V analyzes Erased: What went wrong and what did not?

So this second part took WAY too long. But I wanted to cover all bases, made sure I heard and read every possible angle as to why this is amazing / the worst thing ever made. And I also read the entire manga to see what went wrong.

Through this process I think I went through a dozen rewrites of this script to get it to a point where I like it enough to post it.

So first up: Do I maintain my 7.5/10 score? No. I'd probably reduce it to a 6.5-7 / 10. For the manga I'd stay at 7.5. It remains enjoyable to watch. But there's a lot of story plot holes and lots of bad things could've been better.

Let me list up a few of them.

Also, I think this should come as no surprise, but er... this analysis will be filled with spoilers!

#1: Erased was a passion project, but the studio wasn't really interested

A1 Pictures is nowadays mostly known for the phenomenon Sword Art Online. And the director of it (Tomohiko Itō) had scored major brownie points at his studio for making it such a success.

Tomohiko knows and used his "brownie points" to request of Aniplex (mother company of A1-Pictures) that he could animate one of his most favorite manga series: Erased.

Aniplex couldn't really deny the director of their most profitable franchise, mostly because he was also still working at the Sword Art Online movie.

But they also didn't see much profit in this adaptation. They thought they at best would just get their money back. So while the studio gave Ito free reign in terms of animators, the budget had a limit and they were only given a 12-episode time-slot to adapt an 8-volume manga (which then still wasn't finished at that point).

#2: The 12-episode format required parts of the original story to be "erased"

If you read interviews on Ito's work on Erased, you'll notice quickly that he's holding back on giving comments on it, or trying to minimize the damage he needed to do to the original story.

He had to cram 8 manga volumes worth of story in 12 episodes (it should've been double of that). In order to do that in a somewhat successful way, he had to cut almost half of the entire story.

Ito focused on the most important characters in the story: Satoru's mom and Kayo. Thus he had to minimize or erase Airi's story in the adaptation. If you have read the manga, you'll notice that Airi plays a MUCH bigger role in the story than in the anime adaptation.

Hence why many critics point to Airi being a kind of useless character. She was more essential to the story in the manga than in the anime. For example: In the manga, Airi is passionate about photography. She's the one who kicked the paparazzi's ass (which makes way more sense than Yashiro in the anime). She's also the one who triggered Satoru regaining his memory (which makes way more sense than the baby in the anime).

This could've been such a powerful scene...

Personally, I liked Airi more than Kayo. But it was the director's decision to cut her parts to a bare minimum... oh well (sadpanda).

#3: The anime had to be created while the manga wasn't finished yet

This may seem strange since the manga ended around the period the first few episodes started airing, and the crew would've had the time to sit together with the mangaka to adapt the ending.

But again, the director also had to be busy with the SAO movie and only had 12 episodes to tell this story. So the crew decided to cut just about the last 8-10 chapters and create the last episode of their own, trying to come to a similar conclusion to the manga. Truth be told, the screenwriter's only option in this fashion was failing. The anime ending thus became... average (to say it nicely).

And while the ending of the manga wasn't hot shit either (the story sure ain't no Steins;Gate); it was at least way more enjoyable than what we ended up getting here.

Not the best finale, but still more enjoyable than the anime

#4: The removal of Yashiro's bakstory makes the villain's motives weak in the anime

Yes, there is no excuse for this one. While certain elements are never really explained (like why the superpowers and why they disappear), the backstory of Yashiro fixes a whole slew of issues people have with this anime.

In short: Yashiro was forced to help his brother rape schoolgirls. But when his brother stepped out of bounds and killed one of those girls, Yashiro's powers kicked in and he started seeing Spider Threads he could cut (which seems taken from Greek mythology, but is actually based on a famous Japanese folktale). Yashiro ended up killing his own brother and was able to successfully frame it as a suicide.

#5: The superpowers never really get explained, do they?

They come from somewhere. In Yashiro's case, he sees the story he read come to life; in Satoru's case it's an expansion of both his desire to become a superhero and his enormous regret of not being able to save Hiromi (not Kayo btw) in the past.

But that's about all we get as an explanation. I get that we don't need everything spelled out. But considering Satoru's powers disappear during the series, you'd at least expect some form of explanation. We don't get that. Also, the story doesn't really experiment too much with said powers.

Well, at least we know that awkwardly screaming at the top of your lungs helps activate it [/sarcasm].

So why do I still like it?

The direction used, the general look and feel, certain specific moment and yes: even the symbolism that the series uses. The general story and drama in this story lured me in, even if I knew that many people hated on the story. I still liked it. Heck, I didn't even mind all the symbolism used in the show (the infamous red=bad; blue=good color schemes, the perversion of justice, the regret symbolism, the Hero symbolism, and other things).

I like it, because several good moments stick, even after the anime has ended.

In my first part, I already talked about how I loved the Christmas tree scene, which I still love.But there are a few more, which I still fondly remember.

One big scene that I want to talk about is Satoru's contemplation of killing Kayo's mother. While it doesn't make sense time-wise and the taser got removed in the transition from manga to anime (yeah, he had a taser, look it up!), everything about it seemed to work. His rage, the buildup and even the eventual intervention of Kenya. All in all, the scene takes less than a minute. But I couldn't help thinking in myself "Do it!"

The other big scene I love is Kayo's first home-cooked breakfast meal moment. This got put on the most heartwarming moments of the year list of Crunchyroll's anime awards and only lost due to YOI-hype. It is very captivating.

There's obviously even more great moments, but I'll leave that for you to figure out.

I like it because in the end it's a story about a man who tries to save his own mother

Yes, I may be biased on this, since I'm a man who has a close bond with his mother and I have no idea what I'd do if I found my mother murdered in cold blood.

I can't help to feel emotional the moment that Satoru once again meets with his mom and finds out she's still alive in this timeline.

But on the other end, who can blame Satoru? Satoru's mom is one of the best supporting characters I've seen in 2016 and is probably the best mom in anime in general.

I like it because it's a good drama, not a mystery anime and hardly a thriller

A lot of people that hated this anime, hated it because it's not a good mystery nor a good thriller.

And I (kind of) agree with that. The mystery never really went anywhere. There weren't enough (good) red herrings to send the audience the wrong way. But it never was intended as a mystery story. It somehow got presented that way, and that may have been very wrong on the anime's side of things.

Because in the end, this is a Drama with supernatural elements and a hint of a thriller and mystery. This is the story about Saturo being given a chance to remove his feelings of regret. To save his mother, to save his murdered childhood "friends", to save himself from his "broken" personality... to become the hero he always wanted to be.

I like this anime, because it is a critical piece against Japan's justice system

A lot of people critique certain decisions people make or have made in the anime. Why did Satoru ran away from the crime scene in the first episode? Why are both Airi and Kenya so focused on helping Satoru? It all connects to the same thing. The author's personal critique against Japan's way of handling Justice.

Have you ever played an Ace Attorney game? If you have, you might've thought by yourself that the court works in a bizarre way in these games. Well... THAT is basically Japan's Justice system (safe the "everything needs to be decided in three days" part). The prosecutor and police work together to find an accused party, find evidence and consider him/her guilty. Then it's up to the defense attorney to prove the court otherwise.

In short... You're guilty until you're proven guilty... unless the defense can get you to be declared innocent.

This way of thinking is opposite to the Western standards, where people are innocent until the prosecutor and police have sufficient evidence to prove you're guilty.

While our Western system isn't 100% good either, I'd rather prefer to be judged over here. I don't think I have to tell you that the Japanese justice system and the general way of thinking is the root cause of many family drama's and many people end up being opposed to it. This includes the mangaka Kei Sanbe.

The theme of justice is a frequently recurring element in the story of Erased. I could go in even more detail on what elements represent this, but I'll leave the video of Pause & Select here instead, who explains the "perversion of Justice" in Japan and in Erased (which is where previous image comes from). Go watch it!

Anything else?

I think I could go on for ages, since there's so much to talk about. I didn't even cover things like the child abuse, nor the "kids don't act their age" remark many people had. But I erased those parts since I felt I couldn't make a convincing argument from either side. There's people that say those things are handled well, while others say it's handled poorly. I noticed I'm somewhere in the middle on those things.

Other than that, I'm finally glad I was able to finish this in a way I'm somewhat satisfied with it. Monday it's time for regular reviews again. Got a few lined up.

Until then, V out.

V Reviews - Erased... a review of a loved/hated anime

When you went through anime forums around this time last year, you might've noticed the hype surrounding the anime Erased. The further along the series went, the more praise it got. This caused it to end up in the top 50 best anime ever while it was still airing.

But boy, did that change with the last three episodes. After the anime finished airing, the praise turned into bile and it hasn't stopped to this date. Try to speak any positive of Erased, and an angry mob will follow you to the end of days.

I was living under a rock around that time last year, so by the time I personally heard of Erased, the hate train already started and I carefully stepped back and let it pass.

But next to all the hate it garnered over the past year, it also still got praise from many people, including notable reviewers like Chriss Stuckman. And that kind of confused me.

Is the hate granted? Is the praise granted? There was one way to find out. So I dug in with a magnifying glass and searched for what went wrong with "Boku dake ga Inai Machi", better known as "Erased".

Problem is that there is SO much to talk about, I'm gonna have to split this up in two parts to keep it somewhat readable. The first part is the regular review (backstory, main story, characters, art & sound). The second part is going to cover what went wrong.

V Reviews - Erased (Pt. 1)

Let's rewind this clock to the very beginning... the Backstory

"Boku Dake ga inai machi" roughly translates to "the town with me erased", which was shortened to "Erased" in the west (which I'll keep using further on for clarity's sake).

Erased is a seinen thriller manga created by suspense mangaka Kei Sanbe. It's NOT a mystery manga (Keep that in mind)!. Kei has been writing thriller and horror manga ever since 2001 and started his craft as an assistant for the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure manga. Of all his stories, Erased is the first that received the anime treatment (AND live action treatment at the same time).

But in 2016, that is just what happened. A1-Pictures animated the manga into a 12-episode series and WB Japan released the live action movie.

I'd love to post twitter and website here, but his website has been down for a while now and he removed his original twitter account (maybe when the backlash started?).

Story

The story starts in May of 2006.Satoru Fujinuma is a man down on his luck. Due to his lack of empathy, he's become estranged from his childhood friends and is failing as a manga author (he can't put emotions on paper). So he has to survive by being a part-time pizza delivery guy.

One day you'll find the job of your life...
and then you become a pizza delivery guy instead.

But he has one thing that does make him special. He has an ability that when he's in the environment of a tragic accident or murder, he relives it in a constant loop. This so that he can prevent the accident or murder from happening. The downside on this is that this is triggered automatically, so he always has to figure out what the situation is and how he can prevent it from happening. If not, history loops again and he has to relive that moment over and over again.

Loop-de-loop

In one such moment Satoru saves a kid from being run over by a delivery truck, but in this process Satoru end up getting injured. He wakes up in a hospital bed, but at his bedside is his colleague Airi, who saw the entire thing happening and now thinks he's a hero.

Weird to wake up to... though not bad.

In another "rewind" moment his mother and him prevent a child kidnapping/murder from happening. But as a direct result of this, the two of them become the target of this serial killer. This because Satoru's mom (Sachiko) thinks she knows the culprit from somewhere and it may have to do with a serial murder case that happened when Satoru was 10 years old.

The next day after returning home, Satoru finds him mother in his place; murdered in cold blood. But the landlord also drops in and sees Satoru with bloody hands and a shocked face. She wrongfully concludes that Satoru is the murderer. Seeing that he has to catch the real murderer and no time to explain things, Satoru flees. But the moment he's about to get caught by the police, his Rewind ability kicks in.

Yeah, I don't think she's asleep...

At first he thanks his ability so that he can prevent the murder of his mother. But soon after that he's in shock... Because time went back further than ever before. He's suddenly 10 years old again and he has to relive his own childhood.

Yes, or as they call it: the 63rd year of Shôwa

Satoru now has to uncover what actions are going to save his mother from being murdered in the future. And he quickly concludes that saving the serial murder victims in the past will be a key element in changing his future and will hopefully save his mother.

The rest of the story focuses on Satoru slowly trying to change himself while trying to save the murder victims. He can no longer sit by idly. He has to become more pro-active.

Characters

	Satoru Fujinuma: Main character. A man struggling with his emotions and is slowly becoming bittered by this. Is sent back in time when his mother is murdered and realizes he needs to change himself in order to save all "future" murder victims from getting killed.
	Airi Katagiri: Colleague of Satoru. Is the only person in the present time that believes in Satoru's innocence This because she saw Satoru's Rewind powers in action and knows he's a good person in heart.
	Sachiko Fujinuma: Satoru's mom. A former reporter and a woman with a incredible sense of intuition (she's often called a demon by Satoru due to her ability to figure everything out way too fast). This sharp intuition is also the root cause of her getting killed.
	Kayo Hinazuki: The first of the three murder victims in the past. Lives in a broken home with an abusive mom and has slowly lost all hope in humanity. She kind of likes Satoru because he acts "fake" (just like herself), but is unable to show it.
	Kenya Kobayashi: Childhood friend of Satoru. Grew apart from Satoru after a common friend got murdered in the serial murder incident. But in the revisited timeline Kenya is growing fond of Satoru's pro-active behavior. He helps Saturo in the process of saving the serial murder victims.
	Hiromi Sugita: Childhood friend of Satoru and one of the serial murder victims in the past. He's a typical guy with feminine looks (a "trap"). During the process of saving Kayo, Satoru tries to involve Hiromi as much as possible, to keep an eye on his wellbeing as well.
	Gaku Yashiro: Homeroom teacher of the kids and the closest thing Satoru has as a father figure.

Art

During my Ace Attorney review, I talked about A1 Pictures B-team of animators. Well, this is clearly the A-team. There's honestly not that much I can remark about it, since it's all-around good. The environments are really well-drawn and realistic.
From the entire series, the most noteworthy scenes should be those involving Satoru and Kayo going to the "Christmas tree".

Are you, are you coming to the tree?

A fun thing to notice is the change in aspect ratio when it concerns present time vs the past. Present time is the regular 16:9 we see in widescreen tv series. But the past is in 21:9 (movie aspect ratio).

Sound

Sound is quite good as well... which is not a surprise if you look at who actually directed the music: Yuki Kajiura. Yuki is the person behind the epic soundtracks of Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero and Sword Art Online (one of the few good things THAT anime can offer).

But since this is less on an "epic" scale and goes more for the feels, the soundtrack feels more held back than in the previously mentioned series. Don't misunderstand me: It's not a bad OST. It's still worth listening to. But you're not going to remember much from it after a sit-through.

The Opening is by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, which is always nice to listen to.

My personal opinion

I personally liked the anime. It's no masterpiece and certainly doesn't deserve a ranking as high as it does right now. But it's still a worthwile watch if you like a good thriller with some drama elements.

Don't watch this for the mystery aspect, because it's not intended to be a mystery. It's all about survival.

I'm giving this a careful 7.5/10.

In the second part, I'm going to dig a little deeper and cover both what the series got right, and what it did wrong. Just to try and filter all of the hate into a constructive narrative. For that second part, click here

Until then, V out.