So I'm just going to jump right into this, and start with my thoughts about the story. The plot suffered severely from an uninspired premise and awful pacing. It tried to create tension by addressing topics such as child abuse and murder, however they just felt like an afterthought. Neither were explored in depth and just felt like cheap plot devices there for shock value. It was same thing for the time traveling. It was never really explored in depth either it was just seemingly there for the writers to change the direction of the narrative. I mean the time traveling was supposed to be completely random, which is a unique concept to me (never heard of this being done in another time traveling story), however it felt like it was oddly convenient for the main character. I'm not going to spoil the show, but this did ruin a lot of the tension that otherwise could have been. I thought I might as well throw in that there is also a time skip in the show that is handled questionably. The main character is in a life threatening situation and it hints at who might have saved him but doesn't go into any detail so if you haven't read the manga its kind of a guessing game. It's hard to talk about without spoiling the show but all we get is kind of a montage of the main character and his mom, and then we receive some vague info about the other side characters and what happened to them during the time skip afterwards. If I had to say one good thing about the story it is that it does know how to appeal to your emotions. That alone kept me invested in the first nine episodes. However it goes down hill quickly from there.
The biggest problem I have with Erased isn't even the lackluster story. I've always been a firm believer that you can take a pretty boring premise and still make a great show as long as there are well written characters that people are going to relate to. Unfortunately this is Erased's biggest flaw. Starting with the main character, Satoru, he's not a bad character necessarily but he is cliche. I get that he's supposed to be an introvert, but the cool and edgy introvert stereotype is inaccurate and overdone. Seriously an introvert is just someone who is energized by being alone and whose energy is drained by being around other people. Some might say he acts that way because of the trauma he suffered as a child, but he doesn't act like someone who has suffered from a traumatic experience either. He just acts look a cool, edgy teen to me. I think the most off putting thing about his character though is his pedophilic tendencies. Like come on dude your 29 stop having romantic feelings for a elementary school student and high school student. I guess it could be argued that he doesn't have romantic feelings for them, that he just views them as friends, but the context and the way the relationships are written is still weird to me.
Then there is Hinazuki. The show's treatment of her is despicable to me. Hinazuki is a victim of child abuse and is treated like a plot device throughout her whole arc in the show and then she's just kind of thrown away. Which is sad because she's given a lot more development than most of the other characters in the show and I found myself really drawn to her character. She does reappear after the time skip, but she could have been a totally different character since were not really given any in-depth info on what happened during the time skip to any of the other characters besides Satoru. The only other notable side character besides Hinazuki was Kenya. Like he was kind of played up to be something more than he actually ended up being. Like the other side characters he didn't really end up doing anything or providing anything to the plot. They're just kind of background noise.
The villain was a major let down as well. As I stated earlier it was pretty easy for some people to tell who he was early in the show. Then they just kind of come out and tell you abruptly who it is. There was no mystery to it. His development was kind of absurd to me. He is played up to be very intelligent and methodical, but turns into a typical bumbling anime villain by the end of the show. The explanation the writers gave to us for why he left Satoru alive was absurd. The fact that he just apparently lost the desire to kidnap and murder kids because Satoru was out of commission (trying so hard not to spoil the show :( ) was absurd. It would have been so much more interesting if the writers could have delved into the villain's psyche, but like so many other things in this show it was just left unexplored and vague.
As far as art and sound go they were pretty decent. Nothing much to complain about there. Even so that wasn't enough to save the show. I feel like it should have been longer so that they could have explored the topics they presented us with in more detail, and give the characters the development they deserve. I honestly left the show feeling major heartburn. It's not that its bad, definitely not when compared to some of the other stuff that comes out, but it is disappointing and mediocre at best.
