Battle Angel

BATTLE ANGEL (1993)

Format: 2 29-minute OVA episodes

Type: Sci-Fi Action

Rating: R (N, AC, AL, GV)

American Production: ADV Films

Grading
Premise:	B
Story:	B-
Writing:	B-
Character Design:	C+
Animation:	C
Artistic Merits:	C
English Dub:	C
Musical Score:	C+
Opener:	n/a
Closer:	C

Humor Content:	n/a
Action Content:	B-
Drama Content:	C+

DVD Presentation:	C
DVD Extras:	D

OVERALL:	C+

Synopsis

In a distant future world where cyborgs are common and a ground-bound metropolis has sprung up around the scrapheap of the floating city Zalem, a cyborg-specializing doctor discovers the head and shoulders of a diminutive female cyborg laying in the scrapheap, just barely alive. He uses his talents to restore her and give her a new body, but her memory is lost, so he names her Gally and adopts her much like a daughter. Ido, the doctor, also has a darker second life: that of a hunter-warrior, one of the bounty hunters who deal with the criminal elements of Scrap Iron City at the direction of the almighty Factory. When Gally discovers this she decides to help out, and finds out in the process that she possesses phenomenal combat skills and a hunter’s instincts. She proceeds to become a hunter-warrior herself, only to be trapped in a dire moral conflict when the young handyman Hugo, whom she has fallen in love with, appears on the bounty list. Can she save him from himself and other bounty hunters and dissuade him from his obsessive efforts to reach Zalem? Meanwhile Chiren, a former associate of Ido and, like him, an expatriate Zalemite, resolves to return to Zalem any way she can, only to find herself drawn in to Gally’s story as well.

The Long View

Battle Angel is based on a popular, visionary, and ultraviolent manga series by Yukito Kushiro, which is called Gunnm (translates as “Gun Dream”) in the original Japanese and Battle Angel Alita in its English translation. Only two episodes were ever made, but they are reasonably accurate adaptations of the first two BAA graphic novels. In some places the animation is virtually a panel-for-panel recreation of the manga, while in other places story elements are greatly condensed. The two biggest differences between the manga and animated versions are the addition of the Chiren character and the omission of the “berserker body” upgrade that the heroine undergoes after a disastrous early bounty hunt in the manga. And of course the violence is toned down to a mere R rating; although Battle Angel does get quite graphic at times, it’s still nothing compared to the splatterfest in the manga. Viewers who have read the English translation of the manga should be aware that some of the names seem to be different in the animation (Gally instead of Alita, Zalem instead of Tiphares) because they are based on the names used in the original Japanese manga rather than the English version.

The extensive character development that was one of the hallmarks of the manga is more limited in the anime due to time constraints but it’s still present. Left intact is the dichotomy between Gally’s girlish side and the violent, calculating nature that she rediscovers upon joining Ido as a hunter-warrior. Missing, however, is the explanation for why Ido himself is motivated to be a hunter-warrior, or why Hugo has a scar on one wrist: in the manga Ido reveals that it’s an indulgence of his own dark, bloodthirsty side, and Hugo reveals that the scar comes from him having his deceased older brother’s hand transplanted in place of his own after he finds it for sale in a market stall. A worthy attempt is made to capture the distinctive look of Kushiro’s cyborgs and human characters, which mostly succeeds even though the character designs are sometimes a bit rough. Less successful is the attempt to capture the distinctive dynamism of the manga’s action sequences. The blame for this rests most heavily on the limitations of the medium, however, because the pace and detail that would be required to fully reproduce the action in the animation would probably be prohibitively expensive.

The English dub for Battle Angel follows the literal translation fairly closely but is otherwise a disappointment. I normally have great respect for the work of lead vocal actress Amanda Winn Lee, but she just doesn’t hit the right tone here. The rest of the performances are adequate but unremarkable, and the names involved would lead you to expect better than that. In this case I favor the Japanese vocals. The soundtrack is a little more effective.

Although there are two brief scenes of nudity and some harsh language, Battle Angel easily earns its rating for its violence content alone. It can get gory at times despite the fact that it also frequently pulls its punches on what it shows. It also uses some mature themes (such as theft and sale of body parts) that make it inappropriate for younger audiences.

Battle Angel is not one of the gems of anime but it does present an interesting central character and should serve as an impetus to motivate a viewer to check out the excellent manga series that it is based upon. Its DVD is very difficult to find right now because copies have been pulled from mainstream circulation at the direction of American movie director/producer James Cameron, who owns the film rights to Battle Angel and is supposed to be working on a live-action adaptation. Given Mr. Cameron’s great track record with sci-fi action movies and special effects-laden stories, I can only hope that his efforts come to fruition in the not-too-distant future.

DVD Extras

Extras are limited to Company Previews and a Production Portfolio. The end credits have an alternate angle option which lists the Japanese voice actors.

Links

Most devoted Battle Angel/Gunnm links are centered on the manga, so see the manga review for links when it becomes available.

Principle English Voice Actors

Role	Voice Actor
Gally	Amanda Winn Lee
Doctor Ido	Guil Lunde
Yugo/Hugo(?)	Spike Spencer
Chiren	Laura Chapman
Grewcica	Brian Granvedlt
Gonz	Rick Peeples
Vector	Tristan MacAvery
Rasha and Fight Announcer	Brett Weaver
No. 10 and Tanji	Kurt Stoll
Zavan	Aaron Krohn
assorted minor roles	Tiffany Grant