Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle vol. 2

Well, that was quick.

The first volume of Alita’s latest series had me expecting that it’d be a while before we caught up to her present-day post-”Last Order” exploits.  Vol. 2 of “Mars Chronicle” starts out by immediately going “nope” to my expectations and starts off with Alita and Erica meeting at the site of the orphanage from the first volume and set about catching up/settling their grievances through the Martian martial art of Panzer Kunst.  From there, the volume sets about reintroducing familiar characters like the vampire Caerula Sanguis, Martian Queen Limeria, her bodyguard Zazie, a certain character from the previous volume, and the latest version of one of Alita’s oldest foes. This is in addition to introducing us to new threats such as the special forces squad known as the Einherjar, which includes Erica as well as her and Alita’s Panzer Kunst teacher, and the mysterious organization known as Dasein which is pulling everyone’s strings.

While it’s good to see a lot of these characters again, this second volume suffers from the fact that the threat posed by Dasein feels like a gimmick at this point.  It’s hard to get invested in them as a threat when most of what we know about the organization is exposition from Caerula. Mangaka Yukito Kishiro would’ve been better served by focusing our attention on the Erica and the other Einherjar before revealing that their strings were being pulled by something bigger.  That’s something easy to grasp and it looks as if Kishiro will be heading in that direction if the last chapter is any indication. In the meantime it’s easy enough to see Alita mix it up with the new and returning cast and appreciate the mangaka’s quick and intense fight scenes as he takes his time getting the story in order.  My patience regarding that hasn’t run out yet.

Vol. 2 also includes a bonus story “Mukai:  World of Mist” an adaptation of a Seiun Award-winning (the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo) story written by Hirotaka Tobi and illustrated by Kishiro.  It’s about a boy living in a world made up of everything that has been sucked into a sea of mist from our world and the girl he encounters there. While there’s some good chemistry between the boy and the girl, and the weirdness of the world itself allows Kishiro to cut loose with some impressively crazy visuals, the haphazard nature of the worldbuilding from Tobi’s script really drags it down.  “Mukai” is ultimately okay, but I’d have rather had another chapter of “Mars Chronicle” to round out the volume instead.