Battle Angel (1993)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

i must have seen a different film!!

hyped garbage

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Battle Angel should be great. Its got a fascinating, dark world, fine animation, brutal action scenes, even good characters. Yeah, its exploitative in its violence, but compared to other OVAs, its freaking Shakespeare.But this isn't a stand-alone product. Its based on a manga with 9 volumes. We only get a peak of the first two, in only two episodes. So much is brought to the table...and is left to collect dust. At least in the world of animation. I just hate that mentality. "Like what you see? Better buy the comics..." Does it work as a stand alone? Kind of! o3o' There is a theme of desperation, the misery of living in this junkyard world. For the brief time you spend, the events are well-paced, and you get a great sense of the culture and technology of this world. The dialog could use some work, though, and the English dub ain't that great.Its an alright sit. I wish it had a few more episodes...but then again, I don't particularly like Volumes 3 and 4. :V

Movies like this can completely change your taste in the visual arts. While superficially the plot and characters may seem familiar and overdone, there a parts of this anime that definitely shine.The scene where Yugo realises his dream, with that music in the background, is pretty amazing, and when Ido and Alita send his arm to Zarem in the baloon also sends a tingle up the spine. While I would love to see a continuation of this series, it seems almost fitting that it should end the way it did, leaving the life of Alita to your imagination.

This is the one that taught me not to judge an anime by its cover. I expected an hour of mindless violence along with a weak story line. Instead, I found myself in a very deep and well developed world for the short time spent in it. It was all story, and an incredibly imaginative place perfect for the story.It was definately too short. It could have had a great and long lasting series life if they had chosen one. But it was none the less, an enjoying ride, and not a moment of wasted time.

Can't help but think that the English title "Battle Angel Alita" is probably just a wimp out for "Lolita". Remind me, eyeballs should be *smaller* than fists, right? That said, Battle Angel is thankfully free of teeny sex, although the ubiquitous brief glimpse of nekkid adult lady is pubic hair free, which I always find quite disturbing.The animation is fine, although the scale of characters varies wildly, with Alita shrinking to almost Tinkerbelle proportions in some shots. Also, gravity seems to have a particularly tenuous hold on our little protagonist (even for anime!) and she does spend a fair bit of time just staring wide eyed.Voice talent in the English dub is par for the course for anime, i.e. pretty dire. Alita at least has a distinctive cutesy mock-English timbre. The baddies are all instantly identifiable by their voices, which is frankly insulting and doesn't help to convince sceptics (or me, to be honest) that anime is more than a kiddie cartoon gone rabid.There's some attempt at characterisation among the protagonists, but a fifty something minute runtime isn't enough time to expand on one fall/redemption story, let alone three or four. In fact, the whole thing is wrapped up and ended very abruptly in the last few minutes. It feels forced and unfinished, and smacks of series pilot.Still, it was clearly a classy bit of animation before the translators got their hands on it. As usual, I'm left with the feeling that it's an opportunity wasted, and that a subtitled version would probably be much more enjoyable - as is definitely the case with Akira.