Allegheny Teen Center Reading Program #11 - Battle Angel Alita pt 1

Summary: Hank 300 and Nick Marino kick things off with a recap of some recent @AudioShocker Twitter conversations with ATCRP listeners @Fuzzy_Esquire and @jason78ka. Big ups for listening and interacting, tweeps! Then we begin a new multi-part review marathon of Yukito Kishiro's renowned Battle Angel Alita manga, starting with the first four chapters of Battle Angel Alita v1. First released in 1990 in Japan as Gunnm and later reprinted by VIZ for English-speaking audiences, Battle Angel Alita is a post-apocalyptic hi-tech lo-fi adventure story about a bounty hunter / scientist who rescues a dormant cyborg from a trash heap. (Unfortunately, VIZ hasn't taken any steps to make BAA available digitally, which means that it's readily available on scanlation sites.) Hank and Nick discuss the themes at work in BAA's introductory chapters, from "you gotta kill the head!" to Alita's discovery of identity. Nick finds similarities between Kishiro's art and that of his North America contemporaries who formed Image Comics. Here are a few notable moments we single out during our discussion. And, as always, Hank ends things with some important announcements from the Allegheny Teen Center. NEXT: We cover the final three chapters of Battle Angel Alita v1 and take a look at the Battle Angel Alita OVA anime.