The Original Video Animation (OVA) was a brilliant concept for animation filmmakers that had a great idea for a movie, but not the full budget to produce it. The simple concept is that they’d create the first 30 minutes and release it on VHS (and sometimes laserdiscs). The goal was to make enough profit to cover the production budget for the second installment. And you’d keep going until the limited series was complete. Then you’d release all the OVA episodes on a single collection for a “movie” version. I recently attended the Animazement anime convention in Raleigh, NC with my kid. During a presentation by a filmmaker, he pointed out that the anime business is nearly all about streaming. More than a decade ago, they’d sell over 200,000 DVDs and Blu-rays of a title. Now they’re happy if the physical release gets over 2,000. I asked him what this means to the OVA concept. Through a translator, he told me that OVA is over. But he also mentioned that there were around 300 anime shows and movies produced in Japan last year. So there’s plenty of money for budget. Having watch a few OVAs over the last few years, the straight to viewers shows have a bit more edge or absurdity to them that a broadcasting (or streaming) corporation might not enjoy. Alien Nine adapts the most freakish extracurricular activity a sixth grader can participate in.
Yuri Otani is the newest sixth grader at Elementary School No. 9. She’s quite nervous about her first day and has a reason. Turns out they’re having an election to see who the new Alien Party member from their class will be. She’s elected. This isn’t a fun position like being in charge of clapping the dust off the erasers. Turns out that aliens have visited the Earth and they’re not all wanting to go see the leader. A nearby UFO has been releasing a wide variety of alien life that hangs out in the school on the playground and hallways. It’s up to Yuri to join up with Kasumi Tōmine and Kumi Kawamura to perform the duty of capturing them. The grown up in charge of them does give them skates, lacrosse sticks and a tranquilizer dart gun. The most important thing they receive are symbiotic Borg aliens that sit on their heads. These creatures have protective wings, tendrils that look like long drills and tongues that might eat the other aliens. They look like safety helmets when worn by the trio.
The basic concept sounds absurd. Who lets a bunch of sixth graders fight aliens? But the same things happens when kids get elected Hall monitors. There’s a severe chance they’ll get attacked by someone not happy that they got narced out. What makes this work is the fact that Yuri is not happy about this elected “honor.” She’s freaking out about everything from chasing down these aliens to having to wear a borg. The other two girls enjoy the badass nature of this assignment and the fact it gets them out of classes. Who doesn’t want to skip history to battle aliens? I’m not wanting to spoil anything except I’ll let you know that there’s a deeper conspiracy happening at the school involving the Alien Party. This isn’t just about sixth grade girls catching them all.
Alien Nine does prove there’s something worse that your classmates can elect you to becoming besides Hall Monitor. I do wonder what sort of an insurance waiver a parent has to sign to let your kid scoop up aliens or bring home a Borg. Alien Nine is engrossing with a lot of action and emotion. Next time the kid the kid takes me to an anime con, I’ll have to see if anyone is wearing rollerskates, wings and a Borg helmet.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. This makes sense since the show was produced back in 2001 when most of our TVs were this shape. The transfer brings out the charm of the animation. The Audio is Japanese DTS-HA MA 2.0 stereo. There’s also an English dub in DTS-HD 2.0 stereo. The episodes are subtitled in English.
Clean Openings (4:45) is the version without the text on the screen.
Clean Endings (9:48) is also sans text.
Original Japanese Cast interview (6:07) are done after the final episode. One of the cast gets into matching her words with the animated character’s lips. They recorded ever two or three months for a year.
Original promos includes US DVD, Japanese Promos, Japanese TV Spots and US Blu-ray Trailer.
Dubbing Diary (12:12) shows what done to create the English dub cast. The dubbing director will read the script to create a temp track for the cast. We see the other voices arrive at the booth. You get a sense that this is about acting with your voice and not merely reading lines.
Music clip (3:55) has the cast singing song on stage with mixing images from the anime and sound booth work.
Staff Interview (7:14) has executive producer Taro Maki talking about the adaptation at the Big Apple Anime Fest 2002. He talks about having to squeeze the manga into 30 minutes. He gets into the music part of the production.
‘Steps to Alien Fighters’ featurette with Japanese voice cast (11:37) shows the kids in Japan recording their lines. They even got to wear Borg helmets. We see a presentation to publicize the OVA. There’s a Tokyo Character show. Don’t watch this until after the movie.
Art Gallery has 16 images from the production and promotion.
AnimEgo presents Alien Nine. Directed by Jiro Fujimoto and Yasuhiro Irie. Screenplay by Sadayuki Murai. Starring the voices of Juri Ihata, Kaori Shimizu, Noriko Shitaya, Aya Hisakawa, Manami Nakayama and Ryusei Nakao. Running Time: 117 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Released Date: June 9, 2026.