Battle Angel Alita

From OtakuWiki

Synopsis

It happened one day while cyberneticist Daisuke Ito was rummaging through the vast junkyard below the floating city of Tiphares, looking for spare parts to repair poor cyborgs. He had then came across the head and torso of a female cyborg that had been lying in the scrapheap for over 300 years... and the most amazing part of it – her human brain was still alive! It took a while, but Ito was able to reconstruct her body, although her memories of the past seemed lost.

He names the cyborg Alita (after a cat he once owned), and she works with Ito as he repairs the various cyborg citizens of Scrap Iron City. However, one night, Alita follows Ito as he mysteriously leaves his office... and he encounters a former gladiatorial mutant and his fellows, now reduced to brain-eating criminals. It seems that Ito, a former citizen of Tiphares, is also a hunter-warrior – a bounty hunter registered by "The Factory", an agency under the control of Tiphares, to bring in the heads of these criminals. But when Ito is injured in the act of capturing the criminals, Alita does a remarkable thing... she attacks and single-handedly kills two of the criminals. Apparently, Alita is the master of a long-forgotten martial art named Panzer Kursk, exclusive among cyborgs, the last known master of the discipline going missing over 300 years ago... the same amount of time Alita laid in the scrap heap. Could this be a clue to her past?

The time line of this manga, as well as its sequel, Battle Angel Alita: Last Order, spans over a thousand years, and during this time Alita undergoes various changes, some of which includes being a player of a hyper-violent sport on the planet Mars, then as a musician when she returns to Earth, and finally an agent of Tiphares. All through this, she not only finds out about her past, but must struggle to find the secret of not only herself, but of Tiphares itself.

This manga is also the basis, not only of a two episode OVA anime, but the basis of a major motion picture currently under production by James Cameron, who also produced "The Terminator", "Titanic" and "Avatar" (not to be confused with 'Avatar: The Last Airbender').