Gunnm

This is the one that taught me not to judge an anime by its cover. I expected an hour of mindless violence along with a weak story line. Instead, I found myself in a very deep and well developed world for the short time spent in it. It was all story, and an incredibly imaginative place perfect for the story.

It was definately too short. It could have had a great and long lasting series life if they had chosen one. But it was none the less, an enjoying ride, and not a moment of wasted time.

This feature deals with the possibility of full cybernetic replacement of the frail human body and the effects this may have on society and the individual. What kind of value would be placed on human life? What capabilities do you build into a machine body? Can a human brain thus sustained, have a soul? There is plenty of action and even a love interest. It's an anime' classic that should be required viewing for any anime' fan. And a great starter for anyone wishing to try anime'. Be advised, though an animated feature, "Gunnm" is graphicly violent. It is NOT a cartoon. No cute bunnys. "Gunnm" (Battle Angel) is an incredibly well animated adaptation of a popular Manga (Japanese Comic Book Style). The only drawback is that their is only one and apparently no plans to continue the work in Anime'. The Manga however... continues.

Any serious anime fan will have a special place in his heart for Gally. She is *the* textbook example of the innocent anime girl. Where this work shines is in Gally's character development through her experiences where she discovers a personality of her own after being reanimated. Her gradual acquisition of her defensive affection with the Doctor and her innocent but deep attachment with Yugo are impressive. No fan of good film acting can criticize this "cartoon" as inferior to live action.

All this applies to the Japanese version with subtitles. The English dubbing is awful.

The movie is based on a manga by Yukito Kishiro, which is generally seen as one of the better manga's out there.

For the unknowing: A manga is essentially a comic, japan-style. Most of the drawing is in black and white, quite in contrast to the western style comics. The drawing style however is a lot more realistic, save for the faces, than western comics. The faces are caricatures of how they would really look, but, this makes that feelings are conveyed a lot better than any western comic ever can. As it is stated in a Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita outside of Japan) review, you can see in an instant how Alita is feeling, and the same goes for a lot of other characters.

Here comes the difference between a manga and an anime: Manga is Japanese style comic, Anime is Japanese style animation (mind you, NOT cartoon!). The difference is often forgotten, but should be pointed out.

Anyway, back to the anime: Gunnm is a 60 minute adaptation of the first 2 graphic novels of the comic. The movie is roughly divided in half, although the story flows through entirely. I can say beforehand: the movie is a very WEAK adaptation of the books. Nothing more, nothing less. It has been westernized too much. The character Chiren doesn't even appear in the books, and the big guy Alita defeats twice has an entirely different role (and not for the better).

The movie has been westernized to much in the sense that is has been simplified. Add a character tehre, make it quasi a double love story, add some fights and you're done. The entire path of discovery of Alita is left out (her fighting style, the Panzer Kunst, is essential to what thrives her to live on and discover where she's from, but the concept is entirely left out of the movie).

On itself, you can call the movie okay, but when you've read the books, it simply doesn't reach the level of the latter.

All in all, the animation is good, even very good. In terms of visual quality it ranks up right next to Ghost in the Shell in my books, while not being as realistic and dark, the fluent movement is very good while still remaining in the spirit of anime (watch the documentary on the Animatrix DVD to know what i mean with that).

The English voices are very much out of place, they are way too excited for the situations they're in, as if they were doing voices for any pokemon movie. That's what really brings down the movie, please try and watch it in Japanese with English subtitles if possible. English just doesn't cut it, but that goes for virtually every anime every dubbed in English.

To sum it up: This movie is a good 1 hour watch, and some may even want to watch it more. However, there's a lot of things that bring the movie down, especially when you;ve read the manga first.

If you watched this movie, buy the manga (starting with the first one of course, there are 14 translated graphic novels as of today) and read it, you'll be hooked. If you do it the other way around you'll only be disappointed.

After watching the terrific movie Alita: Battle Angel, which I felt fell apart towards the end, I decided to watch this to see if the story was the same. It is, and it's also an hour long which means it runs through that story like lightning. There's very little in the way of character development; just lots of plot.

Turns out it's a pretty similar story, and from what I've read the anime and the movie are both fairly true to the original manga but make some changes. Unlike the movie, the anime holds together because it doesn't start throwing in a bunch of stuff that seems crammed in. But it also lacks emotional punch because you're not given a chance to really get to know the characters.

It's not as good as the live-action movie, but it is entertaining enough.