is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yuri Narushima. Appearing as a serial in the shōjo (targeted towards girls) manga magazine Crimson from the March 1998 issue to the May 2003 issue, the chapters of Planet Ladder were published by Sobisha/Shueisha in seven tankōbon volumes from December 1998 to May 2004. Based on the Japanese folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in which a girl is discovered to be the princess of the moon, the story focuses on a teenager named Kaguya, who is prophesied to save only one of the nine parallel worlds, and her quest to bring peace to a warring universe while finding her true identity. Planet Ladder was licensed for an English-language translation in North America by Tokyopop, and released from April 2002 to March 2005 after being serialized in Tokyopop's manga anthology Smile. Planet Ladder was part of Tokyopop's line-up of manga in its original right-to-left format; previously, the majority of manga licensed in the United States was "flopped" to read left-to-right for a Western audience. Planet Ladder was positively received by English-language readers, with two volumes placing in ICv2's list of best-selling graphic novels. The series received generally positive reviews from English-language critics. On April 2, 2007, it went out of print in North America. Plot The series focuses on Kaguya Haruyama, a teenager who has lived with a Japanese foster family since she was found as an abandoned, amnesiac four-year-old. One night, two men—Idou, a monk, and Seeu, an emotionless prince—appear in her home and fight over her. Gold, Seeu's robot modeled after Kaguya's deceased brother Kagami, brings her to a world parallel to Earth on Seeu's orders. After exploring the world with Gold, she encounters Shiina Mol Bamvivrie who believes Kaguya is the "Girl of Ananai", destined to save only one of the nine parallel worlds from collision. Shiina explains that nine worlds exist: Ancient, the first civilized world that was mysteriously destroyed; Asu, Seeu's disintegrated world; Eden, present-day Earth; Telene, a small world allied with Geo; Fifth World, a politically neutral world; Geus, a peaceful world under the control of Geo; Geo, the most powerful of the worlds; Asuraitsu, Geo's rival; and the Ninth World, destroyed before the start of the series. Shiina and Waseda, a Tokyo University student trapped in the body of a giant rooster, join her and Gold in traveling across Telene. After learning that