The series is set in a 26th century dystopia, and revolves around the city of Scrapyard, grown up around a massive heap of rubbish that rains down from Tiphares, a mysterious city floating above. ‘Surface dwellers’ are barred from Tiphares, and must make lives for themselves amid the scrap. Alita is found in the garbage heap by cybernetics doctor and part-time bounty hunter Daisuke Ido, who rebuilds her body and takes care of her. She remembers nothing about who she was or how she came to be in the Scrapyard, but she does discover a talent for killing which leads her to join Ido as a bounty hunter. The story continues over nine volumes as Alita attempts to rediscover her past and struggles to reconcile her identity as girl and killer, human and machine, individual and soldier.

So far, so Nineties. So why am I writing about Battle Angel Alita now? Well, because James Cameron is about to start making a live action/CGI film adaption of it and I want AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to read it before that happens. While there’s a lot to love in Cameron’s films, I am concerned he’s going to turn an intelligent, philosophical and political story about identity into Hot Robot Chick (With A Heart Of Gold) Kicks Ass In The Future.

First of all, Alita is no balloon-breasted manga stereotype – while she does have an unnaturally ‘perfect’ body and is beautiful in a childlike way, she is very rarely drawn in an overtly sexual style, and spends most of her time fully clothed, often in a trenchcoat and suitably stompy boots.

Secondly, though tiny and feminine (at times, anyway) she is supremely strong, still a powerful cultural dream in a world where violence against women is epidemic. Refreshingly she rarely relies on guns, instead using a cyborg martial art – sidestepping the ‘bigger than yours’ approach to women kicking ass.

Thirdly, the series further departs from convention with a powerful female protagonist that a) never uses her beauty, sexuality or other feminine wiles to get the upper hand and b) is never raped or nearly raped or avenging somebody else’s rape.

That said, the series does explore issues around bodily integrity, control over the boundaries of the self and the intimate operations of power, and there is a definite gendered aspect to this. For example, at one point troubled genius and desert DJ (yes, DJ – it’s complicated…) Kaos saves Alita’s life by repairing her body and she wakes up naked on an operating table with his hand inside her.

I’m not saying that Battle Angel Alita is a feminist work, or that it will be everyone’s cup of tea – it is extraordinarily violent, for one thing. For another it is inescapably problematic that Alita derives her physical strength from mechanical bodies created or enhanced by men – Ido, Kaos and mad scientist Desty Nova. Nonetheless, when the chips are down she is often saved by her resourcefulness and her connections with others.

Cyborg Feminism

There is nothing about teeing ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices. Gender, race, or class consciousness is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historical experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism.