Mangakissa – Alien Nine and MeruPuri

• Tweet
• Pin It

My daughter’s elementary school has a tradition involving the sixth graders; in the morning and afternoon, they take turns as crossing guards at the drop-off/pick-up line, holding bright neon flags and keeping their eyes on the smaller children as they walk from or to their parents’ cars.  In Hitoshi Tomizawa’s Alien Nine, sixth grade students are chosen to serve as alien fighters – when aliens land and attack, they rush to find and stop them without killing them, if at all possible.  While Kasumi and Kumi, both confident and motivated, serve on the alien party happily, Yuri struggles with fear, self-doubt, and downright incompetence.  Their male schoolmates are jealous: “The only time we have any fun is when we’re wearing aliens!”  All three girls are given a symbiotic alien, or ’borg, with which to bond and use while subduing the parasitic aliens that harass the school.  The ’borgs fit on their heads like bike helmets and look like adorable frogs with huge featherlike wings that expand to protect the girls, but their personal habits aren’t so cute; their meals involve sucking up their human partner’s sweat with a long, snakelike tongue.  It’s not a pretty idea and an even less attractive visual, but at least it isn’t in color.  Not only is alien debilitation done with cute and creepy alien headgear, it is accomplished on rollerblades.  This is where I – lack of coordination and all – bow out.  They can keep going, though, insecurities and perspiration notwithstanding, as this science fiction tale is amusing without being too silly.  Believe it or not.  Rated 16+

High school girls notoriously glue themselves to hand mirrors to check their appearance – or at least they do in manga.  MeruPuri’s Airi is no different, except that her mirror is actually a seven-pointed star gateway to a magic kingdom called Astale, and one day, a child-prince appears to complicate her perfect existence.  Aram is a cute little boy, mesmerized by the television show Sparkle Rangers (shiny Power Rangers, perhaps?) and willing to allow Airi to bathe him when she declares that he needs to before bed.  His older half-brother has cast an evil spell on him so that he ages in darkness, and the next morning Airi is stunned to discover a nearly grown – and gorgeous – man where there was a child, a child with whom she shared a bath, no less.  She is devoted to finding her perfect boyfriend and “afraid of straying from my ideal,” but confused by her feelings for the arrogant and magnetically attractive Aram.  She has been considering a relationship with classmate Nakaoji, who seems to have all the qualities she desires and above all, is a possible “oasis for the heart.”  When Aram shows up at school and Nakaoji assumes that he is Airi’s boyfriend, all seems lost . . . or is it?  Like many mangaka, Matsuri Hino is self-deprecating and makes hilarious comments in the margins.  Along with excusing her illustrations (which are fine) she offers personal details about her characters – Aram is “kind of an idiot” while his half-brother Jeile is a “lover of frilly things.” Airi’s emotional shifts from acceptance to disbelief (“Can’t you just leave through the door like normal people??”) along with Hino’s sweet apologies are the icing on the cake, er, romantic fantasy. Rated T