I’m going to begin this review with a bit of autobiography. Like many kids who grew up in the late 70s-early 80s, I got a taste of Japanese animation (i.e. anime) through Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, and Robotech. In college, I was reintroduced to it and was shown in no uncertain terms that anime could and did address some very mature and thought-provoking subject matter, all while still being very fun and entertaining. One of the animes that showed that potential was a 1993 direct-to-video release (OVA, in anime fan parlance) called “Battle Angel.”
Battle Angel was based on Gunmm, a manga series drawn and written by Yukito Kushiro that he began publishing in 1990. An English translation of the manga was released around the same time as the Battle Angel anime and I immediately began buying the volumes. Kushiro has continued the story and is still publishing Gunmm (or Battle Angel Alita, here in the states) manga and I am still collecting.
Sometime around the year 2000 or so, I began to hear rumors that there was another, far more famous, fan of the Battle Angel series; that being James Cameron, who after the overwhelming success of Titanic was the hottest director in Hollywood. When asked at some point what he wanted to do next after Titanic, he told the interviewer: “Battle Angel.” I was beyond stoked.
Of course, life doesn’t always work out the way even big shot Hollywood directors want it to go, and as the years passed Cameron had to alter his dream of bringing Kushiro’s vision to the big screen. Avatar cemented his place as that “hottest director” yet again, but it was almost too successful. The studios wanted more of that and a lot less of his dream project. So he passed the director’s chair to Robert Rodriguez and the project finally started moving forward.
And I got to see it this past weekend.
