Known as Gunnm in Japan and then Battle Angel Alita to the Western audience, Battle Angel (in all of its incarnations) is now part of the canon of Blade Runner-inspired anime cyberpunk. Adapts the first two volumes of the manga.

The film version follows a Hunter Warrior and cyborg healer named Ido. Ido formerly lived in the floating land of Zalem (Tiphares in the book), the paradise that hovers over the refuse heap of Scrap Iron City in which he now resides with his former lover, Chiren. In his travels as a bounty hunter — killing spine thieves in a world in which human nerve tissue has become the most precious commodity — Ido one day discovers and repairs the remnants of a cyborg whom he names Gally (Alita in the Western version).