Patreon Pin Up 4/15/19 (Patreon)

For the unfamiliar, Alita (or Gally?) here is a robot who doesn't exactly have an age as far as I know, but she's built to look early teens in the story. As always, my take is meant to be an adult version of the character. But rather than just draw her looking older, I thought I'd write the idea into the pic here. With her appearing older by "upgrading" her chest. I guess with the big head and small body she still looks a bit younger than the characters I normally draw. There's a "Battle Angel Lolita" joke worth making in there somewhere. 

So I haven't seen the Battle Angel Movie, but I'll check it out when it hits video. (Am I the only one who thinks those crazy CG anime eyes are actually kinda cute, in a weird way? Yes? I'll see myself out.) The fact is I have a bit of history with the series.

Back when my friends and I were first getting into anime, the original one-hour OAV, Battle Angel knocked our friggin' socks off. We'd never seen anything like it. The animation and art style were insane for the time, and it told a compelling story with a likable star. By some miracle you can find the whole thing on Youtube right here, and I'd recommend it before someone notices and it gets taken down. Though I hear the new movie is a pretty faithful adaptation, so you may want to skip the anime if you want to avoid spoilers. 

I always carried a torch for the anime version to have been turned into an ongoing series. As while it is a fairly open and closed story, it was just the beginning chapter. If you want to see what Alita gets up to next, time to start collecting the manga, a practice I've never been a fan of. Manga artists apparently get paid so shockingly little per volume that they can't seem to help but pad their stories to a degree where you'd have to add an extra wing to your house just to store your One Piece collection. Not for me, but here's hoping the movie got enough traction for a sequel or, better yet, inspires a proper anime adaptation of the whole story.