Warning: this review contains spoilers
Note: at this point of the review I will not go too in depth with the characters as I felt like the only characters who had a real and decent development was Kayo, Satoru, and maybe Akemi (Kayo's mother) who only had a backstory with the help of her grandmother, who tells us about Akemi's divorce. I will go straight to what I personally think and feel about the anime.
My biggest dissapointment in Erased is it's mystery genre/side. The anime showed us that Satoru's friend was the killer, but was only framed. So Satoru goes on and proves his innocence. But then the anime lost it when it no longer had any leads. Yes, Kayo's mother was abusing her but with the multiple clues that Satoru found, kept assumptions towards her further away and she no longer became a prime suspect. The anime couldn't just introduce us a random character to be the killer (if it did, it would ruin it completely), so this is where the mystery was quickly solved. We knew the killer had to be someone in the past but we were introduced to so little adults and through process of elimination, the killer was obviously Yashiro. It was so obvious that when it was revealed, I was not surprise at all and instead had an expression of -_-. Yashiro was also in every scene where kidnappings would occur, which also led to a car scene where Satoru finds candies in his car....basic kidnapping techniques. Later on Satoru was drowned and placed on a coma by Yashiro. And now we are closing in to the end. The ending was similar to 5 Centimeters per Second's ending as they were both realistic and the main "ship" didn't end up together. Kayo and Satoru had a connection but because of Satoru's coma, Kayo had to move and and find someone else, which was although dissapointing (in an enjoyment side), it was realistic because we can't expect her to wait that long.
Overall the anime had amazing animation and story but the mystery and plot holes ruined Erased. The plot holes included the questions: "How did Satoru gain his powers?" , "What was Yashiro's main motive for his killings, was it just pyschological?". And finally, the reason why Yashiro just didn't kill Satoru while he was in a coma was stupid. Yashiro explained that he couldn't live without Satoru and I facepalmed all throught the anime at this point. It had a great start but halfway through the anime it went down and so much potential felt wasted. That was my review of Erased, thank you for reading.
