hello /a/! just finished alien 9 and i wanted to share my thoughts... thisll be long, so id understand if no one will fully read it, just wanted to put this out there (´･ω･`)

alien9 really left a surprisingly deep mark on me for some reason. i was genuinely disturbed by it in a way that i usually am not with this kind of thing, and i kept thinking about it long after i finished it. i honestly don't know exactly why it affected me so much, especially because, in a more objective sense, it isn't even the most disturbing anime i've ever seen. it isn't the most grotesque one i've watched; visually, it is certainly grotesque and there is violence, but it isn't anywhere near the most violent anime i've seen. the concept itself is disturbing, but again, not necessarily among the most disturbing concepts i've encountered, and it isn't even among the most anxiety-inducing things i've watched. yet the way everything is presented, and especially the way the characters themselves react to what is happening, really threw me off

i was reminded a lot of evangelion, particularly by the idea that some kind of cataclysmic power can rely on ordinary children as a means of saving everyone. there is something deeply unsettling about that premise in both series, where children are essentially made into instruments for dealing with something far beyond what they should ever have to deal with. i was also reminded very strongly of made in abyss, because in both cases you have children constantly being placed in situations that are extremely dangerous and grotesque, often in ways that are far beyond anything they could have possibly imagined beforehand. there are these horrifying, disgusting, unpredictable circumstances that the protagonists are expected to endure despite being children

but alien9 disturbed me for a lot of different reasons, and especially because of the way the other characters treat what is happening compared to evangelion or made in abyss. that is actually a major reason why i found it much more disturbing than either of those two

in evangelion and made in abyss, the horror is much more narrow and, in a strange way, more manageable because the characters themselves recognize that what is happening is horrifying. in evangelion, everyone understands that putting children through these things is horrific; they recognize the cruelty of it, even if they ultimately do it because they believe it is necessary. there is at least an awareness that something terrible is being done to them. in made in abyss, it isn't really a matter of necessity in the same sense, since the world itself is simply dystopian and horrific, but at least the series actually treats it as a dystopian and horrific world. the characters are terrified. it isn't just one person reacting as though something is horribly wrong while everyone else behaves as if everything is perfectly normal. almost everyone is affected by the horror of their circumstances, so you feel much less alienated

that is why alien9 feels much more terrifying to me in practice..

the fact that these little girls are expected to fight these disgusting and dangerous aliens as though it were simply a normal school assignment is incredibly disturbing. it isn't treated as something potentially life-threatening or fundamentally abnormal, but as just another routine part of their education, something that can simply be assigned to little girls instead of adults. and what makes it even stranger is that some of the girls besides yuri actually enjoy it. they want to do it, and for some of them it is even genuinely fun

that made me feel completely alienated alongside yuri, because you're constantly wondering: how can everyone else possibly treat this as normal? how can something like this be reduced to an ordinary school responsibility, something that little girls are simply expected to do, and something that they can even enjoy and have fun with? the fact that there doesn't seem to be any real escape from it made me extremely anxious as well, because the whole thing is handled almost exactly like another school assignment. you can simply be selected for it without having any particular qualifications, without having prepared for it, and without even wanting to participate. you're forced to do it because apparently that's simply how things work

i found that especially anxiety-inducing when yuri very clearly did not want to do it, yet this world apparently has a school system that prioritizes forcing her to participate anyway. there is no meaningful consideration of whether she is psychologically capable of handling it or whether she even wants to. the fact that she is terrified doesn't seem to matter

and the teacher is probably one of the things that disturbed me the most because she treats them almost like resources while simultaneously seeming like a completely ordinary teacher. she doesn't come across as some obviously evil person who is deliberately trying to hurt them. that's almost the point. she seems relatively normal. it is simply that, in her world, this is how things work, and that's that

the mother has a similar effect. she doesn't seem particularly worried either. she can see her daughter constantly crying, anxious, and terrified, and yet essentially tells her that she has to do it because that's simply how school works. it's as though her daughter were crying over homework or some ordinary school obligation rather than because she is genuinely terrified and being forced into something extremely dangerous. there is this complete disconnect between yuri's emotional reality and everyone else's perception of the situation

the world treats all of this as completely normal, and what makes it even stranger is that it doesn't even really feel like a dystopian world. outside of this specific situation, it seems like a completely ordinary japan. there isn't necessarily some obvious oppressive society or visibly monstrous system surrounding them. instead, there is this completely ordinary-looking environment in which one girl's suffering is somehow treated as though it were the abnormal thing

and none of the other girls even really seem to understand why yuri is reacting the way she does. they don't try to become an anchor for her, they don't really try to reassure her or help her as classmates, and instead they sometimes look down on her because of her anxiety. so you're essentially placed in the position of yuri, where it feels as though you are the only person who understands that something is deeply wrong. it makes you feel extremely alienated alongside her because everyone else seems to have collectively accepted something that, from your perspective, is completely insane

it's almost as if yuri is the only person who hasn't been conditioned into accepting this reality. everyone else has adapted to it so thoroughly that her fear becomes the strange thing, rather than the circumstances themselves being considered strange

and then, apart from the psychological aspect, the visual side obviously doesn't help either

like i said, even though i wouldn't consider alien9 as grotesque as something like made in abyss, that element still contributes enormously to the feeling of horror, fear, and disgust. you have these extremely dangerous and unpredictable aliens that are visually slimy and overwhelming compared to the protagonists' young petite bodies, and they are constantly attaching themselves to them. even the fact that it is considered completely normal for these aliens to be attached to the girls' heads is disturbing in itself

then there are things like the aliens wanting to lick the sweat off their bodies and all of that other creepy stuff. there is this very deliberate grotesque quality to the imagery, but there is also a kind of fetishistic element to it, which reminded me somewhat of made in abyss

like made in abyss, it has a lot of undertones involving its young girl protagonists being placed in fetishistic situations. there are quite a few scenes that are very clearly designed with that kind of purpose in mind, including things like bodily fluids being on their faces, characters licking the sweat off their bodies, and various other scenes involving the girls themselves. and for me, that isn't a negative aspect (wouldnt be regardless, im a big perv! ), i think it can actually contribute positively to the horror, because even though those scenes are clearly made, at least in part, for the author's sexual gratification, they also make everything feel even more visually grotesque and uncomfortable

so i think it's the combination of all of these things that made alien9 affect me so much more strongly than other anime that i would objectively expect to be more disturbing. you have the psychological aspect of being the only person who seems to recognize how horrifying the situation is, the complete normalization of children being placed in extreme danger, the lack of any real escape from it, the way adults treat them as resources while behaving as though everything is perfectly ordinary, the fact that some of the children themselves actually enjoy participating in it, the grotesque and overwhelming appearance of the aliens, and then the fetishistic undertones layered on top of all of that

i wasn't expecting it to affect me this much at all i imagine all this was a metaphor for modern japan's society and the way it treats its younglins, i suppose. i'll surely read the manga great ova!