CPM Manga
Translated by Laura Jackson & Yoko Kobayashi

BW, 224 pgs
$23.95 CAN / $15.95 US

Gross alien helmets and more
by Dana Tillusz

Alien Nine is light-hearted science-fiction graphic novel set in the future after Earth's initial contact with distant alien life forms. Since the first UFO landing fourteen years ago, aliens running loose are a daily annoyance in the human world. The many different alien types pose no real threat (as of yet) and run around creating havoc for those humans in charge of capturing them. Those on extraterrestrial-catching duty belong to a group of individuals called the "Alien Party." They spend their days scooping up little mutants and wrestling with the larger, aggressive kind. It might sound fine and dandy, but to poor Yuri Otani, it's the crummiest job a kid could ever have.

It is Yuri's last year of Elementary School and her classmates have voted her in as one of the school's three Alien Fighters. Her new partners Kasumi and Kumi excel on the job and capture the invading pests like they had natural talents to do so. Yuri hates the job and the "gross" aliens she is forced to deal with. She continually curls up in fear when forced to fight. She just doesn't have what it takes to do this disgusting dirty work. Her fellow fighters try to help her when they can, but they know that if they are forced to fight a large invading force (instead of a few aliens like they have been dealing with) their whole school may suffer the consequences. So it's up to them to help Yuri through this fear and teach her how to handle the difficult job of herding these little buggers.

Looking like a toad's head, the Borg help the Alien Fighters round up the little aliens that are running loose

Each Alien Fighter has a symbiotic alien called a "Borg" to work with, to fight and to help capture the other aliens. The Borg alien is worn on top of the student's head like a hat. This alien helmet is intelligent (and aggressive-it tries to kill the other aliens when not completely controlled) and defends the Alien Fighter from harm with tentacle like appendages that shoot out from its body. This Borg creature looks like the head of a giant toad with large feathery wings and it suctions itself onto their host's head. In exchange for helping the Alien Fighters out in their duties, the Borg feeds off the waste of its host; eating their sweat, tears and lucky for us, the book really doesn't detail much more than that.

Alien Nine is created by manga artist Hitoshi Tomizawa and has been published in its original Japanese format and translated by CPM Manga. The format might appear strange and backwards to the average Western reader who may be unfamiliar (reads right to left) with traditional manga. A common practice by some manga publishers is working with a jarring mirror image printed in the opposite form (left side being right). Others will cut and paste every single panel so Western readers can read it in the format they are familiar with. But the publisher of Alien Nine felt it should be published in its original format and was kind enough to include instructions on how to read it properly.

In Book One of this three part graphic novel set, we are introduced to the main characters and what they do (or forced to do like Yuri is). This story is far from complete and is only setting the stage for the next two volumes. Our reluctant hero still needs to find her self-confidence and learn how to handle her elected duty. After reading this first book, I know something big is going to happen in the later collections.

I really enjoyed my read of Alien Nine, but it lacked some important elements. Firstly, we are never given a lot of information about all the aliens running around and what their real purpose is, besides looking cute and being annoying. The history behind the "first contact" is mentioned but never explained in any significance or historical context either. It seems that everything in this first arc is only a chapter in a larger story, suffering in ambiguity until its future revelation to the reading audience. I can handle that, but creator Hitoshi Tomizawa could have given us some more story sustenance to chew on in this introduction to his future Earth and its invading aliens. I'm definitely in this one for the long haul, but it'll be a little frustrating waiting the next few months for more invading critters to beat on.

4 of 5