21 Feb 07

I’ve finally watched Battle Angel Alita, an early-90’s anime OVA that was a classic for its time. It’s less impressive today, though it’s still a dark piece with some beautiful action sequences and a solid philosophical core.

It’s set in the future, in a literal junk city. The populace lives off the junk discarded from a floating paradise above. The protagonist is an android reconstructed from state-of-the-art parts inexplicably junked from the paradise. Her friends are various “low-lifes” fighting to survive, and she decides to fight with and for them despite not needing to.

Most of the characters betray their morals to get what they want. But they all suffer for this. The anime is less an indictment of humanity as a sad display of its frailty. It seems to be saying that people are capable of good, but keep tripping themselves up.

Which is a fair assessment, I suppose.