T5W#554-Top 5 Ways the Alita: Battle Angel Movie Surpasses the Battle Angel OVA

Alita: Battle Angel is easily one of the better Live Action Anime offerings out there, which is certainly something for a project that languished in development hell for over 20 years before it’s 2019 release.  Me personally, I knew of the title, both Anime and Manga, but had never seen or read them until recently.  And while I would still love to read the Manga sometime, if I didn’t make it clear by Monday’s review: The OVA is not great.  In fact, I think it’s pretty bad.  So bad I wonder how it convinced anyone to turn it into a movie (maybe James Cameron read the Manga idk.).  Anyway, looking at the OVA for the first time was plenty of incentive to rewatch the movie again for the first time in years and guess what, IT’S STILL AWESOME.  So awesome it puts the Battle Angel OVA to shame.  I know those are strong claims but I stand by it and on todays Top 5 Wednesday, I present my evidence with the Top 5 Ways the Alita: Battle Angel Movie Surpasses the Battle Angel OVA.  BTW, for clarification, I have not read the Alita Manga.  So for this Top 5’s purposes, I’m only looking at comparing the OVA to the Movie and nothing more, though I theorize a lot of what’s lacking in the OVA is in the Manga but I digress.

Battle Angel

Gally may look like a charming young girl.  But the truth within her is far more deadly.  Rescued from a trash heap by a kind scientist, Gally slowly discovers her fighting potential, driving her to become a force for justice in the downtrodden city of Scrap Iron City.  As she struggles with the warrior within, Gally will soon come face to face with the draw of the skyward city, Zalem, and those who will risk their souls to get there, including what’s left of their humanity.

One of the most notable aspects of Battle Angel Alita’s existence outside of it’s widely praised Manga is how long it’s live action feature film lingered in Development Hell.  Director James Cameron fell in love with the OVA and made it a mission to get a live action version made for years.  It wasn’t until Cameron went off to do Avatar and handed the directorial reins off to Robert Rodriguez that we got that long awaited adaptation that ended up surprising everyone, including myself, with how good it was.  Which brings us today to the OVA itself and…yeah.  This is another one of those cases as with the original Bubblegum Crisis or Megazone 23 (Part 1 & 2) where I can sort of see the appeal but don’t really understand why this is such a beloved classic, unless most people are actually talking about the Manga.  And judging from how messy the whole affair turns out, I’m not surprised we haven’t gotten any kind of follow up anime.
 

T5W#553-Top 5 Hottest Ladies in Netflix’s One Piece

The second season of Netflix’s Live Action One Piece (aka Into the Grand Line) dropped last week.  My review of it is still a couple weeks away but one thing I could not wait to talk about it regards to the new season is its hotness factor when it comes to bringing some of the most legendary beauties in Anime to life.  Netflix has done a pretty solid job with its casting in the show and the five ladies we’ll de discussing today on Top 5 Wednesday are just as capable of stealing hearts as they are all of your hard earned cash.  These are the Top 5 Hottest Ladies in Netflix’s One Piece.  There may be some MINOR SPOILERS ahead for Season 2 since most of this list is comprised of Season 2 characters but I’ll keep things as minimal as possible.

Robot Carnival

A massive structure roams the desert, carrying a never ending parade of robotic entertainment delights.  It is a show that brings memories and visions of worlds beyond imagination.  In each, Robots search for answers to their existence, clash for dominants on distant worlds or simply relish in the strangeness that follows them.  It’s a show only the greatest minds in Anime could conceive.  Welcome to the Robot Carnival.

Anime Anthologies can be a nice entry point to new fans of the Anime genre.  Usually they have a wide assortment of studios and directors with tons of experience under their belts that together can show off just how multifaceted Anime can be as a whole.  This has led to some truly amazing collections such as Halo: Legends, The Animatrix, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Memories and last weeks amazing Neo Tokyo.  However, then there are titles like Robot Carnival.  This was actually released a few months prior to Neo Tokyo in 1987 but the difference in quality between the two could not be more clear.  Whereas Neo Tokyo was an incredibly immersive and unforgettable experience, Robot Carnival turns out to be the opposite, overly long, nonsensical and worst of all, absolutely boring.
 

T5W#552-Top 5 Theories About the Next Evangelion TV Project

Just when we thought that the final word had been said on Evangelion back in 2021 with the epic masterpiece Evangelion 3.0+1.0-Thrice Upon a Time, a couple weeks back saw a major announcement during the 30^th Anniversary of Neon Genesis Evangelion: A New Evangelion TV Anime is in the works from the forces behind Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuX.  This is kind of a big deal.  This will be the third Anime iteration of Evangelion (or 4^th depending on how you look at the Death and Rebirth/End of Evangelion Movies).  Considering the story has been told in two spectacular ways across 30 years, what exactly can we expect from a new series?  More importantly, what’s it even about?  Well I have my thoughts on that and on todays Top 5 Wednesday I’m sharing my Top 5 Theories About the Next Evangelion TV Project.