Another fabulous jaunt into the classic cyberpunk world. The followup notes from the author and timeline were a nice touch.

Lots more violence in this one. A darker side to the story is unfolding. And also a small hint of romance. While Alita is very smart and skilled, she is still quite naive in many ways. Girl can kick some serious butt, but I question her love interest. He has a dark secret of his own. Although learning of his childhood was so sad. Look forward to continuing!

Ok, I just realized I didn't have this series in Goodreads. I think I read them somewhere around 2000 and I *believe* I borrowed them from someone? It's possible it was a pen pal of mine, but I'm really not sure. I AM pretty sure it was the earlier VIZ edition, that flipped the artwork. This series is a little gory for me at times, but I did like it well enough to finish, and when the movie came out a few years ago I was happy to watch that.

Alita gets a boyfriend! But he has an unsavory side job and when he incurs a bounty, Alita has to make a difficult decision: bring in his head or help him escape and become a fugitive herself. This is the story arc I remember best, probably because it was adapted for the animated production years ago, which I have watched at least a couple times. Much better than the first volume.

Following 'Ashen Victor' tagged onto the last volume of the deluxe Alita books, 'Holy Night' includes four stories written after the original Alita series ended. They're all better than I expected, but none are essential to the series. As much as I liked the presentation of this deluxe release, I can't help but feeling like I should sell these and pick up the smaller paperbacks being reprinted. There's just a lot of extras. It's definitely a great way to read the series for the first time though.

This is an interesting collection of short stories set int he Alita universe. In it we follow Ido and his path to becoming cyborg-doctor in Scrapyard, we follow Alita as she chases down mysterious assassin (and barely manages to defeat him), Alita on a mission to neutralize one of the droid's used for controlling the Zalem factories, and finally Koyomi's attempt to raise back the Barjack revolution that does not quite work out thanks tot he old hand who knows what war actually is.

While Alita's stories are straight forward action stories in manner of lone martial artist challenging the forces of evil (place any Kung-Fu movie from the 70's here :)) Koyomi's and Ido's stories are more personal. In both stories our main protagonist's try to find their true purpose, meaning of life and this brings them on a path where they learn more about world around them but also they manage to defeat their inner daemons - Koyomi's destructive nature (out of sheer rebellious approach to everything that is so natural to everyone young) and Ido's general dislike of cyborg (being from Zalem where there are no cyborgs as is case in Scrapyard) that prevents him from becoming a cyborg doctor/maintenance [as an upgrade applied to his previous expert knowledge of biology and being a gifted physician]. These are stories of fear, but also coping with tragedy and finally accepting life as it is.

Art as always is beautiful, I know I repeat myself but again I can only say pure joy for the eyes.

Highly recommended to all fans of Alita universe and SF action.

This entire book is worth it just to see Alita in sports clothes.

The art is top notch, as always, but Kishiro really distinguishes himself as a writer with these stories. 10/10 W ould read again.