Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, Omnibus 1

Alita: Last Order Omnibus #1

by Yukito Kishiro

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN? The lovely, deadly cyborg Alita returns in 664 pages of cyberpunk action! Alita wakes up alone in the sky city of Tiphares, her brain and body reconstructed by the mad scientist Desty Nova. There’s no time to wonder why Alita’s greatest enemy would resurrect her, though – the royal city has been thrown into chaos by Nova’s revelation that the Tiphareans have had their brains replaced by bio-chips! Everyone needs answers – and Alita will fight to get them! INCLUDES TWO ORIGINAL STORIES BY YUKITO KISHIRO NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH! Collects Vol. 1,2 & 3

Genres: Manga, Comics, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Cyberpunk, Comics Manga, Dystopia

674 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 3, 2016

About the author

Yukito Kishiro (Japanese: 木城ゆきと) is a Japanese manga artist born in Tokyo in 1967 and raised in Chiba. As a teenager he was influenced by the mecha anime Armored Trooper Votoms and Mobile Suit Gundam, in particular the designs of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, as well as the works of manga artist Rumiko Takahashi. He began his career at age 17, with his debut manga, Space Oddity, in the Weekly Shonen Sunday. He is best known for the cyberpunk series Battle Angel Alita.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you'll find yourself having reading material that is so unlike you and this book is certainly an example of that. I would call it a comic but the knowledgeable folks would correct me with that label and tell me it is a manga. Which is easily recognisable since you read the story from back to front and you do the same thing with the drawings. It took me a few pages to get the hang of it.

This is apparently the sequel series, which I looked up on the internet, and starts with an Alita who is being rebuild by her former enemy. And she is being convinced that he is not all that bad. A lot of philosophy, neat Scifi ideas and some impressive fighting scenes come by. And while I really enjoy some of the ideas I was mostly impressed with the quality of drawing which is really something else.
I actually managed to understand most of the storylines and that combined with some impressive world building concepts made it actually quite a pleasurable read even if this was quite a brick of a book.

More pleasurable than expected and a fairly easy read for a newbie in manga.

[P. Kirby · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best part of this manga was the two, unrelated bonus stories at the end.

I read quite a bit of manga in days of yore, so I'm no neophyte when it comes to this style of comic, but Battle Angel Alita: Last Order Omnibus reads like an adolescent boy's fantasy. Lots of gore, fuck-all for character development, and dialogue that makes George Lucas look like the master of witty repartee. The problems with dialogue may be a function with translation, and some of the narrative choices, cultural quirks, but if not for the gorgeous art, this manga would have been a DNF.

As it is, I skimmed, looking at the magnificent art, paying cursory attention to the story. Alita is back from the dead, resurrected by mad scientist, Nova, whose motives in the matter are a cypher. As are the motives of every character in the story. The storytelling is awkward, all tell, no show, with characters pausing for clunky monologues, in a feeble attempt to explain their wildly careening mood shifts and weird decisions. The only even remotely human character is Ping, aka The Weasel, a disenchanted hacker who rescues Alita (who has been ripped in half, literally), and agrees to help find...whoever the fuck Alita is searching for.

Confession. I don't remember reading the first Alita, and this is definitely not a good [re]starting point for entering Alita's world. Nevertheless, this really should stand on it own. Especially given all the info-dumps throughout the story. Instead, it's a hopeless, hot mess of throwaway characters.

Pretty art and good use of physics make the reading tolerable, but overall, not worth the $2.99 I spent.

[Diz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This follow-up series that picks up where the original Battle Angel Alita series left off leaves a lot to be desired. This series takes place mainly in space, and it turns out that post-apocalyptic space is much less interesting than post-apocalyptic Earth. The author feels the need to explain everything about the factions in space, so there are long sections of exposition that don't really have anything to do with Alita. Also, Alita has become a passive character in this series as she is basically just dragged around to different places by other characters. A lot of these characters are new characters, so there are long stretches that focus on them, but these characters aren't very interesting and their motivations are not clear.

[Victor The Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Battle Angel Alita: Last Order Omnibus, Vol. 1 (My Kindle Review)

“Battle Angel Alita” was an incredible manga to binge on as we follow a young cyborg girl who got a second life in a post apocalyptic world. I wasn’t surprised that Alita’s story was far from over and jumping into her next series “Last Order”, it’s still has that same heart pounding storytelling.

Picking up from the original nine-volume series, our cyborg heroine Alita wakes up from a slumber in the sky city of Tiphares and learns she’s been given a new mechanical body by the evil Nova, the man responsible for changing her life forever. She also learns that everything has changed, the town citizens have controlling biochips for brains and how it’s now a struggle for survival. She meets some unexpected acquaintances on her quest and it looks like Nova has his own help that will attempt to stop her by all means while seeing memories from her past. The biggest surprise of all is that Alita’s journey will take her to space that has its own civilization and is just as dangerous as home. We also get two short stories by the author that are like small fantasies.

An amazing beginning from this follow-up series that has a lot of what we saw from it’s predecessor while being a few new characters, a whole new environment and even a few familiar faces. The best thing is that there’s a lot of action and Alita battling many enemies throughout it all. There’s still a few questions I hope to see answered as the series goes on, yet I’m so excited and antsy to see where her new story will take her. A (100%/Outstanding)

[Ryan King · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m torn. The original Battle Angel Alita was quite incredible, however I feel Kishiro really stumbled when he allowed Nova to live on and kill Alita at the end of those books (I mean, Nova’s motivation to bring back Alita from the dead thereafter feels so unmotivated and purposeless). I say all this because what ends up emerging from those ashes is a mutant. You either have to accept the rushed poetic non-canon ending told in the deluxe edition or choke down this rambling elongated start of the canon ending as told by Last Order.

Alita’s character arc felt whole and complete and now it feels stretched and directionless. The build up to discover the city of Zalem/Tiphares falls short of expectations and honestly as Alita discovers more of the city in the sky and upwards into space the less important the plot, characters, and story we grew to love in Battle Angel Alita seems. It’s always a shame when an author blows up their previous masterpiece for the sake of continuing a story.

Further, Last Order just feels different. It revels in excessive violence and introduces a host of characters that drift off into the void of importance. Also the continuous monologues from characters describing the “science” of what was going on (mostly Nova talking while he watches Alita fight) gets so boring and just feels like an anime/manga cliche.

The light of redemption only briefly shines through the character Ping Wu towards the end of the omnibus as well as through the completely unrelated short stories that are included at the end.

I’m disappointed to say the least.

[Nore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kishiro's style has definitely changed over the years - not just his art, which is cleaner and more realistic now (it's excellent but I definitely preferred the more stylized work he was releasing in the 90s), but his writing, which falls more in line with a modern shonen manga, where the fight scenes are long and drawn out and a character is providing a blow-by-blow on the sidelines. Roughly half of the second volume of the omnibus is comprised of fights like these - and since these style of fights are one reason I don't read a lot of boys' manga, I was a little disappointed in this reboot!

I still have a soft spot for the series, though, and the art is still nice, so I did like it.

Also, honestly, Zazie? She made the whole first volume for me. I was realllllly hoping she'd be a new permanent character because I found her so endearing.

[Adam Calhoun · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first collection of a "reboot" of Battle Angel Alita (the original). The original was inventive and WEIRD, WEIRD, WEIRD, even if it occasionally had somewhat uninspired plotting. This version moves the location from the dusty slums on a dying Earth to the clean domain of the elite living in space. Somehow this new setting sterilizes the creativity of the original. Even where there is a lot that could be expanded - for instance, the idea of having multiple clones of Alita running around, this time of nebulous morality, is passed off with a shrug instead of existential angst.

This collection has some minorly interesting new ideas but its peaks are below the troughs of its predecessors.

[Darjeeling · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ahhh! I see that the facial formation is finishing up over here."
"Could the lips be a little too plump?"
"Pretty cute!"
"But of course! This brain is XX, after all."

...

'Faith. That alone makes me human.'

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I shouldn't have jumped into the back end of a story. It seems to be well written and drawn, but I don't know enough backstory to care about the characters. Fatal flaw for me...

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wowowowowow!!! What a fully formed, intricate, badass, post apocalyptic sci-fi!! I’ve become so obsessed. After finishing the first run of Battle Angel Alita, I was wary that the sequels wouldn’t add much to my experience of the Gummn world. But damn, Kishiro followed up with an even bigger world and story. I feel like I was living in the Scrapyard with the edges of my world not passing the soil of the earth and the piles of forgotten tech and metal, but SIKE! There’s a whole planetary society/federation/conglomeration that adds even more depth to the story. This series has a very fleshed out scientific basis, great Black representation (more than any other manga I’ve ever read), badass ladies, and action and gore galore. If you haven’t read Alita, you’re truly missing out. It is my dream manga. I love it with all of my heart and I’m so excited to continue the series. READ THIS SERIES!!!!!

[Artur Coelho · Rating 3 out of 5]

É sempre divertido, se bem que pouco compreensível, mergulhar de chofre no meio de uma longa linha narrativa daquelas tão à japonesa, de cyberpunk hiper-cinético ultra futurista. A acção diverte, a estética seduz, e a leitura oscila entre o fascínio com a descoberta do mundo ficcional e a frustração porque, não se tendo lido os episódios anteriores, parte dos seus conceitos e premissas nos são inacessíveis. Alita - Gunm no original, é nisto uma boa surpresa, transportando-nos a um sistema solar futuro, colonizado mas com a humanidade a divergir em formas exóticas, com venusianos obesos, jupiterianos que trocaram a carne por corpos robóticos, Marte em perpétua guerra civil, e a Terra como berço, nexo político, alicerçada em duas cidades orbitais umbilicalmente ligadas a cidades flutuantes na atmosfera, sob as quais se espraiam gigantescas favelas.

Vamos descobrindo estas camadas de forma progressiva, através da reactivação da andróide de combate Alita às mãos daquele que tem sido um dos seus mais consistentes adversários. Reconstrói a inimiga com as mais avançadas tecnologias, manipulando-a para conseguir ascender aos segredos da cidade orbital. O resto, são cenas intensas de luta e intriga. A cidade flutuante é palco de uma intensa guerra civil quando os seus habitantes descobrem que os seus cérebros são substituídos no final da adolescência por chips com as suas memórias implantadas, e o destino desses cérebros, fazer parte de uma matriz que alimenta uma inteligência artificial, a obsessão do cientista que reconstrói Alita. Ao chegar à cidade orbital, novas e poderosas forças se revelam, aniquilando os mais poderosos, e Alita só sobreviverá com ajuda de um hacker que sobrevive nas entranhas da cidade orbital. O sentimento de viagem infinda, de cada etapa que prometia ser um final se revelar apenas mais um patamar para outro destino, é a grande característica deste livro, bem como a sua típica estética barroca de mangá cyberpunk.

[Sean Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little skeptical when I saw a whole new series but I think the writing for this is so amazing, maybe even better than the original series. Can't wait to read it all!

[Fiannawolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the stuff that lead to Ghost in the Shell for me. Woo!

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh. I finally decided to pop open this new spinoff series, and I wish I'd just left it with where Alita ends. Art is nice and clean, and there is some interesting choreography, but that's about where the positives end. (And if you like the old art style, the nice new one might be a turnoff too.)

Alita is basically bobbing on the shores of everyone else's story, stepping in to save them as the plot demands, but otherwise content to just brood in the corner until it's time to go. That's basically her whole personality now. Nova's entire motivation for everything is now just "for the lulz." There was a wasted opportunity for Alita's clones to be complex foils, but instead they're just Nova's wacky sidekicks after a short fight. Lots of people get introduced in one panel so they can die gruesomely in the next. (The first two volumes are almost nonstop gore.)

Then we have Jim, who is a caricature of every shonen genius driven to bloodthirsty madness, philosophizing the whole way, participating in a many-chapter fight that rambles forever.

Then everything grinds to a sudden and *complete* halt, as we're treated to a full volume of pure exposition on technobabble and solar system politics, full of infodumps and uninteresting side characters. You have the distinct feeling that Kishiro had spent years expanding this backstory and his feelings about it, and had to throw it all out there as quickly as possible, like a first-time fantasy author. Only in the very last chapter does the story start moving again, even if the jump into a new plot and fight was without much context.

Overall, the pacing is generally either dashing from fight to fight with no clear idea of what's happening, or spending interminable pages explaining what happened and what's going to happen, with no character-driven drama that kept the original series moving at a steady clip -- except for what's forced for plot sake in weird ways -- because the characters are cardboard cutouts put on the page in service of Kishiro's heavy-handed musings.

The two side stories at the end are great though. Reminds me of how Kishiro's writing and art and characters used to be.

Despite a few glimmers of good here, I have no intention of reading the other four volumes, not when this one steadily dropped from a 3 to a 1 star for me. (Thus the 2 average.)

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is new story arc for Alita, and in my opinion this one is much much darker than the original story one.

Alita gets resurrected by the crazy scientist Nova on the floating city of Tiphares. She is awaken so she can help Nova with something but events go epically wrong and soon Alita finds herself wandering this giant city and trying to figure out what is going on. She is searching for her friend Lou (whom I have to admit I dont recall at all) and it seems that Nova is the only one who can help her find Lou. Unfortunately, path leads to heavens, through mysterious world of Ketheres that hangs above Tiphares, as a form of sword of Damocles, and seems to be the place where Alita might learn more about herself, maybe more than she wants.

And so story begins.

I have seen some reviews critical of the setting, but I am not sure why. It seems that Tiphares is just tip of iceberg - what we get introduced here is power arrangement in the whole Solar system. We get introduced to parts of humanity that have evolved beyond recognition on Jupiter and Venus and everywhere in between, we see glimpses of war on Mars that Alita barely survived as a child, and this is not beautiful picture. This is world of immortal population who sees kids as existential threat and tries to exterminate them wherever found under nuts pretenses of limited resources. This is cruel world of people who have forgotten what being human really is, and (considering how elites think and work) I shudder at the thought that some idiot might read this and take anything from here as good idea, instead of just enjoying the story.

With sudden appearance of Aga Mbadi, enforcer of what is called Ladder (sort of a UN in Solar system) it becomes obvious how something happened in the past, monumental f***k up that created Alita's world in the way that it exists today.

At the end of the omnibus we get two comics by the same author that are not related to Alita at all. They show some very interesting ideas that author also found their way into Alita story line.

Very interesting story arc, definitely worth attention of all SF and cyberpunk afficionados.

Recommended.

[ダンカン · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if Battle Angel Alita original published ending wasn't original at all? When the first Battle Angel Alita: Last Order was released, this was actually the intentional idea from Yukito Kishiro of how, from the original series, suppose to progress. Since the original series ended in 1995, Last Order is a direct sequel (or a continuation) from where it was left off when Alita was killed by a doll bomb. Waking up in Tiphares, the story continues in a more, philosophical way of what it means to be human and a whole range of characters were introduced.

Collecting the first three volumes, Last Order is in fact, unlike from the original. There is much to explore when it comes to humanity and purpose and how we delve into the origin of the city in the clouds and beyond. While it opens up a whole new universe in making, the story can be too wordy and it might turn off any first time readers of Alita. For the art itself, its more refine and beautifully executed. The pages are easy to follow but of course, the reading is one that takes time to understand the world that is built by the creator himself. With this omnibus, also comes two earlier works from Yukito Kishiro - Fly and The Great Machine. Fun to read and worth exploring why how his earlier works really inspires him to create the world of Alita. The binding of the omnibus edition can be easily crease if not handle well, so a person like me when reading needs to be careful without creating a crease on the bind.

Battle Angel Alita is a favorite of mine that I love so much since the beginning. The Last Order is one I would recommend to any sci-fi manga readers out there IF you have read the first original series first, then you should go into this sequel.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was of two minds as I started this. Rather than being a continuation of Alita's story from the original series, it's a diversion. In the original, Desty Nova manages to trap and destroy Alita, then revives her in Zalem and sets her loose. This starts essentially at the same point, but it diverges heavily from there, sort of an alternate universe story. In this, Alita wakes to the city in the clouds (not translated as "Zalem" in this series which to me loses some of the original meaning as that city was part of the New Jerusalem there). She finds the corpse of Desty Nova near by and proceeds through a devasted city, trying to find out what has happened to herself, to the city, and those she knows there.

Overall it was actually good, once you accept that initial premise of this story, and it progresses a lot deeper into the cities orbiting Earth and the other civilizations in the solar system. Thus, though we lose some of the satisfying ending of the original, this is clearly moving in an interesting direction on its own. It helps that though the story has altered, the characterizations remain true. Alita, Desty and a few others that make appearances are recognizable to their original counterparts and behave true to who they were there.

Kishiro also delves deeply into the spiritual side, and keeps that discussion of what makes us human. Once the superficial things that we consider make us human are removed, what else is there? He explores that deeply once more in this book, and adds new characters and conflicts that make Alita, those around her, and the themes shine.

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost -- this is NOT a reboot. The events of Battle Angel Alita happened (except perhaps the ending -- if you research it you'll find out why things went the way they did, this is not the place for that.) Just know, this is a continuation of the Alita story.

That being said, I gave it 3-stars because I just wasn't as in to this story (so far) as I was the former. It did not feel as accessible to me, the characters were not all that interesting (to begin with... later some started to be). Even Alita herself did not standout to me. I will pick up at least the next omnibus and see if the next 3 volumes in one can win me over. Right now I'm somewhat on the fence.

Verdict: If you liked the original, you might like this. There is certainly a lot of material to come. If you're just getting into Alita -- DO NOT start here. Go find the original series.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very different direction.

Not quite what I was expecting. This particular volume is extremely lore heavy. What enjoyed about the first series of Alita was just following her life trying her best to be better than the cruel world around her. This series seems like it’s clearly intending to extend the series way longer and seems to have a much different of focus from the OG manga heavily expanding is lore and world. I started last order because I the cliff hanger at the end of the OG manga was a heck of a stinger that made me go “welp guess it gotta start last order to see how it truly ends”. And little did I know that there is so much more to come when I was ready for the story to rap up nicely.

[Miki Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Addicting

Not for the feint of heart, but for anyone who enjoys the art of manga as much as the story, this volume will keep you up at night. In a good way. There's a seemingly endless supply of crazy ideas happening one section to another, but it tracks consistently to make what seems an inevitable whole story, whether it was planned that way or not. I often find myself stopping and just admiring the details, both foreground and background, with bits of humor hiding there. I can't imagine how someone can create so many pages of art in a lifetime, much less in one of many volumes of work.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Battle Angel Alita given a sort of reboot, and I can see why. This takes place in the immediate aftermath of the child bomb that destroyed her near the end of the original series. The original became sort of breathless and the tone changed considerably, and the existence of this series is a nice confirmation that it was not what the original artist had intended. Look forward to continuing on with this, and boy is there a lot!

[Wes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of my year of comics, I came across this on sale for about three bucks. Hard to pass on at that price. I never finished the first Battle Angel Alita series, but I did start it and enjoyed it somewhat. If you are going to read this, you should at least have read SOME of the first series. Otherwise, you are going to be totally lost. I can't say I am going to hunt down more Alita stories, but if I come across them super cheap and have NOTHING else to read, I will end up grabbing more.

[Дмитрий Андреев · Rating 5 out of 5]

Отличное начало легендарной серии. Этот толстый томик может похвастаться как зубодробительным экшном, так и пространными, но хорошо прописанными диалогами о то, что есть жизнь и что значит быть человеком. Постапокилипсис сменяет научная фантастика а ты все также остаёшься влюблённым в колоритных персонажей Юкито Кисиро.

[Aran Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will keep reading, but I am pretty intimidated by the massive world building info dump of this first omnibus. I am most interested in the basic theme of what makes someone alive. However, I really miss the fight scenes. I am hoping that the story will start to feature more Alita and less scenes of interplanetary space councils.

[Erick M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alita está de regreso!!
Tenía toda la razón, verdaderamente Yukito necesitaba tiempo para poder desarrollar la historia apropiada. Puede que no se sienta tan marcado como en los números originales cuando acaba un arco y empieza otro, pero verdaderamente todo ha escalado de forma más orgánica.
Deseoso de leer más!

[Cabu7815 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as gripping as the first series until we get into space in the second half or so of the book. However, I don't feel like all of the interpersonal connections that made the first series beautiful are there. Still a great series and the short stories at the end were charming.

[Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff

Lovely art and interesting characters. A great continuation of the original series. I didn't read the two shorter stories at the end as they're unrelated to Alita and probably just here for exposure.

[Aj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the mix of cyberpunk, science, pseudoscience, philosophy and battles. Two additional short stories are also included.

[Yuiko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it better then the original series

[Jamie McIntire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book. Movie was bad.