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Erased (Boku dake ga Inai Machi) animeTV|OT| If I could turn back time, If I could..

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Cornbread78

Member
Woaaaaah. That first episode was goood. Can't wait to watch ep2.


As good if not better than the first episode.


Erased-2

Really strong episode overall. I'm not going to speculate much because I feel it's somewhat worthless when there is a source so I'l just talk about the visuals. The storyboarder used a lot of visual barriers to separate characters in the frame as seen above.The show repeatedly used the pipe in the classroom to show Satoru's separation and isolation from his classmates. The episode director and storyboarder, Toshimasa Ishii, also did this with the tree at the end. Oh and both the OP and ED were clearly crafted with a lot of love.

Love your breakdowns.. such great insight.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Erased-2
fIAtei6.jpg
FVG18R5.jpg
Really strong episode overall. I'm not going to speculate much because I feel it's somewhat worthless when there is a source so I'l just talk about the visuals. The storyboarder used a lot of visual barriers to separate characters in the frame as seen above.The show repeatedly used the pipe in the classroom to show Satoru's separation and isolation from his classmates. The episode director and storyboarder, Toshimasa Ishii, also did this with the tree at the end.
As Satoru and Kayo become closer, Satoru crosses the boundary which is the tree, and is depicted right next to her. That sharing of space, with both closer to the light source, shows a level of emotional intimacy even besides the hand touching sequence. Expanding on the element of lighting, the episode director tries to capture feelings such as solitude the placement of light sources.
Shadows are being used to highlight not only Satoru's emotional distance again but also Satoru delving further into the darkness surrounding the case. It's also used in the below frame to reflect Satoru's mental state and overall joy when he sees his mother again. Unlike other shows like Dimension W that just forcibly color the frame to highlight an emotion, Erased just used the natural darkness of it being night to pull off a similar effect.
In addition to basic elements like the lighting and placement of characters, there's other cool directorial cues at work such as the aspect ratio and transitions. Starting with the latter, there's a fun transition involving the matching of motion to jump from one scene to another. There's also a jump cut to indicate the passage of time near the end. While not as slick or as heavy as Rie Matsumoto's work, it's more playful than I was expecting and adds to the atmospheric component in regards to messing with time. The show seemingly likes to mess with the audience's perceptions of events in that we'll get flashbacks from different timelines and skips forward. Time travel is eluded to being this mess of events in Satoru's head as seen in the shot below in the OP and the direction so far has served to match that.
The show also uses the aspect ratio for depictions such as for Satoru's now current state or a different aspect ratio when Satoru is talking Kayo's essay which is a depiction of her mentality. Speaking of Kayo's essay, the episode uitilized color effectively by having Kayo's island be full of warm colors then it quickly switches to her perspective of the town being colorless (not to mention in snow), thus reflecting how she views her surroundings as cold and dark.
That scene also had a shot of Kayo's footprints being washed away on the beach as a symbol of not wanting people to find her. This was referred to a bit earlier in the episode with Satoru mentioning how he wanted to go to the hideout but the friends mention that they can't go because footprints are left behind in the snow. So the island is her mental hideaway away from her current daily struggles.
Kaijura's work is heavily reminiscent of Fate/Zero and helps capture that theatrical feeling. Unlike SAO where she came off as mismatched for the source material, here is a perfect conduit for her style. You can definitely hear similarities to Tragedy and Fate from F/Z. While she won't be proving people wrong with this show that her works are too similar to each other, it fits extremely well.
nsKNvhq.jpg

Again good use of physical space inside the frame.
So far, so good. I am somewhat worried about the accelerated pacing the show will have to take but two episodes in, it hasn't been a problem. Oh and both the OP and ED were clearly crafted with a lot of love.
 
Read up to where the anime is in the manga. Some stuff has been removed in the anime, but it's super faithful otherwise outside of one key detail that's kind of important. I feel like it would be kind of weird to reveal said detail now, so they might have removed it altogether.

Anyway, there's some stuff the manga does better and some stuff the anime does better, but they're both pretty great.
 

Yaari

Member
I stumbled upon this topic by accident, probably wouldn't have tried this one otherwise. But I love where it is going! I
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
Will the show be mostly dark and serious for the rest of it's run? I like mysteries and thrillers, but I doubt I'll enjoy the rest of the show if it's just about Satoru being sad and watching kids nearly get murdered. I dislike depressing and emotional shows, they're no fun to me.
 
Will the show be mostly dark and serious for the rest of it's run? I like mysteries and thrillers, but I doubt I'll enjoy the rest of the show if it's just about Satoru being sad and watching kids nearly get murdered. I dislike depressing and emotional shows, they're no fun to me.

I suppose it will be. It would be jarring if it turns out to comedy hijinks or something. Right now it has a very specific tone I hope it maintains.

If you dislike "emotional" shows maybe it's not for you.
 
Episode 2

These teachers have to be prettty dense if they didn't notice already that there's something weird going on with the girl. Did nobody even read the story she wrote? It's pretty sketchy to say the least.

Really liked this episode, the boy with the turtleneck is probably my favourite character at this point, he seems like a real bro. Wonder what he'll do down the line.
 

duckroll

Member
I think you're confusing apathy with denseness. This is a pretty real social problem, and not even just in Japan! I think it's something which really only got more attention in the last decade or so, with many countries trying to revamp education processes to be less about academics and more about overall character building and training teachers to be more aware of students slipping through the cracks.
 
I think you're confusing apathy with denseness. This is a pretty real social problem, and not even just in Japan! I think it's something which really only got more attention in the last decade or so, with many countries trying to revamp education processes to be less about academics and more about overall character building and training teachers to be more aware of students slipping through the cracks.

Oh, well. I guess that might have been an oversight of me. I'm a lot younger and from a different culture than the writer after all so it just could've been something that's normal for the writer but unusual for me.

Still, I wouldn't mind seeing this specificaly mentioned in the show though. After all, it probably can't hurt for the MC to at least approach a teacher and tell him/her about the girls' situation.

The school played some safety messages about speeding cars after school so there has to be at least one teacher who cares!
 

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
I suppose it will be. It would be jarring if it turns out to comedy hijinks or something. Right now it has a very specific tone I hope it maintains.

If you dislike "emotional" shows maybe it's not for you.
I'll probably drop it then, these type of shows always disappoint me.
 
Episode 2

These teachers have to be prettty dense if they didn't notice already that there's something weird going on with the girl. Did nobody even read the story she wrote? It's pretty sketchy to say the least.

Really liked this episode, the boy with the turtleneck is probably my favourite character at this point, he seems like a real bro. Wonder what he'll do down the line.

Apparently Japanese Social Services in real life are pretty lousy when it comes to dealing with child abuse.

That dude getting falsely imprisoned, and her not receiving any help despite clearly being abused, are probably some of the most realistic things of this anime.
 
Prediction time:

The girl is a bit of a red herring. Helping her is great an all, but I think he has to really help Yuuki. The police had to have some reason to even suspect him.
 
Actually I just realized. There's a very slim suspect list.

We know from the first episode some key things:

1. The mother and killer recognized each other

2. The killer is connected to 1988.

If the mother is the only one to know the killer, we'll need a mother-focused episode to see any possible suspects.

If both Satoru and the mother know the killer, then we simply need to watch for people that both Satoru and the mother interact with. I think that Satoru did know the killer, based on the monologue the mother had in episode 1 when she was talking about how she needed to tell Satoru the truth.

We can also probably eliminate all the children as suspects. However, one of their parents might be the murderer potentially.
 

RangerBAD

Member
Actually I just realized. There's a very slim suspect list.

We know from the first episode some key things:

1. The mother and killer recognized each other

2. The killer is connected to 1988.

If the mother is the only one to know the killer, we'll need a mother-focused episode to see any possible suspects.

If both Satoru and the mother know the killer, then we simply need to watch for people that both Satoru and the mother interact with. I think that Satoru did know the killer, based on the monologue the mother had in episode 1 when she was talking about how she needed to tell Satoru the truth.

We can also probably eliminate all the children as suspects. However, one of their parents might be the murderer potentially.

At the moment I have someone in mind and that's
the teacher
.
 

RangerBAD

Member
See, I think
The Teacher
would be too cliche. Its the one everyone would naturally jump to, so to maintain the surprise it would likely be someone else.

Well, a new character could appear, but right now
he
looks suspicious and there's nothing preventing them from doing something cliche. It's someone Satoru's mother would recognize, but maybe not at first sight. Someone with access to the children too. Motivations might be more important than who it is. I almost felt they hinted at someone else having that playback ability when Satoru thought that's what Hinazuki was going to say.
 

wamberz1

Member
Kaijura's work is heavily reminiscent of Fate/Zero and helps capture that theatrical feeling. Unlike SAO where she came off as mismatched for the source material, here is a perfect conduit for her style. You can definitely hear similarities to Tragedy and Fate from F/Z. While she won't be proving people wrong with this show that her works are too similar to each other, it fits extremely well.
Totally agree. This kind of show suits her really well.
 
At the moment I have someone in mind and that's
the teacher
.

I actually thought that, because is it me or did they
focus on him a it oddly in his introduction shot? Like there was an eerie aura kind of.

At the very least that is more than a simple background character.
 
It's really not like Detective Conan at all except in the most superficial way possible.

Ok let me explain to you.

When I was young I saw the trailer for DC. A teenager becomes a kid and has to solve who attempted to murder him.

It is a similar premise here.

I wanted DC to be a serious show. Not a weekly whodunnit. Yes, I'm aware DC didnt end up as that. Thanks.
 
Honestly if the Script wasn't handled by Taku Kishimoto I'd be really worried. I mean the guy has done some really great work with other series. So Erased is in good hands.

Now that doesn't mean the show can't go south because we're still on episode 2 and things can change. So hopefully that won't be the case.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
So if the manga is still on going... can they actually solve the mystery in the anime?

I assume the live action movie will just make up an ending.
 
So if the manga is still on going... can they actually solve the mystery in the anime?

I assume the live action movie will just make up an ending.

As has been stated previously, the anime is adapting the entire manga, as stated by the anime's director on the official Twitter account of the anime. The manga is scheduled to end around the same time as the anime.
 

near

Gold Member
Episode 2

This anime seems to be doing everything right. I like the way this episode was composed and put together, the overall directing is impressive. The animation looks lovely, and the use of colours to reflect the setting and emotion being expressed is top notch. I didn't think much of the sound direction during the first episode but it has grown on me. I initially thought most of the mystery hooks the story would offer would be through revival/time reversal cues, but I appreciate how the scope of the story allows the atmosphere of the entire episode to just scream 'mystery', so they're definitely using the theme in the right way.

I love how Satoru's decisions are often reflective of Satoru from the future and how he tries to maintain the normalities of Satoru from the past. This compliments the way the story unfolds it's mysteries and Satoru learns more about what happened and in ways discovers more about himself. Which is why I also appreciate he's mental state narration as he begins to piece things together.

I would soooo buy the manga series if it was published here. :(
 

KiN0

Member
Great second episode! The visual direction is really good and the sound direction is just as good. The ost isn't the best Kajiura's done (I mean she really could have done more to change her usual sound up a bit), but it fits the atmosphere of the show and punctuates the emotional moments really well.

OP and ED were great as well with special mention going to ed for echoing the OST's main leitmotif. Props to Kajiura for that.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Because the debate rages on in regards to the ending:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/dai...me-to-portray-ending-of-original-manga/.97329

Director Tomohiko Ito posted on the official Twitter account of the ERASED (Boku dake ga Inai Machi) anime on Thursday that the show will portray the original manga's ending, although the manga has not yet ended. The anime is listed with 12 episodes, and is slated to end on March 24. The May issue of Kadokawa's Young Ace magazine (where the manga is serialized) is slated for March 4.


Added to the OP as well.
 
Man. I re-read this series because of the anime. So good but it also made me realize how much has been cut. Not saying anything like the manga is better than the anime or anything but I highly recommend reading the manga as well if you like the anime because there are quite a few things that have been cut--so you can get an extended experience.
 
This being my first time signing up to Daisuki - is there a quality difference between it and Crunchyroll?

I'm sure it's not significant if it exists, but I'm merely curious.
 
This being my first time signing up to Daisuki - is there a quality difference between it and Crunchyroll?

I'm sure it's not significant if it exists, but I'm merely curious.

Would be interested to know too, whatever Crunchyroll uses for compression has tons of bad artifacting on this show specifically. Never noticed it much in other shows, but the low-light scenes in this show (like when he sees the girl in the park during night) have it bad.
 
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