Battle Angel Alita: Mars Chronicle vol. 5

Should I have talked about this latest volume in the most recent podcast?  Nope.  That was all about discussing the “Alita”-related stories that I hadn’t had a chance to talk about yet, and were also representative of its Shueisha-era heyday.  Five volumes in and it’s clear that “Mars Chronicle” is a much different beast in terms of story and feel from the original series and the majority of “Last Order.”  What I thought was originally going to be a follow-up to how Alita’s story left off in the previous series has turned into a deep dive into the backstory of her former comrade-in-arms Erica, as well as her mentor Baron Muster.  By focusing on them, mangaka Yukito Kishiro is digging into the nature of characters who initially appear to be villains and whether they actually qualify as such once their histories and motivations become clear.

Has he been successful with this?  Kind of. Kishiro’s storytelling has been somewhat scattershot as it feels like he’s jumping from scene to scene early on in this volume as he tells us the story of Itall, the man who would become Baron Muster.  A lot of this feels rushed, as if the mangaka was in a real hurry to get through all this, but the ideas underpinning Muster’s transformation are sound. The revelation he has as to why he’s had to suffer all this time is especially interesting in that it’s a new take on this kind of thing.  We do get back to focusing on Erica in the last two chapters, and even Yoko shows up again, as she tries to take control of her destiny. It’s obviously not going to work, but watching her struggle against it does provide some decent drama. All of this is entertaining on its own terms, even though I’m still left waiting for the series to get back to focusing on Alita herself.