The butterfly effect, any and every action, no matter the size, has a ripple effect larger than you can imagine. Every good and bad thing we do, has a ripple effect. It impacts us, those around us, and the world at large. But most importantly, it determines the trajectory of events to follow. Even the smallest alterations to our pasts can have a huge impact on our future. Enter Satoru, a failed mangaka tasked with going back in time to prevent the murder of his mom, three young kids, and the incarceration of a victim who was framed for murder. Just how well does Erased utilize the idea of the butterfly effect and time travel to effectively tell a good story?
This might come as a surprise, but I put off this anime for who knows how long. It wasn’t due to the infamy of the ending. But rather, this was a show I had no idea existed, yet my mother of all people insisted on watching it with me. I always have a gargantuan backlog of anime and manga to read and watch. Coupled with my usual busy schedule, and this being a NETFLIX anime, I had no immediate impetus to watch this series. Man, I can be so stuck up and I wish I wasn’t because this show is an emotional roller coaster, and forceful tear jerker.
From the bonds Satoru forms with every character, to him triumphantly squabbling the killer’s plans. I am certain that the joy and sorrow I felt throughout my viewing matched Satoru’s one to one. Through Satoru’s inner-dialogue, you get a pristine look into how he views the world and everyone around him. Because to us the viewer, sure, it’s pretty obvious who the killer is. But despite this, through the use of music, colors, lighting, and Satoru’s (despite retaining his 29 year old mind when traveling back in time) innocent outlook towards those around him, I still felt my heart plummet into my stomach as I saw reality sink in for Satoru. In short, the writing is superb and even the characters whose appearances are rather brief and lackluster still feel layered thanks to Satoru’s interactions with them.
But what about the visual component of the series? With it being a Netflix production, it must have had the budget for impressive visuals right? I’m glad to announce the the visuals are stunning, when they choose to be. Yes, the character movements are fluid and their designs are pleasant to look at. With the faces having this ovalish shape to them, and the eyes taking up most of the space on their face, with the lighting of their environment bouncing off their skin and clothes, this was pure eye candy. But the beautiful spectacle doesn’t end there, each time Satoru experiences a revival (when he’s transported back to the past and must prevent a mishap) there’s usually a blue butterfly going across the screen with us being shown the events through a grainy filter and the edges of film tape taking up the top and bottom portions of screen initially rang me as a cheap effect. But I started singing a different tune after a while, maybe it was the attention to detail I noticed in these sequences, but I started to enjoy the visual aspect of Satoru’s revivals after a while. The last bit I want to bring up as far as the visuals are concerned are the environments and backgrounds.
The movie was able to give me the vibe of each location on visuals alone. And no, I don’t mean something basic like making a hot room red. I mean that, for example, when Satoru visits his mom after time traveling for the first time and eats dinner with her, I felt the warmness pouring from their meal onto myself. And Satoru seeing Kayo’s beaten body laying down in the shed, has a much more cold and shivering feeling to me than Satoru being in the snow, even if it’s late at night, with his friends. And the moment Satoru reveals to the killer that he couldn’t kill Satoru even if he tried because he loved him, felt euphoric and gratifying. This is thanks to all the glowing in this scene around Satoru as he’s about to become a Martyr for all the non-victims, by intentionally falling off a hospital morning in the bright day light (though it was raining in the same scene not too long before that).
I know not too long ago I was praising how well the characters and their interactions with each other were written, but there is only one (well technically two) aspects where this falls short. The first is Airi, she’s such a good girl. She’s incredible actually, because despite not getting a whole lot of screen time she’s one of two people in the original timeline who believe Satoru is innocent for his mom’s murder. My issue with her isn’t her morals, but rather, for being the person Satoru ends up getting with in the end, she doesn’t get nearly as much development or chance to form a strong bond with Satoru as Kayo does.Spoiler, click to view I’m not one of the many who hated the reveal where Kayo ends up with Satoru’s friend and even has his baby as Satoru wakes up from his 15 year long coma, but I was peeved by the fact by how much development their emotional development got when compared to Airi’s and Satoru’s.
It’s not until Satoru has to save her from her house burning did I get a sense that he cared for her. Up till that point, he always seemed annoyed by her presence. I’m not saying I’m not happy that he didn’t end up with Kayo, cause that’d be a terrible forced ending and I think what we got was impeccable. But I’m not surprised by others being vocal about how the girl WE get emotionally attached to and expect to get with Satoru ends up being sidelined for a girl with not even a quarter of the development that Kayo had with him. Maybe this was an artistic decision, us feeling robbed of Kayo x Satoru made people feel like they lost someone. What we felt might’ve been an intentional small taste of how the people around the victims felt when they were killed. Enough comparing child murders to crushes people had fifteen years ago for like a week, what are my final thoughts about this series and is there anything I might’ve forgotten.
This nitpick can be made for most great anime, but god dammit this needed more episodes. There’s two arcs, one is focused on dealing with Kayo’s abusive homelife and the second is confronting and figuring out who the murderer is. Spoiler, click to viewThe first arc is solved by a deus ex machina. Just as Kayo’s mom is about to flee and report the CPS to the cops, I don’t know what she intended the cops to do with them, Kayo’s mom’s own mother shows up and just starts apologizing for her daughter’s actions. Saying that she forced her daughter to divorce her abusive husband. Leaving Kayo’s mom to raise a daughter all on her own and to start dishing out beatings herself. Kayo’s stable grandma gets custody of Kayo, the end of arc one. Now this is a fine resolution and all, but the grandma comes literally out of nowhere and is on screen for less than five seconds. Maybe it’d feel less like a forced plot convenience if she was introduced earlier in the series, are maybe we had more subtle allusions why Kayo’s mom did what she did.
Spoiler, click to viewThe second arc big reveal is the murder turning out to be their homeroom teacher. There was literally no other option to guess as to who could be the culprit besides him. If they implemented more suspects throughout the series, then this mystery could be a legitimate mystery instead of just an amazing show about a guy sacrificing fifteen years of his life, to make sure three other people get to fully enjoy theirs.
So Erased is an incredible show chalk full of moments that tug at your heart strings, shows beautiful relationships blossoming, and the heartbreaking reality that plagues our world to this day. Both kids being unfairly beaten and people getting framed for crimes they didn’t commit. I wish I had watched this show sooner because it was so fun to watch despite the predictability at times because I enjoyed the dialogue between characters and situations they found themselves in so much. Did Erased use the concept of the butterfly effect to effectively convey the emotionally gut wrenching story it set out to be? Yeah, the mystery might’ve not been covered in a dark shadow like they might’ve hoped, but it excels at everything else it does (all while not having any plot holes in a freakin time travel story) profusely. And that ED, just thinking about it makes me an emotional wreck. Great stuff, beautiful anime.
