Battle Angel Alita, Volume 7: Angel of Chaos

After the 'miracle' save in the previous volume, Alita is provided with a new operator on Tiphares. This young woman is Lou Collins (a Libra with type AB blood, for what that is worth). She is a bit idealistic, but her personality seems to mesh better with Alita's than the previous dour citizens she has had to deal with. Kishiro introduces a cute gimmick - a super-deformed monitor puppet of Alita on the Tiphares side and a way cool Lou Bike for Alita. This personalizes the relationship, and the reader will fall right into the change.A sudden attack sends Alita to the southeast after Barjack and Desty Nova. En route, she wanders into another desert fight and rediscovers Fury the cyborg dog and Koyomi from 'Angel of Redemption. [As an aside, this dates the events of this volume at about 10 years after 'Redemption.' Alita was a long time in the rebuilding.] They join up to try to find Kaos, a musician an underground radio operator who only senses radio waves and can read the past of an object.The finally of this volume is a series of turnabouts which leave the reader (as well as Alita and Lou) wondering which side, if any, is the right side. Certainly, Tiphares, which depends entirely on what can be taken from the surface dwellers, represents what is wrong with any government by an elite. However, the 'rebels' are not clearly delineated as the 'good guys' either. We are forced to question out own standards in a world where Alita, a cyborg, is the closest thing to human. Except, perhaps, Koyomi and Figure Four, but that still has to play out.When this phase of Alita's story started in the previous volume, it seemed less engaging than the previous story arcs. Much of this has to do with writer Yukito Kishiro's painstaking blending of action story, political statement, and spiritual investigation. This is a difficult combination to balance, but with 'Angel of Chaos', things are well underway again. The stage is set for the approaching climax.

As I learned from Yukito Kishiro's own website, Kishiro was pressed for time to finish "Battle Angel Alita". I think he started to hurry the story somewhere in volume seven, "Angel of Chaos". While it didn't fall short like the motorball volumes, it came close to doing so.After the bizarre ending of "Angel of Death", Alita leaves her new boyfriend, Figure Four, promising to return. This does cause the reader to wonder whether Figure plays any major role at all in the story and whether "Angel of Death" served any purpose, but luckily it's not too big of a deal. Thankfully, the story does jump right on track with Alita's mission: finding Desty Nova, the man who indirectly killed Doc Ido and promised to rebuild him. We are also reunited with an old friend grown up, and some brand new characters that fit right into the story.As always, Kishiro's art is top notch and his storytelling is superb, filled with love, hate, betrayal, and interesting plot twists. And, as always, squirmish amounts of blood and gore make this for mature readers only. But while the story is still good, volume seven runs into a few problems with its pacing. Sometimes the story moves too quickly, causing a reader to wonder what just happened. An example would be a man is about to kill someone when a metal dog appears to save her. The metal dog appears seemingly out of nowhere; he just arrives. But the pacing problems are most evident in the ending. I won't spoil it, but I will say it felt a little shorter than it could've been.But to make up for the pacing problem is something rarely seen in the previous "Battle Angel Alita" volumes: humor. One of the new characters, Lou Collins, is a reinarnation of Shumira from volumes three, four, and five, but she is a lot more funny and interesting. We also get to see something else rarely found in "Battle Angel": chibi-Alita. I won't give anything away, but I will say it adds a lot to the humor already found in this volume.All in all, "Angel of Chaos" does still manage to stay on the same level with the "good" volumes. Its pacing problems might frustrate some people, but the majority of readers will ignore then in favor of concentrating on Kishiro's beautiful story.

IT'S THE BEST I'VE EVER READ.. NOT AN OLD FASHION COMIC.. IT TALKS ABOUT LIFE, DEATH, KILLING, CRYING.. AND OUR INNER THOUGHTS.. LOVE, HATE... GOTTA READ IT AT LEAST 50 TIMES!!

Strengthened with a new purpose and her love for Figure Four, Alita must first satisfy the wants of her masters before she can "take control of the rudder of her life." She is called upon to arrest the man who was responsible for her father's death, but to do so, she must go through the strongest brigand band in the badlands, the Barjack. On the way, she meets Koyomi, a face from the past, now with a story of her own, and a reinforcement to the thought that she can no longer just live for herself. Alita also meets Kaos, an extraordinary man with hopes too bright and clean to exist in this world. Kaos helplessly falls in love with Alita's strength and hardened virtue. Den, the leader of the Barjack, embodies all the wounds and anger that Alita has felt, and when she faces him, it is a true battle in every sense of the word

Here, the cyborg, Alita, meets an old friend, Kyomi (Battle Angel Graphic Novel No.1 and 5). Here, Alita meets a new friend, Kaos. Radio Kaos finds himself in love with the beautiful and dangerous Alita. Alita learns that Kaos is the son of the infamous Dr. Desty Nova. Desty Nova & Kaos...as different as night and day. What is to come of the relationship between Alita and Kaos? What is Kyomi doing outside of the Scrapyard? These questions will be answered in this action packed graphic novel: Angel of Chaos.