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Alien Nine
Studio: Genco/J.C. Staff Format: 4 OVA Released: 6/25/2001 to 2/25/2002 Written by: Face 
Alien Nine is a bizarre and unforgiving story about three adorable 6th grade girls. But don't be fooled by the happily-colored cover, this anime is much more than it appears to be. All at once it is funny, shocking, disturbing, charming, gross and manipulative; it's an amalgam of the perky and the uncanny. It's a story where cute 12-year-old girls battle alien monsters, where sentient beings are worn as protective helmets, where everyday could be one of those dreadful alien landing days.
In the not so distant future, aliens have become an ever-constant problem. It seems that everyday more and more arrive. Of course, they must be stopped, but they mustn't be killed. To take on this task are the newly elected Elementary School Alien Hunters, Yuri, Kumi and Kasumi. Together, it is their job to capture the aliens that land on the school grounds. But to survive the last year of Elementary school, Yuri must overcome her fears of aliens. After all, she won't always be able to depend on someone else to save her. Yuri's emotional frailties are brought up countless times through streams of tears, cringing expressions, and awkwardly emotive smiles. From the not-so-everyday school experiences to the darker, more brutal situations, director Jiro Fujimoto expertly explores the mind of a timid escapist. As Yuri distressingly tries to cope with her new role, we are shown the profound and near traumatic effects of her adolescent adjustments. However, as the series progressed, I quickly grew tired of Yuri's incessant bellowing, and in the end, it traps her character within a never-ending cycle of insecurities, allowing her little room to grow. But despite all of this, I couldn't help but cheer her on. Yet, what Alien Nine lacks is a psychological depth beyond the scope of its characters' insecurities. The series spends too much time focusing on character dilemmas to ever hope to cover even a morsel of what Hitoshi Tomizawa's ongoing manga goes into. Sadly, the characters suffer because of this, along with the short series length (4 Episodes).  However, what makes Alien Nine such an intense triumph, in spite of its flaws, is the way each character is portrayed. All of the girls are presented so realistically and sympathetically it is nearly impossible not to feel sorry for them. As they are pushed into situations of such extreme cathartic torment, their pain and suffering are as clear as day, and as real as ours. Each one of them has a different reason for being involved with the Alien Hunters, some had no choice, others chose it to escape responsibility, but at the center of their hearts is the same overbearing and ambiguous crisis: adolescent alienation.
From Evangelion to FLCL, there has been a long line of latent psychosomatic clones, and very few have managed to dig so deeply into the mind of a child. Alien Nine is the monomaniacal exception. After all, as the opening song says, perfection is boring; some imperfection is rather appealing * * * * (Very Good) Posted: June, 2004
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