Early on in the story, Daisuke Ido, a bounty-hunting cybernetic doctor who finds and revives Alita plays a major role as well, but midway through the manga he becomes marginalized as focus begins to increasingly shift to Desty Nova, an eccentric nanotechnology scientist who has fled from Tiphares (Zalem, in Japanese version).
Finally, Kaos, Desty Nova's son, a frail and troubled radio DJ with psychometric powers, also begins to play a crucial role after he comes in contact with Alita.
Alita's background and history were briefly hinted at, but were not explored until Last Order and more extensively in Mars Chronicle, which reveals that in her previous life, she was highly instrumental in creating the world within which the manga series are set.
She later becomes a Motorball player nicknamed the "Killing Angel" and eventually the Top League champion, after which she retired from the game and became a part-time fight instructor and bar singer.
Two years later, after being forced to use a firearm (an illegal capital offense) to defeat a berserked Zapan, she is pardoned from execution and recruited by the Tipharean Ground Investigation Bureau for ten years as an elite ground agent of TUNED, a counterinsurgency task force, during which she is nicknamed the "Death Angel" for her prowess, unknowingly also serving as the basis for the development of GIB's combat androids known as the AR (Alita Replica) series which debut towards the end of the original series.
In the original manga, "Gally"/"Alita" was the name of Ido's pet black cat, who died a month before he found the remains of cyborg girl in the Tiphares junkyard.
In the original manga series, Alita transformed into a Tree of Life in order to save both the cities of Tiphares and Scrapyard, and after five years is reborn as a full-flesh human.
He appears in several different incarnations due to his "Stereotomy" ability, an atmospheric nanotechnological process that, should Nova be killed, automatically restores him as he was before death, right down to his memories and even clothing.
Alita confronted him the following day armed with a Smith & Wesson Model 60 revolver equipped with hollow-point bullets loaded with Collapser nanobots that Nova had developed to destroy the Berserker Body at the molecular level.
Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (Japanese); Spike Spencer (English); Portrayed by Keean Johnson Hugo, known in Japan as Jugo (ユーゴ, Yūgo), is Alita's first love.
He ran away from home after Nana betrayed his brother to the hunter-warrior Clive Lee for building an illegal hot air balloon to attempt to fly to Tiphares.
Hugo ostensibly performs odd maintenance jobs for Scrapyard residents such as Ido, but has taken to illegally supplementing his income by posing along with his accomplices Tanji and Van, as a lubrication crew for cyborgs.
The two then strike up a friendship which Alita makes clear she would like to take further, and she embarks on a bounty-hunting spree to help Hugo reach his 10 million chip mark.
Voiced by: Shigeru Chiba (Japanese); Tristan MacAvery (English); Portrayed by Mahershala Ali Vector (ベクター, Bekutā) is a Scrapyard businessman — the top broker in illegal human body parts and organs — with a reputation for hiring powerful cyborg muscle to back him up.
Along with the Bar New Kansas barkeep Master and his adopted daughter Koyomi, she winds up at a refugee camp on the outskirts of the Scrapyard, where she meets her future husband, a soup server.
Portrayed by Lana Condor Koyomi (コヨミ) started out as an orphan adopted by the barkeep of the Bar Kansas, Master, then becoming a member of the rebel army Barjack, and then a freelance photographer who publishes a bestselling photo journal.
At age 13, Koyomi ran away from home with Fury after argument with her alcoholic adopted father, encountering Kaos and reaching the underground ruins of a city from the previous era and eventually, meeting Den.
[6] Jashugan's only family is his slow-witted younger sister Shumira, who comes back with Ido and Alita to the eastern district to work as a waitress in Bar New Kansas.
This was in stark contrast to Ed, who also survived but became dependent on acceleration drug injections to stay competitive, which resulted in a side effect called "Terminal Frost" which forced his eventual retirement.
Jashugan paid a high price for his brain reconstruction as a side effect has been the constant risk of death, and he has suffered an increasing series of spasmatic attacks that have caused his heart rate to flatline.
His Motorball body has two grinders built into each arm capable of rotating at high speeds, which increases the deadliness of his Maschine Klatsch as they can tear through cyborg armor and dismember opposing players.
Alita's duel with Zafal Takie during her Second League debut gives Tiegel an unexpected victory during the race, provoking a riot among the spectators and earning him a spot on the team.
His abuse of the drug resulted in a permanent condition called "Terminal Frost", which forced him to retire from motorball and makes his hands shake uncontrollably at unpredictable times, although it can be controlled with medications.
Two years later, Umba starts a successful engineering company with Mr. Thompson and writes to Alita about her Berserker Body, which he has managed to track down to Desty Nova after Ed sold it.
The knowledge of Lou's sacrifice and Bigott's promise to let her go free after apprehending Desty Nova motivate Alita to complete her original mission.
The stern, no-nonsense chief of the GIB, Bigott Eizenburg (ビゴット・アイゼンバーグ, Bigotto Aizenbāgu) intervenes just before Alita's brain is destroyed for committing a Class A offense to recruit her for the TUNED project.
Bigott meanwhile has the rest of the AR series conduct anti-Barjack operations, and uses the Tipharean superweapon Abaddon to destroy the Barjack's giant railway gun Heng.
After registering for the Z.O.T.T., Sechs transitions into the anatomically male Fizziroy body, made of cutting edge polyethylene materials, and different from his initial make as a replica of Alita.
Originally a fisherman from the West Coast, Figure traveled east in order to see Tiphares, staying in the Scrapyard for a year, before signed up as a mercenary guarding Factory Train 12, where he befriended Yolg and became intrigued by Alita.
His first attack on AR-10 when she threatens Koyomi fails, but while AR-10 is distracted by asking the GIB to switch her ammunition over to anti-personnel rounds to deal with Buick, Fury is able to grab her around the neck and use his weight to throw her into a pile of molten metal, killing her but also dying in the process.