(This is my first review, so cut me a bit of slack. Positive criticism is both welcomed and encouraged).
Having finished watching Erased, my initial emotion was one of confusion. Having left the series alone for a few days to form concrete opinions about the show, this feeling of confusion did not go away, but served as the fundamentals of a couple of issues which I will explore in more detail later on.
As for the show itself, it starts with an interesting enough premise. The main character Satoru Fujinuma is a twenty-something year old man who works as a courier for a pizza shop in between being a manga artist; hoping to one day make it as a popular manga artist. Or at least I think he does; when he isn’t being hopelessly apathetic about pretty much everything. What makes Erased stand out is Satoru’s power, which he dubs ‘Revival’. Basically, he can go back in time by a few minutes in order to stop a tragic event from happening. So, all is well, until he becomes the suspect for his mother’s murder and is then promptly thrown 18 years into the past.
It turns out that the individual who murdered his mother is the same person who 18 years ago was guilty of the abductions of several young girls. In a ‘surprising’ twist, it turns out the wrong person was arrested. Shock! Horror! Anyway, it turns out that Satoru was in the same class as one of the abducted, and thus the plot begins as the adult Satoru, trapped in his younger self’s body, attempts to save his classmate Kayo Hinazuki.
The main bulk of the anime follows Satoru’s attempts to save Kayo; which is fine. If Satoru knows about the crime, preventing is certainly one way to go about. As such, a large part of the show details Satoru’s relationship with Kayo as he attempts to befriend her and help her. Which is fine, until they chuck in the fact that Kayo is being abused; which is the first issue I had with the show. There was no rhyme or reason for this particular plot line. In fact, it felt like a convenient plot point so that Satoru’s reasons for saving her didn’t seem completely contrived to the other characters; which had the unfortunate effect of making his reasoning seemed contrived to the viewer. Even when the reason behind the abuse is revealed, it sounded forced. Rather like the motive was tacked on to give it more legitimacy.
So what about Satoru and Kayo as both characters and the dynamic of their relationship? Honestly, neither character stood out for me. Satoru is far too apathetic (which is another way of saying he’s a bit dull) and Kayo doesn’t sound like a ten year old. Some of her soundbites sound just too mature to be coming from the mouth of a little girl. Not to mention in a show where little girls are being abducted, the fact that the main character is still an adult did create a jarring sensation for me, especially in scenes where he is lusting after her. Thrown into this is another character, Kenya, who is far too smart for his age. It seemed very obvious at times that these young children were being written by adults. It probably explains the fascination with Satoru’s character. After all, who doesn’t wish that they could relive they childhood while having that wisdom of an adult mind? Except, Satoru doesn’t always act intelligently or wisely, and this is apparent in the latter half of the series, and already occurs within the first couple of episodes when he runs away from the crime he didn’t commit, thus making himself the prime suspect. There’s also a co-worker who helps him, yet he doesn’t entertain the idea that the police are following her without her knowledge in order to get to him, and guess what. Yeah, he gets caught. Bloody idiot.
Before I discuss my biggest problem with the show, let me get this out of the way. I did not hate or dislike this series. I enjoyed the first half of the show. While Satoru and Kayo are individually not great characters, their relationship and interactions are entertaining enough, even if the paedophilic dynamic between the two does exist. There were also quite a few heart-warming scenes, including one at the end of episode 8 which tugs at the heartstrings.
The interactions between the two lead characters is helped both by a soundtrack which isn’t memorable by itself, but compliments both the scene it’s being used in and the colour and tone that is being relayed to the viewer, from the darker tones of the outside world to the warm colours of the inside of Satoru’s house (for example) thus juxtaposing the inclusivity of the home with the loneliness of the outside world. There is also the contrast with the colours between Satoru’s house and Kayo’s house; the latter almost always seen through a darker palette of colour. The insinuation is clear. A lot of the show takes place during the winter, which also helps to create that juxtaposition between the warm atmosphere of the home and the cold atmosphere outside. All this works well.
My biggest problem with the show is with both its pacing at the plot. My feeling of confusion comes from these problems. You see, I was under the impression that the show was a mystery thriller, yet it spent the first several episodes developing this relationship between Kayo and Satoru, which is fine, but is neither thrilling nor mysterious. Not once does Satoru even use his knowledge of the future to second-guess the murderer’s motives, instead believing that by saving Kayo, the murderer won’t kill her and his mother won’t be killed in his future. This is where Satoru’s lack of intelligence comes to the fray. He doesn’t even entertain the notion that the murderer may go elsewhere to kill. However, Satoru is unperturbed by this notion, and instead goes onto save the other girls near to him who also fall victim to this murderer. At this point, one has to question Satoru’s motives. It doesn’t seem like he’s particularly bothered about finding his mother’s killer. This transformation is bizarre as Satoru begins to resemble a white knight of justice.
Not only that, but Satoru’s intentions and motives don’t make sense. He wishes to save his mother. It also transpires that Satoru feels guilt for not saving Kayo the first time round, despite not knowing who she was and having only seen her in a park the night she disappeared. How does one feel guilt over a person’s disappearance when they did not even know said individual? Satoru’s initial motives and his actions once he goes back in time don’t tally up, creating a character that is difficult to understand because he himself makes little sense.
So, having spent the first eight or nine episodes contriving to save the three people close to him, guess what happens next. Considering that this is a 12 episode series, you can imagine. They rush the ending. The writers spent so much time building up the relationship between Satoru and Kayo, as well as the other characters, that in the end they run out of time. The supposed mystery that was at the heart of this series (who is the serial abductor and murderer?) is tacked on in the end in the most convenient of ways. The murderer tells the main character. The murderer is thrown into the plot in order to answer the question of who was behind the abductions. Not thrown in in the sense that the murderer is someone out of the blue, but that they are the most obvious candidate. The show tries to make them seem mysterious by showing the eyes under the hat in order make them more menacing. All this does though, is show just make the murderer's identity that much more obvious. Not to mention that the murderer’s motives are odd, their actions even odder (apparently, having their main targets protected is sufficient reason for them not to carry out anymore abductions in the town) and the reveal just plain anti-climactic. A mystery/thriller lives and dies by its villains. A good villain can elevate a show, while a bad one tends more often than not to drag it down into the gutter. This villain isn’t bad, just nonsensical. Not to mention the final showdown with the murderer is both horribly clichéd and yet more nonsensical as Satoru attempts to understand the murderer.
As for the time-travel, the principle plot point which allows the plot to happen and such has an importance within the narrative, isn’t fully explained. There are a few questions to ask about, chief among which is how he travels back 18 years when on every other occasion, it only reset time by a few minutes. Honestly, I don’t mind it. I’d rather the writers not explain it then attempt to give it a reason, and then thoroughly screw up that reason. Plus the time travel doesn’t have a massive impact on the story, other than as a tool by which to start turning the wheels of the story. Even if there is a level of Deus Ex Machina halfway through the series to keep the plot going.
Erased was an odd anime to review. If only because what the producers marketed the show to be (a mystery/thriller with elements of time travel) and my experience of the show did not tally with each other. The mystery/ thriller element, the fact that the main driving engine of the show was Satoru stopping his mother being murdered by preventing the death of his classmate in the past and also trying to find the murderer doesn’t manifest itself. One of the most important elements of the show, the murderer, turns out to not even matter, which is a damning indictment of the failing of the mystery elements of the show, and contributed this odd feeling that I had. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the first half of the show. It was entertaining fare. It’s just that as a mystery/thriller anime, it didn’t work. Yet, because it was straitjacketed by its own genre, the finale left me wholly unsatisfied, and a show with an interesting premise which started well enough quickly devolve into an unadulterated mess later on.
