List of Motorball-affiliated characters in Battle Angel Alita

The following fictional characters are affiliated with the sport of motorball in the Battle Angel Alita manga.

Alita

 * League: Third/Second
 * Player Number: 99
 * Nickname: "Killing Angel"

After Hugo's death, Alita ran away from Ido. She was shortly afterwards found in a bar by Ed, who recruited her to become a motorball player and signed her to a 12 race contract. When Ido finds out that she has become a motorball player a month later, Alita has already become a well-known and popular player, going on to win five straight races in the Third League before moving up to the Second League and picking up a sponsor, Mr. Thompson. She successfully defeats Ajakutty in a practice match over the number 99, earning the right to wear the number in the Second League and Ajakutty's respect. After directly challenging Jashugan, Alita is only shown competing in her debut race in the Second League, from which she determines who will make up her five-man challenge team. Against Ed's wishes, she plans to quit motorball after the challenge race with Jashugan, having completed her racing contract. In the challenge race, Jashugan successfully defeats Alita's teammates, leaving the two of them alone to duel. Forced to fight harder than she ever has before, Alita is severely damaged by Jashugan's final attack, but manages to kill him. She carries out her promise and retires from motorball afterwards.

Alita's Challenge Team
The following players were selected by Alita to be the members of her five-man team to challenge Jashugan.

Ajakutty

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 99/88
 * Nicknames: “King Crusher,” “The Crownless King”

The original player wearing number 99 in the Second League before Alita qualified for it, Ajakutty refuses to relinquish the number to Alita, who wore it in the Third League and is determined to continue wearing it, without a fight. In a best of three rounds practice match, he wins the first round but loses the second. Recognizing Alita’s superior abilities, Ajakutty forfeits the third match and relinquishes the number to Alita. She earns his respect and he becomes her closest ally in motorball. Ajakutty calls Alita “Sister” instead of by her name, and she in turn calls him “Ajy.”

Ajakutty is a player who relishes the fight more than the win. His ranking of 23rd is thus deceptive, and he has crashed over 200 players. His fighting style is what he calls the “Asian Arts,” with an emphasis on kicks. Three other players, Balgerald, Skaramasakus, and Halberd, are Ajakutty’s disciples, and each specializes in a particular discipline. In his first race with Alita, Ajakutty takes on the Second League champion Armblessed for the first time after the latter has dispatched two of his students, and barely escapes with his life. He is the third member of the challenge team to be dispatched by Jashugan. Like Armblessed, he survives the encounter and is recovered from the track. Alita’s decision to quit motorball after the match with Jashugan leads him to label her as an outsider, as he realizes that she is not in it for the game.

Armblessed

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 1
 * Nickname: “Caligula”

The arrogant, brutal Second League champion, Armblessed is renowned for his cruelty and commands a fanatical following among his fans, who willingly offer their hands to be cut off by him and placed on his horns (the “Hands of Victory”) as part of his pre-win ritual during races. His weapons are diamond-edged chain blades built into his arms and legs that can cut through any other player’s armor. Armblessed uses his blades to deliver devastating cuts that slice his opponents vertically and horizontally.

During Alita’s Second League race debut, Armblessed makes short work of both Halberd and Bargerald, provoking a fight with Ajakutty. Letting the latter take his right leg, he extends a spike from his body that he uses as the basis for his Gushiken (the “Taiwanese Spin"), which makes him spin like a top along the track and slice whoever is in his way to pieces with his chain blades. After crippling Ajakutty, Armblessed gets into a fight with Alita in which his chain blades are matched up against her Damascus blades, with Alita coming out on top and Armblessed flying off the track and out of the race.  Still arrogant in defeat, Armblessed is nonetheless chosen against his will to be a member of Alita’s challenge team.  He is the first player to be taken on by Jashugan, who, impervious to his chain blades, uses his arm rotors to tear Armblessed’s body to shreds.  Jashugan then uses one of Armblessed's chain blades that has been severed from him to slice Zafal Takie in two and prevent her from securing the motorball.  Armblessed’s head survives and he is picked up off the track along with Ajakutty by a recovery team.

Zafal Takie

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 7
 * Nickname: "Crimson Wind"

Zafal Takie is the only other female motorball player shown besides Alita. She relies on her speed and technique as opposed to fighting prowess to win, being skilled enough to get within speaking distance of Alita without the latter noticing until the last minute. Since her debut, she has won three straight races. In her fourth race she succeeded in maneuvering Skaramasakus off the track and into the crash area, claiming the motorball. She then challenged Alita, winning their initial confrontation and forcing Alita to pit. However, Takie lost their second confrontation when Alita returned to the track. Her performance earns her a spot on Alita’s challenge team. During the challenge race, she is sliced in two by one of Armblessed’s chain blades wielded by Jashugan while reaching for the motorball. It is implied that she survived because her brain remained intact, although she is not explicitly shown being picked up by a recovery crew.

Tiegel

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 50
 * Nicknames: “The Shame of the Second,” “Walking Last Place”

Holding the lowest average in the Second League, Tiegel is the largest motorball player seen. Heavily armored and nearly impervious to attack, his bulk also makes him ponderously slow. Tiegel does not have any special abilities, but is very persistent. He is in love with Alita, and begs her to let him join her challenge team both on and off the track. 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. During the challenge race with Jashugan, he attempts to ram the champion but crashes into a wall. When pulled out by a recovery team, he revives, intervening in the fight between Jashugan and Alita just in time to prevent the former from finishing her off. This time Tiegel succeeds in slamming Jashugan into a wall, but Jashugan’s attacks break through his armor, triggering a series of explosions and setting his body ablaze. His final act is to ram Jashugan into another section of the wall, expressing his lack of regret over not quitting motorball because he had the chance to fight the champion.

Ajakutty's disciples
The following players each specialize in a discipline of Ajakutty's "Asian Arts" and acknowledge him as their master.

Bargerald

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 33
 * Nickname: “Pile-Driver Balgerald”

Balgerald’s discipline is Mue Katchuah and his signature move is the Pile-Driver Attack, using the eponymous weapon that forms his left arm. Balgerald openly questions his master’s deference to Alita, leading to a fight between him and Alita that appears to end in a draw with him threatening her brain and her poised to sever his life support system. He takes on Armblessed during Alita’s Second League race debut with Halberd. Attempting to avenge his fallen comrade, Balgerald falls victim to Armblessed’s Sagittal Plane Slice, which splits him right down the middle.

Halberd

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 9

Halberd’s discipline is Tae Kwon Do, and like his master, he focuses on kicks, his signature move being the Crescent Moon Kick. In Alita’s Second League race debut, he attacks Armblessed with Balgerald, but falls victim to Armblessed’s Nutcracker attack, which slices the top of his head open, exposing his brain, which falls to the track and dissolves.

Skaramasakus

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 24
 * Nickname: “Skaramasakus the Runner”

Skaramasakus’ discipline is Yuan Yang Ti Kon Chun, although he is not actually shown using any of its techniques. He is a crouching-style model like Peshkavus. In Alita’s Second League race debut, he is the first to secure the motorball, but is eventually maneuvered off the track by Zafal Takie. It is implied that he did not survive the fall.

Chakram

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 41

Ranked third, Charkam along with Gallant and Vickers is manipulated by Peshkavus into taking Alita out of her Second League debut race. After Alita and Ajakutty dispatch Gallant and Vickers, Peshkavus rips off Chakram’s arm weapon then sets him afire in an attempt to block Alita on the track, to no avail.

Degchalev

 * League: Third
 * Player Number: 31

Degchalev is a player in the race that Ido watches via monitor. He is the ballkeeper until Valdicci attacks him from the pit road, causing him to crash and lose the motorball. Degchalev is probably a wrong transcription of Russian family name Degtyaryov. According to the cyrillization of Japanese, Russian letter "t" is written as "ch" in Latin alphabet, and "l", which is absent in Japanese language, often replace "r" in English translations.

Gallant and Vickers

 * League: Second
 * Player Numbers: 36 and 37, respectively

A pair of brothers whose motorball bodies look identical, Gallant and Vickers together rank second. They can maneuver very quickly and operate in tandem, using each other as a basis from which to perform aerial attacks against their opponents. They are manipulated by Peshkavus under Armblessed’s orders to take Alita out during her debut Second League race. Working with Ajakutty who comes to her aid, Alita succeeds in decapitating Gallant while he crashes Vickers.

Madosen

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 72
 * Nickname: “Amazing”

Madosen is a player in Alita’s Second League debut race. He manages to survive the brutal combat that characterizes this race, being one of the last four players left along with Alita, Takie, and Tiegel, but is in the last position behind Tiegel just before Alita and Takie face off for the motorball.

Peshkavus

 * League: Second
 * Player Number: 13
 * Nicknames: “Dirty”, “Dirty Tricks”

A lackey of Armblessed, Peshkavus is a crouching-style model, built low to the ground. He lives up to his nickname during Alita’s Second League debut race, following Armblessed’s orders to take Alita out by orchestrating an attack on her by three other players, even sacrificing one of them when his other attempts fail. After Peshkavus throws himself into the crowd and kills numerous spectators in order to get away from Alita, she is so incensed by this and his foul play that she turns around and goes backwards along the track to kill him with the Hertza Haeon.

Togo

 * League: Third
 * Player Number: 62
 * Nickname: “Armor Togo”

The Third League champion, Togo is styled as a kendo swordsman and is a practitioner of the Jigen School. He matches his Sword of Long Light against Alita’s Damascus Blades, in the process having his sword broken and getting decapitated.

Valdicci

 * League: Third/Second
 * Player Number: 57/45

A veteran player, Valdicci is the “surrogate” through whom Ido discovers motorball firsthand when Shumira buys him a monitor ticket. He equips either an axe or a blade/morning star combination weapon on his right arm. Valdicci is on track to winning the race Ido is experiencing through him until he is defeated by Alita in her fourth straight victory in the Third League. He eventually moves up to the Second League and is in Alita’s debut Second League race, where he is knocked out of the race by Halberd.

Three-man challenge team
This challenge team faces Jashugan on the Galvani Circuit in his first race in a month. The race is watched by Alita, Ed, Ido, and Shumira.

Claymore

 * League: Top
 * Player Number: 49

Ranked fifth, Claymore is the first member of the three-man challenge team to be taken out by Jashugan after he returns to the track following his resuscitation by Ido with Shumira’s help.

Karashnikoff

 * League: Top
 * Player Number: 6

Ranked third, after Jashugan suffers a flatline attack and is forced to pit, Karashnikoff secures the motorball with the aim of winning the race and becoming the next champion. When Jashugan returns to the track, he attempts to take Jashugan on with a corkscrew weapon mounted on his left arm after Jashugan rips through Claymore and Pihagetta, but is torn to pieces by Jashugan’s sidewinder move.

Pihagetta

 * League: Top
 * Player Number: 87

Ranked seventh, Pihagetta is the second member of the three-man challenge team to be taken out by Jashugan after he returns to the track following his resuscitation by Ido with Shumira’s help.

Esdoc (“Ed”)
A former motorball player, Ed's racing team is named Esdoc Motors, and he is Alita’s manager. In his prime, his blade techniques were as good as Jashugan’s Maschine Klatsch and they were rivals. However, both were severely injured in an accident, from which Ed had to resort to acceleration drug injections to stay competitive. 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.

Ed recruited Alita shortly after she ran away from Ido following Hugo’s death, and has dreams of getting her into the top league, so he can vicariously fulfill his dream of challenging and eventually surpassing Jashugan. He is violently opposed to Alita’s plans to quit motorball after her match with Jashugan, when she will have fulfilled her 12 race contract, and plans to have her contract renewed. When a junky with a homemade gun tries to kill Alita, Ed shields her, taking a fatal shot that blows off the top of his head. His last act is to give Alita her Damascus Blades that he had reforged into a single blade. Unbeknownst to Alita, he sold her Berserker Body which had been in storage while she was fitted out with her motorball body in an attempt to keep her on the circuit.

Ed's mask bears a resemblance to that won by the character Frankenstein in the film Death Race 2000, which was about a similarly bloody gladiatorial sport.

Mr. Thompson
Mr. Thompson of the Trench Bloom Waste Reclamation Company is Alita’s corporate sponsor. He sets up the practice match between Alita and Ajakutty over whether or not the latter gets to keep the number 99, as Alita refuses to wear any other number in the Second League. Thompson has his doubts over Alita’s chances of winning after Ajakutty beats her in the first of a best out of three races, but this arouses in Esdoc a fierce faith in Alita, and he defends her chances of winning. It was noted after the first two editions of the volume with Thompson's first appearance that the company was supposed to be called "Trench Broom" as opposed to "Trench Bloom", due to a typo in the translation from the original manga to the English language version.

Umba
A fat, very short cyborg, Umba is an ace mechanic, responsible for repairing Alita’s motorball body as well as tuning and upgrading it. He uses a tracked harness from which he hangs suspended for increased mobility and height. When Alita is damaged following her confrontation with Takie, Umba proves that he is skilled enough to be able to absorb enough information from 15 sensors in order to control a 20 arm “octopus” exoskeleton, in effect performing the work of ten engineers and getting Alita back onto the track in less than six minutes. Umba has agoraphobia, and is no fun on an outing according to Esdoc. Devastated following Esdoc’s death, he nevertheless does not try to dissuade Alita from her decision to quit motorball after the match with Jashugan. 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.