Buddha And Battle Angel Alita

I'll start off by saying that I am a manga fan. Whether it's the trust that the artist has for their fanbase to follow complex story, or the illustrative elements that give an excellent sense of motion, or simple the design, I've always enjoyed reading manga. I feel that the Japanese culture is more rewarding to intense fans than they are to casual readers. I enjoy this because if I'm going to invest any amount of time into something, I tend to learn it very well and become an avid fan.

Unsurprisingly, given the nature of how I obtain manga, I hadn't read some of this older work, such as Buddha or Battle Angel Alita. I have to say that I greatly enjoyed it. Buddha was an excellent examination of how a story could be retold or reinvented. The style was definitely Tesuka, which normally I'd say was too childish for the seriousness of the story, but I felt that it allowed the story to function better in this case. This story would seem much too serious otherwise. It lightened the mood. All the normal graphic elements of manga were there, as was the rapid change from humor to seriousness and back. I attribute this to manga more than American comics in so much that often the humor in manga tends to be less about dialogue and more about slapstick and situational humor. American comics script in one liners and witty dialogue.

Battle Angel Alita, on the other hand, was extremely violent and didn't at all try to distance you from it. Given the nature of the story, I take it this is the sequel, so some parts of the story were suggested by previous experiences that I didn't have, but I actually appreciate that fact that Battle Angel didn't stop or slow down to reconnoiter. I enjoy that it trusted its fans to know what they were talking about and who they were talking about. Further, I enjoyed the fact that this new world they bring us to truly doesn't make sense. It is a world where everyone has gone insane, in some form or another, and the main character is dropped into this world along with the reader.