Trigger warning for sexual assault This review contains spoilers for Please Save My Earth 520https://i.ur.com/C6Ka2c2.jpg In my reviews I usually write out an animangas synopsis in my own words but sometimes youve got to let the existing description speak for itself. Lifes hard when youre shy harder still when you move from your quiet hometown to the bustle of a big city and a new high school. Poor Alice also has to cope with being regularly harassed by the bratty neighbor boy Rin. Her life turns upsidedown when shes stuck babysitting Rin and the annoying chore ends in unexpected tragedy. What Alice doesnt realize is there could be a greater force at work than unhappy chance In and of itself this doesnt sound that notable. My intrigue really started once I looked at the genres: drama fantasy scifi and romance. Some of the tags include Space Reincarnation and Super Power. Then there was the obvious fact that its named Please Save my Earth and its cover image features protagonist Alice Sakaguchi resting protectively against the planet. In a status post I wrote youre really going to make me read this huh? And how could I not? I wanted to see how these parts worked together. I wanted to see if it was really as ambitious as it seemed. Please Save My Earth is far far far from a perfect manga. Its flawed supremely tragically and even insidiously so. Yet I cant say it fell short of its ambition. Sure the plane might have left a smoke trail in its wake due to a terrible engine fire but it flew high throughout. When I started reading I expected this to end up being one of my favorite manga and I can still see why I thought that. Part of this is thanks to the intrigue that Please Save My Earth fosters. Its not just intriguing in its mysterious premise but in its execution as well. A large portion of Please Save My Earths plot is driven by mystery cliffhangers shocking swerves murky motives unknown identities and subterfuge is the name of the game here. To understand how mystery energizes the story you need to know a crucial plot point thats left out of the synopsis Alices classmates Jinpei and Issei have dreams they share of past lives on a moonbase with Jinpei being a man named Gyokuran and Issei being a woman named Enju. They are certain that they are their reincarnations and that the four other members of the team have also been reincarnated and are somewhere out there. And by the end of the first volume it is revealed that Alice is the reincarnation of a woman named Mokuren. The topic of reincarnation drives Please Save My Earth forward and is the basis of nearly all of the mystery. Who and where are the rest of the reincarnates? For a number of chapters we dont even know what all of the residents of the moonbase look like. Most of the story takes place in the present day so were left wanting to see what life on the moonbase is like. When Rin develops psychic powers were left wondering if it has anything to do with reincarnation. Once a reincarnate lies about who they are were left wondering how long will it take for the others to find out. In the same vein a shady character will profess their goal to be one thing but were left to question what theyre really after. For most of the story Alice doesnt have many memories of Mokuren when will she remember? When she starts to how will she cope with memories of Mokurens trauma? I could go on and on but the bottom line is that the mysteries of Please Save My Earth make it a very engaging read moreso than any manga Ive read before. I was consistently on the edge of my seat turning pages quickly so I could see what happens next. Saki Hiwatari is a maestro when it comes to pacing. Theres never a dull moment when reading Please Save My Earth. Oh sure there are lull moments after all if youre foots always slamming the gas it stops feeling fast but they never feel dull thanks to the characters. Whether you argue that the characters themselves are complex or that the situation they find themselves in is complex the end result is the same you cant help but care about what happens to these people. Like the plot the struggles the characters find themselves in are quite engaging. At first glance reincarnation seems pretty divorced from objective reality and as a topic of discussion it doesnt seem to have that many practical applications. The more you read the more false this becomes. Please Save My Earth asks questions regarding sins of the past present penance the capacity to look to the future while chained by memories. Then theres just the fact that the characters must struggle with reconciling past feelings with present selves. Take Issei for example who was a woman in love with Gyokuran in his past life. In the present Gyokuran has reincarnated as Jinpachi. Due to this Issei must deal with burgeoning feelings of homosexuality feelings that Issei doesnt want to have. As much as I enjoy the characters they can fall flat. Isseis dilemma is felt fresh and modern but the solution to it is anything but. Issei ultimately is able to move past his feelings for his friend and get into a relationship with a woman. And it feels odd because yeah this is reincarnation and its not technically the same thing as being actually gay but that requires selectively ignoring applicability. I dont want to delve too deeply into the negatives just yet however. The final positive thing Ill say about the characters is that I enjoyed how Hiwatari employed an ensemble cast. Alice and Mokuren and to a lesser extent Shion are ostensibly the faces of the manga but the former is so mousey and the latter so mysterious that to forward the plot and character studies the rest of the cast must be utilized making this story feel more alive than it would if we just focused on Alice. In fact come the end of the story I think Please Save My Earth is better when it doesnt focus on Alice. But I digress. 520https://i.ur.com/qC5QZU0.png Another big strength of Please Save My Earth is a pretty nebulous one. Mystery doesnt just drive the plot and pacing but it breathes life into the very setting there is an air of mystery. Theres an undeniable VIBE to Please Save My Earth thats hard to put into words. Theres a feeling of melancholy from country girl Alice having to move to the big city to the knowledge that the characters are experiencing the lives of people long dead. Yet theres a feeling of sweetness too from the romance to the whimsy that comes from discovering the characters have psychic powers. Theres a sense of anemoiahttps://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/105778238455/anemoiannostalgiaforatimeyouvenever::text=in20your20browser.anemoia202D20n.watch20the20locals20passing20by. that draws me into Please Save My Earth. Theres a certain beauty to the manga a beauty that inspired the viewhttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/PleaseSaveMyEarth::text=Shiro20Maekawa20claims20was20he20inspired20by20Please20Save20My20Earth20for20the20scene20of20Shadow20and20Maria20looking20at20the20Earth20aboard20the20Arc20in20Sonic20Adventure202. of Earth from Sonic Adventure 2s Space Colony Arc. Things will certainly go way downhill but its clear that Please Save My Earth has real heart even if it can be horribly misplaced. The art is quite good. Hiwatari is really good at making art thats emotional and beautiful yet not shying away from comedic expressions from time to time. I wont say that Please Save my Earth is ever a hoot but it can be pretty funny at times. Interestingly enough I could see Hiwatari change her story to complement her artistic shortcomings. Theres a fight scene early on. While its a serious fight the scuffle is rendered via a cartoony cloud of dust. Later on we go fullon Akira as characters beginning duking it out via psychic powers and I cant help but wonder if it was because Hiwatari cant draw traditional fights well. Either way its neat. But not all that glitters is gold. The characters one of Please Save My Earths greatest strengths end up being its greatest weakness. The aces up Hiwataris sleeve are Rin Shion Alice and Mokuren. Unfortunately they end up being what costs her the game. 520https://i.ur.com/h1yAMOV.png Rin is where things start unraveling at the seams. Hes a 7yearold pining for the 14yearold Alice going so far as to steal her first kisshttps://www..com/watch?v=HaGkk60kcjQ and proclaim shes his fiance which she goes along with because shes a doormat and I say this with pity not derision. This is weird and trust me well get back to it but this is just how a spoiled brat of a kid would act fine. Then he gets psychic powers and is revealed to be Shion. What proceeds are volumes upon volumes of wheeling and dealing lying about his identity blackmail and a complete disregard for the sanctity of human lives. Im down for violence in media if I wasnt I wouldnt have some of the favorites that I do but it feels distinctly wrong when we have this brat whos trying to murder people for possibly interfering with his EviL pLaNs in a fairly normal setting where people are just trying to live their lives. And I just hate how smug the little fucker is. I really do not understand how this kid has so many fans but I admit that just boils down to opinion. And whether or not I like him I certainly empathize with him. Hes a kid torn between two worlds stuck in the past. While he could garner sympathy he still felt like a rabid dog that needed to be put down due to the danger he was causing others. He then goes into a coma and we get an extended flashback of his past life as Shion. The function of this segment is clear well see who he was before to sympathize with him further. This fails. Spectacularly. 520https://i.ur.com/iiQh3Ly.png If Rin is where Please Save My Earth begins to unravel Shion is where it completely falls apart. The first thing you must know about Shion is that his life is Tragic. Tragic every step of the way. The type of tragic that can either be genuinely heartbreaking hilarioushttps://www..com/watch?v=gzHRJmhl2c or overwrought depending on the writer. Hiwatari fortunately can elicit genuine pity. Hes a very sympathetic character. The second thing you must know about Shion is that he is an asshole. A very unrepentant asshole at that. Hes sarcastic and surly. He always sees the bad in people even if he has to make it up. He uses others as tools. He is a very unlikable character despite being able to understand him. And thats fine. The problem however is that Please Save My Earth seems to say that since hes had a Tragic life its okay for Shion to be an asshole and hes given carte blanche to be a piece of shit to everyone he meets without the story really calling him out on it. Au contraire most characters or at least the ones were supposed to sympathize with bend over backward to justify and excuse his bad behavior. His verbal abuse is just him keeping it real. Him being an antisocial gremlin is just him not liking phonies. If a character does call him out the story will make sure to have another character talk about how horrible the first character is essentially rushing to Shions defense. It makes it so Shion is excused for heinous behavior. Said heinous behavior is what breaks the story. Its here where that trigger warning at the beginning of the review comes into play. Shion rapes Mokuren. This is something thats very explicitly stated. Its not pussyfooted around as some other works do. No the manga goes out of its way to very specifically use the word rape. As part of her being a class of psychic called a Kiche Mokuren has a bindilike mark that apparently disappears upon getting into a relationship or having sex. It doesnt disappear meaning that we could have had it revealed that Shion didnt have sex with her but no the story goes out of its way to say that they did have sex and yet it remains. All this is to say that this was a very conscious decision on Hiwataris part she believed this to be necessary for the manga. And to be fair its handled better than it could have been. I stand by not wanting rape scenes in stories but if you feel you have to have one this is probably how you do it. Its graphic enough to make your stomach turn without showing anything framed in a way that isnt at all meant to be sexy. Mokuren screams no and stop making it clear that she doesnt want this making it clear that Shion is wrong. When the deed is done Mokuren feels horrible shes despondent and sick in bed for days. The rest of Mokurens crew are disgusted with Shion. The event doesnt go away and its dark echo persists throughout the story. When Alice remembers this event in Mokurens life she vomits and is horrified. Its treated with the somber gravitas it deserves. If nothing else Hawatari excelled at showing how horrible the act of rape is ...before completely fucking butchering the effects of such a heinous act. Because after the fact Mokuren forgives Shion and they become a couple. And not as in we get a deep dive into the psychology of a woman broken by a heinous act. No we get a pretty bogstandard romance out of a rapist and his victim. 520https://i.ur.com/398zec4.png Im not someone who thinks a rapist can be redeemed. A story about a rapist being redeemed or forgiven would be hard enough for me to swallow but the way to do it absolutely is not by attaching a romance to it. In doing so it goes a step beyond redemption it goes a step beyond forgiveness. It morphs into rewarding the rapist and it makes Please Save My Earth stomachturning. The kicker is that it doesnt only destroy Shions character but it hurts my enjoyment of Mokurens as well. Her life ends up being a lot more tragic than Hiwatari intended. Shion uses her as a tool to get back at his rival Gyokuren whom he knows is in love with Mokuren. There was an honesttoGod moment wherein it seemed like Hiwatari was acknowledging how fucked up this was. Theres a moment where Alice says that Shion didnt love Mokuren. Yet we cannot even have this much ambiguity instead the story rushes to Shions defense once again telling us that Shion did love Mokuren and she loved him back telling us that he raped her because he loved her. The story could have presented a toxic relationship and the dangers from it but no its framed as being romantic. This is all very uncomfortable. Shions a very toxic and terrible person yet hes rewarded for it. There is a criticism of certain relationship archetypes one in which a plucky emotionallyavailable woman fixes a brooding guy. Mokuren and Shion are Exhibit A of how toxic unbalanced and sinister this dynamic can be if done poorly. As an adult Im mature enough to navigate this unhealthy relationship but I fantasize about having kids one day and I wouldnt want an impressionable child reading this. It could lead them down a bad path and give them heartbreaking disturbing views of relationships. Warped views of entitlement and selfworth. Oh and dont worry if you thought the characters from the present would save you from uncomfortable relationships. Alice gets with Ren at the end of the story yes the child seven years her junior. In the sequel series she conceives a child with him when hes 15 and shes 22. I felt sick by the end of reading this. The one saving grace is that for all the pomp and circumstance they were given we really dont see much of Shion and Mokuren as a couple. Normally this would be a bad thing but given the circumstances of their relationship if I was subjected to pages upon pages of the mangaka writing them to be loveydovey Id actually spew chunks. 520https://i.ur.com/n33wmJ0.png All that said I cant write off Please Save My Earth entirely. Past the more heinous parts it still remains the most engaging manga Ive read. Theres some great skill on display here and its hard to not be dazzled. Please Save My Earth has substantial strengths through a gripping story an intriguing setting and compelling characters. Unlike the last Problematic animanga I reviewedhttps://anilist.co/review/13888 its more than its worst element the bad doesnt quite outweigh the good and theres genuine heart here. Yet that heart ends up being a doubleedged sword. Because that earnestness that positivity makes the sexual assault aspect all the more insidious. Because for all its downsides theres a certain shield that irreverence brings. While its certainly disrespectful to treat certain things as a joke it still tends to absolve one of certain scrutiny. In a perfect world Id have to deal with neither but ultimately I think its easier to swallow a work tastelessly joking about sexual assault than a work championing it as being the first step to a loving relationship. The former is annoying the latter is terrifying. Please Save My Earth has enough going for it that I cant really say it failed to be entertaining. For most of its run Please Save My Earth truly is a sight to behold. Yet the way rape is handled in the story casts a storm cloud over the entire work leaving a rancid taste in my mouth. It gets a passing score but just barely. Its really a testament to just how good the rest of the story is. Im wary about recommending this if you want a unique scifi with a rich plot and a lot of heart perhaps you should give Please Save My Earth a shot. But if your stomach turns at the thought of that same heart being used to justify rape then steer very clear. 200https://i.ur.com/xvOPT9E.png 520https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblrlhh7g7xF8W1qh7ig1o1500.jpg