry.
  • Plasma boost: By firing plasma from her palms and the soles of her feet Alita can accelerate to supersonic speed instantaneously.[3]
  • Plasma Jet
  • Plasma Soliton: Uses a plasma cupola - a dome-like plasma trapped between competing magnetic fields as a medium to fire a Hertzer Haeon made of a plasma-wave soliton.
  • Shaped Charge Kick: Using the Imaginos 2.0, Alita can emulate a shaped charge in kick form.
  • Shaped Charge Palm: Similar to a shaped charge kick, but in punch form.

Hacking: Due to her fusion with Fata Morgana, Alita is now linked to Melchizedek, giving her advanced hacking abilities. She has the power to negate any attempts to hack her and can enter cyberspace by dreaming, functioning within the cyber world subconsciously.

Musical ability: After retiring from motorball Alita worked for two years as a singer at Bar New Kansas, using a keyboard as accompaniment. After she became a TUNED agent, at some point she acquired a harmonica, which she was playing when Figure Four encountered her on Factory Train 12.

Equipment[]

Alita used a variety of weapons when she was on Earth. As a hunter-warrior she often used a combat knife to sever her bounties' heads. After becoming a motorball player she began using a pair of elbow blades which were dubbed the Damascus Blades. These were later forged into a single blade that she would keep after retiring.

She first used a firearm in the form of the Smith & Wesson Model 610 revolver to defeat Zapan in the Berserker Body. After becoming a TUNED agent, Alita was issued with various firearms and ordnance, including the TUNED pistol and the TUNED rifle.

In Last Order, since her Damascus Blade was used in the creation of the Imaginos Body, Alita is able to generate them as elbow blades from her forearms when needed through the use of her nanomachines.

After Alita's rebirth and fusion with Fata Morgana, her Imaginos Body was upgraded to Imaginos 2.0. This gave her a long cat tail made from her body's nanomachines. She uses this tail as a third arm, allowing her to attack from behind without turning around.

At some point in the three years between the end of Last Order and the beginning of Mars Chronicle, Alita's work as a Last Order agent took her to Venus, where she acquired Danko, a sentient cannon that had been engineered using Berserker cells. Danko usually perches on Alita's shoulder with her tail coiled around Alita's arm, and is capable of firing bullets containing Berserker cells and collapsing agent, enabling her to kill opponents in a single shot.

Cyborg bodies[]

BAA09 139 Alita 4bodies

Four of the bodies that Alita used in Battle Angel Alita in chronological order on the title page of Battle 51: from left to right: Berserker Body, Motorball body, Second civilian body, TUNED body.

Alita used several cyborg bodies during the course of Battle Angel Alita. In Last Order the Imaginos Body is her primary body for most of the series and later acquires regenerative qualities.

Berserker Body: After Alita’s first, non-combat body was destroyed, Ido equipped her with a powerful cyborg body that he had discovered years earlier, the Berserker Body. She stopped using the body after becoming a motorball player and it was later acquired by Desty Nova and ultimately Zapan.

Motorball body: The motorball body Alita used gave her increased speed and flexibility at the cost of power and weaponry. Because of the dangerous nature of motorball, the body’s limbs were constantly replaced and peak performance was not always guaranteed. As revealed on the cover of Killing Angel and in a 3 minute CGI of Alita playing motorball, this body was purple.

It was in this body that Alita first received her Damascus Blade in the initial form of two separate blades mounted on each of her wrists. After these blades were damaged in the fight with Armblessed, they were re-forged into a single blade that became Alita's primary weapon.

Civilian bodies: Alita had two civilian bodies in Battle Angel Alita. She received the first after Ido found and revived her, which had a pair of decorated arms that used to be owned by a prostitute who was killed by the mutant woman. This body was destroyed in Alita's first fight with Makaku.

Alita's second civilian body was used after she retired from motorball because the Berserker Body had been sold by Ed in an effort to keep her in the sport and the motorball body was unsuitable for daily life. It was almost completely destroyed in the fight with Zapan, and Alita was nearly killed by the Factory for the Class A Offense of using a firearm.

Last Order reveals that Alita has been a cyborg since she was a young girl during the Terraforming Wars. It is suggested that she changed bodies when she got older and may have been using a specialized body when she carried out Operation Maulwurf.

TUNED body: Alita or A-1 received the TUNED body after becoming an agent of Tiphares. She was connected at all times via satellite to the Ground Investigation Bureau (GIB) and directed by an operator, who had the ability to provide a Pavlovian shock stimulus to her should she ignore orders. As the product of advanced Tipharean technology, the body had the ability to travel at supersonic speeds and withstand a great deal of damage. However, as a “soft” body supported by nanotechnology to create and maintain vital systems, the body could overheat and malfunction under extremely high-temperature conditions. Nonetheless, the body was equipped with a variety of effective support weapons, many designed to look like insects.

With the TUNED Body Alita also bore permanent eye black on her face which was later included on her replicas and is still present in her Imaginos Body.

Imaginos Body: Late events in Battle Angel Alita and early in Last Order, Desty Nova gave Alita a new body after killing her with a powerful bomb. This body relied on nanomachines even more than the Tuned body, was said to mimic the human body down to the cellular level, and was thus a nanomachine-based organism. Two versions of the Imaginos appeared:

  • Original: The original Imaginos Body lacked the color-changing and shape-altering abilities of the Last Order version, and was also missing the eye black that had been present since the motorball body.

Nova gave Alita a trigger in order to transform her Imaginos body when Melchizedek shut down and the collapse of Tiphares onto the Scrapyard was imminent. She used the trigger to fuse with the sky hook's docking bolt and transformed into a gigantic nanomachine-based Tree of Life, saving Tiphares and the Scrapyard.

  • Last Order version: This version of the Imaginos lacks the accelerator. It can, however, match Alita's thoughts and change its coloring scheme and shape to better suit Alita.
  • Plasma Torch: Unlike the Berserker Body, which came equipped with plasma making organs, Alita had to make the Imaginos produce plasma through a more organic process. This caused Alita no end of trouble, and she eventually had to put herself in mortal danger just so she could gain the ability to create plasma by activating her latent survival instincts. Unlike the Berserker body, which only produced a single small jet of plasma for a brief time, the Imaginos can create a long-sustaining torch of plasma of various lengths, coming off of each finger. The effect of this has also given this move the name "plasma claw."
  • Damascus Blades: Alita's favorite weapon suffered from extreme metal fatigue in the year it took for Nova to resurrect Alita, so he ended up using it as an ingredient in the Imaginos Body. This initially upset Alita to no end, but she later learned in her fight with Toji that she could replicate the Damascus Blades, generating them out of her arms as elbow blades.
BAA09 253 Alita & Figure

Alita reunited with Figure in the Epilogue.

Human body: Five years after turning into the Tree of Life, Koyomi visited Ketheres Elyion where she encountered Figure Four and a senile Nova. When asked by Figure about Alita's whereabouts, Nova lead them down a hole in the Tree of Life to where a giant bulb had formed, and he had left a message in between his bouts of insanity. This message revealed that traces of Alita's genetic code were stored within the nanomachine cells scattered throughout the tree's systems and that it might be possible to regenerate her. Figure broke the bulb, revealing a human Alita to end the original manga.

Plot[]

Battle Angel Alita[]

Intro Arc[]

BAALO07 34-35 Ido finds Alita

Ido discovers Alita in the Tiphares dump heap in a flashback scene in Phase 38.

Yoko's damaged head and torso were found by the exiled Tipharean cyberphysician Daisuke Ido while he searched the dump heap below Tiphares for parts to use in his cyborg repairs. When Ido discovered that she was still alive, he took the cyborg back to his clinic. With Gonzu's help, Ido resuscitated the cyborg and asked what her name was. As she is amnesiac, he named her after his recently deceased black tomcat, Alita. Ido later took Alita with him when he went back to the dump heap to scavenge for more parts and pointed out Tiphares to her. He could not find anything useful but promised to rebuild her. She was first outfitted with the decorated arms from a prostitute who had been killed by the mutant woman and eventually her legs.

When Alita suspects Ido of murdering various women to provide her body parts, her guilt causes her to track and confront him down one night. She discovers that he is a hunter-warrior, and that he is seeking the true killer himself. Her fight to protect Ido causes an instinctive recollection of the lost Martian battle technique called Panzer Kunst, as she quickly applies a single killing blow to the murderer. She decides to become a hunter-warrior herself, in which job Alita occasionally displays a disturbing bloodlust and love of battle.

Makaku Arc[]

Alita encounters a powerful, body-snatching and brain-eating cyborg named Makaku, who destroys the original body that Ido had made for her. Ido rescues her, but almost dies in the process. Feeling he has no other choice, he reconnects her head to an ancient Berserker Body, which had been specially made for war. Waking up in a new, stronger body, Alita becomes more confident in herself and enlists in becoming a hunter-warrior like Ido. The two then go to Bar Kansas to recruit other hunter-warriors to help track down Makaku. When they refuse, Alita remarks how they are cowards; this prompts one, Zapan, to mock her abilities. After soundly defeating them all, Makaku arrives at the bar, having acquired a new Power Body and now harboring an obsession to kill her. Seeing him steal Koyomi and goading her into the underground sewers, Alita manages to rescue the infant and defeat Makaku; before he manages to kill them both with an explosion, Alita generates a barrier of plasma that holds off the explosion. She listens to his story, hearing that a mad scientist saved him & helped foster his desire to be recognized; Alita then dissolves the barrier and sheds a few tears over her foe's demise.[4]

Hunter-Warrior Arc[]

BAA02 94 Alita

Alita in Battle 9.

Some time later while tracking down a bounty, Alita met and fell in love with Hugo, a young boy who dreamed of going to Tiphares. Unfortunately for Alita, her all-powerful berserker body proves to be a liability; since Hugo is a normal flesh-and-blood human, Alita is afraid that she couldn't even hold him close without accidentally tearing him to pieces. Hugo's obsession with Tiphares wound up ruining any chance of them being together, as he was caught mugging cyborgs for their spinal columns and had a bounty placed on him. Alita protected Hugo from Zapan - resulting in the latter's humiliation - and resuscitated him. However Alita was informed by Ido that Hugo had been lied to; as someone who came from Tiphares, no one from the surface was allowed to travel to the city. Alita goes with Hugo to confront Vector, who ends up confirming that Ido was telling the truth.[5] Hugo tried to scale the massive pipes connecting the Factories to the floating city, but was damaged from the defense rings that scaled down the pipes. Alita follows him and tries to talk Hugo into returning with her back to the surface; unfortunately, Hugo is sliced to pieces by the defense rings; although Alita managed to catch him, Hugo only had enough time to thank Alita for her meeting him before he fell to his death.[6]

Motorball Arc[]

Alita
BAA03 24 Alita
Alita in her motorball body in Battle 12.
Statistics
Number 99
League Second, Third (former)
Ranking Motorball champion following defeat of Jashugan
Nicknames "Killing Angel"
Weapons Single Damascus Blade (formerly two)

After Hugo's death, Alita mourned him and ran away from home; she would abandon all traces of her former life while hiding herself from Ido, who was desperately searching for her. She was eventually found crying in Joe's Bar by Ed, a former Top League motorball player; after talking, Alita agreed to sign a 12 race contract for his racing team, Esdoc Motors. Having become quite proficient at the sport, Alita quickly made a name for herself in The Third League and there were rumors of her becoming a champion player eventually. After winning her fourth Third League race, Alita was making her way to the pits when she heard her name called out; turning around, she was shocked to discover it was Ido. However, she maintained a stoic face and ignored him, walking away and returning to the Esdoc Motors trailer. She did not share this encounter with either Ed or Umba, and did not acknowledge them as they discussed her possible future; she did shoot a glare at Ed after he inadvertently brought up her mourning Hugo's death a few months prior while reminiscing about how much she had changed.

Alita's drive and skill made her one of the best motorball players the Scrapyard had seen and she eventually decided to challenge Jashugan for the title of Motorball Champion. However, the day before the match took place, she revealed to Ed that she planned to retire after the match; when she learned Ed had sold her Berserker body to a mysterious buyer in order to keep her on the track, she was furious but forgave him after he sacrificed himself to save her from a would-be assassin. Alita's went through with her match against Jashugan, whose mastery of chi enabled him to surpass the limits of his body and they essentially fought in a standstill; Alita would end as the victor due to Jashugan 's death on the track.[7]

Zapan Arc[]

After becoming Motorball Champion, Alita retired from the sport and returned to her old life in the Scrapyard. During the next two years, she would go on to become a popular singer at the rebuilt Bar New Kansas. She also would live in one of the adjoining apartments located in the same complex as the bar; Alita would often be seen reading or studying various historical time periods, along with socializing with Koyomi and Shumira while she was not performing.

When approached by a teenage girl with a message from Desty Nova - a Tipharian mad scientist behind many of the tribulations she had faced - Alita journeyed to his lab to find it in ruins. Desty explained that he had attached Zapan's brain to the Berserker Body and that Ido - who had been searching for the whereabouts of the Berserker Body - had been killed by the ensuing monster. Alita murdered Nova's two assistants Barzarld and Eelai before stabbing Nova himself in the head in a fit of rage, but the three survived due to nanomachines within their bodies. Nova offered to resurrect Ido in exchange for her killing Zapan, providing her with a gun and bullets containing an agent designed to destroy Berserker cells. Alita was initially reluctant, but after discovering that Zapan had destroyed Bar New Kansas, being berated by Master - who blamed her for Zapan becoming a monster and being rejected by those she had called her friends; Alita decided to take responsibility and kill Zapan. Their battle almost ended in him assimilating her, but she shot him with several collapser bullets & consumed a dosage herself; Zapan's final, redemptive act being to manifest wings in order to slow her fall and save her.

TUNED Arc[]

Alita's body was collected by Tiphares and she was sentenced to execution for the Class A crime of using a firearm. The Tipharean Ground Investigation Bureau, led by Bigott Eizenburg, managed to postpone Alita's execution and explained that he had been keeping tabs on her through her pet TR-55, Kimji. Bigott offered to give Alita a purpose in life working as an agent of Tiphares, but she refused until he mentioned that her primary mission would be to hunt down Desty Nova.

Given a new body and weapons, Alita spent ten years working as a TUNED agent with the designation A-1, hunting down rogue Deckmen and other criminals. She came to revel in combat and bloodlust as a means of drowning out her loneliness and despair. In ES 590 she was tasked with dismantling the terrorist organization Barjack, and assigned to protect Factory Train 12 from the Barjack lieutenant Knucklehead and his Boiling Metal Battalion. Cultivating a friendship with her new operator, Lou Collins, Alita also fell in love with a mercenary named Figure Four, who helped break her out of her fatalistic mindset while she accompanied him to his hometown of Alhambra. Promising to return once her business with TUNED was concluded, Alita soon learned that Desty Nova was behind Barjack and that if she wanted to find him, she would have to defeat Barjack's leader, Den.

Barjack Rebellion Arc[]

One day, Alita comes across a raiding party and after intimidating them into leaving, encounters Koyomi and Fury for the first time in many years. She discovers they ran away from home to find Kaos, the host of a popular radio program and later on also gets caught up on both Master and Shumira. Eventually, Alita ends up saving Koyomi after they both fall into an underground river but damages her lungs in the process and powers down to repair herself. Rescued by Kaos, Alita persuaded him to stand up against Barjack and faced off with Den; discovering that not only was Kaos the son of Desty Nova but that Den was Kaos' split personality projected into a remote body. Koyomi joined Barjack, preventing Alita from killing Den with the Solenoid Quench Gun; Alita then resumes her mission to find Desty Nova as well as Ido.

Locating Ido with help from Kaos, Alita traveled to Farm 21 only to learn from his assistant Kayna that he had erased his memories after learning the "truth about Tiphares".[8] Learning that Nova's hideout was in the Granite Inn, Alita set out to apprehend him but was attacked by AR-2, one of the TUNED AR Series 2 that had been created by Bigott to replace her.[9] With Lou's help Alita managed to kill AR-2, though she lost an arm, a leg and her right eye in the battle. Alita was ordered by Bigott to finish the mission, learning that she would be released from TUNED and could live in peace if she did so.[10] Alita would follow Kaos' trail and infiltrated the Granite Inn before getting captured by Nova who rendered her unconscious. After mentally confronting her limits and fears via a mental projection of Jashugan, Alita awoke and broke free of Nova's control. Upon confronting Nova, Alita was horrified to learn what the secret of Tiphares was - all Tipherean adults had their brains extracted and replaced with brain bio-chips. With Bigott and several of the other adults going insane from this revelation, Nova trapped Alita inside a virtual reality called the Ouroboros Program and attempted to break her fighting spirit. Breaking free with Kaos' help, Alita decapitated Nova and set out to reunite with Figure Four. Before she could, Alita was killed by a bomb disguised as a child; Nova - who had survived decapitation as a result of installing a second brain bio-chip and face into his abdomen - gloated over his victory and began collecting Alita's remains to take with him to Tiphares.[11]

Last Order[]

Tiphares Arc[]

Roughly one year after her death, Alita awakens and is initially uncertain where she is. Scanning the room, she notices a long trail of blood nearby; following it, she comes upon the partially decapitated and disemboweled body of Nova. Knowing she couldn't have been able to do this, she notices the Damascus Blade on a nearby tray; when Alita tries to pick it up, she is shocked to see it just is a hologram. A recording pops up where Nova greets her and informs Alita how he used the ruined blade to help construct the Imaginos Body she now possesses. Assuring her he did not tamper with her mind, he tells Alita the basics of how to use it before the recording ends. Alita looks back at Nova's corpse and asks herself what really happened here when a loud bang is heard and three youths fall through the ceiling. Landing in front of Alita, they tell her to run and a large MIB drone shortly follows them. When it tries to attack the youths, Alita gets its attention and goes to fight it; however, she is still unaccustomed to her new body and gets overwhelmed by the drone. As the drone breaks through the wall, Alita manages to wrap her arm around one of the broken wires from the drone and is shocked to see she is in Tiphares and dangling high above the world.[12] She manages to quickly use the drone's momentum against it and it falls through the hole towards the surface. Alita thinks about Lou for a moment before leaving the area. However, one of the girls named Pam faints due to altitude sickness; remembering an early memory of Erica helping her when they first met as children, Alita scoops the girl up and the other two, Nola and David, lead her to their camp. Noticing the amount of blood and bodies within the area, Alita inquires about it and Nola merely says they need her help and all will be revealed soon. As Alita is brought to the camp, she notices that there are only children and youths around without any adults nearby. The leader of the group, Jim Roscoe, introduces himself and remarks that he was with Nova when Alita was reconstructed. She learns that all Tiphareans were informed of the 'Secret of Tiphares' and a civil war broke out between the adults and children; Jim then presents Nova's two brain bio-chips as proof, confirming that he was the one who had killed Nova. Even with this information, Alita does not agree to join them and departs, intent on finding Lou; despite resolving to go alone, she allows both Pam and Nola to follow her.[13]

After traveling for some time, Alita and the two girls stop in an abandoned theater. Soon after, Alita senses the arrival of another figure from the stage. Recognizing the voice, the figure is revealed to be one of the TUNED AR Series 2 units, going by the name Sechs. Sechs demands to fight Alita and goads her into accepting; Alita is able to hold back several attacks and deflects a blow from Sechs' Titan Blade. She hears applause coming from above the theater and is slightly surprised to see Desty Nova and two more replicas above her. When the two begin fighting once more, Alita is shocked to see Sechs perform different moves that she has not seen before and has her left arm sliced off; despite this, she is able to land a blow on Sechs and retreats to the stage. There, the other two copies (named Elf and Zwölf ) appear and distract Alita until Sechs recovers and attempts to kill her with a modified Solenoid Quench Gun; at the last moment, Alita dodges the blast and grabs Nova as a human shield, briefly stopping Sechs from stabbing her.[14] Tossing Nova aside, the two cyborgs resume their fight until Alita lands a Hertza Haeon blow on Sechs; this causes Sechs to explode and both Elf and Zwölf back down immediately. As Nova approaches, Alita asks if the corpse she saw was a fake, learning that it was the actual Nova and the one in front of her is a duplicate; he then invites Alita to join them to the space city of Ketheres after stopping by the Medical Core. Although sorely tempted to join them, Alita declines the offer.[15] After reuniting with Pam and Nola, they journey to the adult camp where Alita defends both Pam and her mother Marge from several MIB drones and adults threatening to kill the two. Alita learns from Marge that Lou is not within the camp and likely somewhere within the MIB core; hearing that Nola abandoned Pam and fled, Alita tracks her down and finds her being threatened by Sachumodo; after a tense back and forth contest (and informed of what to do by Nova II), Alita manages to defeat the being and its subsequent versions that spawn from the prior bodies.[16]

Alita returns to the adult camp and is glad that the civil war between the children and adults has ended. Alita is excited to learn from Deckman 100 that Lou's body was found by Nova but is dismayed that it does not contain her brain bio-chip. Nova goes on to explain that while he could clone Lou, it would not have her memories or personality; however, there is a chance that her brain bio-chip could have been taken to Ketheres. After some time to think it over, Alita decides to travel to the city with Nova and the former AR units.[17]

Ketheres Arc[]

Upon reaching the city, Alita has Sechs help scout the area while Nova, Elf and Zwölf stay within the elevator. Soon, a man arrives from a lower platform and introduces himself as Aga Mbadi. Welcoming them to Ketheres, Mbadi reveals that Nova is the fourth individual to reach the city from Tiphares after learning about the brain bio-chips; when Nova signals her, Alita grabs Mbadi and uses him as a hostage until they are certain of their safety. Unfortunately, Mbadi hacked all the other units and forces them to surrender Nova to him; afterwards, they are frozen in polymer cubes. Alita tries to fight but is forced to her knees and sliced in two by Mbadi's machinations. Nova is taken away and Alita, along with Sechs, Deckman 100, Elf and Zwölf are blasted into space outside an airlock.[18]

Even though they begin drifting towards the atmosphere, Alita notices someone floating towards them and covers them all with a net, taking them to safety. Upon getting freed from the cube, she learns that the man who saved her is named Ping Wu; Alita goes on to discover he is a hacker and knows of their actions since arriving from Tiphares. He suggests that he can help with finding Lou's brain, with her repaying him with the two brain bio-chips he took from Deckman 100. She is shocked to see they are the brain bio-chips from the original Desty Nova that Jim Roscoe took (which Deckman 100 later stole while in the MIB core.) Although frustrated with his nonchalant attitude and haggling, she agrees but takes one of the chips back, vowing to return it once the job is finished. Both sides agree to the terms and shake hands.[19] They try to stow away on one of the ships leaving Ketheres, but are found by Zazie; even within a rigid spacesuit due to her prior injuries, Alita is able to fight the Martian warrior to a standstill and rescues Queen Limeira before she drifts away from the ship.[20]

Leviathan I Arc[]

Upon arriving on the Leviathan I, Alita learns a bit of Ping Wu's past from an acquaintance of his named Rem Rei & runs into a child on the streets; she is advised to return him to a nearby juvenile facility but is later horrified to learn it is essentially a death camp. Alita, Sechs and Zazie go to search for the youth and the squadron he is part of but finds them all dead on a battlefield within the ship's combat chamber; Alita bemoans how she essentially caused the boy's death when a helicopter arrives and a mysterious man emerges and surveys the carnage. After Zazie confronts the man, named Payne, Alita does so also and attacks him with an electromagnetic punch that obliterates Payne and the guards accompanying him.[21] Alita is horrified to learn that even though she helped in killing Payne, he has somehow begun haunting her thoughts and memories; regardless, both herself and Zazie go on a mission to gather up as many flags on other battlefields within the combat chamber to both save other squadrons of children from death and to also qualify for the upcoming Zenith of Things Tournament. Ping Wu's plan to retrieve Lou's brain was to enter the tournament as a cover to access the brain incubator on Ketheres; once they have acquired Lou's brain, they will slip away unnoticed.[22] Learning that it is a team event, Alita invites Zazie to form one, but the latter does not respond. Upon arriving to the final flag's location, they disembark from the helicopter; Alita has Sechs stay behind to provide commentary and insight to the camera team that brought them there. Encountering the Space Karate Forces at the final flag, Alita offers to spare them if they leave the flag behind. After struggling a bit against Gavit, Alita is able to cause his body to exert too much pressure and explodes; after Zazie deals with Hogan, Alita squares off against the final member Toji.

Squaring off, both Alita and Zazie narrowly escape a powerful electromagnetic attack from Toji. After some time passes, both sides are at a standstill; calming herself as rain falls from a cloud Toji formed, Alita generates the Damascus Blade from her arm and asks Zazie to give the signal to attack. She rushes Toji and is blasted unconscious but is still able to slice Toji's head and face.[23] Alita decides to form a team and once again asks both Sechs and Zazie to join; Sechs immediately accepts, but Zazie still does not give an answer. The two warriors part ways with Zazie promising to be on the lookout for any other Kunstlers before boarding the Leviathan I and departing Ketheres. Upon recruiting both Elf and Zwölf to her team as well, the newly named Space Angels enlisted Ping Wu and Deckman 100 as the team's pit crew, submitting their request to enter the tournament.

Guntroll Arc[]

Upon arriving at the tournament location, Alita and Ping Wu are greeted by Elf, Zwölf and Sechs; the former are now wearing bunny suits and the latter is now equipped with a new full sized body; Sechs vows that he will put aside their rivalry until after the conclusion of the Z.O.T.T.[24] Before entering the preliminary battle royal round to qualify, Ping Wu reminds Alita that their presence in the tournament is just a diversion for him to hack into the system and requires Alita's help once they get through. While the AR 2 units get caught up in destroying the competition, Alita shows little interest and just goes through the motions; despite this, they manage to easily qualify. After doing so, the Space Angels along with the crowd are surprised to see Aga Mbadi approaching them and congratulates the team on qualifying. Despite the palpable tension in the air, Alita shakes his hand when it is offered; when Mbadi begins to realize he is unable to hack her systems again, he curtly wishes them good luck in the tournament before quickly leaving as Alita smirks at him. As they wait for their first-round matchup, Alita questions whether it is a good idea to be out in the open; Ping Wu replies that he's hacked the security cameras and using a facsimile of his acquaintance Martin Tsang to cover for him on the monitors. After she meets and interacts with some of the staff and caretakers from the Stellar Nursery Society, Alita learns from Sechs the Nursery Society team will be their opponents in the first round.[25]

Hearing this causes Alita to become distraught and questions whether it would be right to defeat an orphanage trying to secure themselves a home and eliminate them from the tournament. She sits alone in one of the rooms aboard the Space Angel's base and mentally sees Payne reappear to taunt her. She attacks the image and blows apart the door to the room; Sechs approaches her and tells his 'sister' that the rest of the team will handle the first round fight and to take as long as she needs to prepare.[26] As she observes her teammates competing against the Stellar Nursery Society team, she continues to doubt herself and eventually she is left as the last remaining member of her team, with Elf and Zwölf becoming paralyzed and Sechs too damaged to compete further due to the Nursery team's captain Qu Tsang. She eventually emerges and quickly disarms Qu Tsang and punches through her chest, severing her legs in an instant.[27] Alita then carries her remains to a waiting tow robot to take Tsang back to the Guntroll platform.[28]

Alita is surprised when the Guntroll's final combatant, Caerula Sanguis arrives and she appears to be a flesh and blood human; she is caught off guard and quickly overpowered by Caerula throwing several punches to her chest. Alita generates plasma out of her hand and tries to rake her across the face but is disarmed by Caerula, who criticizes her for not being serious in the fight. Breaking the hold, Alita generates two Damascus arm blades at the same time Caerula unsheathes two jian swords. They go back and forth fighting until Caerula pins her in a trap. Several more of Alita's memories return as she notices the sword style Caerula is using seem to be familiar; Alita realizes in horror that Caerula has cut her down with that same sword style and is petrified with fear as the top of her head seemingly is cut off.[29] Despite both thinking it happened, it is revealed that Alita stayed in place while her will jumped into the path of getting cut by Caerula. After they both learn this, Alita mentions them fighting far in the past and her being the Kunstler that Caerula bested. They resume the battle until Alita stabs her in the chest; noticing Caerula had diverted her sword at the last moment, Alita asks why and discovers her destiny is worth living and was spared as a result. When Caerula indirectly mentions the Space Angel's plan to hack Melchizedek, Alita asks how she knows; Caerula smiles and merely gives one of her earrings to Alita. Then she pulls the blade out, covering Alita with blood and seems to fall to the ground dead. She stares at Caerula's body, unsure what to think as the Space Angels are announced as the winners.[30]

Starship Cult Arc[]

After recuperating, Alita and Ping analyze the earring given by Caerula; they learn it contains the fabled key to Melchizedek called Fata Morgana. Seeing Ping get excited over this discovery, Alita takes the earring back and barters with him; in order for him to access it, she wants the Space Angels to continue in the ZOTT until they are eliminated, instead of bowing out after the second round. Warned that they will not likely be able to win the tournament (due to both the Jovian and Venusian seeded teams always emerging victorious), Alita remains firm in her decision. She is shocked to hear the voice of Desty Nova, coming from a handheld device; Ping reveals he used the one brain bio-chip given to him to create a version of Nova called Porta Nova. This third Nova agrees with Alita's course of action and it is decided; the other members of the Angels will participate in the tournament while Alita traverses outside the onion frame with Ping Wu to access Melchizedek.

Upon reaching Melchizedek, Alita recovers some more of her memories and discovers that she had been there before; soon after, she encounters one of her prior teachers, Tzykrow the Brute. He confirms that she was responsible for a failed Panzer Kunst operation and destroyed five ships with over 500,000 individuals aboard. She fights Tzykrow and damages him to the point where he escapes via a distraction; however, Ping is able to hack him and renders him inoperable for several days.[31] After recovering from the fight, Alita soon reaches a terminal that will allow her to jack into the system; after some slight hesitation, Alita inserts the Fata Morgana and enters cyberspace. She encounters the avatars of both Ping and Porta Nova, travelling through until reaching a gigantic stone sculpture of Merlin; deciding to use it as a means to bypass the system, the trio learn about the past iteration of Melchizedek that was formed by the Farrell family, while also learning the history of Caerula Sanguis.[32][33]

Super Nova Arc[]

After learning about the past of Melchizedek, Alita and her group encounter an avatar of Caerula that goes on to reveal Alita was chosen as the holder of the Fata Morgana due to being an outsider; Alita refuses to execute the last order to save humanity but vows to instead hold on to it until she can return it to Caerula. The avatar disappears only to be confronted by an avatar of Trinidad, which demands he be given the Fata Morgana instead.[34] Ping elects to stay behind and Alita goes with Porta Nova to the Brain Incubator; she jacks in and is able to briefly see an image of Lou. Overcome with emotion, Alita is relieved that she is alive but is upset to hear Ping was defeated and possibly killed by Trinidad; immediately, Alita and Porta Nova are confronted by the reborn Nova II now going by the name Super Nova.[35] She has a minor breakdown when a third Nova, Nova X, makes himself known. Super Nova offers to trade Lou's brain for the one inside the F-box, which is revealed to be Alita's that was removed from her head and replaced with a brain bio chip after it was regrown; Nova X confirms this to be true and, with some reluctance, Alita agrees. However, she realizes that it is the final organic tie to her past and tries to go back on the deal; unfortunately, she is hit by an attack from Super Nova that causes her Imaginos body to disintegrate and kill her a second time.[36]

Warmen 609 Arc[]

Having seen Ping's sacrifice, Lamda Nam Nam has Alita's remains recovered and taken to Robo-Asyl. After an avatar of Arthur Farrell reaches out to her consciousness, the remains are then given to Deckman 100. Upon the remains getting grabbed by the Jovian's Z.O.T.T. combatant Warmen 609 in its Tunguska form, Alita is reborn after bursting from its head and obliterating its upper body.[37]

World of Combat Arc[]

After generating some clothing for herself, Alita reunites with both Sechs and Zazie shortly before Aga Mbadi arrives and attempts to cancel the tournament citing safety concerns while also trying to arrest her. When both him and Super Nova try to hack her, Alita easily knocks them both back and declares that they have no control over her.[38] Alita, along with the Space Karate Forces and the other remaining team in the tournament, the Genome Kingdom, argue in favor of continuing the tournament and override Mbadi's attempts to cancel it; eventually, their efforts win out and the tournament resumes with the Space Angels advancing to the Final round.[39]

Genome Kingdom Arc[]

To be added...

Frau X Arc[]

To be added...

Tenth Z.O.T.T. Finals Arc[]

To be added...

Alita Quest Arc[]

To be added...

Mars Chronicle[]

From flashbacks in Battle Angel Alita and further elaborated on in Last Order and Mars Chronicle, Alita remembered that she is from Mars and that her original name is Yoko. As a young adult, Yoko was part of a group of Künstlers whose final mission was to target was Earth's orbital ring during the Terraforming Wars. At the penultimate moment, her comrades were ambushed by an unknown opponent. Yoko escaped but was left to crash on Earth. This event was later retconned by Last Order and Mars Chronicle, which elaborate more on how Yoko became a kunstler.

Originally codenamed HK-BR035, Yoko was "born" in Cydonia in ES 370 during the Martian civil wars prior to the Terraforming Wars, as a maske tumor extracted from Nollin Sonann and grafted into a mechanical body by Dr. Ngema Neubauer;[40] and is the only known successful case of such experiments that produced a healthy, viable subject. When Baron Muster (Nollin's vengeful brother) learned of her existence, he took her away and named her Yoko, and conspired with Marquis Maruki Baumburg to use her in a plot to overthrow Cydonia's ruling queen Kagura Dornburg. As a result of Muster falsifying records to state that Yoko was Kagura's daughter (and thus had a claim to Kagura's throne), Yoko was abducted by the Cydonian armed forces, who tried to force her to cross a minefield as a means of execution. As Yoko was unable to walk because she was too young to properly control her mechanical body, a sympathetic one-eyed young girl named Erica Walt volunteered to support her across. They were able to walk together for a hundred paces, but just as they were about to step on a mine Yoko and Erica were rescued by Grünthal – a group of Panzer Kunst warriors – who slaughtered the soldiers. Left in the care of a nomadic medic named Finch, Yoko and Erica were left at an orphanage in the town of Mamiana in Flammarion, where they encountered Ninon Silber, the self-proclaimed heiress to the Flammarion throne, and her gang of girl followers who bullied Yoko. When Mamiana was attacked and massacred by the Papagei Corps, Yoko and Erica were the only two survivors and were rescued by Finch, who arrived half a day later. When the Himmel membrane keeping Mars' atmosphere was ruptured by an explosion, Yoko, Erica and Finch were rescued by Baldachin Association Gärtner Mui, who demanded they sacrifice their lives to restore the Himmel's Säule membrane. Mui was then contacted by her superior, Priesteren Neff, who ordered her to release them and issued a prophecy regarding Yoko and Erica being the chosen ones that could change humanity's direction.

After arriving at Erica's hometown of Curie Stadt, Finch was contacted by a woman called Kyoko Bima who claimed to be Yoko's long-lost mother but in reality, was an agent serving Maruki to keep Yoko under custody. Yoko spent the next year living a comfortable life at the Baumburg Mansion under the watch of Kyoko, who actually developed a motherly bond and genuinely cared for Yoko. In the year 374, Yoko was reunited with Erica – who had become Muster's apprentice and came along with Muster to visit Maruki. Kyoko, no longer wanting to risk Yoko's life, attempted to run away with her and Erica with the help of two bounty-hunters, Dass and Rocco, who had previously been hired to hunt Yoko down but were now paid by Erica. However, the bounty-hunters were killed and Erica killed Kyoko before both girls were retrieved by Muster. At the coronation ceremony, it was revealed that Yoko was not genetically related to Princess Kagura, Zoe revealing that Muster had falsified the reports that Kagura was her mother as part of his revenge scheme,[41] and that Yoko's real genetic mother was Muster's late sister Nollin.

At some point, Yoko joined Grünthal alongside Erica and was trained in Panzer Kunst. However, as young adults the two friends had a falling-out which resulted in Yoko mortally wounding Erica.[42] Yoko was picked to carry out Operation Maulwurf,[43] and was sent to upload a virus known as Program Guinevere into Melchizedek. The virus disrupted the navigational systems of the five Leviathan class colony ships, destroying four and killing 450,000 civilians, as well as causing a complete Gestalt breakdown in Melchizedek's organizational processes, from which it never fully recovered. This event is known as the Camranh Tragedy. She was captured shortly afterward by Caerula Sanguis and sentenced to execution by atmosphere drop as punishment. Although her brain survived being burnt up during reentry, Yoko crash-landed near Star City where she lay in stasis for 200 years.

Other Appearances[]

BAAOAV Gally

Gally in Rusty Angel.

Gally is the central character of the Japanese exclusive action RPG Gunnm: Martian Memory on the Playstation one.

In the OVA she receives the Berserker Body from Daisuke Ido after he finds her in the trash disposal area from Tiphares and becomes a skilled hunter-warrior, although Panzer Kunst is not explicitly mentioned as her martial art.

She is also featured in the DVD Gunnm 3D special which appeared as an exclusive in volume 6 of the Japanese reprint for the series.

Merchandising[]

As the title character and face of the franchise, Alita is the primary character who has been featured on merchandise.

Marmit released two dolls of her in 2001. One has a brown trenchcoat with a red berserker body and one has a white trenchcoat with a black berserker body.

A stand alone figure was included as part of the Gunnm: Another Stories Limited Box Edition. This figure could be changed between the TUNED and Motorball bodies because of the accessories provided.

She is also featured on one of the shirts designed by Heroism and appears on the covers of all of the Battle Angel Alita volumes and the majority of the Last Order volumes. She is the only character from the series to have appeared on the cover of Ultra Jump, being featured several times. Starting in late 2018 to tie in with the movie several more products entered production including pop vinyl figures from funko, statues and hot toys.

Alita is portrayed by Rosa Salazar in the 2019 live-action adaptation, Alita: Battle Angel. In the film, Alita is a completely CGI character created using performance capture footage of Salazar.

Trivia[]

  • Alita is afraid of the Minois dryas butterfly, a phobia that she shares with Yukito Kishiro.[44]
  • The following identification numbers have been associated with Alita:
    • Her number as a Künstler during volume nine of the manga was 99, which originally explained why she was so attached to the number 99 during her time as a motorball player.[45] However how she arrived on Earth was later retconned by Last Order. In Alita: Battle Angel, she is referred to as number 99 by Gerda in a flashback.
    • Her defendant number during her trial by the Earth Orbitary Federation was PMD-433-4424.[46]
    • Her hunter-warrior registration number was F33-405.[47] In Alita: Battle Angel, it is 26651.
  • Her favorite food is chocolate in the live action movie. She eats several other foods in the manga.

References[]

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