I never saw ERASED as the best airing right now but I do not deny its quality as the show that defined Winter 2016. I still think Shirayuki-hime and the new Lupin III are much better than this and do not even begin on comparing it with the mythical Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu. However, this show did what the other three cannot do - capture a very large audience with its premise. As of this writing, you can add the total MyAnimeList members of these three other shows and ERASED still trampled them big time. This is also the most interesting title to ever grace the screen this season for all the right reasons. Time travel thriller, family issues, serious feels and cat and mouse chase were presented in earlier episodes which are the baits for entering the Top 100 of MAL. In its heyday, it was one of the highest ranked series in the site (it still is but a steep fall is expected for the next days). What happened after its run?
Let us start with the complaints first. ERASED is a show with two segments having disproportionate quality. The mystery and thriller component of this anime bombed so the haters can pinpoint any plot holes they can ever think of and come up with compelling reasons. Episodes 5 and 6 showed the weakness of this series when it tackled the main plot. ERASED cannot show a proper layout to the mystery in the present time as it lacked subtlety and intellect to sway the viewers into thinking who the culprit is and how did he execute these crimes. Red herrings were not executed properly as these were just shown for the sake of deceiving the audience in finding the murderer. We also witnessed that it has unhealthy dependence on cliffhangers to keep the audience hooked with the next episodes. Character wise, Satoru as an adult is dull and Airi's backstory is so bad it's funny because of the chocolate incident. Yashiro's motives were never explained in full as well as his fixation on Satoru. ERASED ended with lots of questions related to this aspect. The show scraped the bottom of the barrel in its tenth episode when Yashiro revealed that he is the culprit in a manner that even Nobuyuki Sogou of Sword Art Online's Alfheim Arc blushed with his blatant declaration.
What I do not understand at this point is why many fumed when we saw Kayo holding her child from Hiromi and people cried over the community as their ship sank. This is where ERASED's rating fell from 9.13 to the present. Probably people always wanted an ending where the two main leads in the series end up together given the hardship they encountered. Yet - they seemed to forgot something important that Satoru was in a coma for 15 years. Kayo is forever thankful for having her life saved but waiting for that long period of time will surely leave her behind. They were eleven when the events in the 1988 occurred. Satoru and her were both young back then - at least in their physical state. Puppy love does not always work in the end as it is fueled by infatuation more than anything else. Kayo must have found someone along the way and the anime adaptation does not have to present her meet up with Hiromi as this isn't their story. The direction ERASED took at this option is far more realistic and logical. It will be really melodramatic to see Kayo patiently waiting all along for Satoru to wake up. Remember that people under coma may not wake up again so she might have wasted a good chunk of her life if Satoru died in his sleep.
Moroever, a lot of manga readers were unhappy with the adaptation in the final episodes of ERASED. Airi, who served as Satoru's love interest was cut off until the last moments of this adaptation and Yashiro's motives were omitted so we got a hilarious speech about drowning hamsters. The latter is a real complaint because Yashiro was reduced to your psychopathic and archetypal villain but the former can be forgiven. Remember how happy we are when we were fed with Kayo? Yes, She is the heart of this series and the most of its run were focused on her development. Sure - we can present Airi and her romance with Satoru but for what expense? ERASED is only slated to run for 12 episodes. They can opt to give this a Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches treatment if they wanted to adapt everything but thankfully they did not. The staff did whatever they can do to have a neat resolution while adapting 15 plus chapters in a span of three episodes. Most important events were presented and anime only moments were inserted to connect the scenes. We can cut some of Kayo's moments to focus in the present but it will hurt more than it could benefit. As stated earlier, the present day Satoru is not the best lead we can have in this otherwise good show. On a less rational remark, the shoujo demographic offers a heck of romance titles you can enjoy if that is the case.
Lastly, even these haters thoroughly enjoyed the first few episodes of this series. Except for the magical moving knife, the magical list (I have to thank a Nihon Review commenter for this) and the hamsters, an anime only viewer will not notice anything rushed in this series. Satoru and his friends (Kayo included) elevated ERASED to something special. This series might have done poorly in its genre but its drama and slice of life component is nothing short of excellent. Family issues were handled gracefully in this show but is brave enough to present child abuse in anime - which is a pretty rare one if you ask. Who was not moved when Kayo ate a normal breakfast for the first time? Who was not wowed in the Christmas Tree scene in this series? There might be few but a substantial amount of watchers (even those who are manga readers) are unanimously happy that it climbed the ranks of MAL's Top 100 anime. There is also a lingering thought in me that we might have given it some weird expectation that it could not fulfill in the end given the constraints. Nonetheless, it is good as a stand alone show. Isn't that enough to be a merit in judging anime series?
