Please Save My Earth 11

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2005 – 21 volumes

Halfway point!

I was so, so happy to see the flashback end this volume. While I do find Shion infinitely fascinating, I was beginning to miss the present and the other characters. Plus, Shion is also very depressing in large doses.

The present (or at least a 1990 version of it) comes back in style. Most interesting here is the fact that the characters are trying really, really hard to ignore their past lives and live the best they can in the present. Jinpachi says as much, and he believes the meetings and such aren’t good for any of them. After an emotional scene between Issei and Sakura, Issei agrees with him and decides to give up on Mokuren’s feelings. Alice doesn’t want her memories back, since she’s worried that she’ll stop being Alice.

The Issei scene was the highlight of the volume for me. I was worried it was going to be more shoujo hand-wringing over the fact that he had an unrequited love for Jinpachi. He gave the full speech and everything, how he wanted to spite him for falling in love with Alice, how being in love was so painful, blah blah blah. Sakura snapped him out of his funk by talking about how ugly he was being, and how beautiful Enju’s love was. I didn’t appreciate it while I was reading it, because much has been said but not done on the topic of the love between Issei and Jinpachi, and I thought there would be more scenes like this before the ending. But maybe that’s not the case, because Issei just decides… to stop. He decides to be Issei, instead of Enju. And as Issei, the end of the scene implies that perhaps a relationship can exist between Sakura and Issei. That would be pretty great, actually. So the aftermath made that scene loads better.

Hilariously, after an extended flashback where Shion positions himself against Gyokuran in every way, present-Gyokuran decides to ally himself with present-Shion, who he thinks is present-Shukaido, in opposition to who he thinks is present-Shion but is actually present-Shukaido. I love that Rin has manipulated Gyokuran into doing all the work for him. Jinpachi decides collecting the passwords is a good decision in order to prove everything is real once and for all, so that they can stop obsessing over everything. Rin’s motives are still ambiguous.

And then… there’s the last scene in the volume. It is simultaneously creepy because the piano teacher is Ayako (seriously, Rin), and a little funny because it seems that Alice is jealous. Aww.

Please Save My Earth 10

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2005 – 21 volumes

The Shion morality roller coaster continues. In case your heart was softening in the last volume, don’t worry. I think he’s also a rapist. The sex scene was ambiguous enough that I can’t tell if Shion actually forced himself, if they were in the middle when she asked him to stop, or if they were interrupted before things could escalate. I just can’t tell. Either way, he wanted to keep going after she said no. Seriously. I guess he just wasn’t enough of a bad guy yet.

Otherwise, I can’t quite figure him out. This is the point when they lose contact with the home world, and most of the crew wants to go to Earth since their society and culture was annihilated. But there are rules against it. Shion argues that rules don’t mean anything in the face of survival. When he persists in trying to stir the pot, they throw him in prison. I’m a little divided in my thoughts on this. On one hand, it’s true that he shouldn’t have been isolated simply because his views differed, and for trying to persuade people to his opinion. On the other hand, when you’re seven people living on a base with no hope of rescue, harmony and getting along is important, and Shion doesn’t understand this. Would I want to be forced to live with him for the rest of my life, knowing I was going to be verbally abused regularly until I agreed with him? No.

He doesn’t want to make up with Gyokuran and Hiiragi, doesn’t want to apologize and promise to be good. That’s easy to understand, because he’s not wrong, he’s just got a different strategy. I’m not sure how to resolve this situation, because they would have to agree to disagree, and when the topic is survival, that’s a tough thing to do. But again, he’s not in prison because his opinion is different. He’s in prison for being an asshole.

The whole rapist thing was completely unexpected. I thought he was telling the truth, though he certainly wasn’t motivated into action out of love, that’s for sure. His real motives somehow make the act even worse, and pretty much cement his negative image for all time. What if he learns something and repents his actions, though? That doesn’t really make it right or better, but I know that’s what is about to happen next volume.

I was a little shocked by Mokuren’s words on the final page. I had no idea that’s how it came about.

Please Save My Earth 9

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2005 – 21 volumes

…and after I fell for the good mix of sympathy and evil in Shion last volume, this volume goes back to making me feel bad for him. I shouldn’t, because he’s a bad person. Among the bad things he does, he tells Mokuren off simply because he realizes that nobody has done it to her face before, seeing as how she’s a Kiche Sarjalian and a kind of national treasure. He also tells Gyokuran off simply for being concerned for him, and can’t help himself when it comes to tormenting him.

On the other hand, as the volume continues, it becomes clear he’s simply the kind of person who can’t be happy. He admits it himself at one point, and he’s constantly comparing himself to Gyokuran and what Shion perceives are the countless blessings Gyokuran takes for granted, or the completely opposite existence Mokuren has led. He also can’t figure out why he can’t grow closer to women, and has trouble when it comes time to meet their families.

And to see him compare himself to everyone else and constantly come up short is heartbreaking. There’s an amazing scene along these lines when the crew first meets Mokuren. As she’s listing off her reasons for being there, each half page is dedicated to Mokuren, the other half to Shion’s exact opposite motivation and lifestyle. There’s no real good solution in the story to this problem, and it is what makes Shion so bitter and mistrustful of others.

Hilariously, he’s also the only one on the general crew who appears to not be there for research purposes. He’s an engineer, and seems to be tasked with keeping the outdated technology on the base running. He’s on call to everyone else’s repair whims. It is pretty funny to see everyone bossing Shion around.

We only see the beginning of the Shion/Mokuren relationship. Neither really seems to have an opinion of the other outside the fact Shion hates everybody, but it’s getting started. And Shion is right in that Mokuren has encountered very few blunt, rude people like himself, but she seems to take Shion’s behavior in stride. Or is taking what he says literally, since the incident at the very end of the volume can be read as Mokuren blowing off steam after Shion’s bad-tempered dressing-down.

Hiwatari talks about the response to her last set of author notes declaring PSME a work of fiction. She reprints some of the reader letters. It’s a little sad, but very interesting.

Also a little sad is the fact that the giant cat-man aliens make another appearance. Somehow, the new one melts Shion’s heart. He carries around an enormous bottle for it to suck from. Watching it do this is both repulsive and cute, and I’m not sure how that works. Reading about this cat and the Lian in the only letter Shion will ever get was a pretty powerful scene, though. Hiwatari really knows how to twist the knife.

Please Save My Earth 8

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

I think one of my favorite things about this volume (and probably the series) is probably Shion’s personality here. We’re given all these reasons to sympathize with Shion. He’s a war orphan, which is something he gets teased about mercilessly no matter his age. He’s having values forced on him that are contrary to what he’s experienced in order to survive. His loved ones died. And yet, Hiwatari writes his personality so that it’s near-impossible to sympathize with him. His contrariness towards the Lians is understandable, but there’s no real good reason for his attitude towards Gyokuran other than his hard life. Hard life or not, a rotten personality is what it is.

The same is true for Rin, too. He’s very Jekyll and Hyde, in that his ultimate goal at the moment appears to be somewhat altruistic, and he obviously has a soft spot towards Alice. But every time you find yourself warming up to him, he does something rotten, or reminds you that yes, he really is a selfish, terrible person. He may fit into some of the usual overbearing, terrible boyfriend stereotypes, but Hiwatari almost overrides that by constantly reminding you that a lot of what he does isn’t something to overlook.

So the flashback starts this volume, and I was a little surprised to see that it went all the way back to Shion’s childhood. I was also happy to see that it skipped ahead to his high school years pretty quickly, because Shion’s childhood is really depressing. He’s only just starting to meet the other characters at the end of this volume, but it’s interesting to see that Shukaido is a terrified confidante even in the past. I wondered if the Rin/Haru thing was almost a kind of friendship in the present, even though Haru was being forced through terrible means on his end, but it’s interesting that Shukaido is listening to Shion spill out his rotten guts without protest in the past. I wonder how that will eventually go.

And the only other comment I have is that I didn’t see that terrifying cat-man coming. I have no idea why that was even in there. It made me want to sleep with the light on.

But more disturbing than that are the author commentary columns in this volume. I had started giving up on these since Hiwatari has switched to commentary on anime and music (plus, it seems like there’s more than usual in this series). But in this volume, she uses the author talks to make her case about how Please Save My Earth is a work of fiction. She said the letters she’d been getting from readers… were from people who thought they were the characters, or had similar powers, or that reading the comic helped them to remember a similar past life for them. Apparently, she kept silent for so long because she thought they were just adolescents with passing interests, and that it was obvious Please Save My Earth wasn’t real. But her fans started to scare her.

I love that the series inspires that degree of devotion in people. That’s crazy.

Please Save My Earth 7

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

After complimenting Rin on his seeming level-headedness in the last volume, he repaid me this time around by losing his cool in just about every sense. Haru panics and asks Rin about the mysterious note from Mr. Tamura’s psychic friend at the end of the last volume, and Rin figures out that Haru is… disobeying. So Rin seeks out Mr. Tamura and drives him into the open by threatening everyone around Tamura and Haru, then engages in Domu-style psychic battles with Mr. Tamura’s psychic friend. But not before threatening to kill them in some of the most slow and painful ways imaginable.

Wow. It’ll take me a good, long time to shake off all of that before I like Rin again.

But then again, another flashback at the beginning of this volume reveals that Rin’s a bit of a softie. It doesn’t excuse him from being a psychopath, but at the same time, every little bit of extra on Rin is interesting. He’s the best character in the series so far, unfortunately. We find out he desperately wanted to go home once he got to the Moon base, except where everyone came from wasn’t really his home either, they were just the conquering planet. He’s never had a place to belong until he came to Earth. These memories mixing with the present go far to explain what he mentioned to Alice about not being sure what was the dream and what was reality. But we do know that he thoroughly enjoys his life on Earth, possibly even without Mokuren by his side. What would he do to wreck it? Probably nothing.

Given the title of the series, it also makes me wonder what he would do to save it. I still wonder what the passwords are actually for.

Rin is scary. There are few characters that are as genuinely chilling as he is.

Please Save My Earth 6

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

The first two pages of this volume made me laugh. Such perfect high school drama, with just the right emphases. You can literally hear Sakura saying all this: “Pay attention! Sheesh! What I said was Enju and I are at a park right now and guess who we just happened to see?! It was Haruhiko – the ex-Shion – and Alice! And they were on a date! We couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, but it looked like Haruhiko was pressing Alice for something. And then, Alice ended up running away from him! So, can we come over? We need to talk!”

I think it was the final “We need to talk!” that sealed it for me.

I had some of the characters’ ages wrong this whole time, too. For some reason, I thought Daisuke and Sakura were older than everyone else, but I was puzzled since the order of death seemed to determine age differences in the present. And they’ve stated twice that Gyoukuran was the first to die, which would make Jinpachi the oldest, if only by a month or so. Turns out Daisuke is the same age, and he and Sakura are going on the same school trip as everybody else, just at a different school. So that makes more sense now.

I do like that the characters are talking more about getting trapped in the past and trying to break away. To be fair, it doesn’t really make sense that they keep meeting to discuss things, and feel they can’t do so when there’s only a few people present. There’s no unfinished business, no missions, and nothing that’s unsettled between them save for Shion and Shukaido, who meet in private anyway. So why meet weekly to discuss the past? Why not just hang out like regular friends? But then again, it just goes to show how obsessed they are with their former selves. It seems that nobody is stuck there more than Rin, but at the same time he’s using the present to try and break away, as well. He’s desperately trying to set Mokuren free, and I like that his lies go some way to making people think that, yeah, things are different now since Shion doesn’t seem himself.

There’s more and more flashbacks, and I think those run for awhile starting in a volume or two. I feel like I can almost piece everything together after these first half dozen volumes, but I’m interested in seeing what a chronological retelling will add. Probably lots of drama, and at least a little personality for Hiiragi. If I’m lucky. I also wonder if there’s some dirt to be had on Gyoukuran. He was the first to die, after all.

Surprisingly, Jinpachi is a bigger jerk in this volume than Rin. Rin scales the creepy jerk factor way back in favor of a couple really nice scenes where he talks about how desperately he loves Alice, but wants to let her go. Jinpachi, on the other hand, rattles Haru up enough to get slapped, tries to put the moves on Alice again after being rejected multiple times, is unconsciously cruel to Issei, and even says some of the wrong things to both Sakura and Rin. He’s insensitive at best, but he’s not quite the psychopath that Rin is.

Please Save My Earth 5

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

I liked that this volume puts increased emphasis on the characters stating that they will not let their past lives ruin the present, even while they apparently begin to fall into old patterns. Or, at least, that seems to be the case for all the main characters save Alice. One of the interesting things about this series is that these characters are their past selves. Knowing each other in the past, with the shared memories, seems to mean that they are all comfortable picking up where they left off. That strikes me as strange and unlikely, but it also makes for good drama. And why would I complain about that?

Several major things happen here. “Shion” meets the others for the first time, but things go badly, since Sakura and Issei have met him before, after he “accidentally” jumped into a river. This wrecks Rin’s plans, and the meeting goes badly. He tries to salvage his machinations by reinforcing his goals to Haru and forcing him to meet Alice, who hangs on every word he says. Rin is uncomfortable at this meeting, though it’s unclear why. Visions of the past are interspersed throughout, just to reinforce what a jerk Rin is, past and present.

Mr. Tamura perseveres in his quest to understand Haru. Despite Haru’s genuinely desperate attempts, Mr. Tamura learns everything about Haru’s past life. What he’s going to do with this information remains to be seen.

Rin… Rin is my favorite character, I think. I do love that he is very clearly an older person trapped in a young body, something he laments constantly. I also like that, currently, as creepy and genuinely terrible as he seems to be, his intentions are ambiguous. Is he really trying to save the Earth? It would seem so, and he’s compelled to do so only because of a promise.

I am completely hooked, though. I cannot wait to read more.

Please Save My Earth 4

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

Okay, there are two notable things about this volume. One is that the situation between Gokuran and Enju comes to a head. I knew this would be coming sooner rather than later, and when Shusuran began needling Enju, I knew the big blow-up was chapters away. But the scene where the confrontation/confession happens is amazing. Hiwatari really knows how to sit on a moment and stretch it out. I love that so much is unsaid between the two before Enju has to clear the air. It’s not quite as good as the Shion/Shukaido scene last volume, but it’s still pretty great.

This goes along with the subplot that seems to be trying to bring Jinpachi and Alice together. Alice wants nothing to do with him, and for some reason wants to be faithful to Rin (I know it’s because she thinks she scarred him for life, but I wouldn’t think she’d pay more than lip service to their “agreement”). Jinpachi isn’t going to give up, though, and even though Alice has completely shut him out of her life, factors like Jinpachi’s desperation, Shion’s sudden appearance, and Alice’s brother try to push them back together. I suspect Alice won’t fall for it.

The other is mostly that Rin continues to be a crazy. He clearly has a soft spot for Alice, and I love that he’s worked out this huge con with Haru, who’s scared to death of him, in order to fool Alice and the others into believing his lies. And it’s weird that his affection for Alice and his menacing behavior towards Haru can come from the same person. I… kinda like him for it, but out of appreciation of the fact he’s an interesting character. Because otherwise, he really is a dangerous jerk.

Another interesting thing about this volume is that Tamura randomly decides Rin and Haru are psychics, then calls up a friend of his with a psychic brother. The friend calls his brother, who then teleports to Tokyo, and the three have a really hard-to-swallow conversation about psychic powers, as if this is the most normal thing in the world. I loved that this scene was done with a completely straight face, in as serious a context as possible. Wow.

Please Save My Earth 3

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2004 – 21 volumes

You know, this series has been pretty great so far. Amazing, in fact. But I’ve been able to restrain myself. One volume a day. But then I read this volume.

THAT SCENE BETWEEN RIN AND HARU.

Now I have to read the rest as fast as possible. Seriously. That scene was amazing. I was beginning to lose faith when the characters began frequently lapsing into Saint Seiya armor. But then that scene happened. I’m a fan for life now. And it’s only volume three. I can’t even imagine how much better it will get from here.

Everything about that scene was amazing. The reversal of the earlier past-life confession. The rain. The accusations. The revenge taken. What actually happened to everyone on the moon, and the reason for the age gap. The reason for Rin’s general creepiness. All of it. I can’t get over just how wonderful it was.

One thing about this, and some of Hiwatari’s author commentaries up until this scene… I guess younger readers than I read this, but was it really not obvious who Shion was? She mentions the evidence during the first Mokuren scene, and I assumed that’s when she let us know that, yes, that’s who Shion is. As if the whole… situation between the two the last few volumes wasn’t enough of a clue. I was confused when the initial confession went the other way, especially since it ended with an illustration that was clearly Mokuren and Shion embracing (as she says, Shion is the only one with dark hair). It’s hard for me to believe that anyone could think Shion was another character.

Anyway, the sad thing is, that amazing scene wasn’t the only excellent confrontation here. I really liked when Issei had to admit he was in love to Jinpachi. That scene was great until he and Jinpachi turned into Shun and Hyoga at the last minute.

I started getting a little confused when the lengthy flashback started in the middle of the volume. I had a firm grasp of Gyokuran, Enju, Mokuren, Shion, and Issei, Jinpachi, Alice, and Rin. The other characters, introduced last volume, I wasn’t as familiar with, so when the flashback began tossing around names, it became a little harder to follow. I love the character sheet in the front of the book for that, though, and after three pages, it became much clearer what was happening, so that turned out to be fine. I like the way Shukaido entered the story here, and Haru as well. I’m not opposed to Enju jumping into the flashbacks, or Shusuran/Sakura and Hiiragi/Daisuke entering the story in a larger role. It’s just gotta happen slow for me. The current pace is pretty much perfect, though.

Okay. One more volume tonight, but I probably won’t write it up here.

Please Save My Earth 2

Saki Hiwatari – Viz – 2003 – 21 volumes

I suspect this is a series I’m going to have a hard time discussing on a volume-by-volume basis. This volume was very plot-heavy, and a lot of what was going on was fairly complex and involved introducing characters, linking them to their Moon persona, and then fleshing out that past life story even more. I can’t really offer much in the way of commentary since, aside from being utterly fascinated, I have to find out more before I can form an opinion about anything that’s going on.

I do like that there’s a little bit of a question about whether this is a past life or… a look into the future somehow. New characters shoot down the latter idea, but I still feel like there’s a possibility that it’s valid. It would be interesting if the present was the dream, and the series slowly switched over to the Moon setting.

Other details: I like that the Moon story has a definitive ending, or at least seems to. It’s strange that something like that was divulged so early, especially when it has such an impact on the characters, but it makes me wonder how the Moon life will be dealt with. I also like that, apparently, the Moon inhabitants are reverse-Zentradi and are apparently very tiny. Also, the fact that two of the present-day Moon people found each other when one of the girls called out to the Moon-God and the other recognized the name was a really great detail.

Other things… Rin gets more creepy with every chapter. I know what he’s doing, and I can almost sympathize with him. Then again, he’s got a prominent teen gang leader cowering in his bedroom with the threat that he will be killed unless he gives Rin the Tokyo Tower. I’m not sure why Rin can do what he does, and I’m not sure that the fall was an adequate explanation. I was a little disappointed he didn’t have more of a role in this volume, save as a shadowy threatening figure, but I’m sure I’ll get more than I can manage in the next.

I do like that his reactions are periodically shown as gigantic panels of just his face in the middle of, say, an Alice/Jinpachi scene. That is quite effective, and just another example of how great the art is. I also like that Hiwatari is a little goofy sometimes, such as a fight that leaves Jinpachi and Issei comically beat up.

I also have to mention that I’m liking all the developing character relationships so far. The stalker-ish obsession Rin has with Alice, the slowly budding relationship between Alice and Jinpachi, the big brother relationship between Takashi and Tamura, and the fact that Issei is having trouble coming to terms with his lingering past-life infatuation with Jinpachi. It’s also great how totally natural all the characters seem to be with one another.

Just… great stuff. Really.