Erased

I've just recently started watching animes and after watching this one, I don't think I'll be able to enjoy the others as much. This is truly a masterpiece. The first episode alone will keep you hooked for the rest of the series. It's such an interesting and psychologically provocative story that will play with your feels, making you experience all sorts of emotions and keeping you on the edge of your seat while you watch as the narrative unfolds. It has beautiful animations, deep and really lovable characters and it touches on the subject of "Time Travel", which is almost always done wrong, but done perfectly well in this one. I don't want to spoil anything, I just think everyone should watch this and enjoy their well spent time whilst doing it.

ERASED also known as Boku dake gai Inai Machi is the breakout winter hit for 2016 based on the manga by the same name. Going into this series I was largely skeptical, between Aniplex as a business souring me on shows produced by them, the show's director being the same who did Sword Art Online adding to that a time travel plot I was set up for this to be a failure. The only thing this had going for me was hopefully a passable Yuki Kajiura score. From episode one I was already hooked and as the series continued on I was immensely pulled in by the strong atmosphere and strongly woven mystery.

Time travel usually falls along one of two plot lines, set-right-what-once-went-wrong or change the future sometimes with overlap of both. In the case of Erased we have an overlap as our main character Satoru goes back to his past to rewrite the wrongs of history to solve a kidnapping he feels partly responsible for, for not doing enough to possibly prevent it in the first place and help a friend who was set up to take the fall for such a crime. Through the course of several episodes we see him craftily work out tactics as a grown man occupying the body of his 10-year-old-self. Slowly but surely he has to make a connection with Kayo, a seemingly cold and distant person but finding out she's a girl hiding incredible amount of pain in her life.

As the episodes progress the series really is less about the time travel and more about a kid trying to do the right thing, even if that kid is really an adult. If not for the clever visual reminders and the ongoing mystery of the future which propels Satoru back in time, it would be easy to forget this is supposed to be a time traveling mystery.

If the show has a few shortcomings it does unfortunately suffer slightly by it's short length. With a 12 episode count a good chunk of the story is focused on Satoru's efforts to save his classmate, Kayo Hinazuki from a grim fate and terrible home life while the other victims of the story largely come in and are quickly resolved. The who-done-it aspect of the mystery might not hold you for long thanks to some fairly obvious clues and hints but then again plenty of red herrings can keep you guessing all the same.

The finale does bring some good emotional closure but as it is but felt rather rushed and anti-climactic as a culmination of 11 episodes worth of suspense and buildup. In spite of the flaw the dramatic pathos and tight scripting of the series as a whole should keep you engaged consistently.

The animation by A-1 Pictures is quality with many good uses of symbolism in its art, color design and cinematography. The art of the manga is evolved to fluid and dynamic looking animation with clean looking character designs making them adaptable and distinguishable.

Yuki Kajiura's music shapes up to make a good atmospheric score using her usual blend of synth and real instruments to mix and match mood of the series highs and lows. The opening theme provided by Asian-Kung-Fu Generation feels like a standard rock song but with a few listens manages to mesh decently into the series as a whole. The ending by Sayuri is a song bolstered by a good melody written by the accomplished Kajiura but hampered by a poor arrangement by Ryou Eguchi.

ERASED in the end proves to be a gripping thriller filled with many emotional twits and turns and will leave you consistently on the edge of your seat. A few shortcomings aside I can't deny it had me biting my nails through most of it and I highly recommend it.

Erased started out as a very interesting decent anime. It already had gotten attention on just episode one. But it made insane progress on MyAnimeList. On merely episode two it was already rising through the ranks of MyAnimeList. By episode three it was already within the top 20 of the website, and with the release of episodes 4 and 5, it broke through the top TEN, an incredibly rare occasion considering the numerous episodes and efforts put into the other classic shows (such as Your Lie in April or even Code Geass). As I type this up now, with the show having 7 episodes, it is already at 6th place, threatening to overtake the legendary Hunter V. Hunter! Even though it is based on a manga, and its pace may feel a bit quick, it is still excellent for a 12-episode anime. With a very nice soundtrack and voicing, along with beautiful scenes combined with the very tense plot along with good characters, this anime brings the manga to life! With a less obvious display of the murderer than the manga, and with full suspense making the watcher want to know more, tortured by the weekly cliffhanger, Erased is looking to be one of the best anime of 2016--if not of all time! You should watch it if you like murder mystery, mind-games, psychology, tension, along with some supernatural powers.

Even so, be warned that the anime is not perfect. The ending may disappoint some who were expecting a red herring-- but those who have read the manga will not be surprised. Even so, the overall characters are in-depth, the tension is taut, and this anime is very good.

FYI: the highest this anime has been was in 4th place, threatening to overtake Gintama and/or Steins;Gate!

This is one of the best murder mystery animes I have seen. With so many time travels, suspense and major plot twists.

If your looking for an anime that has murder mysteries, suspense and a lot of brutal scenes then I would highly recommend it.

However when it came to voice actors (I have only watched the dub) if they are voicing little boys with an exception of Sataro and the overweight boy majority of them sound too female then male. I get that in some scenarios like Ben Tennyson from Ben 10 and Bart Simpson from the Simpsons are both voiced by women and are really good at voicing them but this is no exception, I get the content of the anime was R rated since they couldn't get child actors but they might as well have got actually grown men to do their voices especially since they Kyle Mccarley, Ben Diskin and Max Mittelman in this and those men are pretty good at voicing little boys.

But other then those problem it was a good anime.

I will not spoil any plots otherwise I would be writing this review all day.

Long story short go watch this anime.

Everything about this anime has a unique atmosphere which you can feel from the first episode.

Story: Some people like to compare this anime to Stein's Gate because it involves some time traveling. Other people wondered about the mystery and crime genre and compared it to Death Note. This anime is neither of them. It doesn't revolve around time traveling as the main idea or the plot of the story. Also, it doesn't involve that much darkness and crime twist as Death Note. It is about loneliness and friendship, courage and hesitation, evil and good, family and abuse; It is about a lot.

Art: The art in the anime is much better than the manga. It is also somehow unique than other animes I 've watched. You will unlikely to find mistakes while watching that may disturb you. The art is very well done.

Sound: It just got me in the story. I didn't feel that there is a SOUND being played. I just felt the story going before my eyes while I am feeling it.

Characters: I felt the characters as they're real. Actually, I think the characters are taken from real persons. The characters, their backgrounds, feelings and complications are very well put. You can watch the character grow up and evolve as you march through the anime.

Enjoyment: YOU WILL NEVER GET BORED WATCHING THIS ANIME.

Overall: I gave this anime 10/10