Alien 9
Alien Nine

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Alien Nine is a stunning and evocative little series with tons to offer in each of its attempted facets. It commands the reader's attention with a starkly idiosyncratic approach to visuals, appeals to the emotions, makes you care for its characters and gives you plenty to think/cheer about.

One of the first things I noticed when I began reading was the nuances in visuals, namely, the juxtaposition of intentionally crude, cutsey character designs with frighteningly detailed, angular, gross images of alien's and their appendages. The effect this dichotomy creates remains consistent throughout the series, as the violence is never suppressed; Tomizawa pulls no punches in his ... depiction of the endeavors of grade-school girls and their battles with aliens.

Speaking of school-age girls, the three central characters are quite different and, thankfully, have some substance that only grows as the series goes on. Each girl starts with their own personality and reason (or lack thereof) for joining "the Alien Party." As the series goes on, each girl sees some truly dramatic changes in character, some psychologically, some physically... and watching these changes, how they come to be and what events they inspire, is what makes Alien Nine a compelling page-turner.

I think the manga's greatest strength, though, when considered with its characters, is the events. This is "Things Actually Happen: the Manga." Character development and arcs, plot revelations, subtle/not-so-subtle explanations of occurrences, it has it all. In keeping with this technique of moving of the story inexorably forward, the theme of body horror becomes quite important and it isn't cheaply depicted at all. There's plenty of terrific spectacles in the manga; I found myself thinking/saying multiples times; "holy shit, that actually happened!," or, "did she really just say that?" You'll focus on the images, as that effect/dichotomy I mentioned earlier in the writing is consistent but it's really about what's happening. In other words, it looks damned cool but focus on what the characters are doing and saying and the effect is dramatically improved.

Alien Nine is a criminally under-read piece of work and a stunning narrative application of the "Superflat" art form. It's story is just as important as its art and visuals, and taken together they make a powerfully memorable, evocative team.

Those are bizzare and surreal series that strongly resemble "Propeller Heaven".

However, the problem here is that story leaves less impact than propeller heaven.

The story revolves around a group of school girls that have to fight aliens by wearing helmets (That are aliens themselves). It is not really possible to explain more without spoiling it.

The series have old school character graphics with round and slightly cartoonish faces, but this is contrasted by detailed depiction of aliens, surroundings and the like.

It is very difficult to make sense out of the story, until at some point it goes and explains half of it in an informational dump ... during inroduction.

Characters have varying degree of although the lead(?) character behaves as a girl would, the rest are less coherent and more confusing.

In the end I think this manga is worth checking out largely due to surrealism and quality artwork. However, I feel like "propeller heaven" left bigger impact on me when I read it.

As a teenager I read and loved this manga. I was blown away by the expressiveness of the art, the interesting designs of the aliens, and even the occasional loli fanservice. I can see why it appealed to me and others, but years later the flaws stand out above all. The story is an inconsistent mess of objectification, exploitation, fanservice, and aborted plot lines. The more I think about it, the more my opinion drops.

The art is the simplest thing to critique in this manga. It’s a double edged sword. On the one hand it’s incredibly expressive, even vibrant. I felt the dynamic action ... on the pages in a way I rarely do. I could tell what happened in 99% of the scenes at a glance. In my head it felt like it was animated. The artist renders horrific scenes in startling clarity, and ingenuity. The designs of the aliens are excellent and unique.

However, the artist also made choices that cause many characters to look very similar to each other. The fact that I often could not tell who was who during scenes, or remember who a character was affected nothing probably speaks to the story issues. The 3 main girls have similar facial features, are dressed the exact same, and their hair is covered by nearly identical looking helmets. Even when they are not dressed identically, you are left with strange choices in shading and contrast that make it difficult to tell who’s who at moments. While scenes are rendered strikingly clear, they’re almost always rendered the same way. The perspectives, the framing, the lighting, and the general mood almost never change. It often contributes to the very samey feel of the art once the explosive gore and unique designs lose their novelty.

The characters are all distinct from each other in personality, however they do not grow throughout the story in any significant way. Yuri at the start is Yuri at the end, likewise with Kasumi and Kumi and the Teacher— Which is really saying something for a bunch of girls who get murdered, mind raped, eaten alive, vivisected, ressurected, turned into aliens, and so much more. Despite the relatively static nature of their personalities, I rarely felt if I knew them either as defining character traits would be added at random.

Despite the fact the girls are given a fairly in depth introduction near the start, and you see their home lives, the author will just decide to drop things on you that have major ramifications on the story. Kasumi is the worst case of this. I don’t recall much ever being said about her loneliness except that she had a brother, but suddenly at about halfway through the story her loneliness is a key plot point and carries through for the rest of the manga. Apparently her loneliness was a core thing driving her unhappiness. Her loneliness was not brought up previously, nor was her unhappiness. The author is content to drop these things on you at random, rather than build up to them or suggest them. Another example would be Kumi’s lesbianism which both appears out of nowhere and plays into harmful tropes.

The story does not hold your hand most of the time. The world building is fluid, and you learn about the world by experiencing it, which means that even when strange plot contrivances are dropped on you they rarely feel out of place. It can be refreshing at times, until the author reminds you that he’s making things up as he goes along. Dropped plot points are abundant, and other plot points or happenings clearly exist just to cater to the author’s fetishes.

For example, when the Sunflower aliens invade, what it’s showing you is that they’re simply trying to bond with the hosts but are inept at it and causing unknown casualties. What it tells you is that they made a concerted effort to attack and wipe out everyone at the other schools. Particularly bizarre is the repeated insinuations that the girls are being prepared for something, but never the reveal of what exactly it is. It can’t be a symbiotic bonding with the Borg aliens, because when that happens it’s listed as a failure. Yet, later on in the teacher’s desperation she attempts to force that on Yuri multiple times. At that point Yuri would be a failure regardless, so why? It could be inferred that the Borg are a part of the Drill clan, but not related to the leaders of it, but that’s never even implied. I just don’t know what the point of the experiments even was when ultimately super weapons like Kumi are failures. The teacher herself even seems to be in the same position as Kumi. Many things such as resurrection are relayed so haphazardly that it’s unclear what the girls even know about their world.

Many of the aspects that are unexplained or make little sense seem to circle around the author’s fetishistic desires. Boys are shown to be able to bond with aliens, but the Borg only choose female hosts. I cannot recall any explanation given for this, and it’s particularly weird since boys are repeatedly shown to be ultra willing hosts to just about any alien lifeform– Eager for the combat and the bonding. The Borg themselves feed by licking the sweat off of the kid’s naked bodies, which is quite a lot to take in. It also doesn’t make much sense if you read further and learn more about them, so you just have multiple scenes of aliens tongue bathing naked children. The fanservice does not really go toward a greater point, nor is it even consistent. At one point the chapter cover is a closeup camel toe of one of the girls, despite no other cover being of this nature. Sometimes there’s panty shots, sometimes the girls are respectfully covered. The author seems to have a Made in Abyss tier loli-gore fetish though.

The author often has a lot of negative influence on the story that seem to be typical of guys writing girls. When Kumi bonds with her Borg, we see a screen that lists her as no longer human. It goes on to say that this means she no longer has human functions, and its example is reproduction. It’s not important to the story that any of the girls be able to reproduce and also they’re still grade schoolers. It’s not that she doesn’t use the bathroom anymore such as with Vampires in fiction, or that she no longer needs to eat, it’s specifically reproduction. This kind of reduction in which being a human, or even a female is tied to your ability to reproduce is all too common in fiction.

I think it gets worse though, because it’s not until after this point that the author chooses to insinuate that Kumi is a lesbian. In Japan, lesbianism is considered a passing phase young girls will have then grow out of. The author further plays into this by having Kumi talk about her desire to be with girls, rather than explicitly state it. It’s worth noting that both girls only engage in this behavior when they are no longer fully human as well, and the character who is fully human never displays these tendencies. Lesbianism is okay when it’s young girls, who are not biologically female anymore or who are already othered by being turned into monsters.

These are story beats echoed by many stories of this nature. Take Madoka for example. It’s not uncommon for the other girls, all young girls, to be interested in each other without ever stating explicit identification of their preference, only implying relationships and implying desires. Furthermore, good friends who are ‘corrupted’ express this desire, and they in turn must stop the pure girl from becoming corrupted. The pure girl is largely useless, and a non entity in the story except as a magnet for things to happen around, or to be in the vicinity of plot events. Ultimately, the pure girl falls at the end of these stories. You’ve seen it a dozen times in these young girl, mature themed stories that contain all of these themes which further goes towards making the story less remarkable. It wasn’t a new plot trajectory in 2003 (certainly not when so much of the story mirrors Evangelion), and it’s even less fresh now.

The thing that really strikes me though, is how callous and uncaring the world and the author is. Friendships in this are not organic, they seem to be the result of a symbiotic, psychic link between the girls. No one in this world cares what happens to the children, barely even their parents. No one is concerned as the children are gored and forced into awful situations repeatedly, and neither does the author. It’s all in service of providing more twisted spectacle. It’s utterly devoid of compassion or empathy for the characters, which makes the story feel even more hollow. In the end I’m left with a feeling of emptiness and disgust. I may have well just gone and read some loli-gore-rape hentai with a slightly better plot.

There’s a lot more I could say as well about the fact the girls are forced into bizarre, sexually tinged relationships with these aliens. Overall, I would never recommend anyone read this, but the art is interesting.