Alien Nine: Book Three Paperback – September 10, 2003

I purchased one of the used ones available from HEMINGWAY-UK, it arrived with the library sticker still on and other internal library sticker and stamp info. However, the internal story contents were fine and dandy. Book arrived quick and before the anticipated arrival date.

If you were hoping, like me, to get some explanations for the core mysteries of Alien Nine: who teacher Megumi's bosses are, what *exactly* Kumi and Kasumi have become and how they fit into whomever's calling the shots in the alien symbiote game's plan, what the girls are being trained for, what the wider culture of the Alien Nine world beyond school looks like (the world the girls and their borgs are, I assume, being prepared for)--you won't find it here. Or in the mystifying Alien Nine: Emulators.This is more of the same: Kumi and Kasumi becoming and acting increasingly inhuman, Yuri panicking and making things worse by seeking comfort, the other girls coming to her rescue and creeping her out but still staying her friends...It's bizarre, dark stuff, with all the symbiote/fusing business having a disturbing sexual awakening undertone, a feel that the girls are being invaded and forced to grow up too soon (and there are hints of shoujo-ai between Kumi and Yuri). I was hoping it would all lead to some big, impressive, horrifying reveal, but it seems to just lead to more and more of the same! There's no explanation here, and none coming in future. Just moe-style girls being chewed up by a nasty system. Over and over again.Disappointing.