Please Save My Earth #1: Awakening

Episode 1: "Awakening"

Sakaguchi Alice
At the beginning of "Awakening," Sakaguchi Alice (v: Shiratori Yuri) is on her way home from school. Looking around at her still unfamiliar surroundings, she thinks to herself, "I want to go back." Later she is again accosted on her way home from school by the neighbor's seven-year old kid, Kobayashi Rin (v: Touma Yumi). Rin offers her gum, but she refuses, accusing him of having stuck some of his gum in her shoes a few days ago. By playing the hurt innocent, Rin tricks her into saying yes anyway. He asks her to close her eyes and instead of giving her the newly unwrapped piece of gum, he spits his old wad into her mouth. Alice is shy and introverted, too quiet to stand up even to a seven-year old. All she can do is stand and stare in shock as he runs home. That night, she has no appetite for dinner, and furthermore is asked by Mrs. Kobayashi to babysit Rin the next day. Reflecting on the unfairness of it, Alice reminds herself that her father is not to blame just because he was promoted and transferred to Tokyo. She eventually cries herself to sleep.

Animals
The next day, Alice dutifully babysits for the neighbors and ends up chasing Rin all over, trying to get him to spit out his gum. He stops her short when he blurts out, "You might act innocent, but I know you're not a virgin!" Hearing the seven-year old say this shocks Alice so that she freezes, and most likely would have remained at Rin's mercy if not for the cat. Rin turns out to be afraid of cats, but he doesn't know why. "I've only seen them in pictures," he explains. Seeing a chance to get him to behave, and to help him with his fear, Alice offers to take Rin to the zoo. He grimly accepts.

At the zoo, Rin notices that all the animals always turn towards them. He questions Alice about this, and she explains that the animals are just being nice to him, it's like a treat for him. But she thinks to herself, "It's always been like this, even when I was a child back in Hokkaido." She remembers a time when her parents took her to see some horses, and the horses crowded around her, scaring her and making her cry. But all her life, animals have always done that, though Alice doesn't understand why.

Classmates and Misunderstandings
Later, Alice stops to buy a souvenir for Rin. On their way about the zoo, they suddenly bump into two of Alice's classmates. She immediately grabs Rin and tells him they should go home, but the first classmate, Ogura Jinpachi, grabs her and says, "I think there's a misunderstanding we have to clear up." They go to a coffee shop to talk. Here Jinpachi looks embarrassed when he begins with, "Look, I think you should know, we're not gay." This leads to a flashback sequence, in which Alice accidentally overhears Jinpachi and his friend, Nishikiori Issei (v: Okiayu Ryutarou), talking in the school yard.

Jinpachi tells Issei, "Maybe we're not normal after all." To this, Issei can only agree. And as Alice watches them, unnoticed, they go on to discuss the reason why. Jinpachi begins to mention "About what happened last night..." but Issei doesn't want to discuss it. Horrified, Alice sees the two acting in what might be interpreted as an intimate manner, so she quickly backs away, hoping not to be seen. As fate would have it, she steps on something, and the loud crack attracts the attention of the two men.

Moon Dreams
"Isn't that what you said, though?" she asks the two in the coffee shop, "That you're not normal?" Jinpachi sighs and tries to explain: ever since the two were friends in middle school, they had started to have the same dreams. In these dreams, Jinpachi was someone else, someone named Gyokulan. And Issei was a woman named Enju. There were five other people in the dreams with them, and the scenes always took place in what appeared to be a research base on the moon. The two quickly detail all seven of these alternate lives:

Gyokulan: According to Issei, Gyokulan is completely unlike Jinpachi. He was a quiet, well-behaved type, very much like the stereotypical image of an archaeologist.
Enju: Enju was a paleontologist, and was the shy and quiet sort. She was quietly in love with Gyokulan, but never won his heart, because the man of her affections was in love with...
Mokulen: She was an odd and curious woman. At once calm and cool, poised, and yet completely feminine. In fact, no one who came to know her did not fall in love with her.
Shusulan: She is only generically described as a "scientist" initially.
Hiragi: He was a linguist, and the leader of the crew.
Shukaido: The medical scientist.
Shion: Shion was the engineer, and a loner. In their dreams, he always kept himself aloof from the others. He was rash and impulsive, and socially awkward, but both Issei and Gyokulan describe him as someone with a good heart.

The Explanation
The reason they'd been acting so strange, they explain, is that in the dream the previous night, Gyokulan and Enju had slept together. Surprised, Alice can only stutter a bit. Then she recovers and marvels over such a detailed story, and thinks it sounds absolutely amazing, even though Jinpachi was sure she would say they were both nuts. Gaining some courage from this, he ventures to ask her if they'd met before, as she seems familiar to him. Issei teases him about trying to pick up on Alice, but Jinpachi denies it. What all three fail to notice is Rin, who by this point is getting very jealous over the attention Alice is paying the others.

The Accident
That night, back at the Kobayashi's home, he accuses her of liking Jinpachi. "Are you going to marry him?" he challenges her. "And what if I did?" is all Alice can say. Whereupon Rin grabs his souvenir from the zoo and dashes out to the balcony. He climbs and sits on the railing. "Look," he tells Alice, and drops the glass jar over the edge to fall some ten stories to the ground. Momentarily angered, Alice slaps him and causes him to lose his balance. A brief moment of shock turns to silence, and then Alice has Rin by his feet, desperately trying to hold on. But his weight causes him to slip out of her grasp and fall.

Awakening
Jinpachi comforting Alice

Rin is taken to the hospital. The next morning, all of Alice's classmates are talking about it. Although her name wasn't mentioned in the newspaper, some of them have guessed it. Alice walks into the classroom to meet a curious, stunned sort of silence. She finds everyone staring at her, and walks quickly to her desk, whereupon everyone begins talking about her again. This continues until Jinpachi stamps on Alice's desk, quieting everyone. He glares at them until they look away. Trying to muster up some cheer, Alice casts about for something to say. "So did you... did you finish your date with Issei-san?" she asks. In spite of her resolve, a tear slips down her cheek. For an answer, Jinpachin just pulls her to him and holds her there to comfort her. Alice thinks to herself that she should take some flowers and home-baked cookies to the hospital.

Later, after she drops off her package in front of Rin's door at the hospital, Alice prays to God to save Rin. She promises that she would do anything if God would only revive Rin again. The very moment she thinks this, Rin wakes and opens his eyes.

Alice is called out of class to answer a phone call. It's from her mother, who has called to tell her Rin was awake and wanted to see her. She rushes to the hospital, where Mrs. Sakaguchi is with Mrs. Kobayashi, keeping Rin company. As Alice walks into the hospital, Rin suddenly announces, "Alice is here." His mother dismisses it as a game, something he'd been doing since he woke. Rin continues with, "She's using the stairs. What a dummy! There're elevators here!" And as Alice approaches his room, he reports, "Ten meters. Five meters. Three more steps." He jumps off the bed to greet her even as she walks into the room. Alice hugs him and cries with relief that he's okay. Then Rin asks her, "Take me to the zoo again, okay?"

Kiss
Some time later, Alice is walking home from school. She hears the sound of Rin's ribbon swishing behind her and thinks, "I'm no longer afraid of him." She turns to greet him. After some chatting, Rin remarks that she's in good spirits, then asks her to stoop down. He assures her that he's taken out his gum this time. Alice complies, closing her eyes, and is shocked when Rin kisses her. She quickly stands while Rin tells her, "I think... I think I've fallen in love with you." He follows this with a matter-of-fact, "Oh well, see you later." and skips away.

Alice Dreams
That night, Mrs. Sakaguchi is none too pleased to hear (from Rin's mother) that apparently Alice intends to marry Rin. Of course, she doesn't realize that this is something that Rin decided. She demands to know from Alice whether this is true, and it all becomes too much for Alice. She faints. While unconscious, she has a dream. In this dream, she wakes to find Shion bending over her, obviously concerned, and calling her "Mokulen". Momentarily confused when she passes a mirror, she asks Shion whether her face is supposed to look that way. This prompts him to ask her in return whether she had bumped her head too hard when she tripped and fell earlier. Then she remembers. "I had a dream, Shion!" she exclaims. "About Earth. A dream in which I was a girl in Japan. I had a family, and I was such a crybaby," she tells him.

Then Alice wakes up. Her mother inquires with some concern whether she remembers what they were talking about before she fainted. She reminds Alice that it was about marrying Rin, and the still-dazed Alice says she can't marry Rin. Because she's already married to Shion.

Rin's Whereabouts
Late at night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, Rin gets up. He dresses and puts on his cap, then runs out to crouch on the balcony railing. From here he jumps, dropping ten stories to land safely on the ground. The scene then switches to a gang of toughs, hanging out in an abandoned lot. The leader of the gang, Matsudaira Takashi, momentarily glimpses the figure of a boy leaping along the fence nearby. When he calls his friends over, the boy is gone. They dismiss it as his imagination. Angered, Takashi takes off on his motorcycle and is riding along when he suddenly notices someone on the road in front of him. He barely swerves out of the way, and turns around to yell at the person. He just catches sight of Rin sticking his tongue at him, when a loose newspaper is flung into his face, perhaps by the wind. For some reason unable to shake the paper, Takashi nearly gets run over by a truck. Then he discovers his brakes don't work. Screaming for help, he suddenly feels the bike slow down, and only then does the stubborn newspaper drop off his face.

Tokyo Tower
He looks to find his bike is now floating over the bay, with no visible support underneath him. He doesn't notice Rin floating up behind him until Rin asks, "Scared?" Takashi is terrified, which is exactly how Rin wants it when he leans in close and says, "I have a favor to ask of you." He points ahead of them at the gleaming structure, "See Tokyo Tower there? Will you give it to me?"