Manga / Please Save My Earth

Alice is an Ordinary High-School Student and Friend to All Living Things. One day, as she's serving as the Badly Battered Babysitter to the neighbor's trip-and-a-half of a boy, she has a chance encounter with two guys from her school class, and in the course of the discussion, it comes out that they've all been having dreams about being alien scientists on the moon studying earth, all in precisely the same continuity.

Eventually, all seven of the scientists at the base are found to have been reincarnated as Japanese teenagers. Their base — and all its weapons — is still operational, and the seven of them must find a way to balance their obligations from past lives with their new lives on Earth...

Please Save My Earth is a Shoujo manga by Saki Hiwatari, published in Hana to Yume from 1986 to 1994. It has two sequels: Boku o Tsutsumu Tsuki no Hikari (The Moonlight That Surrounds Me), which ran in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from 2003 to 2014, and Boku wa Chikyuu to Utau (I Sing with the Earth), which began in 2015; both sequels are focused around the original cast's children and adult lives. The original manga has 21 volumes, while the sequels have 15 and 4 volumes, respectively (the second one is still being published).

There is also a six-episode OVA adapting the first few volumes.

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This show provides examples of:

• Adults Are Useless: On Earth, there is just Tamura knowing what's going on and helping the kids.
• Age-Gap Romance: Alice is nine years older than Rin.
• All for Nothing: We discover that Rin actually was trying to destroy the moonbase all along, not use its power to take over the Earth. What's more, we discover that he wants to destroy it because he remembers that Shion built some device on the moonbase and left it running. However, Rin can't remember what the device does, because Shion had already gone insane by the time he built it. Rin suspects it is some sort of doomsday device, and he wants to destroy the base to get rid of it. However in the end it turns out that the device was essentially a tape-recorder, playing an eternal loop of Mokuren's song, causing all the plants in the base to grow erratically and essentially destroy everything in the base.
• Babies Ever After: The manga ends with Tamura and Ayako with a toddler boy and a baby girl, and with Rin's mother pregnant. In the sequel the main characters are Ren (son of Rin and Alice) and Kachiko (Mikuro's daughter), plus Sakura is finally pregnant.
• Badass Normal: Tamura is not the only one without ESP, but he's the most useful.
• The Bad Guy Wins: No matter who tries to oppose Rin, he always has the upperhand and soundly defeats them. He wanted to seduce Moukuren away from Gyokuran and does it by blackmailing Moukuren's reincarnation (Alice) into being his girlfriend, then manipulates her. Haruhiko's attempt at revenge against Shion fails and comes back to haunt him in his next life when Shion finds him. Not even M could stop him, providing little more than a minor challenge, at best. In the end, Shion accomplishes everything he set out to do, despite the heroes best efforts.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Alice starts as this. Turns out Rin is, well, NOT really special in the way she expected.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Shion and Mokuren. And when they admit to themselves their feelings, they just Cannot Spit It Out.
• Berserk Button: Don't hurt Alice in front of Jinpachi. Also don't disparage Shion's past in front of Rin. And if you're Haruhiko, a.k.a. Shukaido, you basically are Rin's Berserk Button.
• Big Brother Instinct: Tamura feels this way regarding Haruhiko. Hajime, despite being the younger sibling, is very protective of Alice.
• Big Damn Heroes: How Mikuro saves Tamura and Haruhiko from Majima.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Combined with Reincarnation Romance- in their original incarnation, Issei and Alice were both female, and were both potential love interests for Jinpachi. Things become more complicated when Issei is reincarnated in a male body. Jinpachi is straight, but has lingering feelings for Issei anyway.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Apparently both Shion and Rin. Shion has top grades without even trying, and while Rin is confirmed to be a Child Prodigy, he's a normal kid (until Shion's memories awake).
• Broken Ace: Shion: he's good-looking, a genius, and has a incredibly powerful sources. He's also so broken that he believes himself unable to love or care for anyone, and that he will never be able to be part of a family or happy because of his issues.
• Broken Pedestal: Alice seems to idealize Shion, then it becomes clear that he's up to no good and the others tell her what a jerk he was.
• The Chains of Commanding: Hiiragi, to the point that even his reincarnation (Daisuke) feels bad for the choices made on the Moon.
• Chekhov's Gun: The videotape with Mokuren singing is crucial in the end as Shion made it play over and over again, leading the plants to destroy everything in the moon's base.
• Cherry Blossoms: Their appearance out of season is a plot point.
• Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Shion, but the constant conflict with authority doesn't end well: first he was selected (exiled) to go to study Earth by the government; then the other scientists isolate him. Mokuren has shades too.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Shion: he was born on a battlefield, was forced to kill in self defence and everyone he loves dies.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Mokuren's parents, especially her father, qualify. La Zlo too, as Shion (and Rin) is strongly influenced by his words, despite La Zlo only being Shion's adoptive father and they lived together for a mere 78 days.
• Despair Event Horizon: Shukaido reaches his when he discovers he's already ill and can't take the vaccine.
  • Apparently Rin reaches his when his mother finally broke and told him he is not her son.
  • The scientists manage to have two of them: first their planet is destroyed, then a lethal virus appears on the base and kill them all.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Alice gets together with Rin, not Jinpachi.
• Die or Fly: Jinpachi when he falls from Tokyo Tower with an unconscious Rin, and Alice too when she has to destroy a psychic barrier.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Mokuren dies in Shion's arms.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Shion can hold grudge forever if he thinks you're pitying him. Just ask Gyokuran.
• Double Consciousness: All the reincarnated characters have problems putting a line between the present and the past: Issei falls in love with Jinpachi due to Enju's feelings for Gyokuran; Alice is so scared by the possibility that she ends up blocking the memories; and Rin, being only eight, is slowly being absorbed by Shion's personality.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Alice, Rin and the other five teenagers recall their past lives as alien scientists living on the moon by dreaming about the events while sleeping.
• Driven to Villainy: Rin and Shion couldn't control the chain of events which led them to became the villains.
• Dying Alone: Shion's fate.
• Easily Forgiven: Rin gets a pass since he really is a 8 year old boy who is a victim himself - his personality was almost subsumed by Shion's.
• Enfante Terrible: A key element of the work is the dissonance between the cute little grade-schooler Rin and the heinous things does. The protagonists find it difficult to thwart him because they don't want to harm a child. But the child in no way holds back against them.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Rin tries really hard to shield his mother from what's goingo on. It doesn't work.
• Fate Worse than Death: Shion: stuck on the Moon, completely alone, surrounded by the corpses of his coworkers and the woman he loves, for nine years. No wonder he ends up insane. Oh, and it was someone he trusted that inflicted this on him.
• Fighting from the Inside: Rin find himself with the desires, personality, and memories of a fully grown man in his head, and considering that his and Shion's goals are opposites, here we go.
• Friend to All Living Things: Alice's affinity with plants is plot-significant, but she also has an ability to understand and be understood by animals.
• Friendship Moment: Shion cries alone in front of Gyokuran's coffin.
• From Bad to Worse: For the the scientists on the Moon. And for the kids on Earth too.
• Futureshadowing: It's very, very confusing: Mokuren faints on the Moon and sees Rin falling from the balcony. And she somehow manages to save him.
• Gory Discretion Shot: We never see how Shion kills those soldiers that tried to kill him on Tes.
• Green Aesop: The title and overall plot refers to this. The Moral goes something like this - "Take care of your planet while you have it, cause you Earth-people still have a chance at redemption. Unlike us, Space Scientists whose home space-faring civilization self-destructed in war."
• Green Thumb: Mokuren can make plants grow or wither faster than normal with her singing. Not as lame as it sounds. See Lethal Harmless Powers entry below.
• Happily Adopted: Shion was healing, after being adopted by La Zlo. Unfortunately La Zlo died after 78 days in a car accident while Shion was at school. Mikuro too is adopted.
• Heroic BSoD: Alice has one when she remembers that Shion didn't love Mokuren (not true, but Mokuren believed that). All the scientists have one when their whole solar system gets destroyed in the war.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Enju and Shusuran, to the point that they became Platonic Life-Partners on Earth (until Issei and Sakura fall in love and start dating).
  • Issei and Jinpachi, especially after Issei manages to let go of Enju's love for Gyokuran.
• Human Aliens: The aliens look exactly like humans. They're just really small.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Basically Mokuren's thought when she declares herself to be engaged to Shion, and that she consented when they had sex.
• I Gave My Word: Why Shion didn't kill himself on the Moon after Mokuren's death.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: In the end, this was Shion greatest desire. Then it got worse.
• Invisible Parents: We just see Alice's family and Rin, Haruhiko and Mikuro's mothers. Oh, and Mokuren's parents.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: With Tokyo Tower as the remote!
• Lethal Harmless Powers: The kiches make plants grow by singing. They can also kill them. All of them, and they actually did, in the past. The effects were so devasting that they killed themeself out of shame (which is why kiches are so rare).
  • Not to mention that plants growing out of control overnight is pretty scary too. And if you live in a space station with nothin' but vacuum outside...
• Literal Cliffhanger: At the Tokyo Tower. Rin and Jinpachi are very lucky that Jinpachi managed to teleport.
• Love Epiphany: The ones we see: Issei realizes his love for Jinpachi, and Mokuren realizes she's fallen in love with Shion.
• Love Triangle: Issei-Jinpachi-Alice (Type 5); Enju-Gyokuran-Mokuren (Type 5); Shion-Mokuren-Gyokuran (initially sort of 7 'cause Mokuren is unsure of her feelings, then type 4)
• Mama Bear: Mrs. Yakushimaru is a nice woman, but if she suspects you're a menace to her son Mikuro, she will tear you apart with words.
• Manipulative Bastard: Rin/Shion, however he starts to relies more and more on his powers as he became more unstable due to the struggle between Rin's and Shion's egos.
• Manly Tears: Haruhiko cries quite a lot. Takashi too, but out of fear, which makes him unmanly.
• Mega Neko: Played With in the case of Kyaa. Although he is large in comparison to the scientist's species, to a human he'd be the size of a house cat.
• Mercy Kill: Subverted: Mokuren tries to kill Shion so he will not be alone in the universe, but she can not do it.
• My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: Sev Oru thinks this about his father and Mokuren's father. After the discussion, Mokuren resolves to not speak of her father so nobody will make fun of him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Haruhiko when he remembers what Shukaido had done to Shion.
  • Shion while confronting Mokuren about the rape.
• Parental Abandonment: Especially for the aliens: all the Kiches are given up by their parents to the Government (Mokuren's father also died); Shion is a war orphan and his adoptive father died in an accident. Rin's mother freaks out about Rin's personality changes and tells him he's not her son, leading him to run away. Mikuro's biological mother refused him because of his powers when he was five years old.
• The Plague: It kills the seven scientists on the Moon.
• Psychic Powers: The sarches and kiches. Sarches is like ESP, while kiches makes it possible to talk with plants and make them grow.
• Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex: Enju, a woman, wished to be reborn a male, so that she could stay close to Gyokuran in the next life without messy romance stuff getting in the way. It didn't work - although both of them were reborn as males, Enju/Issei's feelings for Gyokuran/Jinpachi stayed the same.
• Reincarnation: All the moon characters died and reincarnated.
• The Resenter: Shion is this regarding everyone, but especially Gyokuran and Mokuren.
• Romanticized Abuse: Rin/Shion does nothing but mistreat and manipulate Alice/Mokuren, blackmail her into doing what he says, dictates who she can speak with and when, and even raped her in his past life. Despite this, she eventually falls for him and it's supposed to be seen as romantic, and them getting together and having children is supposed to be seen as a happy ending.
• Sadistic Choice: Rin/Shion does this to Daisuke: if Daisuke doesn't give him the code, he will drown Daisuke's brother.
• Saintly Church: We don't know about the rules of the aliens' church, but the representatives we see are kind and lovely people.
• Save the Villain: Basically they end having to save Rin from Shion's influence and Shion from himself.
• Shout-Out: Saki Hiwatari was a huge fan of Saint Seiya, and it shows.
  • If you look closely, you can see the main five appearing in the background several times.
  • Rin is watching the anime at one point.
  • When Issei is panicking about "being a pervert", he imagines Shun and Hyouga.
• Shower of Angst: Mokuren after Shino rapes her.
• Shrinking Violet: Alice was one in the first volume. She remains a shy and quiet girl, but she get better.
• Small Role, Big Impact: La Zlo: his words and presence influenced greatly both Shion and Rin, even in the sequel one of the reasons behind Rin's desire to make Shion happy is La Zlo.
• Sympathy for the Devil: There's a reason everyone wants to save both Rin and Shion.
• Take Over the World: To Shion this is the only way to stop humans from destroying the Earth.
• Talking to Plants: The kiches have this as their secondary power.
• Theme Naming: All the moon characters have names that mean plants or flowers:
  • Shion=aster, Shukaido=begonia, Enju=pagoda tree, Hiiragi=false holly, Gyokuran and Mokuren=types of magnolia.
    • The names are also Meaningful Names, since the symbols match their personalities.
    • Also Floral Theme Naming
• Unreliable Narrator: Everyone has unclear memories heavily influenced by emotions. They also often state things as fact when they don't actually know the full story, while believing their own statement. (Y'know, like Real People do) Biggest Example: "Shion raped Mokuren" turns out to be way more complicated than those 3 words, Also Mega Spoiler: "Shion wants to destroy the Earth" turns out to be completely off the mark. Especially interesting because Rin also believes this. You would think that would be reliable since he shares Shion's memories, but no.
• War Is Hell: The main reason behind Shion's emotional problems, and the reason of his whole plan.
• Warrior Therapist: Subverted, as Tamura, Haruhiko and Mikuro try with Rin and fail.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Haruhiko gets a big one from Jinpachi, when he reveals that Shukaido only inoculated Shion against the virus that was killing them, forcing him to live alone for nine years.
• Whole Episode Flashback: All the aliens' story is in flashbacks.
• Willfully Weak: Gyokuran wears a device that suppress part of his powers.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The heroes biggest problem? Rin is eight years old. They don't want to hurt him and when they do, they feel horrible.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Haruhiko pretends to faint while chasing Alice so she will stops running away. Considering that he has a really weak heart it works.
• Yakuza: Rin manipulates Majima (yakuza) to render Tamura (former yakuza) harmless, and to kidnap Alice. Dr. Mori also has connections with the yakuza.

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