anime-book-club

[anime-book-club]

“Please Save My Earth” vol. 1 by Saki Hiwatari

TLDR: 7/10

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“Please Save My Earth” is another expensive title to collect physically. I would recommend buying the Kindle edition instead. As it is $6-$7 a book. Getting an entire set once again hits that $1000-$2000 price range if you insist on a physical.

I’ll be honest, I’m only reading this “classic” late 80s manga (with an anime adaptation) because of its relationship with Sonic The Hedgehog! But why? And how is it related?

Apparently this manga had a significant influence on Shiro Maekawa. (A former writer at SEGA and Sonic Team.) and this is what inspired specific writing choices on Sonic Adventure 2 (The space colony ark and Maria specifically) and particular scenes with Shadow and Maria together on the ark. Apparently the voice actor of the main character Alice in the anime adaptation was also the voice of Maria. Which Maekawa described as destiny, and that’s hard to disagree with.

I’m a girl who practically wants to be a Sonic The Hedgehog archivist. I’ve practically experienced all the media Sonic has had on offer and I like reading inspirations and source materials, even if they aren’t Sonic related. I’m hyper fixation to the max.

So does that mean I automatically like this tale of alien scientists who have reincarnated and been born as humans on earth? As their past lives start to overlap with their current ones as it leads to drama and heartbreak?

Ehhh. It’s fine. It’s skippable if you only care about Sonic. But if you like retro manga, I’d give you a positive maybe. And I do like retro manga. So.

The inspiration on Sonic Adventure 2 becomes immediately obvious. But it does a few things that’s… weird. There’s also elements that just plain haven’t aged well. Some of which is ignorable and some of which really isn’t.

But let’s talk about why!

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Detailed spoilers ahead:

Here’s some music while you read because I have a LOT to say:

First let’s talk about the art and my final thoughts on its relationship with Sonic Adventure 2 for book one before getting into the story beats here:

It’s beautiful and soft. I especially love all these scenes in space. Again those influences on Sonic Adventure 2 are so front row in these scenes in particular.

I mean JUST LOOK AT IT:

Context clues imply that if you ship Shadow X Maria you will likely love this kind of material.

Okay but obviously it’s more than its influences on Sonic The Hedgehog, so what made the story a fine experience instead of a great one? Especially since I love it’s inspirational material to death. (My first Sonic games were the Adventure games.)

This is Alice. She has just moved to the city from the countryside. She LOVES plants. (Her past self’s name is Mokuren). For simplicity’s sake these are basically the same person. Except the past self is an alien. Present self is not. (Though the same soul is probably a better way to put it. A lot of these characters are going to have duel identities)

Alice babysits a freaking brat named Rin. (I very much do not like this child.):

I like child characters, and I get that this kid is supposed to be annoying, but I just don’t like his cut. He does gross things to Alice and some of it borders on plain harassment. Especially when BOTH SETS of parents start endorsing the idea of her pretending to marry him in response to her almost killing him. Mind you there’s a 9 year age gap. Rin is 7 years old and Alice is 16.

This is what I mean by some of these elements just not aging well. And one could argue this is 80s manga from Japan. I know some folks like to cut Japan some slack on some of this stuff.

I don’t. It’s 2023, the here and now. Being old does not make it ineligible from critique from a modern perspective. And I think the conversation around that makes it more interesting period.

And hey. I can hear you thinking, “Did she just say Alice almost killed that kid?”. Yes I did.

Being a babysitter of a constantly turbulent kid has Alice is fed up with his behavior. She’s spanked him once before but things reach a boiling point when Rin questions her about wanting to date specific other people (we’ll get into this in a bit). When Alice softly challenges this idea Rin grabs a sentimental object to Rin (a plant from her home town she loved so much.), sits horse back style on the balcony railing, and drops the plant to is death several stories down.

While understandably hurt, Alice stupidly slaps the kid and knocks him off the railing. She manages to catch him, but she is unable to pull the boy back over into safety and he ends up also dropping stories down. (About 12-15 stories high)

This has a weird effect on the story where she is ostracized in school because she effectively pushed a kid off a balcony, but her regular group of friends are guilted into being friends with her again??? And it goes back and forth between emotionally punishing her for it and letting her get away with it emotionally. Though undoubtedly she feels guilty. She never feels she made the right decision, but she is being coddled.

While it’s obviously an accident no one would be cool with her, especially in Japan. She also faces no legal repercussions for this. Which I’m not necessarily advocating for accuracy, but it is a bit too ridiculous on that front. Especially when Rin’s mother advocates his feelings to marry her after he wakes up from his COMA. She also apparently wanted to apologize to Alice for slapping her for slapping her kid off a railing? Nah. Nope. Not a thing.

But, hey, that’s manga. Sometimes you just gotta lean in and enjoy the drama like a soap opera. I get it. I mostly mention it to give you an idea of how this story is going to operate over 20 books. This is only PART OF THE SYNOPSIS for volume 1!

Let’s get into WHY that even happened by first introducing a couple more key characters and their “deal”.

On the left with the dark hair we have Issei. His past alien scientist self, which we don’t see yet, is a woman named Enju. I’ll be swapping between pronouns in the future when talking about Enju and Issei.

On the right is Jinpachi. Their past alien scientist self was named Gyokuran. Whom we also don’t see.

To get you quickly caught up:

Enju likes Gyokuran, but Gyokuran was in love with Mokuren, but Mokuren was already engaged with someone named Shion.

So it stands to reason they still like each other? (Low key it sounds like Enju was always jealous and being treated as a back up plan.)

⬆️ This is a lie. I am certain of this in some capacity. It is uncertain if this is played up as a joke or as a very legitimate conflict. (Too early to judge). I also can’t rightly tell if the manga stands behind that statement or not. But it is also extremely gay coded with them in the modern era. They talk about their dream love together DAILY for Christ’s sake. (And low key act it out. Like COME ON.)

If this is being treated as legitimate, what does that make them? As Jinpachi shows some obvious attraction for Alice. Issei implies that “they’re a guy in real life “ so they could see the appeal of Mokuren. I think Issei will have hidden feelings for Jinpachi. Does that make you gay if you’re context for loving that person was originally straight? As his connection is contingent on knowing him through those dreams. Is Issei gender dysmorphic at all? Which body do they prefer? The one that had a better chance to be with the person they love or the one that has a second, but maybe slimmer, chance to be with them now? Did Gyokuran like Enju at all? Because Jinpachi does seem to like Issei in some capacity. And are those feelings only for Issei, or can that be extended to other men? And how does that effect the relationship now???

They both seem to like both their past and current bodies, does that play a unique roll here? What would you call that? It is obviously reincarnation but are they truly reliving those moments or are they simply kinning their own past lives they get to watch like a TV?

I’m aware some of these are weird questions but I can’t help but wonder these as I read. These aren’t questions that will probably be answered for a while and likely not directly. Hopefully they aren’t… poorly answered. I’m interested to see how this manga will handle these topics.

Now. How does ALL THAT relate back to Rin and Alice?

The whole reason why the balcony fight even happened is because Alice obviously kinda likes Jinpachi. And it is obviously reciprocated.

So Rin gets hurt and Alice prays that he wakes up from his coma and he does. Great. I’m gonna mostly skip over the weird engagement because like, already covered why I don’t like that. But the idea is so wild to Alice she straight up just passes out from the mere idea.

Apparently Rin has new intuitive powers. It is unclear how they work. He initially wakes up in tears after, what I assume, is having his own dream of a past life. Knowing this manga’s m.o. even from just the first volume and Shadow The Hedgehog, I would be willing to bet money this little brat is Shion. 🙄

But after reconfirming with his mother that he does indeed wish to marry Alice, we cut to later and he is sneaking out of bed. He goes out to the balcony and just jumps out and lands safely.

He had apparently contacted gangsters??? And then mentally manipulates one of the biker’s motorcycle brakes to fail so he can have a personal chat with the gangster. They literally float in the air together to talk. The manga ends with Rin requesting that the gangster gives him the Tokyo tower. Okay I guess??? It is about aliens. Sure.

In the midst of all this happening Alice has her “reawakening” after fainting from the news of the engagement. (She faints twice from this news and then cries about it FYI)

We see who I assume is Shion and we see Mokuren. The big thing established is that Mokuren is a… Japan nut (Their words not mine). An Otaku. But it is implied (at least in the first book) they that exist in the era of the dinosaurs (With humans not existing yet. Because remember, all the main cast in past lives are aliens)

And she talks about pronouncing her name “The Japanese way” and making oden. It implies she can mentally visit her future body in the present??? Astral projecting? Is that what they call that? Something along those lines. Like she was astral projecting into her future body, so her past self is privy to Japanese culture but other scientists are not? Unclear. Too early to truly judge. I understand wanting to make the character see into the future but I’m not so certain I vibe how they did it? It could’ve been cooler. I think.

“Please Save My Earth” certainly isn’t uninteresting. There is so much to dissect and talk about within even just one volume. Lots of good head canon potential too. It’s a series I want to continue. All the books are rated individually and not as a series as a whole. My initial opinions may change with later volumes. I plan on reading and dissecting all 20 volumes as I consume them so buckle up.

But as is? It’s a weird manga for sure. I could see this being a very particular flavor for a lot of readers. And while I like it, I don’t know if it would be something I would recommend or not until I get a couple more volumes under my belt.

Next: “Please Save my Earth” vol. 2.

(Next review not available yet)

[anime-book-club]

“From Far Away” vol. 1 by Kyoko Hikawa

TLDR: 9/10

My first impression thoughts on a manga I had never heard of and was recommended to me as the “original” villainess shoujo manga:

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Firstly, I tried looking into picking up this series physically. I prefer physical media almost always.

However, physicals of “From Far Away” are ungodly expensive. I’ve been seeing complete sets going from $1000 - $2000. Ouch, but it can be indicative of a quality title.

On Amazon the books are about $6-$7 a piece for Kindle. So. No contest there on which version was bought.

“From Far Away” is about a girl that slips into a unfamiliar magical world that is in chaos over a prophesied person, The Awakening, that is supposed to appear. (“Spoiler” alert: it’s her)

Izark who is a traveling warrior had travelled to find The Awakening and ends up escorting her away from mercenaries that wish to take her for notorious purposes.

Overall I can see this as a series I can seriously fall in love with. The art, story, and characters seem wonderful.

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Detailed spoilers ahead:

By the way this is her right here! This is Noriko (The main character):

I don’t have strong feelings about her yet. As for the first book she has to be chaperoned by other characters. Which is not her fault, and you can tell she makes an effort in her own way. But I feel it will take a bit of time to see if she grows into a character that helps Izark over just being someone who is dead weight.

Her design, and by extension everyone else’s, looks as if it were a mix of Sailor Moon and Inuyasha. Which is very pretty in my opinion. In the art you can see the artist has taken care to make sure not everyone had same face syndrome too (artists like Arina Tanemura tend to have this problem despite how much I love her work). Characters are designed to be identifiably different.

The beginning feels very rushed for both the good and the bad. Good because we get right into the meat of the story we’re here for. Do we truly care about Noriko’s friends that we’ll likely never really see again? Not really. It would be better to call them set dressing over actually being fully fledged characters. Which is fine. Some characters are meant to just be set dressing.

But at the same time this also distances us from her connection from those people. The short time dedicated on friends and school over the family itself was also a bit of a strange decision. As to most people our familial connections make or break us. One might even infer her life with the MOST normal. Not quirky in any regard other than her strange dreams.

Speaking of which: It goes from her talking about having strange dreams to 💥 BOOM! Explosion and she was gone faster than a toupee in a hurricane! Thanos snapped away so to speak. She leaves in a literal explosion and there’s not even a body is left behind for police to pick up as her friends try to explain what happened. The manga implies this is purposeful.

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Eventually we meet this man who rescues Noriko when she is initially exploded into the new world:

This is Izark (the deuteragonist), a travelling warrior who came to find The Awakening (For reasons unknown the the reader at this time). Izark is very classically 90s shoujo handsome. (And totally my type at tough, calm, cool, distant, but still empathetic to the plight of others.)

He’s also logical and tends to use that logic in a flat dead pan cheeky way. It’s a nice juxtaposition.

Despite Noriko being painted as a literal catastrophe he is kind to her and very considerate of her position and feelings. (And this is reciprocated by Noriko. It feels genuine on both sides.)

The way the long dark hair is drawn is ✨ perfection ✨. Chef’s kiss 💋 .

The first thing the manga truly tackles socially between Noriko and Izark is the language barrier. They don’t have it hand-waved away with magic or happenstance. These two characters truly cannot effectively communicate and it’s being set up that this will be a real barrier for Noriko.

I think a lot of material either don’t know how or straight up don’t want to tackle the difficulty of having two characters (romantic ones at that) unable to communicate. Which I’m going to argue is fair, but it can be a missed opportunity for interesting character/story development. I wish more manga attempted to cover this. As it makes our character Noriko feel so much more alien and alone in this new world she finds herself in.

There’s also something incredibly humbling about having to learn a new language and culture as well. Izark repeating he can’t understand her and her continuing to gab away anyway is also very funny. The language barrier was also used narratively to cover up that she IS The Awakening. As she cannot blab her life story to those who can’t understand her. Genius cover. I love it.

Noriko and Izark seem to immediately have some pretty good chemistry. Though Izark is obviously not only aware but wary of Noriko’s status in his world. He comes off incredulous that The Awakening is as little and meek as she is.

He remarks that he will have to kill her. Which leads me to suspect he planned on taking her off to kill her somewhere? But that can’t be entirely it, because he proves he’s a powerful warrior and the logic doesn’t add up. He would’ve just killed her right then if that had been the goal? There were many opportunities for her to get killed off.

Unless he felt bad about it, I guess. But that seems like a misread on who he is too. (Though undoubtedly he seems to like her.) There simply is not information at this time.

Izark suddenly collapses at the end of book one leaving a nice enticing cliff hanger.

And then there’s this guy, Keimos:

He gives off big Sephiroth vibes. And maybe it’s the black and white coloring, the long hair, the thin eyes, the haughty sounding attitude, and how other characters talk about him, but yeah. It’s hard to think of him as anything else.

He seems like he’s going to be a main first antagonist, but not the final antagonist. We’ll see.

Both side and main characters are fun to interact with. Villainous characters are fun too, no one holds back in the fighting. For a shoujo this has excellent action sequences and they’re done by a talented artist.

I appreciate that the monsters aren’t generic. The artist tried to make something interesting. I liked the toothy worm things that immediately attack Noriko on arrival.

I can’t wait to pick this series apart more. I have high hopes for this one. I like near everything about it so far. It’s interesting and I want to unravel the mystery as to why Noriko is this great Awakening to wreck the world.

Next: “From Far Away” vol. 2.

(Next review not available yet)

[anime-book-club]

A Foreward:

Welcome! If you’ve run into this blog you’ve walked right into Anime Book Club! (Or ABC for short.)

Anime Book Club will cover a variety of “books” over a variety of topics. I’ll be discussing Manga, light novels, manhwa, doujinshi (Sonic exclusively on those), online comics, and visual novels. As the name implies there is a theme to this blog. (If you want to see me cover non “anime” material head to my main blog @visionoasis, I talk about other non-reading stuff too.)

I’ll be going over “books” and doing comparisons, reviews, critiques, head canons, and just general dissection of the material. You’ll be seeing reactions to series live per individual book, so if I seem like I don’t know about something coming up… I don’t. Lol. These are meant to be a discussion as I digest and read the material as initial reactions.

Visual novel reviews will be posted as a reaction to an individual route or as a whole. It will depend on the visual novel.

My blog is not intended for children. Most of the stuff I’ll cover is pretty SFW. As I prefer SFW material. But every once in a blue moon I do want to cover horror, yaoi, and my doujinshi. Anime is gonna do what it likes to do and sometimes I’ll have to talk about 🔞 material (without showing it and not in graphic detail.) as there is no good way around it sometimes.

You’ll get warnings and warning tags so don’t worry. And spoilers ahoy. I’m dissecting these books. Book numbers (if there is more than one) and titles will always be available for you in the hashtags for easy searching. So if you only want to hear spoilers for Book One, Route One, WHATEVER. They’ll be there.

Anyway! I hope to see people! You’re welcome to discuss with me, disagree, or enjoy the head canons.

And finally: I always want good recommendations. My box is always open.

Welcome to the club!