NAME: Gally in the Japanese version, Alita in the American

SERIES: "Gunnm", or "Gun Dream". Called "Battle Angel Alita" in America. This manga series just finished it's last issue not too long ago, and the anime version of the story is one of A.D.Vision's most popular OAV series to date.

SERIES DESCRIPTION: A brilliant doctor finds a female cyborg head and torso in a garbage heap of the dystopian Scrap Yard City, which he remodels and brings back to "life". Later on, his robotic project develops a certain love for fighting and killing, and gets involved in both bounty-hunting and the life or death sport of Motorball. She also falls in love at least once, to the best of my knowledge.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: Gally, like almost all of the other characters featured in "Melancholia And Cookies", is a study in contradictions. She instinctively remembers the Punzer Kunst, the most deadly cyborg fighting technique known on Earth, and uses it against other bounty hunters, Motorballers, spine thieves, clones, and brain eaters better than anyone else in anime could. Gally has the nicknames of "Angel Of Death" and "Evil Angel" due to her obvious ruthlessness, and it is later discovered that her previous life was as a vicious terrorist.
But Gally has a very clear vulnerable side. She almost let herself go trying to save her lover Yugo's life on finding out he was on the bounty hunting hit list, and tried with all of her might to let him reach his dream of reaching Zalem, the utopian paradise floating above Scrap Yard City. Gally truly loves Doctor Ido and is completely broken when they are forced to part ways. And although life always screws her over in one way or another, she never loses her compassion for others and her love for life. For even though she has a body of steel and iron, she has the heart and brain of a human girl...

INSIGHTS: "Gunnm" is right up there among the greatest manga series of all time, and even though it is as of now dead, it is by no means gone. Even now, especially with the advancement of the Millenium in only a few short months, the comic has a great deal of relevence in modern society. It is showing us that we are quickly losing our humanity in a world of increasing technology, that we are losing our hearts and souls among a sea of computer chips and there really isn't anything we can do to stop the 'advancement'. Sooner or later, we will all become nothing but useless videodrones in a videophonic world not worth living in, and that is what so many are fearing. But hey, Marilyn Manson could've told you that, could he?

NOTES: If you like "Gunnm", you have to check out Yukito Kushiro's new mini series, "Ashen Victor". It takes place in the Scrapyard of the former and is heralded as the Motorball Diaries. I really like it and am currently working on a shrine to it's main character, Snev.

LINKS: I really can't find any Battle Angel sites that I like very much, although a Battle Angel Site is in the works. You might want to check it and see if it is up yet.

EXTRA IMAGES:Our manga sweetheart psychotically weilding a deadly chainsaw. How cute, she's ready to cut our !@#$%^&* heads off.

The cover of the first "Battle Angel" graphic novel; a skeletal and disfigured mechanical body with Gally's head and robotic angel wings. Really, really cool.

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