Forum - View topicREVIEW: ERASED Blu-Ray 1
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Overall, I liked this show. There were a couple of weak moments. I thought the story of spoiler[Airi's Dad with the chocolate bar] was pretty lame(though having studied Japanese culture, it is, unfortunately, believable..), and the actual ending, as in spoiler[the power of friendship overcoming all else and the whole trampoline thing] needed some revision to make it not feel so shonen-esque to me, but the reveal was totally fine, and actually somewhat of a high point for me. Considering we were dealing with a child main character at the time, the over-the-top theatrics of it fit perfectly. Visually, the direction was also really strong, and Kayo's arc was one of the strongest single arcs I've seen in anime in a long time. Them standing under the tree at the end of episode 3 definitely sent some tears down my face. Like Blood-, I also never really thought of this as a who's the bad-guy sort of mystery. It was always about Satoru's own personal development and how he was going to save those around him. All in all, I am happy to own it. If for no other reason than to show AoA that there is a demand for releases like this here. It may be expensive, but it is not a crappy AoA release like I've gotten used to. It has substantial extras and the heavy chipboard box is really fantastic. It feels like whoever designed it legitimately cared for the show. And that makes a world of difference.
I doubt there was all that much to fix, other than some of the stuff in episode 5, so I wouldn't expect there to be a significant difference. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4788 |
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I loved the show most of the way through, and while I thought the last few episodes were a bit rushed, it still left me satisfied. Ordinarily it's the sort of thing I'd buy in an instant...but $90 for six episodes of an animated series? Just get bent Aniplex.
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Razor/Edge
Posts: 607 |
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Yeah, Aniplex is actually jacking up the price of their sets by $10 now. I guess they are pushing it to see how much more they can charge and get away with it. |
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Punch Drunk Marc
Posts: 1750 |
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Like most on this post I saw the problems with Erased, but all in all I thought it was a fairly competent show that had some good moments in it. When it was good it was REALLY good. I think the manga had a better conclusion to it spoiler[What with Satoru having to stop the killer one last time with the help of his friends and family. Also part of me is still upset that there wasn't a way for Satoru and Kayo to get together in some fashion, but that's more of a personal nitpick than anything against the show] but I still liked the show. Not enough to pay Aniplex prices for it but still.
Funi was streaming it as well during their partnership thing with Aniplex so if they (or really anyone else save Ponycan for that matter) had gotten the home licensing rights, I most likely would have picked it up and added it to my collection. |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4926 |
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Like some others here, I had no problems about the obviousness of the killer's identity. I binge watched it and just let the show take me on its ride without thinking too much. It was really the suspense that drove this show for me.
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melmouth
Posts: 167 |
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Sometimes I think reviewers of shows like this have no hearts. To me, the mystery of who the murderer is was definitely of secondary importance. What made me love this anime, and the manga it comes from, is the cascade of painful FEELINGS that the character has.
They are feelings that we would all have if we were in his place (I hope!). The death of the mother, the poor abused girl standing alone in the park, the later fact of her death—all these would whipsaw the main character actually living such a series of events through a range of feelings that is terrible to imagine. I actually cried when I realized the little girl was doomed. Possibly this difference in reaction has something to do with the fact that I'm old and most of you are young. I think that the feelings of pity and terror occasioned by death and human evil may lie closer to the surface in old folks than in young ones. In any case, to me, Erased was one of the best manga/anime I've ever seen. |
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Top Gun
Posts: 4788 |
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I do think that ERASED deserves a ton of credit for its startlingly frank portrayal of child abuse, a topic that's rarely handled like this in fiction in general, much less in anime. I'll agree that by the halfway point I cared far less about the identity of the murderer than about Satoru being able to pull Kayo out of that terrible situation and give her a chance at an actual childhood. Along those same lines Satoru's mom definitely has to be in the running for anime mother of the century for how awesomely she handles the situation.
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Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 361 Location: Maryland |
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I thoroughly loved this show, so much that I bought the incredibly overpriced blurays for it. While I love that there is plenty of extra stuff that comes with this set, I don't like the box itself. The box is white as snow and the lettering on it is super thin. I had to stare at it awhile to see the box art clearly. I'm still happy with my purchase but I wish funimation, sentai or NIS would have acquired this title instead.
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I would have liked more color on the set. The digipacks, or discs, in particular, having some more notable images would have been great, but your description was amusing, as it kind of proves the point of why the box set is how it is. It's faded and hard to see because it is supposed to represent being "erased", and is totally inline with the themes of the series. 
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Hikaru Suzuhara
 Posts: 88 |
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It was never meant to be a mystery to the viewer as to who the serial killer was. You have to understand there's a difference between the viewer perspective and a character within this fictional universe's perspective.
We are given a glimpse of the killer in the modern day cluing us in that it's a male in his 40s. When the MC travels back in time, we know the killer then would have been around his mid 20s or so. Now here's where perspective plays a large part. A masked character's identity, when written well at least, will always be one who features somewhat prominently within the story. It will never be background character number 13 that had one or no lines of dialogue. To the viewer, thanks to simple process of elimination, by ignoring the many insignificant background characters, there was only one possibility. In universe however, to Satoru, pretty much every adult male around the aforementioned age range from the faculty of the school, to pretty much anyone else is town could have been the killer. Were Erased meant to be a who's the killer/who done it mystery there would have been multiple prominent mid 20s male characters for the viewer and characters to sift through. |
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Ajc228
Posts: 265 |
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I have to disagree. One of the central hooks of the show was Satoru revealing the identity of the killer to change the future. On top of that, the show frames the reveal of the killer in a manner that is meant to be shocking. The killers overwrought monologue was clearly trying to surprise the audience. It shit the bed at the end. It's still a decent show but the end diminished my impression of it overall. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24133 |
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I disagree that one of the central hooks was Satoru "revealing the identity fo the killer." His efforts to change the future actually had very little to do with investigating who the killer was. Instead, they centred around making sure he was with Kayo as much as possible and changing her routine on the day she was killed. His initial assumption was that if she survived the day she was originally killed, she'd be "safe." This turned out to be wrong but even after that he spent virtually no time trying to determine the identity of the killer. I remember on the one hand being a little frustrated by this and on the other hand admiring the reality of it. These were ordinary schoolkids. Of course they're not going to be awesome Sherlock Holmes-es. (I often felt that the show suggested that, despite Satoru having his 29-year-old memories in the past, he was nonetheless somewhat limited cognitively in that state.)
Hey, if trying to figure out who the killer was happened to be your central interest, that's cool. But I feel the show gave plenty of cues that that was not where it really lived. I guess some people take the view that the writing made a hash of trying to misdirect people, I contend the writing never was interested in making this a "oh my gosh, whodunnit???" No way to prove it either way, I suppose. |
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Stampeed Valkyrie
 Posts: 856 Location: PA |
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This show would have been my goto pick for "2016" then Re:Zero came around and that was that.
Again many thanks to AoA for guaranteeing I will never personally own this series.. which is a shame. |
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Jayhosh
 Posts: 972 Location: Millmont, Pennsylvania |
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In the end this show wasn't a complete waste of time, I enjoyed it, but it really dropped the ball considering the potential it displayed in it's excellent first four or five episodes. I don't agree with the people who say that it wasn't supposed to be a mystery of who the killer was. Frankly, I find that defense to be dumb as hell and contrived for the sole purpose of making it out to be more intellectual and have more foresight than it actually ever did. I might have bought that excuse if the show didn't constantly beat you over the head with heavy handed imagery and dialogue that made it obvious that they really wanted you to be shocked by this spoiler[red-eyed sociopathic teacher] being the killer. So it doesn't even work as dramatic irony. Instead it just makes Satoru out to be a completely dense and oblivious moron. That being said, I did love the relationship between him and Kayo. I thought it was well developed and the passion Satoru had to save her and his other friends felt very real. I also appreciated the fact that they spoiler[didn't end up together] like a lesser show would have probably had happen. Pretty much all of the childhood scenes before Kayo was out of the picture I thought were great. And while some directing choices in particular made me physically cringe, overall I'd say the show's visuals and design were impressive. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it makes a lot of sense when you remember that this is directed by the same guy who did Sword Art Online, which I also thought had a good start but went downhill at around its halfway point (albeit the decline in quality was much more drastic).
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24133 |
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First, I don't think any of us who are saying we don't think the "mystery" surrounding the identity of the killer was of NO importance. Of course, especially in the early going, it was fun to speculate who it might be. Our point is that we don't think the show ever meant for this to be the CENTRAL concern. The problem with insisting that the writers (including, obviously the mangaka whose work was adapted) fully intended to make this a traditional "whodunnit" but came up short is that you have to posit that they didn't have the intelligence, creativity or even basic knowledge of how a traditional whodunnit works to properly establish and develop a number of credible red herrings. Hey, maybe that's true. Maybe afterwards they all stood around slapping their foreheads saying, "Mon dieu! We were making a traditional whodunnit and we TOTALLY forgot to make sure there were enough credible red herrings!" Yeah, that's possible but frankly I think that notion is... what's the phrase I'm searching for? ... oh yeah, "dumb as hell." |
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