Yuri Otani is a 12-year-old girl who is called to that most hallowed of anime duties -- fighting aliens. She is voted by her class to be a part of a three-person alien-hunting group called the Alien Party with the more enthusiastic Kasumi Tomine and the more serious Kumi Kawamura. Yuri does not take particularly well to alien fighting; the creatures frighten her -- especially the symbiotic lifeform, a Borg, she must wear on her head for protection -- and the assignments grow progressively more dangerous as the aliens' influence spreads around the school. Their handler, teacher Megumi Hisakawa, is not much help, either ...
Alien Nine is a strange OVA. It presents itself as a light, fluffy slice-of-life about three girls hunting aliens while zooming around school on rollerblades, but not even a few seconds into the show it is apparent that what's underneath the surface is a much more sinister experience. Yuri spends most of the four episodes crying her little eyes out, but frankly, she has plenty of reason to cry: These aliens are like what would be churned out if H. P. Lovecraft rose from the grave, watched and liked K-On! for whatever reason and then decided to mix that style with his usual assortment of unknowable, horrifying creatures.
Many of the situations presented are legitimately uncomfortable, and yet the cheery veneer persists, even during the most horrifying of scenes (and there are no shortage of them in Alien Nine). It's at least partly serious (or at least serious enough that you can tell the show is saying something), but in a way it's also mocking the situations presented in shows where teens and pre-teens go out and battle to save the planet. What the hell could little kids do? Kasumi and Kumi are shown to be capable fighters, but they also have some pretty deep personal problems. Yuri is the sanest, most normal person in the show.
If you're turned off by Yuri crying a lot, well, I can't blame you too much, but the story is fairly harrowing regardless, even though there are a ton of problems with how it is written. Yuri is just a perfectly normal girl forced into a supremely screwed up situation against her will, and she is reacting like many people would in that situation. It's not too difficult to connect with her because of that, unless you absolutely demand that your heroes rise to the occasion all the time. (And if you do, well, I'm not gonna criticize ya.) But as someone who doesn't mind a story that makes the viewer uncomfortable as hell, I got wrapped up in all the horrible circumstances in which Yuri finds herself.
The overall mood is something Alien Nine absolutely nails, from the surreal lightness of the Alien Party's introductions to their duties to the palpable terror of the aliens' physical and psychological attacks. Even just sitting here, typing and recalling random scenes from Alien Nine in my mind, I can feel my palms getting a bit clammy and a slight chill run down my spine. That's real terror.
Alien Nine is infamous for having some severe storytelling issues. You know how Ernest Hemingway's approach to writing short stories was to show just the tip of the iceberg, and let the real themes and issues of the story show up only beneath the surface? Alien Nine is like that to the extreme. As the main story with the Alien Party fighting aliens progresses, several hints are thrown out about the origin of the aliens, the sinister nature of Hisakawa, the reasons why the girls are supposed to hunt the aliens and so on ... except not a single one of these questions is answered in the least by Alien Nine's conclusion, and the OVA even concludes on what manga fans call an awkward part in the story that implies a completely different story direction than what actually occurs.
Now, I tried to do some research into the creation of this OVA and the circumstances behind the ending. The tone and themes seem so self-assured and well-handled that I had trouble believing that sheer incompetency led to the jumbled storyline and awkward conclusion. Well, I couldn't really find anything that suggested there were production issues, which of course does not mean they didn't exist. However, from the general tone of the series, I believe the creators intended for the story and details to be frustrating and disorienting, and for the final few seconds to be shocking, impacting and a big WTF. It could be said, of course, that whatever is good from the series is lifted from the manga (having not read it, I wouldn't be able to tell what may have been changed or kept the same), but at the very least there is conscious choice on the part of the production studio about what to emphasize and where to start and stop the story.
Alien Nine can be frustrating, and if you need everything tied up in a bow by the end (not that there's anything wrong with that), then it's probably best to stay away from this OVA. But it's such a different experience compared to many anime that I think it has to be experienced, even if the experience might not be so pleasant.
If you like this, then watch ... : Most people stop the comparison to Neon Genesis Evangelion at Shinji and Yuri crying a hell of a lot, but they're also similar in that they both take basic anime-style scenarios and turn them upside down and inside out by showing the implications of how they might actually play out in reality.
Not sure if anyone aside from myself and Pleiades has watched Alien Nine, but if so, then check out my Serious Business analysis of the OVA on UNMEI KAIHEN.
