(Weekly Review)

 

  Thanks to my being in vacation this whole week, even something I normally do for fun–writing about anime–seems monotonous. However, I started these weekly reviews as a goal of writing on a scheduled weekly basis, and since there is only 3 weeks left in the winter 2016 anime season it would be silly to toss a self imposed rule to the side in place of a blank mind free of the stresses brought on by the many obligations of my everyday life… Oh dang, I almost just talked myself out of writing this.

 

We can only work with what we got, and we’re all prisoners of the moment here so let’s overreact!

**May Contain Spoilers proceed with caution**

 

ERASED

Weekly Review: Episode 10 of ERASED gave us answers to the questions that have been piling up in our minds week after week since the start of the season. Guys, it’s official. We finally have our killer.

To be honest I felt that there was no way it could be the teacher. It just seemed way to obvious, and everything up to this episode has been so fresh and original. Now, going with the teacher, however, didn’t make the story cliche or boring. In fact, the mystery aspect of the anime isn’t what has captivated me at all. No, what has made me crave more and more week after week has been literally every other facet of ERASED.

For instance, the character development of Satoru and Kayo quickly made me fall in love with them and their stories. I would find myself lying up awake at night hoping that Satoru was going to be able to solve the puzzle required to not only save Kayo’s life, but send her down a path where she could find the happiness that is her birthright.

Also, all of the characters have been designed flawlessly, with each having their own distinct faces and styles. They’ve all been written with the perfect personality that work perfectly with each of the other characters. Bringing so many well written and distinct characters is something ERASED has done better than any Anime since Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day

I feel I could go into detail about every little detail of the show; from the animation and writing, even down to the noticeable excellent directorial decisions, but for the sake of keeping this short (and getting back to my vacation) I am going to save all of that for another day.

The tone of the episode, and the direction they went in regards to our killer, reminded me how painful it is to be betrayed by someone you believe in and trust. It’s one of the many problems we deal with in life that carries no correct answer. Being constrained by the laws of humanity as we are, we will never know what is going on in our neighbors mind. And we will never know if someone’s intentions are pure or motivated by selfish desires. I don’t blame Satoru for refusing to believe that his Sensei–whom he’d admired as a father like figure–could possibly be his enemy. After all, to lose faith in such a fragile and impalpable thing such as our trust in one another is a heartbreaking, and a lot of times an unrecoverable, injury. So much so we tend to ignore all of the signs that are sitting in plain sight. Instead betting everything we have on this trust we’ve built off of our own preconceptions of another human beings inner workings.
Even though we do have our killer, the story is not over–no, not quite yet. I can’t wait till next week to see how the rest of the story plays out. But with only two episodes left and that killer cliffhanger you can bet that….