ERASED

Episode 10

I don't really feel happy reviewing this episode. I've been enjoying this show, enjoying it a lot - after Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū and Grimgar, it's represented the final top-tier pillar of the season for me. It's sometimes gone over the top in its thriller theatrics, but its execution has been generally excellent, and it seemed like it was building towards some compelling points about community and trust.

But this episode was a disaster.

It was a disaster that's been a long time coming, in retrospect. The show hasn't left itself many avenues for revealing who the killer is - outside of Yuuki himself, basically the only potential suspect has been Mr. Yashiro. Having only one relevant character doesn't make for much of a mystery, and beyond that, Mr. Yashiro has served a fairly instrumental role in the plot. It'd be somewhat disappointing for the killer to be someone we didn't know, but it'd be far more disappointing for it to be Mr. Yashiro, who's both the overtly obvious choice and a character who's come to stand as a counterpoint to the underlying atmosphere of suspicion in the show. If ERASED is a show about anything, it is a show about the ways isolation and distrust hurt both a community at large and all of its individual members. In spite of living in a world that values discreteness and propriety, Mr. Yashiro stood as a reflection of how there are still good people, and there is still value in public trust.

Until he didn't. After a half-episode spent trailing first Aya Nakanishi and then his classmate Misato, Satoru finds himself sitting next to Yashiro in a borrowed car, having recruited his teacher to help ensure Misato's safety. The show isn't subtle in the ways it frames Yashiro as ominous here. Yashiro has to force Satoru's seatbelt closed, and then he goes off into a villainous monologue about how both good and bad deeds are “based in a desire to get over a defect in yourself.” Shots sit below Yashiro's eyeline, focus on the reddish setting sun, or emphasize Yashiro's tapping gloves. And then, in a line that may well echo in hack writing history, Yashiro makes his grand reveal. “There is no candy in there. After all, this isn't my car.”

Basically every line and image that follows feels like it features invisible italics, and maybe even bold and underline for good measure. Yashiro opens with an evil smile worthy of the most melodramatic scenery-chewers, before going the full villain distance and explaining his evil plan. “This is my true form” he literally actually says to Satoru, detailing his evil schemes and dastardly motives with all the moral complexity of a Scooby Doo villain. It's a scene that directly attacks the show's most compelling thematic vein all for the sake of cheap thriller shock value, a betrayal of any possible moral complexity and an embracing of the show's clumsiest instincts. Favoring Satoru with one more evil grin, he goes on to murder the idea of graceful writing itself, literally saying “it's like you've seen the future.” I half-expected this scene to end with him saying “and now it's time for you to be… ERASED.”

This episode wasn't just a melodramatic, egregiously written single sequence - it was a betrayal of the show's overall narrative that makes the entire show far weaker. I wasn't sure exactly how the show was going to end, but up until this moment, I had reasonable hopes it would arrive at some kind of graceful conclusion. This episode was the opposite of that, and a vindication of any doubts fostered by tricks like the blood-red eyes. This episode was the narrative version of those blood-red eyes, a sophomoric piece of shock-value thriller histrionics that did as much damage to its show's emotional and thematic integrity as any episode possibly could. From the actual dialogue to the visual framing and underlying narrative implications, this episode was a staggering disappointment.

Overall: D-

ERASED is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.