4 out of 5

Directed by: Tomohiko Itō

Spoiler: they never explain the ‘why.’  If you can live with that – and to be fair, writer Taku Kishimoto and director Tomohiko Itō never propose that particular question as Erased’s focus – Erased is a pretty fantastic mystery thriller.

It’s 2006, and 29-year old Satoru, a struggling manga artist, is plagued by occasional ‘Revivals’ – brief rewinds in time that allows him to spot and potentially correct some fatal flaw.  Something for which he often ends up paying a physical price himself, such as see someone hit by a vehicle, then rewinding – experiencing a Revival – to prevent it, and getting hit in turn.  But he survives to Revival again.

Sometimes what he needs to change isn’t easy to spot; he rewinds in a parking lot with his mother, but isn’t sure of the reason.  This later seems to spark his mother’s renewed interest in something from his past, though, that he’d buried: a string of kidnapping and murders of children when he was a kid.  That buried past escalates into tragic events in the present… and then Satoru rewinds to when he was 11; his most extreme Revival yet, and the time period of those murders.

The majority of the story takes place in the past, with Satoru’s adult voice narrating to himself.  Memories of the time come back to him, and he suspects that he needs to prevent the murders in order to satisfy the Revival.

Got it?  That’s essentially just the setup, and it’s what’s not really explained.  There is no rhyme or reason for the Revival except to allow for a kid with preternatural senses to try to solve a crime before it happens.  The show somewhat touches on how changing one thing in the past might not have the intended effect in the future, but it’s mostly skirted around.  So again: if you can live with that…

And I could.  The show’s earnestness in maintaining its puzzle-solving mindset – how can Satoru make the things happen he needs to while maintaining his kidly appearance – is intelligently applied, while also not getting bogged down by plot filler related to the same: when it’s doing more harm than good for his cause to keep his secret, Satoru will open up enough to get people to help him.  Those ‘people’ – his mother, his friends – being the remaining cast of the show, are the other huge positive: while everyone might be a tad too holistically “good,” the relationships and dialogue are immensely satisfying.  There’s a lot of conversation, and quiet contemplations on family, on loneliness and togetherness, and it hits the right notes of being thoughtful without being too trite.  Yes, it’s terribly thrilling when Satoru (and pals) put their plans into effect, but listening to / watching a man be able to rediscover all the things he took for granted as a kid makes for really endearing interactions; the screentime spent split between these different moments is equally engaging.  A-1 Pictures’ animation helps to bring all of this to life, with good character designs (Keigo Sasaki) and fluid motion.

Erased, in keeping with its themes of appreciation and closure, takes its story full circle.  While I’d fully respect anyone getting flustered over its lack of need to justify its premise – and the occasionally visible hand-waiving done regarding that – that its core story and character definitions come across so consistently good very much make it an above average show.