'Alita: Battle Angel' Creator Calls Adaptation "The Greatest Movie in the World"

Alita: Battle Angel has seen a pretty big divide between critic and audience response as fans have [...]

Alita: Battle Angel has seen a pretty big divide between critic and audience response as fans have come to love how faithful the big live-action adaptation is to the original property, scars and all.

Thankfully, original series creator Yukito Kishiro is on the side of anime fans and, after seeing the film five times already, claims it is the "greatest movie in the world."

The film recently held a special premiere in Japan with Kishiro in attendance along with the film's director Robert Rodriguez, producer Jon Landau, and stars Rosa Salazar and Christoph Waltz, and according to the reports from Japanese media (as compiled by Crunchyroll), Kishiro is very happy with the final product.

Stating that the special Japanese premiere was his fifth time seeing the film, Kishiro said, "Thanks to the great staff, it has become the greatest movie in the world. Every time I see, I can find something new. The composition is amazing. All scenes are special and there are no unneeded ones. It is so exciting that I can't believe that I created the original story."

Kishiro has been pretty vocal about his support for the new film, previously sharing a special poster illustration he made for the film along with the comment, "The core part of the manga was brilliantly passed on to the film. Including the characters' emotion and raison d'etre, they were perfectly reflected in the film, so I was very happy."

Live-action anime films don't often get the approval of their original creators, so it's great to see that this effort has at least made Kishiro happy after the project's spent so much time in development limbo. Alita: Battle Angel officially opened on February 14 in the United States. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, produced by James Cameron and Jon Landau, stars Rosa Salazar (as the titular Alita), Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, and Jackie Earle Haley.

ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis recently reviewed the film, and here's an excerpt of his thoughts, "All things considered, the movie is an immersive escape to another world. Attempts at emotion and human connections are supplemented by amazing visual and practical effects, along with well-crafted action sequences. It's not going to be the next Avatar despite being an equally massive idea, but Alita builds its own world for a second adventure which could get audiences more invested." You can read the full review of Alita: Battle Angel here.

Battle Angel Alita (known as GUNNM in Japan) was originally created by Yukito Kishiro for Shueisha's Weekly Business Jump in 1990. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic future and follows Alita, a cyborg who is found in a garbage heap by a doctor and rebuilt. Completely devoid of her memory, all she has to cling to is a legendary cyborg martial art known as Panzer Kunst. With this knowledge, Alita decides to become a bounty hunter. The series has since been licensed for an English language release by Viz Media, and collected into nine volumes.

via Crunchyroll

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