Erased
| To everybody saying "the teacher was obviously the killer" Yes, they made it very obvious... but not in the way other mystery shows do. Instead, I felt like the show played with the viewer's expectations. They first start to hint at the teacher being the killer as early as episode 2 or 3, but if the viewer knows anything about how mystery stories usually go, they think "nah, that's too obvious, they're playing him up too much, he's obviously a red herring." So, they go on thinking "it can't be him, he's the most suspicious one in the whole show, it's too obvious". However, when he helped out Satoru & Satoru's mom to confront Kayo's mother at the beginning of episode 9, It made me start to wonder... but even at this point, they already painted him up as a red herring, so you think "nah, it'll never be him, even if they're making him less suspicious now." He was essentially already out of the picture at that point, hiding behind a false veil of mystery tropes. Then they show his candy stash later on in episode 9 I was like "okay, now he's SERIOUSLY a red herring." They doubled down on the obviousness of his killer identity, making it seem like he couldn't possibly be the killer, and then, early on in episode 10 they even began to hint at the scorned, popular girl in class being the killer (forgot her name, it was the girl Satoru insulted and embarrassed in the middle of class, the one with the green scarf). At that point it didn't feel like a red herring, because it was so late into the series, and it was also subtle enough that it didn't scream "that's way too obvious". It was just a few short cutaways to her looking upset and people looking at her, not super obvious, but definitely a hint that made me think "oh, she's going to be the killer isn't she?". So, that's why I was still really surprised when they revealed the actual killer's identity in episode 10... because the show painted him up SO MUCH as a red herring that I was looking at all of the other characters and trying to piece together who it could possibly be, and when I got a clear idea in my head of "I know how mystery stories work, this person has got to be the killer." and it turned out to NOT be that person... but the obvious red herring... that was shocking. Perhaps it wasn't as shocking for people who aren't fans of the mystery genre, but I feel like the way it played with the tropes of the genre, and played with people's expectations was really kind of ingenious. |
vigorousjammerMar 25, 2016 6:32 AM
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| Mother's Basement commentary on it from Digibro's video. It explains this aspect very accurately.: I think you missed a few steps in this video. the biggest one is that you keep calling the show a mystery - which seems to be a common thread among people who don't like it. It's not a mystery, though, it's a suspense thriller. The intent of making the killer's identity really obvious isn't to make the viewer feel smart, it's to create dramatic irony in order to ratchet up the tension whenever Satoru or another character is alone with him. I mean, the show breaks a cardinal rule of mystery writing on page 1 by invoking the supernatural, and it breaks more important rules at every step by having satoru just look up the answer to riddles in reference books from the library. Satoru doesn't deduce who the villain is from a list of suspects - the bad guy straight up tells him. IF the goal of the show was to set up a satisfying puzzle for viewers to solve, then yeah, it failed, but that WASN'T the goal. The mystery is a narrative device that serves as motivation for the protagonist - not the genre of the show. But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's the director explaining his intent firsthand: https://www.facebook.com/Crunchyroll/videos/10153680454079340/ Also, the "cool looking shots" which you criticize for not having advancing the narrative DO advance the narrative. The primary purpose of a lot of Itou's directorial decisions seems to be to magnify the emotional state of the characters. the shot as Satoru enters the classroom emphasizes that he feels like a total outsider stepping into his old life from two decades ago, and the cut as he goes to meet hinazuki empasizes how flustered he is by the sudden turn of events his friends have caused. Itou's goal as a director - especially for this series - seems to be to find the emotional truth at the heart of every scene, at least where it's appropriate. Where it's not, he tries to maximize the dramatic tension. For me it works wonders, but then I tend to be a very suggestible and empathetic viewer in general (which is part of why I exert so much effort to get outside my head and analyze what creators are doing). Which is not to say that his directing choices are always optimal. Itou sits in a weird middle ground as a director - his biggest influence is mamoru hosoda, who is a master of subtle, emotionally charged narratives, but his second biggest influence is Tetsuro Araki, under whom he also worked as an assistant director on death note. Araki's specialties are creating nail-biting tension and delivering explosive emotional gut punches with BIG camera moves and edits. And Itou shares a lot of their strengths, and even combines them - he might well be better than both of them at portraying moments of sheer, overwhelming wonder and raw, painful emotion (I think the two best scenes in the show are the ends of episode 3 and episode 8). but he also shares (and in some cases amplifies) their weaknesses. In scenes that demand subtlety he sometimes feels like he's hitting you over the head with a hammer, and when it comes to scenes that need to be more cold and intellectual, he often plays them too warm, like Hosoda is prone to doing. He doesn't seem to have inherited Araki's knack for maintaining continuity in his head or Hosoda's uncanny capacity for making beautiful, poignant wide shots, but he has developed his own strengths and voice as a director that I think make him a good fit for a big, bombastic, hard-hitting drama like ERASED. (or a mundane dramatic comedy like Silver Spoon, which I thought he handled very well). Also you're saying "everyone" was let down, but lots of people still like the show a heck of a lot. following the finale its MAL score is still really high (though that may just be an example of confirmation bias) and my video on episode 10 (which came long after people started sending you those twitter messages) has gotten a very warm response. Because the show plays REALLY well as a dramatic thriller. Just not as a romance or mystery - which I think people were wrong for expecting, but there are enough superficial elements there that I can see why they would. Probably gonna go into EVEN MORE detail on that in my season recap. |
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| The mystery is lacking, but it seems like a lot of people are butthurt that Erased didn't turn out to be their Umineko Sound Novel vol. 2 or something. Don't get me started on the cringey "LOL why didnt Satoru just stand his ground when found by the police with blood on his hands and calmly tell them that he just came home and found his mother dead and touched her dead body just to see if she was really dead" It's like they forget the character is in Japan which has a drastically different law system compared to the U.S. U.S: Not guilty until proven Japan: Guilty until proven I've seen worse in anime so at this point it just looks like bandwagoning to me. But yeah like above said it's a good thriller and I honestly think that was the point of it. If it was focused on being a mystery I think the author would have introduced more adult males. The author imo wanted people to wonder how Satoru would save his mother and Kayo and figure out how she died and how were her circumstances etc. Not "WHOS THE KILLER!!" that was more like an afterthought. First and foremost his priority was to save his mother in anyway possible. but ofc here comes the cringey "WHY WHEN HE GOT BACK TO 1988 WHY DIDNT HE LOOK FOR THE KILLER FROM THE START" lol |
Yuzuryn said: "LOL why didnt Satoru just stand his ground when found by the police with blood on his hands and calmly tell them that he just came home and found his mother dead and touched her dead body just to see if she was really dead" It's like they forget the character is in Japan which has a drastically different law system compared to the U.S. U.S: Not guilty until proven Japan: Guilty until proven Oh is that how it works in Japan? Well that explains why he ran away lol |
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| If they didn't want me to suspect them they would have introduced more suspects. I don't understand all the people claiming they could have been a red herring when few other adults get the screentime and amount of clues that the actual killer does. |
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FlameSpeedster said: If they didn't want me to suspect them they would have introduced more suspects. I don't understand all the people claiming they could have been a red herring when few other adults get the screentime and amount of clues that the actual killer does. That's because it's not a typical mystery story, and they didn't conveniently introduce all the suspects to the viewer like a traditional mystery tale would. I had assumed there would be a "twist" of some kind, and a character that was relatively minor or unknown would come into the picture towards the end, without any previous clues given towards them. The fact that most of the other characters don't get any clues is exactly why I started to think "it could be any one of them, but it's definitely not the teacher, that's too obvious.", and I thought this because that's what these kind of stories have become... they build up one suspect and then there's a twist. It's a typical mystery trope at this point. However, the show subverts that typical mystery trope by making it turn out to be the guy you thought it could never be. It was such a shocking moment to me when they revealed the killer. At the time, I was thinking to myself "holy shit! no way! They really just did that?! He's ACTUALLY the killer?!" That moment was much more satisfying to me than if they had went with a typical "twist". Basically, what I'm trying to say is... the twist is that there was no twist. The show subverted subversion... and I like that. |
vigorousjammerMar 25, 2016 10:24 AM
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| So many erased lawyers here. These fanboys tries to justify every fucking flaw of the show. |
"I have been wielding a blade since before your were swimming around your father's scrotum." - Kurou |
| It was so obvious that the teacher was going to be the killer that the reveal was flat as a loli. |
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| I felt the mystery aspect was more prominent in the manga than the anime. But overall the show is more drama/thriller than pure mystery. It succeeds in that way. |
goodbyegalaxy said: If maintaining a sense of mystery wasn't the intent of the creator, then why bother with these red herrings? Why go to these lengths to keep the killer's identity a secret? I'm not the director so I can't tell you exactly what he was thinking, but from my perspective what you are suggesting wouldn't work. There needs to be some level of doubt in the killer. Making him absolutely clear from the get-go removes a lot of the suspense. Making it super obvious but never allowing the viewer to be quite sure that they know who it is increases tension in the scenes he's involved in. It basically creates a nagging voice at the back of your heading screaming not to trust him, but you really don't know for sure. Being unsure is what creates anxiety, and in turn, tension. People get anxious with things they don't fully understand, and that is the point I think. It was never meant to be a puzzle to figure out, it was just there to create that unsettling feeling in the viewer. But yeah, you'd have to ask the director if you truly wanted to know, I'm just theorizing. |
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| The teacher was basically the only suspect, his reveal and motive were so underwhelming it hurt vigorousjammer said: FlameSpeedster said: If they didn't want me to suspect them they would have introduced more suspects. I don't understand all the people claiming they could have been a red herring when few other adults get the screentime and amount of clues that the actual killer does. That's because it's not a typical mystery story, and they didn't conveniently introduce all the suspects to the viewer like a traditional mystery tale would. I had assumed there would be a "twist" of some kind, and a character that was relatively minor or unknown would come into the picture towards the end, without any previous clues given towards them. . If it was a random character without any thought or suspense put into it, it would just be even more of bad writing. Mystery series are there to help the viewer discover things with the protagonist, if it isn't able to do that and the reveal ended up being someone completely random or minor, it would be even more nonsensical to say Erased presented good mystery and or thriller |
| This anime does a lot more than try to be a suspense thriller. I'm pretty sure the reason it's so popular is because it touches on things like child abuse, the fact that everyone is just debating about whether its a a good mystery or thriller seems to show that people don't realize all of the little things that this anime is trying to address. |
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goodbyegalaxy said: RealityRush said: It basically creates a nagging voice at the back of your heading screaming not to trust him, but you really don't know for sure. Being unsure is what creates anxiety, and in turn, tension. People get anxious with things they don't fully understand, and that is the point I think. It was never meant to be a puzzle to figure out, it was just there to create that unsettling feeling in the viewer. The problem is that up until a particular candy scene, viewers are never given sufficient logical reason to doubt the killer's character. Throughout the majority of the series, he is portrayed only as a decent person, and viewers who correctly guess that he is the killer do so more out of a process of elimination--that is, no other characters could possibly be the killer--rather than any damning evidence that indicates that he clearly is the one. If the series had introduced the idea very early on that there may be far more to the killer than what he appears to be, then there could have actually been some suspense in his scenes. Sure we are. We see him helping students all the time, helping with Kayo, etc. They even used Yuuki for that one scene with the magazines to make us think that maybe it was Yuuki after all. Through Yashiro's actions you are given some reason to think that just maybe he is genuine. The candy scene was just the most on-the-nose example. They also gave us plenty of reasons to suspect him due to all that alone time he had with the kids and the shady imagery of him, and also the distinct lack of other characters that could be the culprit. There was never meant to be any damning evidence of him until the reveal, because again, that would have eliminated the tension in his scenes, those eyes at the back of your head always watching. You create tension by showing less, not by showing more. Perfect example is the movie Alien. What creates a lot of the tension with the monster? The fact that you never see it til the end of the movie. Tension is created by fear of the unknown. Once the monster finally comes out that tension is gone and you have your climax. Yashiro is the monster of this show, hiding in plain site, but you're never fully sure of that. It's a textbook method of creating suspense for the viewer through dramatic irony. Revealing Yashiro right away would've instantly killed all of that tension and the whole show would be entirely different. Probably much worse. In fact, the more I talk about this in depth, the more I think that what you're suggesting would have entirely destroyed this show and made it boring to watch. That nagging doubt was needed to propel the plot forward. |
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Kiri_Meow said: Yuzuryn said: "LOL why didnt Satoru just stand his ground when found by the police with blood on his hands and calmly tell them that he just came home and found his mother dead and touched her dead body just to see if she was really dead" It's like they forget the character is in Japan which has a drastically different law system compared to the U.S. U.S: Not guilty until proven Japan: Guilty until proven Oh is that how it works in Japan? Well that explains why he ran away lol I didn't know this either. It explains so much. |
MightyM16 said: The teacher was basically the only suspect, his reveal and motive were so underwhelming it hurt vigorousjammer said: That's because it's not a typical mystery story, and they didn't conveniently introduce all the suspects to the viewer like a traditional mystery tale would. I had assumed there would be a "twist" of some kind, and a character that was relatively minor or unknown would come into the picture towards the end, without any previous clues given towards them. . If it was a random character without any thought or suspense put into it, it would just be even more of bad writing. Mystery series are there to help the viewer discover things with the protagonist, if it isn't able to do that and the reveal ended up being someone completely random or minor, it would be even more nonsensical to say Erased presented good mystery and or thriller I'm not saying that would have been good, but it's what I was expecting from it. The fact that it didn't do that makes it better, and the fact that it subverts the traditional mystery show by having a big red herring be revealed as the actual killer was still super surprising to me. |
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| I agree with you about most things except for the girl being a suspect (she is just an elementary girl lol) Like always people are too caught up on their own expectations and notions to realize what the show is trying to do. Never really considered Boku Dake a mystery focused work because there is really only one plot point that is mysterious which is the killer. It doesn't matter that the identity of the killer wasn't shocking, the show clearly didn't try to play it as something unpredictable, there really was only one actual suspect and it was the teacher. Satrou literally says ''I thought it was obvious'' when Yashiro tells him the truth. It's a thriller first and foremost, and it did an amazing job in that regard for me. |
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goodbyegalaxy said: RealityRush said: You create tension by showing less, not by showing more. Sure, show less but still show enough. Other characters (e.g., Kayo's mother, Kayo's mother's male companion, and Jun Shiratori) are actively portrayed to be plausible suspects at an early point in the series, and the suspense in the scenes involving those characters is only enhanced because of it. Viewers are able to logically perceive those characters as viable threats because there is actually sufficient supporting information for them to reach that conclusion. In contrast, as for the actual killer, the show never distinctly plants that seed of doubt in viewers' minds at the beginning that would elicit a sense of, "Damn, this guy really could be the killer." Viewers are instead left with a sense of, "Yeah, I guess he could possibly be the killer because he is the only one left that makes a lick of sense." That's not tension; that's ambiguity gone wrong in storytelling. Could you be 100% certain who the killer was before episode 10? No, you couldn't, and that is all that mattered. The "mystery" elements only existed to service that point and create the unknown. The ominous cinematography of the main culprit, and to a less extent the side-suspects, magnified this point. Making it super obvious was also there to magnify this, because even if you were 99% certain, you weren't 100% certain, and that is where the tension comes from. The "ambiguity", as you put it, is the source of tension. Expecting someone to be the "bad guy" and then having them stuck alone in the same room as a child in danger is tension, because that 1% uncertainty means any any moment that kid could be hurt, or maybe it is just your imagination! It's a risk and that risk is supposed to draw you in. That's how suspense/thrillers work. If I told you to take a gamble, where there's a 99% chance you can win $100000 in cash, but a 1% chance that you will be horrifically tortured for the rest of your known life, what would you do? You'd probably go for it, because those are good odds, but you would be anxious spinning that wheel. That is the kind of feeling ERASED is trying to illicit from the viewer. Even if the mystery is super obvious, there's a chance you're wrong. Right up until the reveal of the killer, that wheel is spinning, and the viewer is just watching that 1/100 chance pass by over and over praying the MC doesn't hit it, until he does. Snake eyes. Classic suspense/thriller methodology. goodbyegalaxy said: RealityRush said: In fact, the more I talk about this in depth, the more I think that what you're suggesting would have entirely destroyed this show and made it boring to watch. That nagging doubt was needed to propel the plot forward. As previously discussed, that approach has worked perfectly fine for other works, such as Death Note, as the roles and identities of Light and L are plainly established from very early on. Although that show had plenty of faults, its decision in letting viewers in on the loop from the get-go certainly wasn't one of them. ERASED is not Death Note. They are very different shows and tried to accomplish two very different goals. What works in one wont necessarily work in another. Death Note was about the psychological game. It was very much a puzzle. It was a cat and mouse game where you wanted to see what they would do next. That is what the story revolved around and where it drew tension from. ERASED is not anything like that. It is a suspense/thriller. It relies on fear of the unknown to create tension much like any good monster movie. So if you take away the unknown, you take away the tension, and ERASED falls apart. If you wanted to make reveal the main villain of ERASED episode 1, then you'd have to completely rewrite the whole story to accommodate for it, as it would change the entire dynamic and you need a new way to create tension. |
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IDk man. WHen it comes to certain stuff, most of the haters or hipsters (Y'know the ones with the "MANIME!" pictures who are constantly trolling) tend to choose to point out "weak" flaws of a show or a stuff that is easily explainable. "WHY DID SATORU RUN AWAY" that's a common complaint and they use that to show why they rate a show bad instead of pointing out stuff like how there's no explanation for why Satoru is the one with the revival powers and no explanation for how it works at all. How about they tackle the ACTUAL issues of a show instead of just nitpicking things that "don't" make sense to them because they don't share that same logic as the character. nice bait tho and im happy to take it xd ok jokes aside tho chill mang |
Yuzuryn said: IDk man. WHen it comes to certain stuff, most of the haters or hipsters (Y'know the ones with the "MANIME!" pictures who are constantly trolling) tend to choose to point out "weak" flaws of a show or a stuff that is easily explainable. "WHY DID SATORU RUN AWAY" that's a common complaint and they use that to show why they rate a show bad instead of pointing out stuff like how there's no explanation for why Satoru is the one with the revival powers and no explanation for how it works at all. How about they tackle the ACTUAL issues of a show instead of just nitpicking things that "don't" make sense to them because they don't share that same logic as the character. nice bait tho and im happy to take it xd ok jokes aside tho chill mang Lol I'll edit my post so I don't get flagged I only did that because there were things that weren't done right in erased |
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| Well then, isn't it enough to say that the author's/director's intent regarding the handling of this "mystery" aspect was controversial enough to cause this notable rift in opinions? Stop telling people they're wrong or being superficial. Both sides of this debate present legitimate arguments. If you can't acknowledge a side, then I think you need to be more open-minded. I'm personally disappointed in the mystery myself, but I can understand and respect the other side of opinions. |
| "Beyond the veil of cherry blossom petals blown by the wind - almost like their promised reunion - Feelings pile up with the passage of time: once the torrent of emotions comes rushing down, what is the spectacle that awaits?" |
vigorousjammer said: Basically, what I'm trying to say is... the twist is that there was no twist. The show subverted subversion... and I like that. I have no idea what to feel about this or whether, or not this was the actual intent. I'll save that for a rewatch... |
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dizzyur said: I ain't even mad about him being a fake red herring. I'm mad about them shortening his backstory to microscopic nothingness. I can sort of see why they shortened the backstory. Ultimately, the drama revolves around Satoru, and devoting an entire episode or half-episode to a villain backstory might break from the flow. The anime presented Yashiro as the man he is up to that point, so he just needed to be defeated and that's it. I mean, sure, I would have liked more scenes, or at least Yashiro's musings after Satoru had woken up, but it is what it is. |
-kV- said: dizzyur said: I ain't even mad about him being a fake red herring. I'm mad about them shortening his backstory to microscopic nothingness. I can sort of see why they shortened the backstory. Ultimately, the drama revolves around Satoru, and devoting an entire episode or half-episode to a villain backstory might break from the flow. The anime presented Yashiro as the man he is up to that point, so he just needed to be defeated and that's it. I mean, sure, I would have liked more scenes, or at least Yashiro's musings after Satoru had woken up, but it is what it is. Here's what I think: regardless of Yashiro's backstory, the very *foundation* of this mystery-killer plot was doomed to creating an unremarkable and unmemorable climax. We have a primary antagonist who's a psychopathic child serial killer. There's nothing about this, or his motivation/backstory (since it'd just be something screwed up), or the final climax of delivering justice to him that would *really* impress me. For me, the execution hardly matters in this case, because it would be limited and bound by such an unexceptional foundation. Nothing here stands out to me as something special. It's almost like all those other stories about a standard, neighborhood murder mystery involving a serial killer, with the protagonist catching the culprit in the end. Basically, from the very beginning, Erased's plot was limited in complexity because of its conception of a standard serial killer that was doomed to pretty much leave no lasting impression on me, regardless of execution. |
LightBladeNovaMar 25, 2016 11:10 PM
| "Beyond the veil of cherry blossom petals blown by the wind - almost like their promised reunion - Feelings pile up with the passage of time: once the torrent of emotions comes rushing down, what is the spectacle that awaits?" |
| Can someone who has read the manga explain why they are so disappointed in Yashiro's lack of backstory? I thought that the hamster scene and his story about the man escaping from hell/strings attached to people's heads was sufficient enough backstory to get into his head and learn what makes him tick. Edit: I don't see how he's your stereotypical anime villain, because he's clearly a mastermind who plans out his murders carefully. And he chooses victims based on his own rather psychotic beliefs. |
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vigorousjammer said: They first start to hint at the teacher being the killer as early as episode 2 or 3, but if the viewer knows anything about how mystery stories usually go, they think "nah, that's too obvious, they're playing him up too much, he's obviously a red herring." Not at all. Honestly, I think it's quite the opposite. A well-written mystery needs proper foreshadowing. Even if the hints aren't enough for you to figure out the answer before they spell it out for you, there have to be enough hints for a plot twist to work and make you go "that's true, now all of those things make sense". Red herrings can only take you so far. There was no other legitimate suspect by episode 9, so it's fair to say that the identity of the killer wasn't a mystery at this point. They weren't trying to hide it. If anyone other than the teacher turned out to be the killer, that wouldn't have been a proper plot twist at all - rather, it would have been a major asspull. A very cheap one indeed. The reason I'm saying this is, if you know what good mysteries and plot twists are, then you probably know that you can't just introduce a new character as the "truel villian" at the last minute and expect everyone to accept that. It has to be someone that people will be able to relate to, but at the same time you can't just pick anyone and turn that person into a killer willy-nilly. Because once again, there must be proper foreshadowing, even if it's not obvious who the killer is. |
| When satoru found out yashiro candies, it is the moment when ppl should tighten out their gear, as all the obvious hint and fishy put in before came out (when all of it like the camera works put right on yashiro on many times, )... The other characters intended-ly made for contrasting that by not known the obvious as example satoru himself already seen fatherlike figure on yashiro(which is certainly blind his eyes)... so it asked the climax after that moment, how should all of it revealed-and resolved, which stand the problem itself, it's not delivered at least by many ppl standard.... |
 la critique de l'intention pure |
| It's a hit-or-miss technique that the show used. There's a 50% chance that viewer will believe that the teacher is the killer or just give themselves some those of "nah.. he couldn't be...". |
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| Nothing says dramatic thriller like 'believe in your friends.' |
| For me, it wasn't really who was the killer cause it was extremely obvious that the show expected us to know. What I kept thinking about was if there was someone else helping him. All the major hints pointing to the teacher being the killer(including showing him in the op) were not foreshadowing. foreshadowing is supposed to be so subtle that you mostly only notice them when you rewatch and look back and think "oh! How did I not notice that before!" Not as you're watching.it was really all about how the mc was gonna find out. And as someone else mentioned, for us to feel tension when someone else is alone with him, knowing that he's the killer |
| If the show wasn't meant to be about the killer's identity, then they shouldn't have presented it as such a big deal. It would have been possible to just reveal him at the start and give him more screentime in the process. Then again, you'd still need interesting motivation, not this "I did it because it amused me" stuff. |
| tl,dr: Excuse about shallow mystery. Author failed at it and used reversed psychological as excuse. Even without mystery we still have the lack of:
Production value is something that worth mention as good though. BokuDake isnt bad. but it also isnt something worth worship about either. |
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| I am not complaining, it was obvious, but there was times that I was wondering if it was going to be really him the killer, coz he played it really nice, for me, it was a great end. |
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dizzyur said: what bothers me about villain characters is when they have potential or have some character traits or reasoning in their source material or even are implied to have outstanding motive... but said reasons or traits are just reduced to stereotypical villain fodder in an adaptation. like, that really pisses me off. and this is far from the first time it's happened in anime either. even one episode dedicated to the backstory would've been decent enough, but instead they completely pave over it by including, yeah, like, a one minute segment that doesn't evoke any audience reaction besides just making him seem even more like a psychopath for nooo reason? You clearly did not get Yashiro's character. He is not supposed to have a grand and elaborate reasons to do what he did. His character is supposed to be subtle. His backstory with the hamster and the story about hell was more than sufficient to give an insight into his character. He is a psychotic person with twisted ideals and views on the world. From the beginning drowning the hamsters means that he is a psychopath. Kids harming animals is a sign that they lack sympathy and are more prone to be psychopath. An actual typical villain would have been characterized as either pedophile or just someone that likes to kill people, while Yashiro picked his targets with specifications and not randomly. Another unique aspect to him is his co-dependent relationship he developed with Satoru that led him to stop having these impulses due to Satrou. Not every villain needs to be constructed the same way with a lot of backstory. We clearly didn't see the anime if you think he is a stereotypical villain. Think he is bad or w/e but stereotypical? sigh |
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xaos12 said: tsudecimo said: You clearly did not get Yashiro's character. He is not supposed to have a grand and elaborate reasons to do what he did. His character is supposed to be subtle. His backstory with the hamster and the story about hell was more than sufficient to give an insight into his character. He is a psychotic person with twisted ideals and views on the world. From the beginning drowning the hamsters means that he is a psychopath. Kids harming animals is a sign that they lack sympathy and are more prone to be psychopath. An actual typical villain would have been characterized as either pedophile or just someone that likes to kill people, while Yashiro picked his targets with specifications and not randomly. Another unique aspect to him is his co-dependent relationship he developed with Satoru that led him to stop having these impulses due to Satrou. Not every villain needs to be constructed the same way with a lot of backstory. We clearly didn't see the anime if you think he is a stereotypical villain. Think he is bad or w/e but stereotypical? sigh "targets with specifications"- what specifications did he have for killing little children? Can you explain it a bit more? Since it hardly makes sense The white string he was talking about. It was less about children and more about people that are lonely and want to escape hell. This is especially true for Kayo. This is why at episode 12 he saw the white string on himself as well, and tried to kill himself. In his mind people with the white string, need his help to fill the hole in their hearts. His method of help is to kill them. He is the demon that pushes down the other demons who try to escape hell into heaven. That is his rationalization and how he views things. Like he said himself his way of thinking isn't normal but that were his beliefs, ideals, and impulses. |
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| Obtusely playing with the viewer's expectations isn't praiseworthy e.g. Yuuki being framed as nervous and fidgety as he touches a box cutter when talking to Satoru when he's obviously and stated not to be the culprit. It took me out of the story. |
LightBladeNova said: -kV- said: I can sort of see why they shortened the backstory. Ultimately, the drama revolves around Satoru, and devoting an entire episode or half-episode to a villain backstory might break from the flow. The anime presented Yashiro as the man he is up to that point, so he just needed to be defeated and that's it. I mean, sure, I would have liked more scenes, or at least Yashiro's musings after Satoru had woken up, but it is what it is. Here's what I think: regardless of Yashiro's backstory, the very *foundation* of this mystery-killer plot was doomed to creating an unremarkable and unmemorable climax. We have a primary antagonist who's a psychopathic child serial killer. There's nothing about this, or his motivation/backstory (since it'd just be something screwed up), or the final climax of delivering justice to him that would *really* impress me. For me, the execution hardly matters in this case, because it would be limited and bound by such an unexceptional foundation. Nothing here stands out to me as something special. It's almost like all those other stories about a standard, neighborhood murder mystery involving a serial killer, with the protagonist catching the culprit in the end. Basically, from the very beginning, Erased's plot was limited in complexity because of its conception of a standard serial killer that was doomed to pretty much leave no lasting impression on me, regardless of execution. Well that's why I was saying, the story and the direction they took was revolving around Satoru. It's more about Satoru than a cat-and-mouse game between villain and hero. Anyway, I do agree that there should have been one or two more episodes to basically portray the manga-scenes of Yashiro and the manga-final confrontation, but I am okay with the limited amount of backstory on Yashiro. |
| When you're expecting to be mislead by the signs pointing to the teacher, how can you be anything but disappointed from what the outcome turned out to be? |
| I knew from pretty much the middle of the show that it was the teacher, and I liked that I was right. I would feel less mystery if it were some other random person |
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AltoRoark said: When you're expecting to be mislead by the signs pointing to the teacher, how can you be anything but disappointed from what the outcome turned out to be? For me, it was along the lines of that I was pretty sure about halfway through, but I was never completely sure. It seemed too obvious to me, so I was expecting it to be somebody else. Then, the show made the reveal, and threw my expectations out the window, which was kind of surprising. I guess I can see how this could seem disappointing to other people, though... if you just start to think "it was too obvious". Also, in regards to all of the "random person" comments... thinking back, there were a handful of minor characters that could have also been the perpetrator: - The popular girl in the classroom who got humiliated by Kayo. - Kayo's mom. - The guy they showed Kayo's mom having an affair with. - The pedophile guy who Satoru hung out with. The teacher was the most obvious suspect, but he wasn't the ONLY suspect as some others have pointed out here, and if they had went with another one of these suspects, it wouldn't have just been a "random person", but it would have followed traditional mystery tropes of building up one suspect as the "obvious" one and then revealing another to be the actual killer... I was expecting them to go that route... and if they went that route, I would have been more disappointed, or at least just indifferent, since that's just a typical mystery story... but they didn't do that, so I was pleasantly surprised, and actually kind of shocked at the reveal. |
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ColdBreeze said: dadnaya said: I knew from pretty much the middle of the show that it was the teacher, and I liked that I was right. I would feel less mystery if it were some other random person If you knew it after halfway through there was never such thing as "mystery". But I agree, it's still better than a random person. I mean, I didn't know because I was spoiled, I just had a feeling, and it was fun to watch if I was right or wrong :) |
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| [quote=goodbyegalaxy message=45316096] RealityRush said: If that were truly the creator's intent, then the storytelling would have been far more effective by unequivocally establishing the identity of the killer from the very beginning. If viewers had been kept in the loop from the get-go, then they would have been able to better appreciate any intended tension in scenes involving the killer for the remainder of the series. A prime example of this approach can be found in the first quarter or so of Death Note, in which the protagonist and antagonist are clearly established for viewers, thereby enabling them to focus only on watching the suspenseful cat-and-mouse game unfold. Erased never fully commits to that idea and instead chooses to cling to its mystery elements to some degree. On more than one occasion, the killer is portrayed as some sort of mysterious, shadowy figure. His face is always obscured, which obviously indicates that the intent of the creator is to keep his identity under wraps. In addition, viewers are shown (1) vile characters with possible homicidal intent who also happen to share the killer's red eyes for dramatic effect and (2) seemingly innocent characters who behave suspiciously, albeit very briefly. If maintaining a sense of mystery wasn't the intent of the creator, then why bother with these red herrings? Why go to these lengths to keep the killer's identity a secret? Satoru explained that when he tells Yashiro how he realy didn't want to believe that the teacher was the killer. That also has relation to their bond, so it goes it's own way from just the question of to keep killer unknow till the end, or not to keep, to reinforcing the story and it's drama as a whole. We get more sense from that of an emotional side of the story, not it's intellectual (as in detective story) value as a puzzle (which is low, since it's not the point). If Satoru was more like L or Light, then surely, their intellectual duel with the Yashiro would have commenced very differently, and it would be very dull unless they would had changed everything else about the show too... I'm sure you get my meaning. Instead, we get a killer with more than a role of villain, and has a place in a story that is more than just "odd" psychopat. No, Yashiro is ingrained in the world: he is neither unique like some highly developed evil bastrad with a lot of backstory, nor is he faceless, like some random psychopath with a few lines of abused childhood story to justify his killings, but he is a part of the story. |
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. |
burbels said: Satoru explained that when he tells Yashiro how he realy didn't want to believe that the teacher was the killer. That also has relation to their bond, so it goes it's own way from just the question of to keep killer unknow till the end, or not to keep, to reinforcing the story and it's drama as a whole. We get more sense from that of an emotional side of the story, not it's intellectual (as in detective story) value as a puzzle (which is low, since it's not the point). If Satoru was more like L or Light, then surely, their intellectual duel with the Yashiro would have commenced very differently, and it would be very dull unless they would had changed everything else about the show too... I'm sure you get my meaning. Instead, we get a killer with more than a role of villain, and has a place in a story that is more than just "odd" psychopat. No, Yashiro is ingrained in the world: he is neither unique like some highly developed evil bastrad with a lot of backstory, nor is he faceless, like some random psychopath with a few lines of abused childhood story to justify his killings, but he is a part of the story. Well said! I totally agree! It helps the viewer relate to the protagonist. |
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