THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I've noticed that most of the reviews for Please Save My Earth (Boku no Chikyuu wo Mamotte) are overly positive on this site, so I'm going to go against the grain this time. Mind you, I dropped the series after I finished Volume 6, chapter 30, and I still have a lot to say. I know, I know, how the heck am I able to formulate a solid opinion if I only completed 1/3 of the manga?! You can take my words with a grain of salt, but I have a valid reason as to why I dropped it and why I am giving my opinion. One word: RAPE!

This review may contain a few spoilers. I will go into details by describing the rape event, and how that specific event is the reason I cannot look at the series with admiration.

Abridge storyline: A group of ordinary teenagers begins to have dreams that are similar (but are from a different perspective depending on who is dreaming it). Some of them later come together, and they realize that their dreams are events that occurred to them in their past life at the moon. Judging from the few conversations at the start of the manga, the past-life involved romance, love-triangles, unrequited love, and rivalry amongst the characters. That being said, as the characters in the present slowly uncover their dreams, some of them become aware that their feelings from the past-lives are seeping into their present personality. The current characters begin to even have the same feelings as their past. So, what do you do when you're in love with someone, but you've been reincarnated as a 9-year-old boy while the girl you fancy is a high schooler? Or, what if you were a female in the past life, what would you do if you became a heterosexual male in the present but start to have homosexual feelings because in the past you were so in love with a specific guy (who is still reincarnated as a guy)? What do you do when the person you love doesn't love you back even in the next life? What do you do if you were a crappy person in the past-life and you feel so bad in the present because of it? These are some of the questions that are being explored by the characters as the story progresses.

Let me just start off by saying that the author is able to wonderfully transition between fleshing out the story of the past and the present (I am a little bias to this type of writing style because, in my opinion, it allows the story to be fresh and lively. When the story starts to feel boring, there is a chance that it will shift to another group of main characters to keep your attention. Reminds me of 7 Seeds, 20th Century Boys, and even Baccano). When the chapters of Please Save My Earth were about the characters of the present, I was invested in it. When the story began to delve more into the past, I was HIGHLY invested in it! The reason being, it already stated that the past characters were dead and that there was some conflict between the characters that led to the death. Trying to discover and find out what had happened, and how those characters interacted with each other was the captivating element of the flashbacks. Positive commentary aside, the characters of the backstory are absolutely generic. You have the angry bitter main character, Shion, who complements the kindhearted Gyokoran. Shion hates him for some reason but likes the girl version of him, Mokuren. Everyone likes her. She's your typical angelic, gentle-hearted Godly creature (along with these three goons, you have the side characters: that also loves one of them, is jealous of one, etc, etc.). There is nothing wrong with stock characters as long as the story gives them the opportunity to grow, and this is where the problems begin. GLORIFICATION OF RAPE. I'm gonna spoil this part so read this remaining paragraph at your own risk. Shion is less than a trash bag, he is the trash- the tsundere boy that has no redeeming character trait at all. He hates people. He hates "God". He hates God's creatures. He just hates everything. He also hates Gyokoran sooooooooo much that he rapes Mokuren just to tick him off. And you know what Mokuren does??? She forgives him!!!! She tells everyone that she was engaged to Shion!! Her reason you ask? She's a Kiche, which means that she is similar to God's angel. She's "perfect." By Shion raping her, treating her meanly, and "deflowering" her, she felt human. To add to that, when she told Shion this, he realized all he always wanted was to be loved and be a part of a family. However, he thought he could never have it, so he became the ruthless person that he is. Alas, the main love story begins, and I drop the series the same way I would throw away trash. Usually, I instinctively like characters that are kind and endearing, but I cannot like Mokuren. Her reasoning is so flawed because yes, the others probably idolized her so they treated her extremely nice, but it does not mean that belittling someone means that they're treating you like a human. So much extreme and so little in between. Maybe the way the characters handled rape is original, but it's so frustrating and gross. How can rape be romanticized that easily? I'm sure the next few volumes attempted to redeem Shion by showing how misunderstood he was, how all he was missing was love, and that he was really a kindhearted person at heart, but I'm not able to read further because of how irritating the whole scene was. I'm also sure Mokuren's perspective will be highlighted; I understand she's a person who has no hate in her heart, but I'm not able to wrap my head around the tomfoolery. She was EFFING CRYING when she was raped!!!

Now that I mentioned the elephant in the room, I'm going to write about the few little things that irritated me. I brushed them aside while reading, but the rape scene just scratched those irritations more.

1. The art is old. Sometimes it's hard to tell who the characters are because it was made in the 80's-90's. I heard it does get better. (I personally didn't mind for the most part.)
2. The age gap between potential love interests. This was a little creepy for me, but I was willing to sit in my own discomfort because the storyline was interesting. Obviously, that changed, after I read more. Anyway, the main character is an 8-year-old who is in love with the high-schooler.
3. The cheesy love triangle, love-square, and unrequited love scenes. This frustrated me on a whole new level when the rape scene happened.
4. The generic characters of the past.
5. The comments about homosexuality (although it is understandable as some of the characters are afraid of their feelings and are only beginning to be in terms with what's happing to them).
Also, the subtle jokes about a male mentor liking young boys simply because he helps them. What's wrong with wanting to help people?


What did I like?

1. The eerie feeling.
2. The story execution.
3. Slight originality.

I think what Please Save My Earth did best is the fact that it allowed me to sit through my discomfort for as long as it did. Nonetheless, I just cannot read anymore because I know I will be angrier by the end of the story. I rate this story a 5 and not lower because I did not complete the whole series. I did not rate it higher than a 5 because there is no possible way in my life would I think it deserves more than that considering how things were handled so far.

This is my crappy and hasty review for a series I genuinely wanted to like. Woe – is a story with great potential that goes all wrong!!