Erased is a 12 episode anime based on the manga. The anime follows Fujinuma Satoru and the premise is simple at first. He is a 29 year old struggling manga artist, so is currently working part time as a pizza delivery boy. The only gimmick here is that he has what he calls the "revival" ability. That is, he will involuntarily go one to five minutes into the past. Every single time he feels something is wrong or off and turns out that he ends up preventing something bad from happening.
There's the obligatory love interest Katagiri Airi who is a fellow co-worker, although she is a high school student. And lastly, we're introduced to Satoru's mother. We're told that Satoru went through a traumatic experience as a kid where one of his friends, an adult that he looks up to, turned out to be a child kidnapper and murderer. One of Satoru's biggest regret was that he could have prevented a classmate's death, Hinazuki Kayo, as he saw her last alone at the park.
now, all of these sounds pretty stock standard but the anime takes an interesting turn by the end of the first episode. These plot points quickly converge into the current scenario and gives Satoru a chance to correct his mistakes. The scariest part is how easily Erased has quietly sucked you into its plot. It's helped by the fact that the animation is beautiful and the atmosphere has that melancholy and serene feel to it that suits the story very well.
The anime deals with some heavy themes such as domestic abuse and the helplessness that you can feel as a bystander wanting to help but cannot. If you don't like people being wrongly accused then it may be better not to watch Erased. Innocent characters are constantly wrongly accused while the real murderer is scot-free while laughing evilly as he frames them. It's frustrating but at the same time, you can't wait until everything is revealed and he is caught.
As Satoru continues his desperate quest to find the one framing him, it is all intertwined with Kayo's death as well as involving Airi into the whole mess. What keeps your interest is how the anime teases the children killer but never gives it away until the end. This is a story of friendship and belief, as well as a sense of justice. There are times where Satoru does some idiotic things that make him very suspicious, such as running away from the police.
The anime splits its time with Satoru's investigation of the murderer in the current time and the investigation of the murderer when he was younger. Erased is filled with heartwarming moments because you can see how much hurt that Kayo is in due to her circumstances, and how Satoru, as a kid, helped introduce her to the warmth and love that comes from family. The music played during these moments goes far in setting the tone. There are scenes where it gets surprisingly emotional and sweet, making it all the harder to bear when you are expecting something awful to happen due to what seems like a foregone conclusion.
As the episodes continue, you start to have your own suspicions on who is the murderer. You kind of expect that the murderer has to be one of the characters that Satoru knows and trusts. You start to try and read more into the actions of other characters and even think whether this might be a red herring or not. After the reveal of Satoru's deductions about the culprit and the chain effect resulting from the consequences of his actions, the last few episodes significantly ups the pacing. The end result is that you can't stop continuing onto the next episode to find out what happens next. Interestingly, the situation that Satoru finds himself in is vastly different than the beginning of the anime, and thus feels like it exceeds your expectations. It's a shame though that Satoru ends up losing a lot of the relationships that he had built with other characters, it seems such a huge loss even with the things he had achieved.
As the ending comes up you are kept guessing at how everything will end. Will the culprit finally atone for their crimes? Will Satoru lose everything or will he just live a normal life from now on? What actually happens is probably what you wouldn't have expected. Compared to the first half, it may have felt a bit rushed, particularly since certain characters are put out of focus. Nevertheless, the ending at least had closure for the main character (even if it induced some plot holes, especially about Satoru's predictions) and suits the tone of the anime. Overall, Erased is a beautiful anime telling a personal story. The way it approaches various subject matters is thought-provoking. The anime keeps you guessing at what may happen next and while the ending can be good or bad depending on your preferences, there's no doubt that at least the first half is very strong.
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