‘Alita: Battle Angel’ Set Photos Reveal Iron City and More

Hollywood isn’t going to give up on anime until it gets its adaptations right. The multi-billion dollar medium is not the niche fandom it once was. With millions of fans to its name, anime could become the next superhero trend in film if studios could do adaptations justice. So, Battle Angel Alita will be Hollywood’s go at the genre.

This December, Alita: Battle Angel will make its debut in theaters nationwide. The movie, which was slated to premiere in July, will go head-to-head with films like Aquaman and the first Transformers spinoff, Bumblebee. Over the weekend, press had the chance to visit a partial set for the anime adaptation at SXSW, and social media lit up with behind-the-scenes photos.

As you can see below, the set pictures show off Scrap Iron City in all its dingy glory.

A film event for Alita: Battle Angel brought part of its set for press and fans to walk through. The run-down building facades show off how the Scrapyard will look in the film, and fans are feeling pretty good about their aesthetic. The weathered sets look as dirtied as they should, and all of its tech has a junkyard vibe. The cyberpunk series already looks like it will have a vastly different vibe than adaptations like Ghost in the Shell.

So far, fans have only gotten a cursory look at Alita: Battle Angel in live-action. The first trailer for the movie showed off the metropolis as Alita wandered around the hellish area, so fans could not judge it properly. If audiences are lucky, the film’s second trailer will show off the Scrapyard’s scale, and fans may be lucky enough to get a glimpse of Tiphares as the floating city hovers overhead.

For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM in Japan), the series was originally created by Yukito Kishiro. 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. Originally published in Shueisha’s Weekly Business Jump in 1990, it was collected into nine volumes and licensed for an English language release by Viz Media.

How are you feeling about this live-action adaptation? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!