With anime being everywhere now, it’s easy to forget that the fandom was almost like a secret club in the Eighties and Nineties. There were a handful of images that defined Japanese pop culture for American audiences back then: that bike slide from Akira; the, erm, tentacles of Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend; and the haunting image of a young girl, her body a metallic skeleton but with angel wings, from Yukito Kishiro’s epic manga, Battle Angel Alita. Three years after the first issue was published, Hiroshi Fukutomi directed the original video adaptation of the first two volumes, presented here as part of Animondays. – Richard Whittaker
