Alien Nine is an anime series with a pretty strange premise: the series' lead character, Yuri Otani, is a sixth-grade girl who has recently been elected by her fellow classmates to capture the bizarre aliens that keep inexplicably invading the school grounds. Unfortunately for Yuri, she finds aliens of all kinds frightening and repulsive and has no interest in catching them, nor in wearing an alien symbiote on her head to help assist her in her duties. Strange premises of this sort are, of course, fairly common in anime, but Alien Nine distinguishes itself by refusing to give the audience the slightest bit of exposition: we're never told why a bunch of creepy and occasionally violent aliens keep invading this elementary school, or why everyone acts so nonchalant about these invasions, or why a group of girls are required to put alien symbiotes on their heads and capture (not kill) the aliens -- the show carries on with all this strangeness as though no explanation for any of it is needed. It's very weird.





The first scene in this first episode introduces Yuri and her plight: her class has just chosen her to be their representative alien-catcher. Yuri is despondent; she doesn't want the job, and grumpily assumes the other students elected her to do it just so they wouldn't have to. Her friend Miyu tries to be supportive, reminding her that as an alien-catcher she'll be allowed to skip class whenever an alien invades the school (which happens, we're later shown, fairly frequently), but her spirits remain low...and they fall even lower when she (along with her fellow alien-catchers Kumi and Kasumi) are introduced to the symbiotic aliens resembling bicycle helmets that they'll have to wear on their heads in order to do their job. These frog-like aliens, called Borgs, are capable of sprouting protective wings and wires that can trap (or kill) an alien, but Yuri wants nothing to do with hers, especially after it licks her face with its long tongue. She finds everything about the creature deeply unsettling.

Her two alien-catching compatriots -- the serious, responsible Kumi and the reckless and playful Kasumi -- are less bothered by their symbiotes. Kumi isn't crazy about catching aliens either, but she isn't scared of them and takes the job in stride; Kasumi, meanwhile, finds aliens fascinating and apparently jumped at the chance to be an alien-catcher.

The three girls take to rollerblading around the school wielding lacrosse sticks whenever an alien is reported to be on the loose. Their first attempt to capture one of the creatures goes very badly, however, as the mortified Yuri inadvertently allows her Borg to kill a spider-like alien, which is apparently a very bad thing. Subsequent alien-catching attempts go almost as badly; a giant headless beast is tranquilized by Kumi just in time to save a panicked Yuri and her Borg from its enormous fists.

The show places a great emphasis on Yuri's fears and her extreme dislike of her unpleasant new job...in fact, the series (brilliantly, in my opinion) spends as much time on this aspect of the story as it does on the alien-catching. Yuri is terrified of the aliens, but none of the adults in her world understand her fears or take them seriously: her mother is distant and her teachers, though kind, all expect her to suck it up and deal with it. The only support she receives is from her peers, Kumi and Kasumi, who have a better idea of what she's going through. Yuri's fears are totally relatable; her sense of being overwhelmed by her new responsibilties, and of feeling like she has no one to turn to to help her deal with them, is something that everyone goes through at some point in their lives, and especially during the transition from childhood to adulthood.





That transition is, in fact, one of key elements underlying the series. Adolescent angst and confusion abounds -- Yuri's fear of the grossly organic aliens, and the fact that she herself is required to bond with one (and to allow the creature to make very personal contact with her by letting it lick her bare back for hours on end, because that's how the Borgs recharge themselves), can easily be read metaphorically. Clearly, the physical changes that take place during adolescence (keep in mind these girls are sixth-graders), and the emotional turmoil they can cause, were on the minds of the series' creators.

The animation and the character designs, meanwhile, are superb (the sharp contrast between the cutesy girls and the hideous aliens struck me as especially effective). The English dub is very good as well; veterans Veronica Taylor and Rachel Lillis put in sound performances, and Kelly Ray does well as Yuri. Even better: the entire series (four episodes) is available on a single DVD, with numerous extras, and most online retailers are selling it for pretty cheap.

Recommended!

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