Boku Dake ga Inai Machi/ERASED

[Rodrigo]

[spoiler=About the teacher]What caught my attention to most is the amount of candies in his car. This is sketchy as funk and obviously puts him as a child molester/kidnapper or something.

 

[Smear]

[spoiler=teach]They're throwing some crazy obvious signs, like how after Satoru told him about the hideout all of the stuff hidden there was gone. And then after that, the crazy amount of candy in the car is shady. Trying to push a father figure for Satoru kinda shows that the show wants make us want him to be just that, which could lead to even bigger sadness when it turns out he's the killer, or make him seem like he is to throw us off completely. Either way it's amazingly well done.

 

[mitchermitcher]

[spoiler=onegai teacher]what i would give to see that the teacher's 'candy addiction' really is just that. a candy addiction. please tell me it's just a candy addiction. there's too much not to suspect you man.

 

 

 

As far as I recall the girl at the end was the little jabroni trying to set Kayo up with the money a while back

Yep it is. Goddamn she's going to ruin everything at the end isn't she? funk.

[Shradow]

Gosh darn it all. I wanted it to be a hunch. I completely expected this to happen but I didn't want it to, godammit.

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

Jesus fucking Christ. Well at least I get to know I was right in saying he had been following the girl that time he picked up Satoru and his mother but fuck that's not much of a consolation prize.                           

 

 

 

 

                                    wow

[mitchermitcher]

jesus h. christ of nazareth

 

[spoiler=soooo]who's gonna save him? his mother knows he'll come late so that's out. can't think of another adult that could except sensei himself. will 'yashiro i know your future' really convince him to do anything?

 

another way our boy satoru could survive this is if leaps to the future. if he's alive in the future and confirmed that by leaping forward then that means he survives this...in theory at least. otherwise I'm stuck waiting until the next episode to see how our ST survives.

 

you know, in a way, that girl really did ruin everything. i knew it.

 

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

[spoiler=just because]

It's really not looking like there's any way of him getting out or getting saved, and even then he's after getting water into his lungs already by the looks of it. There's not been a flashback in a while so they could get away with that, but like if it went back to before he puts on the belt.

 

Fuck I can't finish this thought, will try later but right now the absolute overkill of cruelty is all I can think of when I try.

 

[Raine]

Yo, Satoru, I heard you like revivals so I recommend you revival inside your revival! 

 

THAT IS THE ONLY OUT, RIGHT!? RIGHT!?

[Fusion X. Denver]

I feel like Satoru's going to have to rewind back again to get out of this jam unless deus ex machina has someone save him.

I almost thought the teacher was going to dive back in after that comment Satoru made about knowing his future.

I didn't want it to be him either, but...

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

[spoiler=nuuuuuuuuuu]

Last episode ends with Satoru strapped into a car as it sinks rapidly to the bottom of a frozen lake. He shouts out some shite to the teacher about knowing his future but though it gets his attention he's obviously not going in after him for that. And how does Erased resolve this?

 

15 YEARS LATER...

 

Seriously fuck that. Initially I thought there was going to be something to it, like establishing that he time-skipped back or this was an alternate future or I don't know what but it did none of that and just stuck to the premise that he was in a coma for 15 years and look how great his mother is maintaining him for all that time but nah, no, rejected, why did you do this. And then to top it off he has lost his memories.

 

BUT WAIT, what an ending twist! He has his memories back! And you just know that the best time and place and person in the company of which to reveal this information is when you're wheelchair-bound and on the roof of a several story building with nobody nearby except the man who tried to murder when you were 11, and it's raining just because mood.

 

Maybe I'm overreacting, or more probably the last episode is going to tie it all together, but for right now I can only feel pissed at how lazy it feels and how CUNTING STUPID Satoru is even now at, what? His 5th go at it? And he's still doing this stupid shite letting the teacher take him up to a suitable murder location before revealing that he remembers everything. WHY ARE YOU LIVING YOUR LIFE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT YOU FUCKNUT YOU KNOW THIS IS A CHILD-MOLESTING MURDERER WHO HAS ALREADY TRIED TO KILL YOU WHY HAVE YOU ALLOWED THIS EASILY AVOIDABLE SITUATION TO COME ABOUT.

 

At this point if he gets thrown off the roof I won't even be sad because he's just too much of a dipshit for me to sympathise anymore. There's also so many storylines unresolved with only a 20-minute episode to go to do it in that I imagine there's just not going to be a proper resolution. Ari's not showing up again, the Brock-looking lad who was Satoru's other friend seems forgotten maybe got killed who knows, the fact that a timejump lasted 15 years and he didn't revert back to himself being put under arrest I find odd but that's less important. Basically everyone in the adult life that's know been deleted from existence, the pizza shop owner.

 

Pizza shop guy is actually interesting because we now know the council member he was meeting was the teacher and there was some weird shit there. But now he doesn't exist so is that even going to have a pay-off or nah. Well anyway this devolved into ranting and I may have strayed from the point but basically I don't feel like this was the way to go at all and from a basic standpoint it's not a good set-up for resolving the various loose ends.

 

If the last episode is some masterpiece that ties it all together it'll be perfectly forgivable that this, without it, makes no sense and seems terrible, but for now fuckitall.

 

 

cri game over man game over

 

probably end up retracting this whole thing

[Raine]

MOM FOR GREATEST PERSON EVER! 

 

She's the main character and she's wonderful!

[Raine]

WE DID IT EVERYONE! WE DID IT! 

 

[spoiler=SERIOUS EPISODE 11 SPOILERS]

WE SAVED KAYO! THIS WAS A GOOD TRADE! WE DONE GOOD! GOOD WORK, TEAM! 

 

I FEEL SO MUCH SATISFACTIONS THAT EVEN IF THIS ENDS BAD, KAYO IS ALIVE AND THAT'S WORTH EVERYTHING! I HAVE MY ENDING!

 

 

 

[mitchermitcher]

This bloody show. This bloody funking show.

 

[spoiler=bloody sheet]funking timeskip. I've seen worse attempts at implementing timeskips but this wasn't quite the best either. By the end of the episode, Satoru remembers and it's like we've reverted back to before Satoru got drowned. Feels like we didn't get anywhere.

 

Kayo got married to someone else ;_; Actually I got spoiled on this but was hoping the adaptation might take a different route. Satoru, despite all the work you did ya got nothing and yer fine with it, yer a gud, gud man. I can't deny a part of me is raging at this still. It's a dick move by the author.

 

Spider thread motif was cool. Satoru's monologue using his kid's voice was cool. That's about all I got. Next episode come soon.

 

[Raine]

This bloody show. This bloody funking show.

 

[spoiler=bloody sheet]funking timeskip. I've seen worse attempts at implementing timeskips but this wasn't quite the best either. By the end of the episode, Satoru remembers and it's like we've reverted back to before Satoru got drowned. Feels like we didn't get anywhere.

 

Kayo got married to someone else ;_; Actually I got spoiled on this but was hoping the adaptation might take a different route. Satoru, despite all the work you did ya got nothing and yer fine with it, yer a gud, gud man. I can't deny a part of me is raging at this still. It's a dick move by the author.

 

Spider thread motif was cool. Satoru's monologue using his kid's voice was cool. That's about all I got. Next episode come soon.

 

 

[spoiler=WHY!?]

 

I don't understand, you're not happy? THIS IS THE HAPPIEST IVE EVER BEEN WATCHING ANIME! WHO GIVES A RAT"S ASS IF KAYO MARRIED ANOTHER GUY! SHE'S ALIVE ADN THAT MAKES ME HAPPIER THAN ANYTHING ELSE! The time jump was creative, not the best, but it worked as kid Satoru in adult Satoru's body. BUT KAYO IS ALIVE! ITS OVER! WE DID IT! WE SHOULD ALL BE ECSTATIC! 

 

 

 

[mitchermitcher]

[spoiler=Yeah but] Kayo already survived since a few episodes ago. Ever since then what Satoru's been fighting wasn't to keep Kayo alive but to end the cases.

 

And now the culprit's in front of him and he's a cripple coming out of rehab. Not sure what you're planning Satoru.

 

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

[spoiler=I bet]

Teacher goes to kill Satoru. Kayo comes up and tries to stop him. Tussle for a bit, ends with Kayo getting flung off the roof. Satoru manages to stand on his own and charges at the teacher knocking him off too, but he falls on top of his mother and the little girl he had been talking to, the 3 are dead. He's then so consumed by guilt that he kills himself.

 

Basically it just ends with a big fuck you to everyone. Maybe Kenya knocks down Ari driving to the funeral and then he goes to prison as well.

 

[Shradow]

[spoiler=Episode]I much prefer how this episode went down. I was dreading some deus ex machina cop out for someone to save him from the car, I find this route a lot more interesting. Though now what about Airi? With this timeline he's never met her, and apparently in the manga she's very integral at this point in the story, even helping unlock Satoru's lost memories. For example, in the manga it's Airi who stops those guys photographing them, not Yashiro. The last several minutes were all anime-only, I thought we were getting an ending true to the manga? D:

 

Though lol at some people complaining about Kayo NTRing Satoru. As if their "romance" as 11-year-olds was anything serious, and I don't think it's unrealistic for someone to not want to wait on someone who's been in a coma for 15 years. Get real, internet.

 

A couple nice touches, having Satoru missing from the OP and having young Satoru's voice be his inner thoughts with his adult body, the opposite of how it was when he had gone back in time.

 

 

I'm just annoyed this episode seemed so short. But I still thought it was great, though manga readers are apparently super salty. (Then again, I lurk on the MAL forums where no one ever seems to be happy about anything, so maybe it's just negative bias.)

[Enguin Enguin Enguin Enguin]

Well fuck, I actually liked that ending. Didn't expect to and still overall disappointing how it kind of dropped off toward the end but resolved things a lot more nicely than I had imagined it would. 

[Kirika Akatsuki]

[Shradow]

Hell yes, great ending. Glad Airi at least showed up at the end. I'll still need to read the manga though, apparently she's more important after the coma in the manga and Yashiro's backstory is done better.

 

The last few episodes weren't as good, but they were still great and didn't detract from the ending imo. And given how amazing it was in the beginning in addition, 10/10 show, AOTS.

[Raine]

 

Is it nice living in a world without happiness.

 

The show made me happy. It was good. I was impressed and I felt the time I spent was well spent and it was better than everything else... well... except Episode 12 of Phantom World

[VCR_CAT]

 

[spoiler= Eehhh]

- Points on the VA's are very, very nit-picky. He brings the age of the actors into point, which is kind of ridiculous, and focuses way too much on who the actors are opposed to the performances themselves.

- The artistic representation part is both incredibly nit-picky and suggesting that his opinion on how the show presented matters is the fact on what's good and what isn't.

Erased was very explicit with its imagery and visual liberties in its representations; I did pick up on this. But what I seem to know that he doesn't is that this is very much a stylistic choice. Some shows can be much more subtle in its imagery and abstractions, while others can be very explicit and generous with them. Erased was very generous with its visual abstractions; but I feel this neither held the show back nor was it better because of it; it was a stylistic choice that I actually enjoyed. An explicitly visually represented show does not insult a viewer's intelligence, nor does subtlety make a show better for it by default. But, to get into specifics

• His complaints over the time-travel abstractions (letter-boxing and the sound effect) are incredibly nit-picky and obnoxious overall.
• Codified themes of violence complaints are equally nit-picky and obnoxious. The show made generous use of common connotations and images for violence; this is not a bad thing and many great pieces of literature will readily make use of common connotations or images. Using red to =violence isn't a bad thing that holds back the show; in fact, it's a lot more intelligent to use a commonly known and accepted image over an abstract and lesser-known one just to be different or more subtle.
• His complaints for Yashiro were very cherry-picky. I admit, they made him as a suspect a little too obvious, but they did do a commendable effort to try to hide it. The fault wasn't so much in the show's explicit imagery, but more-so in that there were no red-herrings; nothing to make the viewer second guess that suspicion because it could possibly be someone else. I remember telling a friend that it was either Yashiro or a character we've never met, because the show honestly presented no red-herrings to make me second guess that suspicion. There was no other possibility; nobody else that fit that bill. Again, this didn't make anything bad for me, it was maybe a missed opportunity in the show's mystery aspect that I feel they could have done better, but I'm still happy with what they accomplished.

- I disagree with him very strongly when he complains about the time travel mechanics not having any clearly defined or established rules or mechanics beyond what he could gather. I'm okay with this, I don't think matters such as that need to be explained unless it's very important, and if there's anything that a movie like Stranger than Fiction has taught me; it's that the strange occurrence doesn't necessarily need explanation. As soon as you put that much effort in defining and explaining the occurrence (such as time travel), the show becomes less about its themes or story and more about that mechanic itself. I can tell the writer wanted the mechanic, but didn't want the show to be first and foremost about said mechanic.

- If there was anything that I agree about with this show, its that its primary themes feel disjointed and confused. All the way through to the end I wasn't sure what message this show wanted to tell; whether it was about relationships, violence, or regret. There was fantastic opportunity to tell amazing themes in all three of those themes, and many others; but I felt the show was confused as to what it wanted to tell, what its priorities were and how it wanted to tell them. I really liked the show, I liked how it was presented and how it played out, but I feel that it could have been more organized in its thoughts and themes.

 

At the end of the day, this guy just sounds like a jaded anime fanboy that's being a contrarian to a show that has considerable popularity. He's nitpicking on a lot of details and presenting his own opinion or preference as some sort of standard or fact as to what was good or not and blowing a lot of these out of proportion. It's fine that he disliked the show, he's open and free to his preference, but he spends too much time acting like his preference is some golden standard and that it baffles him why nobody follows him. He hesitated to use the word "pretentious", but that's how I would describe his video and his demeanor.

 

 

[Fusion X. Denver]

I do like Digibro's videos and what I can appreciate from this one is that he fully explains his reasoning and his reaction to counterpoints people would bring up in response to his opinions, so I completely understand why he didn't like the show and why he feels the way he does.

That said, I either disagreed with his points, or they weren't factors that detracted from my enjoyment of the show. ERASED wasn't perfect and the ultimate suspect was obvious, but the journey getting there and wanting to know what happens next at the end of each episode remained solid throughout my entire time watching the show. I'd say this just narrowly misses my AOTS at 4.5/5, with top honor going to Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (except no one's watching that, so I'm sure universal consensus will be ERASED).

[Shradow]

Oh sheet, I love Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu but I'm behind, only at about episode 8 or 9. That show is fantastic, too. Maybe I'll change my mind about AOTS, I'd already decided it was gonna be ERASED or Rakugo after the first episode of each.

[VCR_CAT]

I do like Digibro's videos and what I can appreciate from this one is that he fully explains his reasoning and his reaction to counterpoints people would bring up in response to his opinions, so I completely understand why he didn't like the show and why he feels the way he does.

That said, I either disagreed with his points, or they weren't factors that detracted from my enjoyment of the show. ERASED wasn't perfect and the ultimate suspect was obvious, but the journey getting there and wanting to know what happens next at the end of each episode remained solid throughout my entire time watching the show. I'd say this just narrowly misses my AOTS at 4.5/5, with top honor going to Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu (except no one's watching that, so I'm sure universal consensus will be ERASED).

 

Honestly, he came across as a jaded contrarian backlashing against hype more than an educated critic in his video than anything. I found incredibly obnoxious how pretentiously he presented his point of view; like as if his opinion was some golden standard with which we all need to base our tastes around. I agree with your review; it was by no means a perfect show, but it was definitely very enjoyable and well done.