✦Elzary
Cinema·5 min read·👀 Watched 2022.09.09

Erased

A time-loop mystery that keeps yanking your heart between warmth and dread — and a last line that took a night to sink in.

2017 · Mystery · Tomohiro Sanbe · Netflix

"In the town where only I don't exist, the time I carved out there is all my treasure."

The setting

The childhood scenes are set in a residential area near an industrial zone; grown up, it shifts to Tokyo. I'm not sure why it starts in an industrial zone — I just thought the factory-chimney transitions looked pretty cool? 🤣

A plot full of switchbacks

Watching this, my heart stayed clenched the whole time. The killer really is right on his targets' heels, and every plan gets pulled off flawlessly — so scary 😱 — but then things would take a turn for the better and I'd breathe out, only for another big twist to come along. (My poor heart.)

It goes from heavy at the start, to heartwarming, then plunges again — thankfully the last two episodes claw it back.

The early pacing is a touch slow and never quite pulls you under, but I have to say every element is beautifully laid out 👍👍👍 — family, friendship, trust, courage, and the "will" it keeps emphasizing.

For whose sake, really?

At first I assumed the lead, Satoru, throws himself into saving others just to keep his own mother from being murdered. But a few episodes in, I realized it might be for his mother, yes — but to a large degree it comes from not wanting people who could have lived to die needlessly because of Yashiro's twisted selfishness. Satoru really is a super-brave, deeply just person! And clever and strategic too — a sharp mind. I'm impressed, impressed!

The child actors nailed it

I thought the kid who played young Kayo captured that gloomy, withdrawn mood so well! The ant-sized voice, the slightly depressed air, happy but not daring to show it, that repressed look — and the boy playing the young lead conveyed all those unspeakable, troubled expressions beautifully too. Love it!!

Impressive casting for the resemblances

Apart from Kayo and the lead not looking much alike, Kenya and Hiromi both really matched their older selves in presence.

An unexpected twist (mild spoiler)

I kept thinking Hiromi looked androgynous — and then he marries Kayo??? (That back view walking into the hospital the first time really threw me.) Completely blindsided me, hahaha.

At first I didn't get the last line

"The white snow turned the streetscape blank — and the future turned blank too."

But after a night, it suddenly clicked. I think what the writer meant is that because time only moves forward and never rewinds, the future becomes blank, waiting for us to fill it in. So meaningful — I love it 💕

I couldn't help stepping out of it now and then, wondering that if an event like this happened in the real world, it'd probably just sink without a trace. But that's the charm of drama, isn't it — turning what we're powerless to do in real life into something real on screen, satisfying our imagination?

I also loved how it shows the leads standing united. Ordinary people might, as kids, have treated it as a detective game and left it there — but even fifteen years on they still hold it in their hearts, never forgetting, even setting work aside to act on it. That moved me (though I can't help suspecting it's partly because this is, after all, a "drama"!).

"There's a limit to what people can do. Don't go thinking everything that happens afterward is your responsibility."

"Companions" — in a sense you could call it "trust." It's the pillar that lets you walk on more firmly when you doubt yourself, when you deny yourself. No wonder Japanese dramas love to stress the idea of "companions" — the strength they give is so much more than going it alone.

"Conviction" — it drives action, breeds attachment and resolve to see something through, however many lifetimes it takes.

The lead is so mature — walking his girlfriend home in fifth grade already (?).

#series#mystery#anime#netflix
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