Chiren is a main character from the cyberpunk OVA Battle Angel Alita and the 2019 live-action film Alita: Battle Angel. She was once a cyberphysician from the sub-orbital city of Zalem and former partner to Daisuke Ido. For unknown reasons, the two cyber-doctors were cast out of Zalem and were forced to work in Iron City located directly beneath their former home. While Ido has accepted his circumstances, Chiren is desperate to go back to Zalem, even if it means going against the law of the Factory.
In the OVA, Chiren is voiced by Mami Koyama, Tamsin Hollo (Manga UK dub) and Laura Chapman (ADV dub). In the live-action film, she is portrayed by Jennifer Connelly.
History[]
OVA[]
Dissatisfied with working in Iron City, Chiren desperately wishes to return to Zalem and makes a deal with the crooked businessman Vector, agreeing to build and modify cyborgs for Coliseum fights. In exchange for this, as well as some occasional sex, Vector promises to arrange for Chiren to return to Zalem. As well as returning to Zalem, Chiren also wants to humiliate her former partner Ido for refusing to help her. An opportunity arises when the ex-gladiator and brain junkie Grewishka arrives at her apartment seeking help, having just been badly damaged by Ido's new cyborg Alita. Chiren decides to enhance Grewishka so that the both of them can have their revenge, outfitting him with new armour and supersonic cutting cables in his fingers. Despite these enhancements, Grewishka is still unable to defeat Alita and is destroyed during their duel in the Scrapyard.
Following Grewcica's death, Chiren begins to lose all confidence in her abilities. After discovering the number of bounties Alita has wracked up in her short time as a hunter-warrior, Vector decides he wants to sign Alita up for the Coliseum and orders Chiren to go out and find her. Chiren reluctantly obeys and follows Alita to a dilapidated warehouse where she meets with Yugo. While listening to Alita and Yugo talk about their dreams for the future, Chiren begins to question her own purpose, thinking back to the days when she and Ido worked together on Zalem.
A short time later, Yugo is mortally wounded by the hunter-warrior Gime. Alita kills Gime, but Yugo is quickly bleeding to death and Alita doesn't know how to help him. Chiren then approaches Alita and offers to help Yugo by connecting Alita's own life-support system to his head. This gives Alita time to get Yugo to Ido's surgery where Ido transplants Yugo's head onto a cyborg body. Afterwards, Chiren returns to Vector to tell him what's happened to Yugo and that she's done working for him. Before she walks out the door, Vector tells her that the time has come for her to go back to Zalem.
Film[]
In Alita: Battle Angel, Chiren is revealed to be Dyson Ido's ex-wife as well as his former partner in cyber-medicine. The two of them were cast out of Zalem by Nova for unspecified reasons, forcing them to mete out a living in Iron City. While Chiren was saddened by her exile from Zalem, her marriage remained stable, and she and Ido even had a daughter together, whom they named Alita. Alita suffered from a number of birth defects that left her weak and bound to a wheelchair, but Ido would later build a cyborg body for her. Sadly, Alita was murdered by a cyborg who broke into Ido's clinic. Consumed by grief, Chiren left Ido and the clinic, determined to return to Zalem.
From then on, Chiren began working with Vector, the corrupt Motorball chairman, under the assurance that he will return her to Zalem if she builds up enough capital by modifying cyborgs for Motorball. After seeing Ido's newly-adopted cyborg girl Alita in the body that they had originally built for their daughter, Chiren becomes even more bitter and determined to prove that she is a better cyber-doctor than he is. To this end, she modifies the mercenary Grewishka so that he can take revenge on Alita after she tore off one of his arms.
Just like her OVA counterpart, Chiren begins to doubt herself and whether or not Vector will live up to his word. After Hugo is mortally wounded by the hunter-warrior Zapan, she helps Alita keep him alive while faking his death at the same time, removing his head and connecting it to Alita's core. In the end, Chiren redeems herself, but also like her OVA character, meets the same gruesome fate.
Death[]
In both the OVA and film, Chiren's death isn't shown on-screen, just the grisly aftermath.
OVA[]
After learning about how Vector had manipulated Yugo, Ido pays a visit to Vector's office and beats him. While brutalising Vector, Ido spots one of Chiren's earrings on the floor and fears that Vector had done something to her. Ido demands to know where Chiren is and Vector points to a cloth on a nearby counter. Ido removes the cloth to reveal numerous glass tubes containing human organs - Chiren's organs. Vector had Chiren's body parts harvested in order to sell them off to Zalem which apparently thrives on the black market organ trade.
Film[]
Chiren' fate is slightly different from the OVA. First, the scene in which her fate is revealed differs somewhat as it is Alita who threatens Vector rather than Ido, and second it is not confirmed that she's definitely dead because it is shown that her eyes, still connected to the brain, are moving and Vector says that it was meant to be sent to Zalem to be part of Nova's experiments.