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Boku no Chikyu wo Mamotte
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Design - 7.0 |
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Story - 8.5 |
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Character - 8.0 |
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Value - 6.5 |
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Enjoyment - 7.5 |
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Average - 7.5 |
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nauXolo |
(2006-07-21 18:37:33) 2006-07-21 18:20:10 |
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| Average |
5.6 |
| Design |
6 |
| Story |
7 |
| Character |
6 |
| Value |
4 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
| Please save my earth... starts out wonderfully with a lot of interesting mysteries, hidden pasts, and potentially cool characters. However, this manga just isn't the type that I can fully enjoy. It has a good method of storytelling, with the alternations between past and present, but there just isn't enough substantial events that happen to keep me interested. Despite the huge number of pages PSME has, there really is only ONE thing happening and that is the acceptance of the past in the present. It basically goes through each character (7 main ones in all) and has them remember their past on the moon base. The less important characters get their story done with quickly, while the more important two have their story dragged on until the end. Really, this manga seemed to drag on and it could easily have been 2/3 the length without missing anything important.
Essentially, I was disappointed with how everything turned out in general. Aside from Shion, Shuukaido, and Mokuren, I basically forgot who was who. I kept mixing Shuukaido with Gyokuran in terms of who did what and who was friends with who. Hiragi, Enju, and one more person were very unimportant and only served to add some "life" into the story. Otherwise, they did nothing substantial. None of the characters were too impressive. I thought Shion's story was a bit too typical. Mokuren's progression of the acceptance of her past was too predictable and everybody else's sob story too boring.
Overall, this is not for the typical reader who has no patience for female-oriented love stories with lots of dialogue and pretty guys. Despite all the esper abilities, it is very lacking in true conflict and action. For its story, PSME relies too much on revealing the past on the base through slow and painful awakenings of the characters. When I found out what truly happened, I thought "oh, that's it? Sad, but big deal." Basically Shion is a character who has nobody to love him so he hurts instead. Mokuren is someone who doesn't know how to live for herself and ends up being scared to express herself. I've basically summarized the entire manga right there. All that is left is the constant worry of "Oh no, what is Shion doing right now? Where is he? How do we prevent the disaster (which gets resolved real quickly) from happening".
I recognize that PSME might have potential fans who love and adore the story and characters. But to me it was tedious, predictable, and dry. I just didn't buy the story, which was too superficial and linear. The ending was as it should have been, but it was the journey to the ending that was very disappointing. Too bad. I really enjoyed the anime rendition of the series and had much hope for this series..
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| Average |
9.4 |
| Design |
8 |
| Story |
10 |
| Character |
10 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| Oh man.. The 21-volume Please Save My Earth really does live up to my expectations. It contains some epic and unique ideas that pretty much thrust it into the "must-read" category. It's a mature series that can appeal to just about anyone. First I'll veer off for a second and examine something that I rarely examine in my little reviews- that being, artwork. The artwork is very important in this series, because it is awesome to watch it evolve from old-school, simple-to-a-fault, not very attractive- to the polar opposite, beautiful and immaculately detailed. This evolution is noticable with each passing volume, and for example, just taking volume one and volume 21 seperately, you can barely tell that they are from the same series, as the art has evolved so.
Now as for the storyline- When one is reborn, it is meant to be a fresh start. A clean slate. But in Please Save My Earth, this is not the destiny of the eight main characters. The events that took place in their past lives were too explosive, the intense feelings- some of love, hate, regret, and longing were left unresolved in terrible tragedy. So now in the present day, fate brings these eight people together, and through dreams they gradually begin to remember the events that took place on another planet..
There are two key features that PSME possesses that makes it very special. First, that most of the eight main characters are nicely developed- both their past and present lives (which are diverse and only connected by memories) manage to cause much distress, as each intertwine and threaten to override one another.. Second, is that the events of the past are not immediately revealed. They are spread out provacatively across the series. Making for momentum and mystery, that managed to leave- me, anyway- eagerly reading to find out every little thing that happened and how it will impact the future..
There is one fault I can come up with. It is not so much a fault as a personal preference- I didn't care much for the present-day storyline, and was utterly taken with the "past lives" storyline. This is a bit of problem considering that half of the entire series takes place in the present. One more thing that I thought was kind of good and troublesome at the same time. There were breaks for action and slice-of-life at times that- while one reader could appreciate this diversity in content, I just wanted to see Shion!! XX; Nah to be honest it's just a matter of what I think was taking too many ideas having too little space to perfectly execute them.
Too little space?! But the series is a whopping 21 volumes! Well I felt that it read very fast. I felt like I'd only read half as many volumes. This could be due to the simple layouts and big art that makes for speedy reading..
Despite my little niggling, the series is a masterpiece and one I'll remember for a long time.
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