Please Save My Earth

Please Save My Earth explores the angst of six Japanese teens and one child as they discover they are reincarnations of alien (very humanoid) scientists who had been assigned to study the Earth from a moon base. These reincarnations must save the Earth by preventing humans from obtaining advanced and dangerous alien technology from the moon station. Though this truncated shojo anime never resolves the "saving the Earth" plotline, it does deeply explore the complex interpersonal entanglements that follow our heroes from their past to their present lives. The primary plot concerns the past- and present-life traumas of shy schoolgirl Alice and her seven-year-old neighbor, Rin. The BL story is secondary plot but makes good use of limited screen time.

Best friends, Issei and Jinpachi, find their friendship strained when they begin to have "moon dreams" that reveal their past-life relationship. Issei is the reincarnation of a woman, Enju, who was madly in love with Jinpachi's previous incarnation, Gyokuran. Gyokuran, however, was in love with Mokuren (Alice's past incarnation) and became Enju's lover only because the woman he really wanted didn't want him. Their present lives begin to re-enact the past: Jinpachi falls in love with Alice, while Issei realizes that he is still in love with Jinpachi. Like virtually all of this anime's plotlines, Jinpachi and Issei's situation is never resolved. But this may be for the best: it's so complex that a clear resolution might appear oversimplified.

The BL content is very light--one kiss--but the Jinpachi/Issei relationship is compelling. At first glance, Issei and Jinpachi fall into traditional categories: Jinpachi is loud, emotionally imperceptive, physically powerful, masculine, while Issei is shy, empathetic, "hates violence," feminine. But these boys are not stereotypes: if Issei seems a classic uke, he is also the one who pursues Jinpachi, though both are afraid of being labeled "gay." (This 1994 anime reflects the homophobia of its time, a tension that effectively heightens the Issei/Jinpachi angst.) For the "manly guy," Jinpachi is very open and articulate about his feelings. Issei, in contrast, is not at all bad in a fight and takes very masculine action in rescuing someone from drowning. Neither character is drawn in a hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine style.

These two engaging individuals make a fascinating pairing. Their love for each other is deep and binding (they've been best friends since childhood), but equally deep is the chasm that divides their romantic feelings. Jinpachi cannot love Issei the way Issei loves him, a situation painful for both of them. The open-endedness of the anime allows the viewer to conjecture how their future relationship might develop. (Advisory: the anime covers only the beginning of the manga on which it's based; the manga steers away from BL content.)

Visually, the character concepts are beautiful but the animation cheap and the use of still frames often more distracting than artful. The voice work, however, is high quality in both Japanese and English and features Sho Hayami as Mokuren's love interest, Shion. The low point in English is the ESPer Mikuro, who sounds like a surfer dude (in Japanese, he is voiced by the redoubtable Toshihiko Seki). The theme song is haunting and lovely. Special features for the VIZ DVD are not very special.

I've given this anime an A- solely because it ends in medias res with no plot resolution. For a plot-oriented viewer, it might earn a C, for a character-oriented viewer, an A+. Every major character is intriguing, multifaceted, and grows through difficult self-discoveries and painful relationships.