Boku dake ga Inai Machi

When tragedy is about to strike, Satoru Fujinuma finds himself sent back several minutes before the accident occurs. The detached, 29-year-old manga artist has taken advantage of this powerful yet mysterious phenomenon, which he calls "Revival," to save many lives.

However, when he is wrongfully accused of murdering someone close to him, Satoru is sent back to the past once again, but this time to 1988, 18 years in the past. Soon, he realizes that the murder may be connected to the abduction and killing of one of his classmates, the solitary and mysterious Kayo Hinazuki, that took place when he was a child. This is his chance to make things right.

Boku dake ga Inai Machi follows Satoru in his mission to uncover what truly transpired 18 years ago and prevent the death of his classmate while protecting those he cares about in the present.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fujinuma, Satoru Main

Mitsushima, Shinnosuke Japanese

Hinazuki, Kayo Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Fujinuma, Sachiko Supporting

Takayama, Minami Japanese

Kobayashi, Kenya Supporting

Taichi, You Japanese

Katagiri, Airi Supporting

Akasaki, Chinatsu Japanese

Yashiro, Gaku Supporting

Miyamoto, Mitsuru Japanese

Sugita, Hiromi Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Shiratori, Jun Supporting

Mizushima, Daichuu Japanese

Hinazuki, Akemi Supporting

Okamura, Akemi Japanese

Osamu Supporting

Nanase, Ayaka Japanese

Suzuki, Kenta Producer

Itou, Tomohiko Director

Iwanami, Yoshikazu Sound Director

Ishii, Toshimasa Episode Director, Storyboard, Assistant Director

Reviews

Jan 28, 2025

RemanTheArchean

Recommended

I'm getting extremely strong Steins;Gate vibes from this, which given the release date of the Erased manga, it was almost certainly a main inspiration here. I enjoyed S;G, so this was welcome for me. I think this series actually has a stronger opening than S;G since it paces itself better, although the rest of its execution and especially its ending were less impressive, but I wouldn't call them "bad" per se.

The premise is that the protagonist is stuck in a timeloop that swaps between his current 29-year-old self, and his 10-year-old past where he had a chance to save a girl who was kidnapped. ... He makes a few changes to the past and it changes the present, but he doesn't successfully prevent the murder so he has to go back and keep trying. It's a compelling loop to push the story forward, although the limitations on his time travel power aren't explained. He just time-jumps back at seemingly random points, until eventually he says "this is it" as he arbitrarily intuits that he won't be able to time-jump any more. It's clear the writer did this to add tension, but it's hamhanded almost to the point of breaking the fourth wall. There's also the issue with him randomly being accused of a murder he obviously didn't commit, which was probably added to add more tension, but which strained my credulity.

When the protagonist first jumped back into his 10-year-old body, I immediately became worried that the show would devolve into childish tropes that anime likes to fall back on, but that happily didn't happen. The protagonist still has his 29-year-old mind, many of the other characters are adults, and he has a "smart" friend who acts like an adult as well. This prevents the series from regressing to focusing on nothing but pre-teen angst. That said, the show *does* have a few moments where it focused on the magical, metaphysical power of characters saying "I believe in you!" which caused me to roll my eyes.

The show was brought down somewhat by me correctly guessing the killer/kidnapper in the second episode. I was thereafter on alert for any foreshadowing, and it became very obvious that my guess was correct by the 6th episode. The antagonist's motivations and ending monologue were fairly goofy. It's just pure, irredeemable evil with a side-order of nonsense psychologizing that made him boring. This wasn't a Game of Thrones or Dexter level of quality decline, but it could have been handled better. As a final complaint, the protagonist's mom has weirdly puffy lips that I couldn't stop noticing.

I enjoyed my time with this series despite its shortfalls.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 15, 2025

pwettyotaku

Mixed Feelings

From the start it had me hooked but as we reached the middle of it, the series slowed down, somehow the plot got too tangled and predictable and tbh i did predit the killer from like episode 2/3, some episodes were a treat to watch but it did leave a lot of loose ends to knot it up further.
A short watch and i did love the main character so much but at the end i was like, satoru does have a saviour complex like thing.
It'd have been a great time travel series if the plot had been played out well, there was no depth to ... the other supportive characters too, they could have explored their role more instead of just give it a loose ending.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 29, 2025

Yukane

Not Recommended

The show is bad in general (spoiler-free)

Characters:

As the MC is the main focus of the show as this is a time travel we follow him each time it happen, we should relate and root for him but the way he acts like a kid no matter the body he’s in the entirety of the show is way too frustrating, his actions and personality fail to develop in a meaningful and coherent way, making it difficult to connect with or root for him

Most side characters feels like an AI talking to another AI lmao, the kind of conversation where they say things “emotional” but just from ... the words not real feelings, the sides characters says things according to the story to make it move forward like make a character understanding the MC out of the blue just because

“Hey, MC i understand you but i don’t know how, it’s because i need to say that for the story hihi lmao ^^, we are all happy and sad hihi”

At the end it makes the character writing bad as they appear to be just pieces of a chess game with forced emotions that feels so fake (not every interactions are unnatural, some are easy going and refreshing which i appreciated)

Story:

This is meant to be a mystery show but nothing in the story makes sense, it’s way too exagerrated and lot of scenes are are just there to fill out the episodes, the decisions the characters makes are not even realistic and seemingly made only to somewhat justify the story

Enjoyment:

While i was watching it felt really boring, the main villain is predictable, the way the characters live their lives are way too forced and unauthentic, i didn’t really care about how the story was about to unfold, don’t get me wrong i don’t mind little bit of incongruency if the author want to deliver something out of the story, the thing is that here everything is dumb

If i have to talk about the positives, some interactions with the characters were good, it was the ones that felt human and heartwarming unforced and natural and made me more mindful about what’s happening which for me were the highlights of the show

To finish this show is meant for teenagers or children, i could visualize myself liking it if i was a teenager or a child with a straight perspective to see things without a second thought as if my mother was feeding me with a spoon and i mindlessly eat “Mom it’s delicious because i’m hungry hihi”

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Boku dake ga Inai Machi Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 24, 2016	1,424 replies	by Lushkha3s »» Feb 2, 5:16 AM
	Poll: Boku dake ga Inai Machi Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 17, 2016	1,117 replies	by Bororus_Rooroo »» Jan 27, 1:29 PM
	Poll: Boku dake ga Inai Machi Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 3, 2016	507 replies	by Bororus_Rooroo »» Jan 26, 9:28 PM
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