Heyo! I just finished my finals this semester and decided to relax by watching some new anime. Having recently finished Psycho-pass, I was in need of a fix, so to speak, so I went googling for some other psychological thrillers and stumbled on Erased.
Oh man, when I say I loved this anime, I really mean it. I would say it’s definitely on my Top 10 list. If you like psychological thrillers in the vein of Psycho Pass or Future Diary, you would love this show. Minor spoilers up ahead!
*Trigger Warning: This anime does show one of the characters as a victim of child ab*se and minor mentions of su*c*de.*
Intro
The main character, Satoru Fujinuma, is a 29-year-old struggling manga artist who scrapes by by working at a pizzeria. He is shown to have a special power called Revival that allows him to sense something is wrong and travel in time to prevent bad things from happening.
One day, he comes home to find his mother dead, stabbed in the stomach. Unfortunately for him, a neighbor who happened to pass by in that time saw him and assumed that he was the culprit and called the police. As he tries to escape the police, his power kicks in and sends him back 18 years to his 11-year-old body and gives him a chance to stop the series of events that will eventually lead to his mother’s murder.
We learn that 18 years ago, his elementary school saw a series of three abduction murders, two of whom were his classmates. Having regretted not being able to help his classmates as a child, he takes this second chance to try to prevent their deaths and to stop his mother’s murder in the future.
In the process, he learns about friendships and gains new motivation and strength from being able to right past wrongs.
My Thoughts
First off, the premise hooked me in right away and then the plot only advances from there one suspenseful step at a time. It is only 12 episodes long but boy, does it take you for a ride. The plot is consistently tense and the pacing is wonderful.
In the middle, Satoru suffers a major failure and Revival pushes the reset button once again, raising the stakes even higher the second time around, realizing that the scope of the murderer’s activities were bigger than he previously anticipated. Without giving away the story and the plot twists (there are a couple), this anime, in my first watching, left me on the edges of my seat and has just enough setbacks and struggle on the Satoru’s part to keep me invested for the whole 12 episodes. Satoru has enough personality quirks to keep some humor in the series so between the murders and kidnappings, there are plenty of lighthearted moments too.
Verdict
Having been released in 2017, the art style is pretty modern and doesn’t detract from the story. That, and the soundtrack complemented the events on screen. Overall, a very tense and enjoyable experience for mystery and suspense lovers. I give this anime a:
10/10!
This anime was adapted from the manga with the same name. The manga gives more details and background that the anime wasn’t able to fit in so if you’d like, checking out the manga is definitely worth it.
There’s also a live-action, for some reason. Please don’t watch that… And yeah, it’s not good.
Extras
Some of my interesting quotes from the series:
“Believing in someone.” That’s a weird phrase, isn’t it? After all, if you truly believed in a person, you wouldn’t need to say, “I believe you.” It’s like saying, “I believe in air.” I don’t mean to say that “believing in something” is like a lie. “Believing” is really a term of hope of wanting to believe.” – Satoru Fujinuma
“The essence of good deeds and evil is the same. They’re both no more than a person’s actions to make up for a defect in themselves.” – Yashiro Gaku
Let me know if there’s any other anime you’d like my review on!
‘Til next time! Ciao!
Note: I do not own the images displayed on this post.
Outlet 
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