The Battle Angel Alita manga series features a cast of characters designed by Yukito Kishiro. The series takes place around the city of Scrapyard where residents, of whom many are heavily modified by cybernetics to better cope with the hard life, are forced to make a living.
The series focuses on Alita, the protagonist and title character, a young cyborg with amnesia struggling to uncover her forgotten past through the only thing she remembers from it: fighting. Early on in the story, Daisuke Ido, a bounty-hunting cybernetic doctor who finds and revives Alita plays a major role as well, but midway through the manga he becomes marginalized as focus begins to increasingly shift to Desty Nova, an eccentric nanotechnology scientist who has fled from Tiphares (Zalem, in Japanese version). Nova is the mastermind behind many of the enemies and trials that Alita faces, but does not make an actual appearance until more than two years into the story, although he is alluded to early on. Finally, Kaos, Desty Nova's son, a frail and troubled radio DJ with psychometric powers, also begins to play a crucial role after he comes in contact with Alita. He broadcasts his popular radio show from the wastelands outside the Scrapyard, staying away from the increasing conflict between Tiphares and the rebel army Barjack.
Protagonist Alita
; Portrayed by Rosa Salazar
Alita or in the original Japanese version, originally named before her amnesia, is the main protagonist. She is known for her fighting prowess as a practitioner of the powerful Martian cyborg martial art and her racing skill at , the most popular sport in the western district of Scrapyard. In the manga, Alita is occasionally referred to as "octopus lips" due to her pouty expression. Alita's background and history were briefly hinted at, but were not explored until Last Order and more extensively in Mars Chronicle, which reveals that in her previous life, she was highly instrumental in creating the world within which the manga series are set.
Alita takes on a variety of roles through the manga, starting out as a licensed bounty hunter known as a "hunter-warrior". She later becomes a Motorball player nicknamed the "Killing Angel" and eventually the Top League champion, after which she retired from the game and became a part-time fight instructor and bar singer. Two years later, after being forced to use a firearm (an illegal capital offense) to defeat a berserked Zapan, she is pardoned from execution and recruited by the Tipharean Ground Investigation Bureau for ten years as an elite ground agent of TUNED, a counterinsurgency task force, during which she is nicknamed the "Death Angel" for her prowess, unknowingly also serving as the basis for the development of GIB's combat androids known as the AR (Alita Replica) series which debut towards the end of the original series. In Last Order, she spearheads a combat team called the "Space Angels" which includes three other AR series replicas, and competes in the LADDER-sponsored Zenith of Things Tournament before becoming the first civilian team to win it. During this competition, Alita is given the relic "Fata Morgana" which grants her direct access to the quantum supercomputer Melchizedek and makes her into the Last Order agent.
In the original manga, "Gally"/"Alita" was the name of Ido's pet black cat, who died a month before he found the remains of cyborg girl in the Tiphares junkyard. Gally the cat was a male, and Ido's friend Gonzu comments that it is strange to name a female cyborg after a male cat. The cat makes an appearance in the manga as part of a dream that Alita experiences while being trapped in Desty Nova's Ouroboros program. In the dream, Alita is named "Gally" while the cat is named "Alita". Nova himself appears in this dream as "Uncle Nova", reflecting that he cannot get along with the cat. After Kaos in the guise of a dream Den attempts to rescue the real Alita from the Ouroboros and begins fighting with the giant Great Martian King dream robot, the dream Alita and dream Gally merge, appearing in the form of the real Alita. The side story "Holy Night" reveals that Ido took the original Alita in shortly after he arrived in the Scrapyard, at least five years before he found Alita in the Tiphares junkyard.
In the original manga series, Alita transformed into a Tree of Life in order to save both the cities of Tiphares and Scrapyard, and after five years is reborn as a full-flesh human. This ending was changed in Last Order to Alita being killed by a bomb in an ambush and reconstructed by Desty Nova, although this reborn version is later revealed to be a replica android of her with a brain bio-chip that contains the same memories and combat abilities of the original, while her original organic brain is actually sealed inside a box that she is tasked to carrying the whole time, which is, in its own turn, became attached to an organic version of Alita which, as in the original, find peace in family life with Figure. In Mars Chronicle, her childhood origin story as the cyborg girl Yoko is explored further, as well as her rivalry with her estranged adopted sister Erica.
Daisuke Ido
; Portrayed by Christoph Waltz
is a cybernetics physician (cyberphysician), a doctor who specializes in operations on cyborgs who lives in The Scrapyard. He is responsible for restoring Alita after finding her in the Tiphares dump heap, a massive pile of garbage ejected from Tiphares. Ido also has a second line of work as a hunter-warrior. He is a former citizen of Tiphares, the great floating city suspended over The Scrapyard, as is indicated by the mark on his forehead, and is the first Tipharean introduced. After being expelled from Tiphares for unknown reasons, Ido trained as a cyberphysician and – five years before the main story starts – opened his own clinic.
Ido considers Alita to be like a daughter to himKishiro, Battle Angel Alita: Killing Angel, page 15.Kishiro, Battle Angel Alita: Angel of Victory, pages 16, 119. and their relationship progresses through several stages as Alita grows mentally and emotionally. As Ido wanted Alita to remain pure and unsullied,Kishiro, Battle Angel Alita, pages 34-37. he is originally opposed to her becoming a hunter-warrior, but accepts her decision. He later accepts her decisions to play motorball and "leave the nest" after retiring from motorball. Ido is later nearly driven to madness and erases his own memory after learning the secret of Tiphares. Daisuke Ido has no active role in Battle Angel Alita: Last Order besides appearing in Alita's thoughts, that is until the Alita Quest arc.anonymous, Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, chapter 113.
In the 2019 film adaptation, his name is changed to Dyson Ido and he is portrayed by Oscar-winning Austrian actor Christoph Waltz.
Antagonists Desty Nova
Portrayed by Edward Norton
is a mad scientist and former citizen of Tiphares, who has used his extensive scientific knowledge and expertise in nanotechnology to save Makaku and Jashugan, as well as resurrect Ido and Alita from states that would normally be classified as "dead", even in this world where cyborgs are commonplace. He fled Tiphares to obtain the freedom necessary to experiment with live humans, a component he deems necessary in his research of karma and psychological capacity. A dream sequence shows that had his situation been different, he could have easily been a loving, protective father figure for Alita. He has injected himself with nanomachines that can repair dismemberment and give him pseudo-immortality. Nova possesses knowledge of the secret of Tiphares, one that could drive its citizens mad if released. Nova has a liking for the dessert cake flan, and can often be seen eating it, boasting that he thinks better while enjoying it.
Although he is the main antagonist in the original series, Nova becomes much more of a neutral, ambiguous figure in Last Order, where he is one of Alita's key allies. Nova has two assistants, but they do not appear in Last Order.
A prodigal scientist who goes beyond the seemingly mad, amoral man and becomes a more complex ally and adviser. He appears in several different incarnations due to his "Stereotomy" ability, an atmospheric nanotechnological process that, should Nova be killed, automatically restores him as he was before death, right down to his memories and even clothing.
Original Nova: At the end of the original series, Alita decapitates Nova in battle. Nova survives regardless thanks to a second "back-up" brain bio-chip stored in his abdomen. After killing Alita with a bomb, Nova transports her remains to Tiphares and, along with his assistant Jim Roscoe, resurrects her with a new "Imaginos Body" with a neuronal accelerator which gives her unlimited potentials. In the original series, Nova guides Alita to confront the Melchizedek – the deus ex machina of Tiphares – about the truth of Tiphares and Ketheres' history. Nova provokes Melchizedek too far, causing it to go haywire and self-destruct. To save Tiphares from being purged and collide with Scrapyard below, Alita takes an Imaginos trigger given by Nova and sacrificed herself to secure the Sky Hook by fusing with it. Nova immediately regrets giving Alita the trigger, as he cannot bear being saved by her selflessness, and goes completely mad. Five years later, Kiyomi and Figure encounters a senile, insane Nova, who lures them in to a cavern deep in Ketheres, where they find Alita reborn from the Tree of Life with a human body. This original ending is retconned in Last Order, where Alita wakes up in the new Imaginos Body only to find Nova has died disembowelled a week earlier. A pre-recorded video message then reveals that Nova exposes the brain bio-chip conspiracy to the Tipharean population, resulting in mass insanity quickly spreading and devastating the floating metropolis, culminating in a chaotic two-week civil war. His assistant Roscoe also goes crazy and kills Nova, looting his two brain bio-chips, which later fall into Alita's hands. However, it is later revealed that Nova has already invented the Stereotomy process, which allows him to create reincarnations of himself, making him effectively an immortal presence.
Nova II: After Roscoe kills the Original Nova, the Stereonomy process creates "Nova II". This version of Nova decides to replace Alita's living brain with a bio-chip before she awakens from her resurrection, placing her brain in a protected crate known as the "F-Box". After Alita awakens, he insinuates himself as an ally of an unsuspecting Alita, offering to help her locate the brain of Lou Collins in exchange for bodyguard duties as he travels to Ketheres. Once at Ketheres, Nova II encounters Aga Mbadi, who explains that he, along with the Tipharean citizenry, are "manufactured" with the eventual goal of producing geniuses such as himself. Mbadi then defeats Alita and her team and captures Nova II, destroying his body and keeping the bio-chips with the intent of assimilating them into his mind; he later decides instead to resurrect Nova II as his new assistant and henchman: "Super Nova".