Characters / Alita: Battle Angel

Character page for the 2019 film Alita: Battle Angel.

For the manga's characters, see Battle Angel Alita.

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Dr. Ido's Cyber-Clinic

Alita

Alita / "99"

"I do not stand by in the presence of evil!"

^{Click here to see Alita with her first cyborg body.} 

Played By: Rosa Salazar (voice and motion capture)

Voiced By: Rebecca Benhamour (French dub), Mone Kamishiraishi (Japanese dub), Cecilia Gómez (Latin American Spanish dub)

A mysterious amnesiac cyborg girl whose limbless torso was found by Dr. Dyson Ido in the dumpyard beneath Zalem. She was given a new cybernetic body and name by him, and quickly regained reflexes from a deadly martial arts form she learned in her previous life, of which she sometimes regains fragmentary memories.

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• Action Girl: Her natural instincts draw her to battle and she spends much of the movie kicking ass.
• Adaptational Heroism: While still heroic in the manga, the movie ends up toning down a lot of Alita's more callous and Blood Knight tendencies. For instance her beatdown of the other Hunter Warriors, in the film Alita tries to give them an inspiring speech to be noble fighters and she gets spurned while in the manga, she simply writes them all off as cowards for not wanting to back her up.
• Amnesiac Hero: Alita has no memories upon awakening, not even of her original name, though she slowly regains some of them over the course of the film.
• Badass Adorable: Alita is adorable, sweet-natured, and quite pretty. She's also a nigh-unstoppable killing machine who only becomes even more powerful as the movie progresses.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Both of Alita's bodies. Justified because the first was originally built for a barely pubescent girl by her father, who probably made it non-sexualized on purpose, and the second was a military combat design, where such things would be totally unnecessary.
• The Berserker: Alita tends to transition quickly between Tranquil Fury and ferociously attacking. She is impetuous and inclined to rush into battle without adequate forethought or preparation. The military body Alita finds and later wears is even called "the Berserker body."
• Beware the Nice Ones: For such a sweet and kindly young woman, Alita is downright vicious in battle, with no qualms about dismembering her opponents if she needs to.
• Big Anime Eyes: Given she's not human (or from Earth to begin with), Alita's eyes are larger than normal, and her flashback shows that it's apparently a Martian thing. And the film is even based on a manga/anime, though, ironically, her design in the movie is based on a late Last Order artstyle where she does not have Big Anime Eyes. For added irony, her most prominent trait in the manga are her pouty lips, not her eyes.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: After acquiring the Damascus Blade, Alita can wield it as a sword or attach it to her Motorball body's arm to use as an elbow-blade.
• Blood Knight: She clearly enjoys combat to the point she seeks it out, and has no problem killing her enemies. All much to Ido's intense disapproval.
• Breakout Character: In-Universe in the sport of Motorball. Her very first tryout results in people booing her...and then the Carnival of Killers all try to kill her with predictable results. Once that starts, she becomes the breakout star of the sport, and it's how she gets the title of Battle Angel. By the time she's readying for the Champion's League, all of the fans are chanting her name.
• Breast Expansion: When Alita gets the Berserker body and it shapeshifts to suit her mental image of herself, Nurse Gerhad eyeballs Alita's slightly larger bust and remarks that she's older than Ido initially thought. This is probably a reference to one of the omake gags in the manga, although she pales compared to her manga counterpart.
• Cool Sword: The Damascus Blade is an ancient sword or scimitar with a monomolecular edge. Alita can channel plasma from her Berserker body into the blade.
• Cute Bruiser: Alita appears to be a young woman and is a little on the short side, but is able to take down warriors far larger than herself using her martial arts skills. With the Berserker body, Alita can muster enough raw strength to literally tear her cyborg opponents limbs or heads off. This is the reason she gets the moniker of Battle Angel.
• Cyborg: The only thing that's not artificial in her body is her brain. Her face, while clearly not human (she's not from Earth anyway), still looks very lifelike.
• Dead Girl Junior: After finding and repairing her, and considering the fact she lost her memories, Ido named her Alita, in memory of his dead daughter.
• Determinator: Alita's not the type to be discouraged easily. When Grewishka dismembers her, leaving our heroine as a mangled torso with only her head and one arm still attached, Alita keeps dragging herself forward to keep fighting, and even succeeds in ripping out one of Grewishka's eyes.
• Dork Knight: When she's not beating the crap out of cyborgs or being angsty about her past, Alita's cheerful, silly and goofy side regarding new experiences is pretty much a staple of her persona.
• Girls Love Chocolate: Alita declares it her favorite food.
• Happily Adopted: Eventually proudly calls Ido "father".
• Healing Factor: Just one of many abilities, thanks to its nanomachines, that make Alita's Berserker body so extremely powerful, as Grewishka finds out the hard way.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: In a nod to the original manga, Alita switches to the leather jumpsuit in the second half of the film.
• Heartbroken Badass: After Hugo's death; Alita spends the next several months fighting her way through the Motorball circuit in the hopes of reaching Zalem so she can kill Nova and avenge her late love.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Her first meeting with a stray dog has her feeding, petting and hugging it. She is absolutely enraged when Grewishka kills it.
• Iconic Outfit: While she wears a lot of different civilian clothes in the early part of the film, as soon as she obtains a Berserker Body, she generally switches to the leather jumpsuit the likes of which she wears for most of the original manga.
• Ideal Hero: With the Adaptational Heroism noted above in affect, she fits this mold better. She has an unshakable sense of right and wrong, she always fights for the betterment of others, she shows unwavering bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, repeatedly tries to appeal to other peoples’ inner decency, and is never swayed by the world’s attempts to compromise her beliefs.
• Identity Amnesia: Initially has no memory of her past but slowly starts getting glimpses of her past.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Although heavily stylized to resemble an anime character, this version of Alita still retains noticeable traces of Rosa Salazar's facial features.
• Jeanne d'Archétype: Alita is called "Battle Angel", wields a sword, is a righteous avenger, in the frame of a small innocent girl. She is hunted by the corrupt authorities for "disturbing the natural order of things" (in the trailer), finds a suit of armor (rather armored body) and proceeds to kick ass with it.
• Lightning Bruiser: Alita is a prime example of this. Despite her lighter frame and much smaller stature, she hits hard and takes advantage of her natural flexibility to bob and weave around enemy attacks to deliver even more pain.
• Mysterious Past: Her past as "99" before she lost her memories, over 300 years ago when she tried to assault Zalem with others of her kind.
• Nanomachines: Alita's Berserker body includes nanites, enabling it to change shape and rapidly heal from injuries.
• Next Tier Power-Up: Alita starts out unarmed and wearing a non-combat body, and she's still a terrifying combatant. By the time she's acquired the Damascus Blade and URM body, she's become pretty much untouchable against anything opposing her in Iron City.
• Nice Girl: Alita is sweet-natured, polite, and friendly by default, although she's no one to be taken lightly.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The Flashback scenes show that the berserkers were mass produced Elite Mooks. By the time the movie happens, this technology is considered lost (at least on Earth), so Alita in her berserker body is almost unstoppable for Iron City standards.
• The Paragon: Despite coming into the story ignorant to the world around her, Alita refuses to let compromise or limitations keep her from doing what's right. And in doing so, inspires several morally grey characters to rethink their priorities through her sincerity and heroism.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Alita is fairly small compared to most human characters in the film, and is especially dwarfed by many of the cyborg Hunter-Warriors and Motorball players. She's also a ridiculously skilled combatant and can muster enough brute force to tear her enemies apart.
• Playing with Fire: The Berserker body that Alita finds in a crashed ship can generate fiery blue plasma.
• Purple Is Powerful: Her Berserker body is purple-colored, in a Shout-Out to it being Alita's favorite color in the manga, and her wearing purple jumpsuits in much of the later parts of the story.
• Really 700 Years Old: Ido determines that her technology must be URM. She had been part of the failed attack on Zalem, three hundred years ago.
• Red Baron: Her skill on the Motorball circuit leads to Alita being dubbed "Battle Angel". "The face of an angel, with a body made for battle".
• Replacement Goldfish: After repairing her, Ido treats Alita as something of a substitute for his own late daughter, whom he named the amnesiac cyborg after (also, the body he gave to Alita was intended for his daughter). While their relationship evolves over the course of the film, Alita comes to see Ido as a surrogate father, and addresses him as such after he puts her in the Berserker body.
• Robot Girl: She's a (mostly) artificially-created attractive girl.
• Underestimating Badassery: Both Grewishka and Zapan take one look at Alita's small frame and deem her no significant threat. They both come to regret it.
• Showy Invincible Hero: From the very moment she first enters combat to the end of the movie, fairly few things the city can throw at her actually present a significant challenge for her. Most are dispatched with almost contemptuous ease, but damn if it isn't awesome to see her put a whole room full of bounty hunters in their place. In fact, the only real failure she suffers in a battle is not because an enemy overpowers her, but because her old body falls apart on its own because it simply wasn't designed to be pushed to the extremes she pushed it to. And then it turns out her new body had a strong Healing Factor all along in addition to its other features, just in case she was not quite powerful enough already. Unfortunately, her various loved ones are not quite so superhuman, which provides most of the drama and tension of the movie.
• Skilled, but Naive: She's extremely powerful, which is a good thing as she regularly puts herself in danger due to her idealism, overconfidence and lack of forethought. At one point she freely offers the one thing the bad guys are after (and the source of most of her power) to Hugo, who's is secretly working for the bad guys. It's only his feelings for her that keeps him from betraying her right then. Ido repeatedly calls her out on this.
• Token Good Cop: Iron City has no police force, leaving it to the Bounty Hunters to keep criminals off the street, but aside from Wide-Eyed Idealist Alita, her adoptive father, and, to a lesser extent McTeague, they only care about collecting paychecks, which leads them to let criminals who aren't wanted run free and pursue innocent people with prices on their heads.
• Villain Killer: Zapan, Vector, Screwhead, Grewishka, Nyssiana, Romo, Stinger, and Exploder all learned the hard way what happens when you're bold enough to either challenge her or threaten her loved ones. Zapan is the only one who survived.
• Waif-Fu: Alita initially has a body built for a teenage girl, with no major strength modifications compared to other cyborgs. Regardless, her Panzer Kunst skills (with some help from her powerful heart core) allow her to deliver devastating blows with it. Her Berserker body is the same size, but has much more advanced technology, actually built for the kind of fighting she does.
• Weak, but Skilled: The body created by Ido is not specifically made for combat, but Alita makes up for it with her great ability to fight.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: After signing up as a Hunter-Warrior, Alita makes a rousing speech to try and recruit her new fellows to hunt down and destroy Grewishka for the greater good. Unfortunately, they refuse since there are no active bounties on Grewishka, and thus, no money to be had.
• You Are Number 6: As she regains fragments of memories from her previous life, she learns that her combat number was "99".

Dyson Ido

Dr. Dyson Ido

"You've been given a chance to start over, with a clean slate. How many of us get that?"

Played By: Christoph Waltz

Voiced By: Armando Coria (Latin American Spanish dub), Toshiyuki Morikawa (Japanese dub), Pierre-Francois Pistorio (French dub)

The most prominent cyberphysician and cybersurgeon in Iron City, as well as a Hunter-Warrior (bounty hunter who goes after cyborg criminals). He found Alita in Zalem's junkyard, gave her a new cybernetic body and became her surrogate father.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Christoph Waltz is actually significantly more handsome than the quite awkward-looking Ido from the manga.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Ido lacks the Blood Knight tendencies of his manga counterpart, who was largely a Hunter-Warrior for the thrill of the kill, instead choosing to fight in an attempt to avenge his daughter and destroy other threats like her killer.
  • Film!Ido also lacks much of his Control Freak tendencies towards Alita that he displayed in the manga. In the film, it's made explicit that Ido sees Alita as a surrogate daughter so his fear of her dangerous hobbies are treated more sympathetically. In the manga, Ido treats any time Alita begins to deviate from his image of her as a perfect angel as a personal slight.
• Adaptation Name Change: From "Daisuke" in the manga to "Dyson".
• Age Lift: Manga Ido is in his early forties at most. Christoph Waltz was over sixty when playing him.
• Amicable Exes: With Chiren. Though there was definitely friction when she discovered that he had given their dead, biological daughter's unused cyborg body to Alita, and he wasn't too pleased to hear about her business proposal to make Motorball champions, they are at the very least civil with each other.
• Badass Bookworm: He's both a talented mechanic and surgeon, as well as a skilled Hunter-Warrior.
• Badass Normal: He can fight cyborgs even without any obvious cybernetic enhancements.
• Bounty Hunter: He signed up as a Hunter-Warrior to legally hunt down and kill his daughter's murderer, then kept hunting down cyborg criminals to do what's right and get a steady source of income and to compensate for the lack of satisfaction revenge brought him.
• Cool Old Guy: He's several decades older than most other Hunter-Warriors, but is more than capable of keeping up with even the most dangerous cyborg of all, Grewishka.
• Defector from Decadence: He was born on Zalem, though it's implied that his leaving it wasn't voluntary.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: His Hunter-Warrior getup: gloves, coat, even fedora. It's implied that Alita's own later thing for leather comes from him.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Alita comes to suspect that Ido is a serial killer preying on local women when she sees him return home late at night with mysterious injuries. Turns out that he's a Bounty Hunter out hunting the real culprits.
• Fedora of Asskicking: His broad-brimmed leather fedora in his Hunter-Warrior outfit.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The death of his daughter at the hands of one of Ido's patients continues to haunt him well into the present, to the point that he treats Alita (whom he named after his late daughter) as a Replacement Goldfish for a time.
• Papa Wolf: Harm Alita and he will make every effort to kill you. He will also consider using his ax to cut down the hunters who threatened his daughter.
• Parental Substitute: Ido becomes a surrogate father for Alita, who even addresses him as "Father" late in the film.
• Powerful Pick: Like most real warhammers, Ido's weapon works more like a pickaxe than like a sledgehammer, piercing the opponent instead of making a blunt force impact.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: He explicitly tells Alita he became a Hunter-Warrior to avenge the original Alita's death, but has yet to find the peace he's been looking for even after years of successful marks.

Alita (human)

Alita

Played By: Emma Lindsey

The original Alita, the daughter of Dyson Ido and Chiren, who died when drug-addicted cyborg Amok violently shoved her aside to escape Ido's clinic. Ido named the cyborg girl he found and repaired after her.

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• Adaptation Species Change: Alita was a cat in the original manga.
• Death of a Child: Alita's death hit Chiren the hardest, especially because the culprit was one of Ido's patients, and was one of the primary reasons for their divorce, which was quite messy.
• Delicate and Sickly: She had a condition that confined her to a wheelchair. It motivated her father to build a cyborg body for her, but she sadly never got to use it, and the new Alita inherited it.
• Gender Flip: In the manga the cat was also male.
• Posthumous Character: She's been dead for quite a few years when the story starts.

Gerhad

Nurse Gerhad

Played By: Idara Victor

Voiced By: Fernanda Robles (Latin American Spanish dub), Chie Nakamura (Japanese dub)

A nurse working for Dyson Ido at his cybersurgery clinic.

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• Artificial Limb: She lost an arm and got a cybernetic replacement.
• Deadpan Snarker: She wryly chides Ido for accepting food as payment, and quips that Alita is older than Ido assumed when the Berserker Body ends up with a larger bust than her civilian body.
• Sassy Secretary: She's not above delivering some Brutal Honesty in snarky form, such as when a farm worker can only pay with oranges for his new cybernetic arm, telling Ido that they might end up picking them up themselves in the future due to him harming the clinic's financial situation with too many free repairs.

Hugo's Gang

Hugo

Hugo

"It's a harsh world down here. You've got to be willing to do what it takes."

Played By: Keean Johnson

Voiced By: Arturo Castañeda (Latin American Spanish dub), Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese dub), Antoine Ferey (French dub)

A teenage cyber-jacker and Alita's Love Interest, he originally was relied on by Ido to show her the ropes.

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• Adaptational Heroism: Hugo is not nearly as pitiful or self-centered as his original manga counterpart. He even undergoes a Heel–Face Turn and tries to abandon his life of crime. Sadly, it's too late.
• Affably Evil: He's a sweet guy and nicer to Alita than anyone else. He's also in the business of jacking people's limbs for a crime boss.
• Ascended Extra: Hugo has a much larger and central role in the story here compared to the manga, appearing earlier in the story and actually helping out Alita with her early Hunter-Warrior missions. He didn't get introduced in the manga until after she had already had her final fight with Makaku/Grewishka.
• Body Horror: He and his gang inflict this on unfortunate cyborgs, stunning them, ripping off their valuable parts, before leaving them on the street, sometimes little more than a limbless, flailing, screaming torso. Hugo ends up as a victim of this himself; to save his life, Chiren is forced to medically dismember him and tie him into Alita's body to keep him alive until he can be transferred into a cyborg body.
• Cool Bike: He moves around on a monowheel motorcycle.
• Cyborg: After his wounding at Zapan's hands and the measures taken to save his life, Hugo's head is transferred onto a cyborg body. He doesn't last long in this state before seemingly dying.
• Gangbangers: Despite their affable and friendly demeanor, he and his friends are actually petty street criminals, robbing cyborgs of their valuable robotic body parts and selling them on the Black Market.
• The Generic Guy: For all his importance in the story, Hugo is actually pretty generic character-wise.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: At the end of the movie, Nova kills him by activating Zalem's defensive blade-rings, slicing his cybernetic body in half and sending him falling to his death after his remaining cybernetic arm detaches.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Hugo tries to atone for his misdeeds, but is immediately framed for murder by Zapan, putting an official bounty mark on his head which eventually leads to his death.
• Idiot Ball: Successfully carried by Hugo, to his apparent demise when he falls while trying to evade the Hunter-Warriors by climbing the outside of one of the cables linking Iron City and Zalem.
• Karmic Transformation: He becomes a cyborg himself after having made a living stealing body parts from cyborgs.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Although not entirely a bad person, he is still part of a gang that rips cyborgs apart to sell their parts. On one occasion, he knowingly abandons a helpless victim to be killed by his boss. He eventually becomes a cyborg himself and dies limbless.
• Love Redeems: He starts out assaulting cyborgs and selling their parts to Vector, but his growing feelings for Alita lead him to abandon that life.
• Organ Theft: His main activity consists of the cyborg variant – he and his gang ambush and dismember cyborgs to sell their valuable parts.

Tanji

Tanji

Played By: Jorge Lendeborg Jr.

Voiced By: Pascual Meza (Latin American Spanish dub), Jun'ya Enoki (Japanese dub)

Hugo's scrap dealer friend and accomplice in crime, who is more underhanded and doesn't share Hugo's ethics.

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• Ascended Extra: Tanji was only a very minor character in the manga, only briefly appearing twice and dying in his second appearance.
• Gangbangers: Despite their affable and friendly demeanor, he and his friends are actually petty street criminals, robbing cyborgs of their valuable robotic body parts and selling them on the Black Market.
• Friend Versus Lover: Tanji quickly develops a distaste for Alita because of how much of a distraction she is becoming for Hugo.
• Love Is a Weakness: Invokes this when Hugo calls it quits from their cyborg parts robbing business, calling him out on his love for Alita.
• Nothing Personal: Says this word for word when dismembering a cyborg in his last scene, and adds "just business".
• Organ Theft: His main activity consists of the cyborg variant – he and his fellow gang members ambush and dismember cyborgs to sell their valuable parts.
• True Companions: Despite his falling out with Hugo he still does try to protect him when Zapan frames him for murder and loses his life because of it.
• The Unfettered: He doesn't see why he should do the same as Hugo when the latter decides to stop robbing cyborg parts, for that activity is just too lucrative for him to give up.

Koyomi

Koyomi

Played By: Lara Condor

A friend of Hugo and Tanji, Whose involvement or lack thereof in their jacking operation is never touched upon.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: Shows up a lot earlier than her manga counterpart.
• Adaptational Wimp: Her manga self was an Intrepid Reporter of sorts, while she doesn't get much of importance to do in the film.
• Age Lift: In the manga, Koyomi was born the day Alita was discovered and ages over the course of the fourteen years that the original manga and its sequel take place over. In the movie, she's a young adult around the same age as Hugo.
• Ambiguous Innocence: She never shows any signs of being part of the part-jacking, but at the same time Hugo and Tanji clearly have several accomplices and her hanging around them so much could be a sign that she is one.
• Braids of Action: Her hair is done into several braids and she's a decent motor ball player.
• Nice Girl: She gets along well with Alita even after learning of her URM past.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Whether or not she was part of Hugo's crew, she's never seen or mentioned again after it's broken up by Zapan.

Zalem

Nova

Nova

"She is disrupting the natural order of things. She must be destroyed."

Played By: Edward Norton

The most prominent scientist up there in Zalem, and a person of great importance, he's, however, not very present in the early parts of the story the movie adapts.

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• Arch-Enemy: Alita's, both in her backstory (he's explicitly described to her as "the dragon that [she] must slay"), and in the present day, earning Alita's personal hatred when he causes Hugo's death.
• Big Bad: He's the guy in charge and the true mastermind of the plot. Vector works for him, though he lets Vector do the dirty work.
• Composite Character: Given that he is comfortably based up in Zalem and commands a considerable degree of authority, instead of running away from the Factory agents over the whole American continent, he apparently also takes on some elements of Bigott Eisenburg, the GIB director from the TUNED arc in manga.
• Einstein Hair: He sports the typical Absent-Minded Professor's unkempt mane of white (or platinum blond) hair, though don't let that fool you.

• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He has a weird goggles contraption that only makes his face more sinister.
• Immortal Ruler: He's been in charge of the floating city of Zalem and its earthbound protectorate Iron City for several centuries without aging at all.
• Immortality Immorality: His approach to immortality involves a lot of watching people die. He seems to enjoy it.
• Light Is Not Good: Nova, the Greater-Scope Villain of the film, dresses entirely in white, has pale blond hair, and his Villain Override is signaled by the controllee's eyes turning a bright blue. Even his name indicates associations with light. His name is also taken from a song with the line "Call me Desdinova, the Eternal Light."
• Mad Scientist: Though the movie doesn't dwell much on what science he specializes in, just mentioning his cruel experiments. The manga eventually reveals that he studies karma as the transcendental consequences of human actions and conditions in an effort to scientifically define good and evil. The most horrifying thing is that he seems to succeed. And for his studies people suffer. A lot.
• The Man Behind the Man:
  • Literally, as Nova can perform a Villain Override on anyone with a control chip in their head (which is pretty much everyone bar Alita and Ido) and talk through them. He's the one giving the antagonists their orders and speaks to Alita through Vector's body at the end, but Alita never confronts him directly or even shares the same room as him.
  • In the manga, it's Nova who made Makaku his favorite toy and turned him into the monster that he was. In the film, as he's safely up in Zalem, this task is effectively proxied to Chiren, who is Grewishka's (the movie's Makaku) main mechanic here.
• Mysterious Past: The movie goes into very little detail on his past. Given that he was such a high-profile target during the URM attack, it's possible he was one of the leaders responsible for the Earth-Martian War.
• Only One Name: Following the movie's general naming scheme, Nova's given name (Desty) is never mentioned.
• Really 700 Years Old: Nova is more than three-hundred years old and said to be immortal; and assassinating him was the primary reason the URM attacked Earth.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: He has a very measured, calm manner of speaking, even as he threatens Alita's loved ones and notes how much he relishes the deaths of others.
• The Unfettered: From what is shown and said about him, nothing would stop Nova in his quest For Science!. Nothing.
• The Unfought: He's the Big Bad, but he's untouchable up there in Zalem for the time being and, though Alita got rid of his pawns at the Factory, she doesn't have a chance to reach him yet. He's to be dealt with in a potential sequel.
• Villain Override: Nova can take remote control of anyone with an implant in their head and talk through them.
• White Hair, Black Heart: He has a full head of pure white Einstein Hair, and possibly bar none the darkest heart out of any character in the movie, real or artificial.

The Factory

Vector

Vector

"What you should have known, my friend, is that no one is greater than the game."

Played By: Mahershala Ali

Voiced By: Jorge Badillo (Latin American Spanish dub), Satoshi Tsuruoka (Japanese dub), Eilias Changuel (French dub)

The supervisor of the Factory and effectively the ruler of Iron City because of his considerable resources, influence, and military might – the "Ruler of Hell", in his own words. He works under Nova as his liaison for all business between the city and Zalem. He also basically owns the sport of Motorball, one of the favorite pastimes of local residents.

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• Adaptation Expansion: Vector's empire in the film is expanded to include him financially sponsoring several motorball players further showing why Vector has employed Hugo and his gang to steal organs and cyborg parts for him.
• Adaptational Villainy: Zigzagged as Vector is more villainous than his original manga counterpart while less villainous than his portrayal in the OVA.
  • In all versions he's explicitly lying to Hugo that he can get him to Zalem if he raises enough money. The OVA implies that he was doing so in order to manipulate Hugo into doing his dirty work and was planning to hustle him out of this money to boot. In the film, much like in the manga, Vector is shown to have a legitimate soft-spot for Hugo. He even offers to make Hugo his right-hand man and tries to convince him to give up on his goal of reaching Zalem, likely because he knows first-hand what that entails. On the opposite end, much like he does in the OVA, he ends up harvesting Chiren for her organs once she proves to have outlived her usefulness.
  • Also picked up from the OVA was his direct antagonism towards Alita. In the manga, he was never directly involved with her, simply questioning Hugo on his relationship with her and later blowing her off when Hugo goes into hiding after becoming wanted. In the OVA he specifically employees Grewishka to go out and attack Alita, seeing her as a potential threat to his business ventures. In the movie, he's implicitly told by Nova to eliminate Alita, leading him to hire Grewishka like in the OVA, and later trying to set up Alita's motorball debut to end in her death.
• Adaptational Wimp: In the Manga, and even parts of the Anime OVA, Vector is portrayed as a Magnificent Bastard who is the unquestioned ruler of Iron City. In the film, he appears this way at first, only to later reveal he is a mindless puppet of Nova who has no control of his own and does Nova's bidding mostly by force. In the original Manga, Vector willingly does business with Zalem for profit, is not controlled by Nova or even knows about him. And turns against Zalem and helps Alita/Gally during the climax of the Manga for his own selfish reasons, ultimately becoming a Karma Houdini.
• Apologetic Attacker: Looks a bit troubled while watching Chiren about to be seized by his men.
• Bald of Authority: From the rare Heel side.
• Death by Adaptation: Unlike the manga, Vector dies from being stabbed in the chest by Alita while channeling Nova. Though, death being cheap in their world, he may return.
• Exact Words: Vector maintains, when confronted, that he does send people to Zalem. The most valuable bits of them, anyway.
• Faux Affably Evil: He presents himself to others with a calm and polite, if not even pleasant, demeanor, though the instant they get second thoughts about working for him, he switches gear to Bad Boss mode.
• The Heavy: Though Nova is the Big Bad, the direct antagonizing of the heroes in the film falls on his shoulders and he serves as the primary antagonist for much of the story.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: In his own words, if he lived in Zalem, he would be at the bottom of the food chain. But in Iron City, he is a king. Although it could have been a lie.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Doesn't do a lot of fighting and is left cornered when Alita confronts him.
• Villains Want Mercy: His last conscious moments are desperately begging Alita for mercy before Nova bodyjacks him.
• Wicked Cultured: Downplayed but he quoted Paradise Lost to Hugo, asking him if he really wants to go to Zalem as "I'd rather rule in hell than serve in Heaven". Given the truth about what going to Zalem entails that might have been a half-hearted Pet the Dog moment.

Chiren

Chiren

Played By: Jennifer Connelly

Voiced By: Erica Edwards (Latin American Spanish dub), Kaori Yamagata (Japanese dub), Odile Cohen (French dub)

Ido's ex-wife, and the mother of the original Alita. She works with Vector and Nova, applying her considerable skills in medicine, surgery, and cybernetics to maintain and improve their cyborg footsoldiers, Grewishka especially. Though she does not completely agree with her employer's principles, she stays on them for the promise of a ticket back up to Zalem.

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• Adaptational Dye-Job: Chiren is a blonde in the OVA she originated from; in this film, she sports Jennifer Connelly's dark brown hair.
• Amicable Exes: With Ido. Though there was definitely friction when she discovered that he had given their dead, biological daughter's unused cyborg body to Alita, and he wasn't too pleased to hear about her business proposal to make Motorball champions, they are at the very least civil with each other.
• And I Must Scream: She's eventually (prepared to be) sent to Zalem as a still-living brain with just her eyes, heart, and hands.
• Brain in a Jar: The consequence of betraying Vector.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: She saved Hugo when she saw Alita's feelings for him and was about to abandon her plans to go to Zalem, but she was reduced to a brain, heart, and eyes for her betrayal.
• Ms. Fanservice: Has a scene in Vector's bedroom where she's in lingerie.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: For pulling a Heel–Face Turn and saving Hugo's life, Dr. Chiren gets reduced to a Brain in a Jar for her troubles. Although given her desire to go to Zalem and what that entails, the same thing might have happened to her anyway if she had continued serving Nova.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The daughter she had with Ido, Alita, was killed years ago. Despite her needling Ido over it, Chiren herself is also far from over her daughter's death.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Both versions end up being reduced to body parts in jars, but her brain and eyes indicate that she's still alive.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't get to see what became of her still-alive remains, after Alita killed Vector.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At the end of the film, Vector no longer deems her useful once she decides to abandon her plans. As such, he has her harvested for her organs, while still keeping those organs alive.

Centurions

The Centurions

Played By: David Sobolov (voice)

Voiced By: Dafnis Fernández (Latin American Spanish dub)

Giants robots that guard the Factory and enforce law and order in the streets of Iron City.

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• Expy: They're very much based on the ED-209 from the RoboCop franchise, as they're massive non-humanoid robotic law enforcers on legs with a deep Robo Speak voice, and react to perceived hostility with More Dakka. Alita's battle against them also seems to visually borrow a little to the Final Battle of the 2014 reboot.
• Gatling Good: Each of them is equipped with two miniguns for More Dakka.
• Mecha-Mooks: A significant number of them are standing inside the Factory's entrance hall as defense system. Alita cuts through them like butter in the climax.
• Patrolling Mook: They patrol the streets of Iron City.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Not "eyes" so to speak, but they have a visible headlight that goes red when they are alerted and about to open fire.
• Spider Tank: They're not tanks so to speak, but still armored robots moving with several spider-like legs.

Hunter-Warriors

Zapan

Zapan

Played By: Ed Skrein

Voiced By: Irwin Daayán (Latin American Spanish dub), Hiroshi Kamiya (Japanese dub)

One of the most prominent Hunter-Warriors in Iron City, a smug and arrogant cyborg who greatly prides himself on his handsome face (his only remaining organic part) and his Damascus Blade, and he doesn't really see eye-to-eye with Alita.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: Zapan has got a much prettier face compared to his original counterpart, being played by Ed Skrein. A point is even made on how much care and pride he takes on it.
• Alas, Poor Villain: It's possible to feel just a moment of sympathy for him as he wails about His face being sliced off. although seeing the state he left Hugo in can quickly snuff out that pity.
• Ancestral Weapon: At the start of the movie, he is the current owner of the Damascus Blade, an advanced, unreplicable URM weapon (at least as far as swords go) that dates back to the Fall. Alita catches on that is has likely been changing hands ever since and asks Zapan who he killed to get it.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He talks big about being a Hunter-Warrior and wielder of the Damascus Blade. By normal standards, he's a pretty hardcore fighter, but he's not Alita.
• Bounty Hunter: His job as a Hunter-Warrior.
• The Bully: He mocks, insults, belittles and cajoles Alita the moment he spots her in the bar. Turned out to be Bullying a Dragon when she crushes him verbally and physically.
• Composite Character: Zapan of the film fulfills the story roles of both his manga character and a second Hunter-Warrior in the manga named Clive Lee / Gime.
• Cyborg: His face and brain are his only remaining organic parts.
• Evil Brit: He has an English accent.
• Evil Is Petty: Zapan frames Hugo for murder so he can legally hunt him down and kill him to hurt Alita for humiliating him in a bar fight.
• Facial Horror: To get back at him for framing and wounding Hugo, Alita cuts off a chunk of Zapan's face.
• Jerkass: Zapan is smug, arrogant, and self-entitled; priding himself on his handsome face – one of his few remaining organic parts. When Alita humiliates him and breaks his nose, Zapan goes to extreme lengths to seek revenge by framing Hugo for murder and then mortally wounding him.
• Neck Lift: He attempts one on Alita; however, she's able to do it to him instead and then slams his head through a table.
• The Rival: Originally dismissive of Alita, but once she takes him down a peg, he starts considering her his bitter rival and does everything he can to hurt her.
• Smug Snake: Quite an arrogant and narcissistic bounty hunter who talks more than he can show for it.
• Sole Survivor: He's the only one that survives direct conflict with Alita. And it's not because he won against her, she decided he wasn't worth killing and settles on slicing off a piece of his face.
• Tattooed Crook: Cyborg equivalent. Zapan is little more than a good-looking thug for hire, and his back is sculpted to have an elaborate fresco that looks inspired by Aztec art.
• Tear Off Your Face: Towards the end of the film, Alita swipes the Damascus Blade and slices a sizable chunk of Zapan's beloved face off with it in revenge for him framing Hugo and mortally wounding him.

Screwhead

Screwhead

Played By: Elle LaMont

One of the most lethal Hunter-Warriors of Iron City, according to Zapan.

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• Bounty Hunter: Her legal job as a Hunter-Warrior.
• Carnival of Killers: She's part of the bunch of criminals and Hunter-Warriors that Vector hires to kill Alita during her first Motorball match. They all have different shapes, sizes and weaponry.
• Chain Pain: She fights and captures her preys using a chain.
• Cyborg: Her face and brain are her only remaining organic parts.
• Death Glare: Screwhead's default face expression is a killing stare, complete with constantly gritting her teeth when she's after Alita.
• Half the Woman She Used to Be: Just as Screwhead holds Alita to have her cut to pieces by Stinger (the buzzsaw-wielding killer/Motorball player), Alita breaks free of Screwhead's grip and uses the latter's own chain to drag her right in the way of Stinger's buzzsaws, which cut her in two instead.
• Meaningful Name: She's been lobotomized, and a device has been screwed in her head.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: She has four robotic arms, and she's quite vicious.
• Professional Killer: Aside from her legal activity as a Hunter-Warrior, she moonlights in contract killing, such as when she takes part to Alita's first Motorball match solely to kill her.

McTeague

McTeague

"He wasn't a dog lover. I hate that!"

Played By: Jeff Fahey

Voiced By: Raúl Anaya (Latin American Spanish dub), Ken Uo (Japanese dub)

A Hunter-Warrior who hunts his bounties using a pack of cyborg dogs.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: McTeague is based on a character from the manga named Murdock, the estranged father of Zapan's girlfriend. He actually doesn't appear in the manga until much later after the events that got adapted in the film.
• The Beastmaster: He uses his cyborg canine companions to fight.
• Bounty Hunter: His job as a Hunter-Warrior.
• Cowboy: He goes with an New Old West theme for himself.
• Cyborg: Only his face and brain are still organic.
• Heroes Love Dogs: "Hero" might be a stretch given his very anti-heroic profession, but he proves to be of great help against Grewishka after the latter cut Alita's first body to pieces, making him less of a selfish and cowardly jerkass than the other Hunter-Warriors. He intervened mainly because he can't stand animal abusers, after Grewishka killed the stray dog just to be a dick.
  McTeague: He wasn't a dog lover. I hate that!
• Heroic Neutral: At first, he doesn't care to get involved in the fight against Grewishka because there's no bounty in it. Then Grewishka killed a puppy in front of him, and it's on.
• Pass the Popcorn: His reaction to the Alita-provoked brawl in the hunter-warrior bar is sitting back and enjoying a good laugh watching it.
• Right-Hand Attack Dog: He commands a pack of cyborg dogs, and unleashes them on Grewishka.
• Robot Dog: He commands a pack of dogs who received cybernetic replacements. Some of them look more machine than dog.

Clive Lee

Clive Lee

Played By: Rick Yune

A renowned Hunter-Warrior.

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• Adaptational Attractiveness: By virtue of getting an untouched face when he's more of a Malevolent Masked Man due to his implants in the original story.
• Adaptational Heroism: By virtue of being Demoted to Extra, Clive Lee ends up as this. In the manga he was one of the primary antagonists of the Scrapyard arc, along with Zapan and Grewishka. Clive Lee was specifically that Hunter Warrior who tried to hunt down Hugo after he became wanted. This aspect of his character does not get adapted into the film, instead being given to Zapan.
• Bounty Hunter: He's respected for having killed or captured the most criminals out of the bounty hunters.
• Demoted to Extra: Clive Lee only cameos as one of the many Hunter Warriors that Alita attempts to recruit. He doesn't take part in the ensuing Bar Fight and his antagonistic role from the manga gets grafted onto Zapan.
• Famed In-Story: Even the other bounty hunters see him as an impressive figure.
• Punch-Clock Hero: He only goes after people when he's getting paid too. That being said, it is hinted that he may have standards about who he goes after (and/or was impressed by Alita), given that he isn't among those who go after Alita once a bounty is put on her head when she's committed no crime.
• Refusal of the Call: He shows no interest in helping Alita go after Grewishka once the bounty is lifted.

Criminals

Grewishka

Grewishka

"Iron City is no place for an innocent, little flea!"

Played By: Jackie Earle Haley (voice)

Voiced By: Dan Osorio (Latin American Spanish dub), Masafumi Kimura (Japanese dub)

A huge, brutal and sadistic cyborg who works for Nova as his personal assassin.

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• Adaptation Name Change: Grewishka's name is derived from his OVA counterpart's name, Grewcica. The design of both very strongly takes after the manga's Makaku (including the grind cutters-launching arm and his core being worm-like) and he takes on a very similar role for the first half of the plot. He even makes an almost identical threat to Alita, specifically turning her into a living pendant. His eventual role as Vector's muscle is the main point of divergence.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: His killing of an innocent and defenseless stray dog just For the Evulz speaks volumes about his cruelty.
• The Bully: His hulking size and tendency to pick fights with those who have no chance against him give off this impression. He dubs Alita "little flea", and when he seemingly has her at his mercy, he keeps taunting her rather than just finishing the fight.
• The Brute: With shades of The Dragon. He is the biggest and strongest of Nova's henchmen.
• Combat Tentacles: The Grind Cutters function like this most of the time.
• Cyborg: Only his brain seems to be still organic, and possibly his face. The rest of him is evidently mechanical, even the parts on his torso modeled to still look organic.
• David Versus Goliath: The Goliath to Alita's David.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Alita/Gally cuts him in half in every media, but here he doesn't explode, and she uses the Damascus Blade instead of her plasma-charged fist to bisect him.
• Dub Name Change: He was renamed Grewish in the Russian dub, because "-ka" is a diminutive suffix in Russian language, which didn't suit the character at all.
• The Dreaded: There's no bounty on his head despite the well known fact that he commits horrible crimes, as he is protected by Vector, but even if it were the case, he's dreaded by pretty much all Hunter-Warriors bar a very few courageous enough ones like Ido.
• Eye Scream: Gets an entire mechanical hand shoved into his right eye socket, courtesy of Alita.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Similar to his backstory in the manga, Grewishka tells Alita he lived in the trash heaps under Iron City before Nova plucked him out and converted him into killing machine.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: In their final "battle", Alita fatally vertically bisects Grewishka with the Damascus Blade.
• The Heavy: Shares the role with Vector. While Nova and Vector scheme to destroy Alita from behind the scenes, Grewishka serves as their personal attack dog who hounds Alita throughout the film.
• In the Hood: He is introduced onscreen wearing a hoodie during the ambush on Ido.
• Jerkass: A brutish, ill-tempered thug to allies and enemies alike. Just about the only one Grewishka seems to respect (possibly out of fear) is Nova.
• Keeping the Handicap: Alita manages to stab him in the eye before he retreats to his masters. When asked about why he won't have his eye fixed, he says he wants to feel the pain.
• Kick the Dog: Quite literally; he stabs a puppy with his new grind cutters just to be a dick.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If he hadn't dispatched the puppy, McTeague would just have continued to sit there and be inactive. Instead, he did the one thing that angers him, causing McTeague to directly get involved to defend Alita and unleash his cyberhounds on Grewishka while his arm is badly damaged and thus making sure he couldn't use his new weapon to defend himself as the pack starts to rip him apart.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: Compared to his original counterpart, Grewishka is still The Dreaded, but by way of being The Brute rather than a head-and-spine-only Body Snatcher, and his cannibalistic habits were removed as well. There are a few brief nods to the original, such as showing his spine wriggling when he was being repaired, and he speaks of how he came up in the underground but didn't provide much detail.
• Razor Floss: His grind cutters are very much Combat Tentacles, and they're sharp too. Alita's first body finds it out the hard way.
• Recurring Boss: Alita fights him three times over the course of the film.
• Revenge Before Reason: He wants to kill Alita, whatever it takes.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: No matter what evil he does, he never gets a bounty on his head, since Nova and Vector are protecting him.
• Tattooed Crook: His body has several skin, or at least skin-like, patches with tattoo markings on them.
• Villain Decay: As the film goes on, his fights become shorter and his defeats quicker. By their final battle, Alita calls him a slave and chops him in half.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted at first. During their first encounter, Grewishka puts up a decent fight again Alita, but ultimately loses to her. Afterwards he receives a new body and a new weapon, courtesy of Doctor Chiren, which he then uses to battle Alita again, this time coming dangerously close to killing her and is only driven off because of outside interference. Ultimately played straight during their final encounter. Grewishka manages to get the drop on Alita, but her improved body, weapon, and skills as a warrior prove to be too much for him, resulting in a Curb-Stomp Battle that ends in the latter's favor.
• We Can Rebuild Him: He gets some heavy damage after his first two battles against Alita (loses an arm in the first fight, and an eye in the second) and Chiren fixes him and makes him bigger each time, along with the grind cutters upgrade.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Grewishka's upgraded chassis comes equipped with Kinuba's grind cutters, blade-tipped chain-fingers that he can use to stick someone from a distance and reel them back in. If they're not already in pieces.

Nyssiana

Nyssiana

Played By: Eiza González

Voiced By: Carla Cerda (Latin American Spanish dub), Arisa Shida (Japanese dub)

A cyborg serial killer Alita crosses paths with early in the film.

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• Ax-Crazy: A serial killer who quite gleefully anticipates murdering Alita.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Her cybernetic body has no trace of female sexual attributes.
• Cyborg: Only her face and brain (and possibly the skin on her legs) are still organic.
• Fan Disservice: Her beautiful face is meant to contrast with her obviously non-human body.
• Lady in Red: She wears a red outfit when luring Ido into a trap, as he was thinking she is an innocent would-be victim.
• Mugging the Monster: Picking a fight with the seemingly small and helpless Alita turned out to be Nyssiana's last mistake.
• Off with Her Head!: Alita kicks Nyssiana's head into a container's wall hard enough that it detaches it from her body.
• Serial Killer: There's a bounty on her head for several horrible murders she committed.
• Slaying Mantis: Her scythe-like arms are shaped like the forelegs of a mantis.

Romo

Romo

"Nice shot, for a meatboy!"

Played By: Derek Mears

Voiced By: Setsuji Sato (Japanese dub), Boris Rehlinger (European French dub)

The third member of Grewishka's crew, and part of the ambush on Ido in the alleyway.

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• Adaptation Name Change: He is called Izuchi in the manga and Rasha in the OVA.
• An Arm and a Leg: Loses his left arm to Ido's rocket-hammer. It doesn't particularly bother him.
• Ax-Crazy: Just like Nyssiana, he gleefully contemplates murder and has a Slasher Smile.
• Cyborg: He has more skin left on his body than most cyborgs in the film, and doesn't seem to have had his brain and face transferred onto a robotic structure, unlike most of the film's cyborgs, again. That being said, his cybernetic parts seem to indicate that he has suffered nasty wounds and amputations.
• Delinquent Hair: A criminal with white and purple hair.
• Glasgow Grin: He has two scars on his cheeks that start at his mouth.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Is on the receiving end of one from Alita, and ends up the latter's first kill in Iron City.
• Sinister Scythe: Armed with a sickle in his right hand, and his left hand has been replaced by the same weapon.
• Slasher Smile: Lets out some of these as he contemplates murdering his victims.
• Warmup Boss: He is the weakest of the trio that ambushes Ido early in the film, being neither fast nor agile nor strong. Ido easily cuts one of his arms off, and Alita kills him before he even has the time to touch her. Compared to him, Nyssiana gives her quite a fight, and Grewishka is a much much tougher adversary who comes back twice to try and kill Alita.

Amok

Amok

Played By: Casper Van Dien

A drug-addicted cyborg who was a patient of Dyson Ido. He caused the death of the latter's daughter, Alita.

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• An Arm and a Leg: He lost one of his cybernetic arms before searching for drugs at Ido's clinic.
• Artificial Limbs: He lost both arms and they were replaced by cybernetic arms.
• Ax-Crazy: His addiction to drugs made him crazy.
• Cyborg: He had cybernetic implants in the head over one of his eyes, and cybernetic arms.
• Karmic Death: Ido became a Hunter-Warrior to track him down, and eventually managed to find and kill him. However, it brought Ido no peace.
• Meaningful Name: He "ran amok" searching for drugs in Ido's clinic, killing Ido's daughter in the process.

Motorball Players

Top League

Jashugan

Jashugan

Played By: Jai Courtney

Voiced By: Idzi Dutkiewicz (Latin American Spanish dub), Takanori Hoshino (Japanese dub)

A famous Motorball champion that had a prominent role in the Motorball arc in the original manga, and appears in the film as a cameo.

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• The Ace: He's introduced as the greatest Motorball player of the current era.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In the pits he's seen expertly commanding his mechanics, telling them exactly what should be changed for the next match.
• The Cameo: As only the few bits of the Motorball arc were adapted, he's been reduced to the bit part. However, the plans for the sequel apparently include revisiting this part of the story, so his role may get expanded should the sequels be made.
• Race Lift: Manga Jashugan was a dark-skinned blond. Here he's played by the palest of the pale Jai Courtney, with red hair.
• Shout-Out: His scene is basically one long sendoff to the stereotypical expert Formula One pilot.
• The Worf Effect: Despite his reputation, in his only brief time onscreen he's swiftly dispatched, and next we meet him in the pits.

Kinuba

Kinuba

Played By: Leonard Wu

Voiced By: Toru Sakurai (Japanese dub)

A rising Motorball player. He is the first owner of the grind cutters, which draws Vector's and Chiren's attention on him and gets him dismembered so they can graft them on Grewiska's arm.

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• Blood Sport: He is primarily a Motorball player. And that sport is quite cutthroat.
• Combat Tentacles: The Grind Cutters essentially function like this.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He was dismembered and all but stated to be killed by Vector offscreen, with a blowtorch.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The manga version of Kinuba is killed by Makaku (the manga's version of Grewishka). Here he is seemingly killed by Vector.
• The Perils of Being the Best: Kinuba's grind cutters clearly give him a massive edge in Motorball to the point of almost being unfair, and it got him the kind of attention he certainly didn't need. He ends up dismembered and seemingly killed; partly because Vector and Chiren stole his grind cutters for Grewishka, and partly because he's messing up Vector's odds.
• Razor Floss: His grind cutters are very much Combat Tentacles, and they're sharp too. Which prompts Vector and Chiren to have him stripped from them in order to upgrade Grewishka with them.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He is only seen twice, first when he wins a Motorball match using his grind cutters to tear his last adversary to pieces and win the match, then when he is ambushed and dismembered by Hugo's gang, and likely killed by Vector with a blowtorch.

Third League

Stinger

Stinger

Played By: Sam Medina

A criminal with a bounty on his head. He is hired by Vector and, along with a bunch of other criminals and Hunter-Warriors, gets beefed up to kill Alita during her first Motorball match.

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• Carnival of Killers: He's part of the bunch of criminals and Hunter-Warriors that Vector hires to kill Alita during her first Motorball match. They all have different shapes, sizes and weaponry, with him being one of the biggest.
• Creepily Long Arms: He has long, almost tentacle-like robotic arms that make him look alien.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Alita lassoes his legs with Screwhead's chain and throws it in a giant trash grinder, which pulls Stinger in it and crushes him to death.
• Cyborg: His face is his only part with skin.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite his Motorball body being quite big, he manages to keep up with Alita and Screwhead during the chase when the former crashes out of the stadium and goes roofhopping in the city to escape the Carnival of Killers and rescue Hugo.
• Mecha: His cyborg Motorball body is so big that he can easily be put in this category.
• Price on Their Head: Ido takes a look at Alita's adversaries right before her first Motorball match starts, and finds out Stinger and another Motorball player/killer have bounties on their heads, then warns Alita that it's all a trap.
• Saw Blades of Death: He has two retractable buzzsaws on his arms alongside his cyborg hands, and tries to cut Alita to pieces with them.

Exploder

Exploder

Played By: Tod Waters

One of the cyborg killers Vector hires to get rid of Alita during her first Motorball match.

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• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Notably, the only one to avert this trope, being the only user of a true firearm (a heavy-caliber blaster cannon) in the movie. It's stated early on that firearms are forbidden by law in Iron City, so regardless of whatever else Exploder has done, just owning and using this weapon alone is enough to get him on the bad side of the law. Unsurprisingly, he has a bounty on his head. Then again, Vector rules Iron City and hires him.
• Arm Cannon: His left arm has been replaced by a big turbine-shaped cannon that shoots explosive projectiles, and he tries to kill Alita with it.
• Carnival of Killers: He's part of the bunch of criminals and Hunter-Warriors that Vector hires to kill Alita during her first Motorball match. They all have different shapes, sizes and weaponry, with him being one of the smallest.
• Cyborg: His face is his only part with skin.
• Literal Disarming: During the match, Alita tears off his right arm (which is fitted with claws) and slams it into the head of another killer.

United Republic of Mars (URM)

Gerda

Gerda

"Finish the mission! Destroy Zalem!"

Played By: Michelle Rodriguez (voice and motion capture)

Voiced By: Takako Honda (Japanese dub)

An URM military officer who trained and commanded Alita when the latter went by the service number "99". Alita regains several memories of her that took place before and during the Fall (the war between Earth and the URM) over 300 years before Alita was found in the dumpyard.

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• Colonel Badass: She was trained in Panzer Kunst just like "99", appeared to have a Berserker body, and led URM troops in an assault against Zalem.
• Mentor Archetype: She trained "99" in Panzer Kunst so she would take part to the assault against Zalem, and told her she has "the soul of a survivor who will never give up". She also instructed her about their mortal enemy — Nova.

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