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Alien Nine #1
Alien Nine: Book One
In the future alien invasion is a daily occurrence and everyone must be prepared. Elementary School #9 has assigned three students to fight off the extra-terrestrial threat. From Hitoshi Tomizawa, the creator of the Alien Nine video series. Alien Nine is the perfect combination of cute manga style characters and creepy monsters!
224 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1999
124 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 12, 2019
For my 13th birthday my friends and I visited a hole-in-the-wall manga cafe in New York City called Atom Cafe (which is sadly no longer there). The walls were packed with Japanese manga with a tiny English bookcase against a far wall. The owner cooked us homemade onigiri in the kitchen and upon leaving, gifted me a bag full of English manga! The first couple volumes of Alien 9 were in there and just the other day I was racking my mind trying to remember the series. I was able to Google it quickly with some keywords like "rollerblading girls who fight monsters" (lol) and found an online version through MangaRock.
This series is really good. I remember it being good but reading it now, over a decade later, its really fast paced and engaging! I don't know whether to classify it as horror, but its definitely more mature than it leads on. In a weird parallel universe, young girls are responsible for fighting off gross alien creatures that are causing havoc at their school. The three main characters are reminiscent of The Powerpuff Girls, each with their individual personalities and fighting styles: independent Kumi, sweetheart Kasumi, and poor scaredy cat Yuri. Out of all of them, Yuri is the one that drives our plot and represents the outlier force within the team. Together each battle forces them to grow up, take action and responsibility, something not all of them can master.
Alien 9 is a manga series I still have to finish, and I'll most likely review it in its entirety when I get there. For now its an exciting, fun, and sometimes gross read and one of my favorite manga. Highly recommend, but maybe not for young children though.
This series is really good. I remember it being good but reading it now, over a decade later, its really fast paced and engaging! I don't know whether to classify it as horror, but its definitely more mature than it leads on. In a weird parallel universe, young girls are responsible for fighting off gross alien creatures that are causing havoc at their school. The three main characters are reminiscent of The Powerpuff Girls, each with their individual personalities and fighting styles: independent Kumi, sweetheart Kasumi, and poor scaredy cat Yuri. Out of all of them, Yuri is the one that drives our plot and represents the outlier force within the team. Together each battle forces them to grow up, take action and responsibility, something not all of them can master.
Alien 9 is a manga series I still have to finish, and I'll most likely review it in its entirety when I get there. For now its an exciting, fun, and sometimes gross read and one of my favorite manga. Highly recommend, but maybe not for young children though.
January 15, 2012
Yuri, Kumi, and Kasumi are three girls in middle school. They are part of the Alien Party. It's an after school club that catches rogue aliens by using alien partners named Borgs. They look like baseball caps with wings, and they are self-aware. Yuri has just joined it, and they are advised by their teacher Megumi. Sounds like a wholesome, cute manga, right?
Wrong.
This is an amazing, brutal deconstruction of the idea of Pokemon. It's more-it's about changing as a young girl, about authority abusing children and how children can't escape it, and about losing yourself. It is not, as some reviewers said here, good for children.
Yuri is scared to death of her Borg. It attaches to her head showing a disgusting, pimply underside, and she passes out from it when it licks her in a friendly greeting. It, in an unnerving scene, eats the sweat off of her as its food as she bathes. Soon their first alien of the school year to capture shows up. It's an ugly little ball, but the three of them are cheered on by their teacher, lacrosse sticks at the ready to capture it.
Yuri freezes up, and her terror overcomes her. What does her Borg do? STAB IT TO DEATH with drill-style tentacles, lifting it up, and pulping its body. I kid you not. Graphically, too. Yuri is covered in its blood, and passes out, ending the first day in her club.
And it gets worse. These are little girls put in a Kafkaesque situation: they have to capture and stop rampaging aliens that can easily kill them, and they are not allowed to stop. Yuri's fear grows, and grows, until something unthinkable happens. But she is the lucky one: Kasumi and Kumi will not be so lucky. They will suffer more. And all the while the insanity of a world watching these children get scarred or altered (and they do, perfect Kasumi the most heartbreaking) for the adults own dark purposes is chilling. But it's deep and compelling. It's also violent, rides the edge of sexual content and subtext, and often times horrific. Later volumes descend even deeper into the twisted world of alien nine.
It's 5 stars because of that dark power. The art is amazing: the girls are simple, but the aliens are grotesque and unearthly. But be warned, it's more on the level of Shadow Star Vol. 1: Starflight and Bokurano: Ours, Volume 1-manga that take common tropes (pokemon for alien nine, magical girls with pets for shadow star, giant mecha piloted by children for Bokurano) and twist them brutally, deconstructing the genre to show what it might really be like if it happened.
Wrong.
This is an amazing, brutal deconstruction of the idea of Pokemon. It's more-it's about changing as a young girl, about authority abusing children and how children can't escape it, and about losing yourself. It is not, as some reviewers said here, good for children.
Yuri is scared to death of her Borg. It attaches to her head showing a disgusting, pimply underside, and she passes out from it when it licks her in a friendly greeting. It, in an unnerving scene, eats the sweat off of her as its food as she bathes. Soon their first alien of the school year to capture shows up. It's an ugly little ball, but the three of them are cheered on by their teacher, lacrosse sticks at the ready to capture it.
Yuri freezes up, and her terror overcomes her. What does her Borg do? STAB IT TO DEATH with drill-style tentacles, lifting it up, and pulping its body. I kid you not. Graphically, too. Yuri is covered in its blood, and passes out, ending the first day in her club.
And it gets worse. These are little girls put in a Kafkaesque situation: they have to capture and stop rampaging aliens that can easily kill them, and they are not allowed to stop. Yuri's fear grows, and grows, until something unthinkable happens. But she is the lucky one: Kasumi and Kumi will not be so lucky. They will suffer more. And all the while the insanity of a world watching these children get scarred or altered (and they do, perfect Kasumi the most heartbreaking) for the adults own dark purposes is chilling. But it's deep and compelling. It's also violent, rides the edge of sexual content and subtext, and often times horrific. Later volumes descend even deeper into the twisted world of alien nine.
It's 5 stars because of that dark power. The art is amazing: the girls are simple, but the aliens are grotesque and unearthly. But be warned, it's more on the level of Shadow Star Vol. 1: Starflight and Bokurano: Ours, Volume 1-manga that take common tropes (pokemon for alien nine, magical girls with pets for shadow star, giant mecha piloted by children for Bokurano) and twist them brutally, deconstructing the genre to show what it might really be like if it happened.
September 20, 2016
Siempre me han interesado las obras que aportan algo nuevo a su medio, y Alien nine es una de ellas. Esta obra es una deconstruccion de la idea original de la captura y control de animales (como pokemon y derivados) mas o menos como lo hacen princess tutu y madoka magica con el genero de las chicas mágicas. Como las anteriormente mencionadas, Alien nine en un principio parece tener una trama dirigida a un publico infantil y carente de cualquier tono oscuro o adulto, pero la obra no tarda mucho en mostrar la realidad de la situación por la que pasan las chicas. No daré detalles para conservar la sorpresa pero les pido que no juzguen al manga por su portada porque su trama es mucho mas adulta y detallada que la de muchas obras que usan este enfoque.
La obra también toca mucho la biología, la deshumanizacion y perdida de la identidad, el proceso de crecimiento y actitud sobre la autoridad. Con todo esto en cuenta le otorgo a este las 3 estrellas y mi recomendación personal, resulta muy entretenido a la par que interesante.
La obra también toca mucho la biología, la deshumanizacion y perdida de la identidad, el proceso de crecimiento y actitud sobre la autoridad. Con todo esto en cuenta le otorgo a este las 3 estrellas y mi recomendación personal, resulta muy entretenido a la par que interesante.
July 27, 2021
Obtained the manga after watching the anime adaptation on DVD. The anime covers the events chronicled in Book 1 and the first half of Book 2. The story is very strange unless you read it as a coded metaphor for puberty and how going through all those physical changes makes you feel like an alien in your own body. Yuri Otani is railroaded into joining the "Alien Party" by popular vote, she doesn't have a choice but has to participate, and she's not allowed to quit....because nobody's allowed to get out of growing up. Some girls just mature faster than others and Yuri is one of the unlucky ones for whom puberty strikes early. The ostensible plot is the girls are tasked with hunting aliens that land and are a nuisance to the school. It's a job akin to animal control and pest control. More often the task is merely to capture the aliens for study rather than kill them. The three main girls differ in their motivation, competence and enthusiasm. Yuri Otani is the least of all these and ostensibly fits the "crybaby" archetype, but when you see the horrors she's subjected to it's hard to begrudge her tears....she's traumatized constantly! This is a very unorthodox story and if you like, say, Neon Genesis Evangelion you may well find Alien Nine appealing as well.
October 22, 2018
El manga lo leí en las últimas semanas de Septiembre, ya que mientras observaba algunas recomendaciones recorde que habia visto una OVA de esta serie que realmente me causó cierto shock, pues estaba acostumbrada a series de este índole que fuesen lindas y esta no lo era.
Y leyendo el el manga, no supe como sentirme. Si lo hubiese leído cuando apenas conocía todo el mundo del anime como tal, a lo mejor la protagonista me había causado cierto repelús pero ahora no fue, me agrado la chico y de cierta forma me sentía identificada en su miedo y desconfianza.
Creo que la historia aunque empieza como algo simple, se vuelve cada ves mas interesante mientras pasan los tomas, hasta llegar al último en el que te preguntas ¿De verdad vale la pena dar tu ser por vivir una aventura con una criatura curiosa?, y el desarrollo de los personajes es algo muy bien hecho.
Claro no voy a decir que esta historia es perfecta, creo que carece de algo, no se que pero le falta algo.
En si el tomo uno le doy una calificación de 3 /5.
Pero a todo los tomos le doys un 4.2/5 estrellas.
Y leyendo el el manga, no supe como sentirme. Si lo hubiese leído cuando apenas conocía todo el mundo del anime como tal, a lo mejor la protagonista me había causado cierto repelús pero ahora no fue, me agrado la chico y de cierta forma me sentía identificada en su miedo y desconfianza.
Creo que la historia aunque empieza como algo simple, se vuelve cada ves mas interesante mientras pasan los tomas, hasta llegar al último en el que te preguntas ¿De verdad vale la pena dar tu ser por vivir una aventura con una criatura curiosa?, y el desarrollo de los personajes es algo muy bien hecho.
Claro no voy a decir que esta historia es perfecta, creo que carece de algo, no se que pero le falta algo.
En si el tomo uno le doy una calificación de 3 /5.
Pero a todo los tomos le doys un 4.2/5 estrellas.
July 21, 2018
This series had a very slow start and I am also not a big fan of the art style. But there was some intrigue in the last few chapters of this volume, so I'll read on.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2021
I feel like we missed something in this story that would have helped it make more sense. Why are the elementary schoolers recruited for this duty? Why do they have to do it for a whole year?
January 23, 2024
I just love the art so so much
June 15, 2024
madoka magical girls if they fought aliens
Read
April 3, 2025es una pena que no siguieron el anime. la historia está muy buena, y el op es genial!
Read
May 25, 2011Read by Jodine, Spring 2006:
"It is Japanese manga, and I chose it to get a feel for this cross-cultural literature. The back cover says, "Age 16+" but I think a much younger reader could enjoy it. The story is about a futuristic group of kids who form a club that has to do with aliens. Then an actual alien monster flops over the roof and one side of their school building and ingests one of the girls in the club. The other kids have to figure out how to save her. They find that everybody is experiencing headaches, they believe to be caused by the alien. Someone eventually figures out that the alien is not only causing the headaches, but also making everyone feel isolated and lonely. The message is that there is power in group unity and togetherness. This genre is actually harder for me to get into than I expected. The characters all pretty much look alike, and their names are all strange to me, so it's hard for me to keep them all straight in my mind. The kids in this alien club wear these symbiotic helmets to help them fight the alien. There is talk of the alien assimilating one of the children, and using the girl's memories against them. The alien also shoots off these things that look like corkscrew noodles or spiraled ribbons. I'm not sure what that image is supposed to mean, but it is used so frequently that it must have some major significance."
"It is Japanese manga, and I chose it to get a feel for this cross-cultural literature. The back cover says, "Age 16+" but I think a much younger reader could enjoy it. The story is about a futuristic group of kids who form a club that has to do with aliens. Then an actual alien monster flops over the roof and one side of their school building and ingests one of the girls in the club. The other kids have to figure out how to save her. They find that everybody is experiencing headaches, they believe to be caused by the alien. Someone eventually figures out that the alien is not only causing the headaches, but also making everyone feel isolated and lonely. The message is that there is power in group unity and togetherness. This genre is actually harder for me to get into than I expected. The characters all pretty much look alike, and their names are all strange to me, so it's hard for me to keep them all straight in my mind. The kids in this alien club wear these symbiotic helmets to help them fight the alien. There is talk of the alien assimilating one of the children, and using the girl's memories against them. The alien also shoots off these things that look like corkscrew noodles or spiraled ribbons. I'm not sure what that image is supposed to mean, but it is used so frequently that it must have some major significance."
March 16, 2009
Write one hundred times on the blackboard, "I will not complain about having to put a gross alien on my head and catch creepy monsters".
May 11, 2010
Part of the problem with adding books I read years ago is that I can't always remember how I felt about them. So, I'll go middle of the road on this one.
April 22, 2014
Unfortunately, I don't think I'm well-versed enough in reading horror manga to give a very telling review of Alien Nine.
August 29, 2014
Francamente: esperaba que fuera mas salvaje y cruda... pero si es interesante.
February 25, 2009
Alien Nine: Book One by Hitoshi Tomizawa (2003)
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews