Alien Nine

Alien Nine (エイリアン9) is a manga series by Hitoshi Tomizawa, which was later adapted into an anime OVA series by J.C.Staff. The manga was serialized in Akita Shoten's Young Champion magazine, spanning 3-volumes. In 2003, Tomizawa released a 1-volume sequel to the series called Alien 9 Emulators.

Story
Yuri Otani, a rather melancholic 12-year-old, has just arrived in sixth grade and has (begrudgingly) joined the "Alien Party", a team whose primary objective is to capture any otherworldly aliens that may appear on campus. To make matters even worse for Yuri, the only way that capturing the aliens can be made possible is to adjoin with a "Borg", a symbiotic life-form whose sole purpose is to protect their host, incapacitate, and ultimately capture other aliens, using anything available to their arsenal (which includes, but is not limited to: Borgs, inline roller blades, knee pads, and lacrosse sticks.) Yuri is not alone in her tribulations, for she has two other Alien Party member friends -  Kasumi and Kumi.

Characters

 * Yuri Otani (大谷ゆり)
 * A quiet girl, who was voted by her 6th-grade classmates to be their representative on the Alien Party. Yuri is very reluctant to merge with her Borg. She is easily frightened and there isn't hardly anything that won't make her cry, being scared or happy.


 * Kumi Kawamura (川村くみ)
 * The most independent member of the Alien Party, and a 6th-grade student. She has been a member of the Student Council for years and has assisted her widowed mother in her writing activities as well as an above average number of chores for a student her age. In the manga, she is attacked by an alien and is revived by somehow becoming part-alien.


 * Kasumi Tōmine (遠峰かすみ)
 * A talented sixth-grade student, who is talented in piano, ballet, chess, robotics competitions and roller skating. She is the most enthusiastic member of the Alien Party. Kasumi has a brother, whom she greatly loved and who was sent to a private school abroad. In the manga, after being taken in by a Yellow Knife alien, she becomes part Yellow Knife herself, though hinted at in the anime.


 * Megumi Hisakawa (久川めぐみ)
 * The teacher and counsellor in charge of the Alien Party.


 * Miyu Tamaki (珠木美佑)
 * A sixth-grade student and Yuri's good friend and classmate.


 * Borg (ボウグ)
 * A symbiotic lifeform, whose sole purpose is to protect their host, incapacitate, and ultimately capture other aliens, using anything available to their arsenal. Borgs feed on the waste of their hosts. It would appear that when one is attached long enough to the Borg, they gain its abilities, as seen with some characters' hair despite the fact they aren't wearing one.

Anime
The first half of the series (through the middle of Volume 2) was later adapted into an anime OVA series, which was released across four volumes by Bandai Visual from 2001 to 2002, containing one episode each. Animated by J.C.Staff and Genco, the first volume of the series was directed by Jirō Fujimoto, while volumes 2-4 were directed by Yasuhiro Irie, who also handled the entire series' character designs, and was written by Sadayuki Murai. A special TV broadcast was aired prior to the series' DVD release on AT-X.

It has been broadcast by the anime television network Animax across its respective networks worldwide, including East Asia and its English-language networks in Southeast Asia (where it was previously also aired by its sister network AXN) and South Asia. The anime was licensed and released in North America by Central Park Media, with the series being aired across the region on Comcast's Select On Demand service. As the OVA series ends halfway through the story, the DVD was made available in America in an "Ultimate Edition", which included all three original volumes of the collected translated manga.

Staff

 * Series composition: Sadayuki Murai
 * Character design: Yasuhiro Irie
 * Creature design: Kazunori Iwakura
 * Art director: Jun'ichi Higashi
 * Sound director: Yoshikazu Iwanami
 * Music: Kuniaki Haishima
 * Photography director: Masaru Takase
 * Directors: Jirō Fujimoto (Vol.1), Yasuhiro Irie (Vol.2 - Vol.4)
 * Animation production: GENCO, J.C.Staff
 * Production: Alien 9 Production Committee (Bandai Visual, TV Tokyo Media Net, Nippon Columbia, AT-X, GENCO)