The following are some unordered thoughts I recorded while re-reading Battle Angel Alita in preparation for the group discussion I had on the Dai-SOS Brigade Channel. It’s kind of a messy transcript so I would recommend you to just listen to the discussion. :
I think one thing that I changed my mind about after having the discussion, is any suggestion that Last Order and Mars Chronicle (the two Alita sequel manga series) were in any way unnecessary. Also, I harped on about “courage” too much in this post.
I am four volumes into rereading Battle Angel Alita.
Since Alita’s character basically doesn’t change, I think I can say that the most important characteristic of her character is her courage.
I don’t know if I want to talk about the manga. We’re going to have a discussion about it on the channel, but I don’t know if I want to talk about different aspects of the story. There’s certainly a lot going on with the world-building and so on.
The first time I read the manga, I was a lot more interested in the world-building, to the point where I was kind of disappointed when Alita moved out of the Scrapyard, as happens at the end. But this time, I can kind of see how the situation in the Scrapyard and Zalem, and Desty Nova’s plans, and finally Alita herself—how it was all unstable. Basically, the way that the plot progresses makes total sense.
I’d forgotten how fast everything happens, but then again, maybe I’m not spending as much time on each panel. I used to think that the art was amazing, and it is good. It does not look out of date at all. I remember that at some point the art style changed in the manga. I haven’t reached that point yet, but I remember that I didn’t like the style which came afterwards.
By the way, if you’re reading it on MangaDex, the version there is really bad, so you will have to find somewhere else to read it.
I think I like Alita’s character, but maybe not as much as I used to. So her character basically doesn’t change, and maybe it doesn’t need to change. I kind of skipped over a lot of the talk about ki and, you know, the explanations about how the powers work and so on. I feel like the action in the manga panels just speaks for itself most of the time, so I kind of skimmed through it.
Alita is a character who basically needs to be fighting against something or someone, because I guess otherwise she would get rusty. And that’s the whole point of her character, really. I don’t think that there needs to be any more to it.
I read some blog post by the guy who runs the gwern.net site, which I think hosts the No Thank You memoirs as well, about the early history of Gunnm. His take was talking about Alita’s femininity, I guess, and whether Battle Angel Alita counts as a feminist manga. He kind of came to the conclusion that Alita’s gender didn’t really matter. I wouldn’t go that far, but I kind of agree it only mattered for some of the romance, especially with Hugo. I can see why that was the part which got adapted in the movie and the OVA, and I think it’s the part which caught people’s attention because, obviously, they’re trying to draw some contrast between her cute character design and her violence.
Okay, what else is there? Yeah, I guess she also never really ages. I mean, from the very start, she’s technically older than all the other characters.
I’ve come to the point in the manga where Desty Nova gets introduced. I totally forgot that his goal was to defeat karma, even though he doesn’t seem very hopeful that he can. But yeah, he was one of my favorite “mad scientist” characters, so I’m looking forward to reading his madness all over again.
I think basically, Alita’s character design helped to sell copies. I don’t think it would be as popular if Alita was a guy. So I guess you could say she’s a bishōjo character.
I guess it would have been interesting to see if Alita’s gender was swapped. Then also the gender of the antagonists would have to be swapped because a few of them end up kind of falling in love with her.
I also found out that originally the manga was called Gunnm and that Alita’s actual name is Gally. I mean, I’m okay with both names, but Alita is probably better. I know I should side with the mangaka, but it is what it is.
There’s also Ido’s relationship with Alita, which, you know, basically has him trying to treat her as a girl, as if she was his daughter, but that doesn’t really work out in the end because it’s against her nature. I guess that’s relevant to the fact that Alita is a girl, but basically that’s dealt with at the very start. And then, I guess as Alita’s legend spreads, nobody seems to like the two minutes spent on her violence after that point. And there are those who do—at least the main antagonists—and those who do quickly find out… well, they don’t stay around for long after they find out what she’s capable of.
I think that it’s an important motivation for Ido to be there as well, basically because I’m not 100% sure that Alita’s nature is 100% good at the start of the manga. I guess she becomes like a good person because she has a good father figure. But it’s difficult to say. It’s difficult to say because there seems to be basically… the strongest characters also have something good about them. So there seems to be a correlation between courage and strength on the one hand, with goodness on the other.
I guess the whole talking point—which is especially true in this setting—is that courage is the virtue which makes all other virtues possible. And that is certainly true here. I think this is shown most clearly with Zapan’s character arc. Basically, unlike most other antagonists, Zapan tries to use tricks in order to get at Alita.
Of course, Desty Nova’s character could also be said to be a trickster kind of character, but I don’t know… he’s just too mad. He’s more mad than… I mean, he’s not recovered, I’m sure. He’s just insane, which I don’t think is the same thing as a character like Zapan. I mean, Alita doesn’t really do much to him other than hurt his pride a bit by calling him a coward, but then after he loses his mind as well… I mean, after he loses his face, he becomes a cyborg. So both Desty Nova and Zapan, after losing his face, are insane, but they have a different kind of insanity. You know, Desty Nova’s insanity is a kind of Faustian one. He’s driven by wanting to find out how to defeat karma. He’s driven by wanting to disprove karma, though he doesn’t sound like he believes that it can be done.
I can’t remember if Desty Nova went insane after finding out the secret of Zalem, but I haven’t gotten back to that point in the manga yet, so I guess I’ll wait.
Most of what I’ve said probably makes no sense unless you have read the manga. So I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to even explain what the plot of the manga is. At first I was kind of lazy and I thought I would just watch a recap video of the manga for the discussion, but there’s one recap video on YouTube that’s not good. It was no good because basically they omitted saying any of the names of the characters. So it wouldn’t have really helped me to talk about the series without knowing any of the names. It would just be a series of battles. But it’s not just a series of battles. There’s a clear progression, you know, from… there’s a clear progression which leads to… I probably shouldn’t talk about what happens later on yet, but basically the situation, the setting, is not stable, and it makes sense.
I think that the manga is not really complete yet. I mean, the original series is completed—that’s the one which I’m rereading—but I’m tempted to reread Mars Chronicle and then Last Order. I’ll probably read those two, which I thought in the past were kind of weaker than the original series, but I should probably give them another chance. And apparently there’s going to be another Alita series coming out this year. But, you know, it’s a manga, so I’m probably going to wait another few years rather than read chapter by chapter, because you can finish a manga chapter in like a few minutes. And I don’t know, I feel like I would just forget what happened in the plot and not get the whole picture.
Last time I dropped it, they were revealing Alita’s backstory on Mars. It was finally revealed, but I stopped reading. Now that series is complete, so I can read it now and find out what actually happens. I think that’s an arc after the main series where it kind of turned into like a tournament arc, basically.
I also looked up where this was published originally. I think it was published in a magazine called Business Jump, which was a seinen manga magazine. But I think Alita is still basically a shōnen manga, undoubtedly. And yeah, that’s kind of why I wasn’t too invested in how the powers work or, you know, the shōnen explanations which happen between battles.
I feel like I should probably be more interested in how powers work because it’s a very geeky otaku thing to be into, but I just can’t. On my last video, someone I know left a comment about how the powers in shōnen manga are basically a reflection of the themes and of the characters’ personalities. I think maybe that’s kind of why I don’t like it that much because it kind of… I think maybe that’s what takes me out of the story. Not this story, not Alita, because… I don’t know, they’re just punching each other and cutting each other with blades most of the time. There’s nothing that fancy. It’s not really that bad. Basically, you can follow the battles without even reading most of the explanations. It’s all very clear.
But yeah, I kind of feel like it takes me out of the story when powers work that way. It’s the reason why I couldn’t get into A Certain Scientific Railgun (I think that’s what it was called). I don’t know. It kind of feels like anything could happen because, “Oh well, you know, it makes sense because of the themes.” So you can see what I mean? It feels kind of meta, but not meta in the sense that it’s like a joke.
The comment also talks about how the characters who win normally in shōnen manga are the ones who have the correct convictions, so they win because they have the correct convictions. I kind of get what he’s trying to say, but at the same time, that’s not really true. That’s kind of the problem I have. It’s not really true that the side who wins is correct in real life. And unless there’s some plot reason provided in the manga itself as to why having the right convictions leads to victory, then it’s not really explained. It still doesn’t make sense.
If you said something like, “In this world, you win if you’re on the right side because that’s what the gods want,” that would at least make sense. But basically, there needs to be a reason. Otherwise, it feels like cheating.
I guess you could say that Zapan lacked the courage to be happy. Well, that’s just a reference to a book about Adlerian psychology. We had a discussion about it in relation to Evangelion; maybe I’ll just pop in a link to that discussion in the description.
Yeah, but the question… In that discussion… I guess that book is relevant to this discussion as well because Adler—at least, that book argued—said that people mistake a lack of courage for a lack of competence or ability. Although, what I said in that discussion as a retort to this was: maybe so, but can you say that courage is also not a kind of competence or ability? I guess the question is whether it’s one that can be developed or not.
Now, there is a lot of talk on the right about whether intelligence is inheritable, and the consensus seems to be that it is. I wonder if the same could be said for courage as well. I think, when it comes to morality, there’s certainly a correlation with intelligence. Because if you can’t recognize that what you’re doing is wrong, then how can you… If you can’t even recognize that what you’re doing is wrong, what hope do you have to correct it?
I think when it comes to intelligence and courage, maybe things are not that clear—whether there’s a relationship between the two. Although, if you say that there’s a relationship between intelligence and morality, and there’s a relationship between courage and morality, then you could argue that indirectly the two are related. And you could also argue that a lack of intelligence leads to fear out of ignorance. But I don’t know if things are really as clear-cut as that.
We are getting back to the manga, I guess. Alita is of average intelligence. She’s smart when it comes to fighting and exploiting weaknesses, I guess, although she’s not sneaky. So she’s not clever in that way.
What were the three characteristics? Intelligence, courage… Yeah, she’s not… Alita is not exactly a saint either, but she will not hesitate to kill anyone or tear people’s limbs off if they get in her way. And she won’t feel sorry about it either, after the fact. Intelligence… yeah, but she’s a good girl, I guess. She’s a good girl, which is why Ido likes her.
On the feminism thing, another interesting point might be how… basically, Ido kind of plays the part of the damsel in distress and needs to be saved by Alita—from Professor Desty Nova, actually.
How is it that you become a professor anyway? I know that you can become a doctor by getting a PhD, but don’t you actually need to be a teacher to be a professor? I wonder what Desty Nova’s classes would be like. I can kind of imagine them being a bit gory, I guess. And I imagine your students would get injected with nanobots…
So, I’ve been wondering: what is it that gives Alita courage? I think that it’s probably the love that she has for herself, as well as for those around her, like Ido. I mean, this isn’t something unique to Battle Angel Alita; it’s a common trope that characters in anime get their power from their love for their friends, or for themselves. Although, in Alita’s case, I guess it’s also love of the fight—the feeling of victory over others—which, of course, she shares with her opponents quite frequently. Yeah, I don’t think it’s too far off to say that love is courage, at least in this series.
Maybe even just love of power as well, I guess. Although, I wonder if you stretch the meaning of “love” so much that it doesn’t actually mean anything at that point. There’s certainly a self-overcoming, Nietzschean theme going on, although I’m not sure whether the mangaka has actually read Nietzsche.
The reason I say that is because of that fake Nietzsche quote. What was it? When Makaku says that “the spirit is the body’s plaything.” Now, I know that Nietzsche is quite popular with the bodybuilder types, but I don’t think that’s something Nietzsche would actually say. But then again, I don’t know. I mean, I think it kind of makes sense in the context because Makaku’s form was a result of his desires—well, his desire perverted by Desty Nova’s monkeys. Basically, man… Yeah, it’s so funny to think how so much of the disaster in this setting happens just because of this one mad scientist.
It doesn’t look like Desty Nova is trying to overcome karma himself, though. He wants to use others to do it for him, but he won’t do it himself. I guess in that sense, the mad scientist character archetype is kind of inferior. Although there is one mad scientist I’m aware of who does end up bending reality to his will: Hououin Kyouma from Steins;Gate. Yeah, I really need to rewatch and reread it. Maybe I could even get the Japanese version of Steins;Gate and start to mine sentences from it for my SRS deck in Anki.
Basically, I’m using an Anki deck I got off the internet, but I’ve heard it’s more effective when you use a deck you made yourself. So I’m wondering whether I should make my own. It’s kind of difficult to just do AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) because, you know, I’m studying English, so obviously a lot of the stuff I need to read is in English. I think Khatz (from AJATT) was studying computer science or something, and he bought his computer science textbook in Japanese. Yeah. Another thing he said to do was to set my PC to Japanese. It’s certainly something I could do.
Alita is an amnesiac, so how much of her life are determined by a past that she doesn’t even remember? I mean the reason why she is able to survive at all is because of techniques which she inherited from her previous life, which she doesn’t remember anything about.
Is Alita a feminist manga? That’s one thing which I have been wondering about. Alita says that she doesn’t want to become a dress up doll for Ido, and that she doesn’t want a hapiness that is just handed to her. How much of Alita’s femininity is real? Because I remember reading a feminist on a website called Gwen.net complaining that since Alita is wearing so many hats, and since all of the later major antagonists and major characters are male, it seemed to imply that Alita is just an exception. Or in other words, it’s not feminist enough.
The hunters who refuse to confront Makaku, who don’t even try to come up with a plan are letting Makaku determine their fate but at the same time it’s not like Alita has much of a plan, she just wants them to potentially sacrifice themselves for her and Ido without even having a plan on how to defeat Makaku. That may be the truth however manga operates on a rhetorical level which is different from the truth. A few years ago I read “Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga” by Hirohiko Araki, the creator of Jojo’s Bizarre adventures. And if there’s one point from that book which I remember is that for manga to sell you need to have a protagonist who is brave. Like you can have a protagonist who is evil and the audience will still accept him as a protagonist as long as he is brave.
Fake Nietzsche quote by Makaku: “My intellect is bound to whatever body my head inhabits. For as Nietzsche said, ‘the spirit is but a plaything of the body’.” In volume 1
Also I would say that cowardice and madness go hand in hand with not being being able to face the truth in Alita. Although I wonder if the truth is always as Alita sees it, or if she can survive and be headstrong because of her combat ability, or if her combat ability is because of her mental strength. It’s difficult to say which preceded which in her case, because of her incomplete amnesia has granted her a higher degree of martial prowess. But basically the one unforgivable sin for Alita, and for the setting, is cowardice.
It’s not like I am against Rule of Cool but I am just against half-baked explanations. Basically, at that point, it’s better not to give an explanation at all.
Obviously, this is a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk setting which is not supposed to be a prediction of the near future, but it’s interesting how the assisted suicide issue was on people’s minds back then too. We haven’t reached the point of having public suicide booths yet… And maybe you could say that it’s oversimplifying the issue in order to make a point that it is cowardly to give up just because things are hard. When it comes to the overpopulation issue, however, the manga was wrong. I am surprised that they even have an overpopulation issue in the scrapyard given that there are so many cyborgs and I am assuming that having a machine body reduces your fertility rate. I don’t believe that they don’t have birth control when they can swap out human bodyparts.
I wonder if there is an explanation in Alita’s past for why she’s good at music but battle has a kind of rhythm to it I suppose, then again I know nothing about either.
I guess the question is at what point is it that an earnest “don’t be a coward” turns into a flippant “just have confidence bro.”
