#zalem

When someone watches A:BA movie for the first time (doesn't know the manga or anything, a blank slate).

All they know is that apparently Alita fell from Zalem, being dumped with the trash.

So they think:

She was somebody's doll, servant of some kind and got disposed of.

OR, she was someone's experiment/property that escaped.

(At least that was in my case huh)

... Until it turns out she was actually a soldier from Mars, she is NOT from the sky city.

And if they follow the manga, it will turn out Alita didn't even fell from Zalem but from somewhere else.

Like her lying in Zalem's pile of trash was a giant red herring huh.

So, KoG uses the trope A:BA teased but went into another direction.

Btw, while "Guinevere being someone's property that ended up in the trash below a sky city" is rather a secure fact, that was just a pilot. Things can still turn out to be different than they seem at first, just like with Alita.

YOU CAN SEE THE COMBAT-EFFICIENCY IN HER EYES.

PIC INFO: Spotlight on "Gunnm" and/or "Battle Angel Alita" fan art/digital art by Shanghai-based artist "Hou China," c. 2019.

One thing that gets me the most about this is that she seems aware in her "altered" state- which is horrifying. And the way her eyes move and her heart beats makes the inital shock of seeing this so much worse.

If we ever get a sequel, I hope they explore this topic in more detail because this was awesome.