Alien 9

Soon after entering middle school, Yuri Otani is coerced into joining the "Alien Party," a single-minded group with one goal: capture any alien attempting to enter school grounds. Terrified of aliens her entire life, Otani is anything but thrilled, and to make matters worse, her kit includes a "Borg"—an alien-like creature tasked with ensuring her safety. Despite this, she finds solace in her two partners: the independent and reliable Kumi Kawamura, and the smart and energetic Kasumi Tomine.

As the Alien Party works to fend off extraterrestrial threats, will their roller blades and lacrosse sticks be enough to overcome the dire challenges ahead, or will they succumb to fear and suffer the grim consequences of defeat?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Otani, Yuri Main

Ihata, Juri Japanese

Kawamura, Kumi Main

Shimizu, Kaori Japanese

Tomine, Kasumi Main

Shitaya, Noriko Japanese

Borg Main

Nakao, Ryusei Japanese

Hisakawa, Megumi Main

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Knife, Yellow Supporting

Ishida, Akira Japanese

Otani, Satoko Supporting

Katou, Yuuko Japanese

Hironaka, Tomoya Supporting

Sakuma, Rei Japanese

Namiki, Manabu Supporting

Suzuki, Kazuhito Japanese

Tamaki, Miyu Supporting

Nakayama, Sara Japanese

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Oosawa, Nobuhiro Producer

Tanaka, Shigehiro Producer

Yagi, Hitoshi Producer

Reviews

Dec 3, 2015

Denpa_Pope

Recommended

Alien 9 is a bizarre and sadly very much underrated coming of age story. It is set in a school which suffers from constant daily alien attacks. Most of the aliens are best-like creatures both in mind and body. Our protagonists are three 12 year old school girls who were in one way or another recruited in the Alien control party.

The basic look and premise of the show do not appear to be special from the first glance, yet mere minutes are enough to see that you are into something much more than just another high-school, moe, action anime. There are a few things ... that make Alien 9 very distinct and give a bizarre and unique feel to the show. First of all the directing. It is slow and methodical with each and every shot meaning something or adding to the underlying themes and overall surreal feel of the show. The smart directing is accompanied by an offbeat soundtrack that helps build the atmosphere. The moe style that the show uses makes the disturbing parts provide even more impact. The tactic that some future shows also used, like Madoka Magica.

The anime itself (at least in my understanding) is a scary allegory of growing up, blooming and being afraid to be left behind. What sets apart this coming of age story from many others is that it is made from the girl's point of view.

The characters I found to be very relatable and well written. The voice actors also did a terrific job.

A downside to otherwise amazing series is that it only adapts the half of the story from manga. The ending does not answer all questions and the story is ultimately left unfinished. While there were attempts to revive the show, it is still stuck in the developmental limbo and has been so for close to 15 years. It is unlikely that we will ever get the rest. Even without the ending. I do advise reading the manga as it is only 3 volumes long and the anime adapts the first 1.5 volumes.

As it stands the show is still very much a fantastic, emotional and thought provoking ride through and through. Sadly this anime is very much underrated and mostly unappreciated. I urge people to give it a try, especially if you are into psychological, thought provoking and disturbing anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 6, 2015

NeverKnowsBest26

Mixed Feelings

A decade before Madoka Magica subverted tropes of the magical girl genre and spawned a new wave of “darker” magical girl shows, Alien 9 did something a similar vein. Starting off as a quirky sci-fi slice-of-life featuring cute girls fighting aliens, this 4 episode OVA lulls you into thinking it’s a fun little sci-fi adventure romp with its unassuming first episode, and then proceeds to shatter those expectations throughout it’s the rest relatively short run-time. It’s a bizarrely off-kilter yet compelling mixture of quaintness and horror that puts a uniquely sadistic twist on common anime tropes, even by today’s standards. Unfortunately, we’re ultimately provided with ... only a small taste of the OVA’s potential, as its short episode count prevents it from becoming something truly substantial.

The OVA follows three elementary school students who have been selected to be their school’s alien hunting squad. There’s Kumi, a girl much more mature and responsible than most kids her age, and a big sister-like figure to her friends and classmates. Kasumi, an accomplished child-prodigy, who volunteered herself to be part of the school’s alien hunting squad. And then there’s Yuri, a timid cry-baby who was selected by her classmates to be part of the alien hunting squad because she didn’t participate in any other school clubs or activities, and the show’s main focal point. The girls aided by aliens called Borgs, which perch themselves on the girls’ heads like hats, and supervised by the cheerful Ms. Hisakawa, who seems too enthusiastic to push the girls to hunt aliens.

Now, if this situation off to you, it’s because it is. It does pit little girls against aliens, after all. Though it may not appear so strange at first, partly because this kind of thing is commonplace in anime, but also because the show introduces the premise as nonchalant and matter-of-fact. Nobody ever questions the ethics of sending little girls to catch dangerous aliens, Ms. Hisakawa seems to be more pre-occupied with monitoring and taking the girls than the safety of the girls. Early on, the show itself treats some of the alien encounters with a certain lack of seriousness and urgency, often showing them in fun little montages, as if to intentionally downplay the severity of the situation. Even Yuri’s scaredy-cat tendencies are played for some laughs. The show takes advantage of the tropes of the medium to fool the audience into thinking it’s a fun little show, and not questioning the bizarre and unethical nature of what is demanded of the girls.

Of course, it the show doesn’t stay this way for too long, as the danger the girls are in become very apparent and the show’s content becomes progressively more disturbing. After some events that would traumatize any elementary school student, the show stops treating Yuri’s crying fits as comical and more as the harsh and horrifying truth of the situation. Yuri, for all her crying, is right to be scared; serving as the anxious fear-ridden heart of the show. She’s a shy, timid girl forced against her own will to fight aliens and continuously pressured to do so despite her objections. She even starts having nightmares about her ordeals, which are colorful and even child-like depictions of her rational fears. The contrast between the cartoony visual direction and the darker thematic content of the show make the experience even more bizarre and unsettling. Even when the show is at its most surreal and violent, the art retains a certain cutesiness which makes it all the more sinister.

Yuri isn’t the only one that suffers psychologically as the show progresses, however. Mature and confident Kumi, whom Yuri heavily relies on, and even the enthusiastic Kasumi have their own mental and emotional scars. Their familial issues and struggles with responsibility and loneliness are just as relatable as Yuri’s fear, if not even more so. Unfortunately, the OVA’s short episode count only allows a very light examination of their psyches. This inconclusiveness envelops the OVA as a whole; the plot largely goes unexplained and left with a lot of loose ends, including a cryptic final shot which is frustrating on multiple levels. Regrettably, this severely undercuts the show’s impact. For its ambitions, Alien 9 suffers from a curious lack of purpose. It succeeds in subverting commonly used tropes and weaving a grim tale from a cutesy aesthetic, but the hanging plot and rushed catharsis leaves a certain lack of fulfillment as the OVA ends. Sadly, this ultimately devalues what the show accomplishes to an extent, making it a half-fulfilled promise of what it could have been.

The show was produced in the early 2000s, a time when anime was transitioning from hand-drawn cells to digital cells, and it’s pretty easy to tell just by looking at the show. The digital coloring and animation was not the most refined, certainly not as refined as the anime series of the mid-2000s onward. It’s colorful and animated well, but the show doesn’t really pop visually outside of a few creepy surreal moments. The character designs are very purposely made cutesy, with emphasis on the characters round and expressive faces. The alien designs look more weird than threatening; they look appropriately otherworldly, but also oddly unmemorable. The Borgs in particular are peculiar looking, being frog-like creatures with wings that double as hats. The music, like everything else in the show, is deceptively light and bouncy. Mostly composed of xylophone, bells, flutes, and electronic beats, it’s an energetic soundtrack that progressively gets stranger as the show delves into darker material.

Alien 9 is a nifty little oddity that has unfortunately become obsolete as time has passed. Its deceptive façade of cute characters and wacky hijinks with more sinister intentions it hides makes the OVA quite a novelty. Unfortunately, it never actually develops or expands on its themes, characters, or plot. This really diminishes the show’s value to little more than an interesting idea. This lack of development compounded with the upsurge of darker magical girl series pretty much ensure that Alien 9 is doomed to be an obscure novelty from the early 2000s, and nothing more.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 26, 2009

angelgurl4416

Not Recommended

At first glance, Alien 9 appears to be a cute little anime about chasing aliens on roller blades. Thinking this was the case, I bought it. I thought that they must have been exaggerating or in complete error when I saw the 13+ rating. Not. Despite its cheery and cutesy character design, this is a very dark and disturbing anime.

I should have known something was up when I kept getting bad feelings for no reason. Things happened in the anime that made zero sense, and yet I felt completely horrible while and after watching it. When I finished the series (4 30-minute episodes), I couldn't ... watch anime for the rest of the week. I felt dirty, like I had done something very wrong. Although the anime was violent and disturbing, it didn't seem enough to affect me for days. Then, I discovered that Alien 9 is riddled with symbolism - and some of it not so hidden. To call it dark would be an understatement. There are blatant sexual instances represented, expressions of deep and black pain, and perverted thought processes. I would never recommend this to anyone. I have a feeling that someone who has experienced firsthand some of the horrible things the symbolism depicts would pick up on the innuendoes instantly.

Last, but not least, there is some very light yuri (girl's love) tone in the anime - and it's more obvious in the manga.

All in all, Alien 9 is, in short, to be avoided like the plague.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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