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Boku dake ga Inai machi, or ‘Erased’ in its English title, is the anime adaption of Kei Sanbe’s supernatural/thriller/mystery manga which had dominated the charts throughout its run in the summer season of 2016. At its peak Erased managed to reach as high as the 4th overall placement by score on MAL, while currently sitting just within the ‘Top 50’ range.

The 29 year old protagonist, Satoru Fujinuma, is a failing manga artist currently employed as a pizza delivery guy. Satoru is an unassuming person seemingly without any exceptional qualities, hence his current state of employment. His character design is pretty boring; the standard scraggly ... brown hair, slender physique, etc. this design choice does emphasize how ‘normal’ his life is at a glance, but this image is quickly and intentionally flipped on its head. During a scene of Satoru out on a delivery he witnesses a traffic accident, the frame distorts and a jarring sound blares. When Satoru returns to his senses, he realizes that he has been pulled back a few minutes into the past, where he has time to intervene preventing the accident from happening, Furthurmore, this is a common occurrence for Satoru.

This ability initially has some intrigue to it, as a viewer I really enjoy when time control is well executed in anime. The implications of cause and effect are vast enough that the idea can be explored in an innumerable amount of ways, and this style of vaguely introducing the ability provided them with infinite freedom to flesh out its mechanics; What conditions must be met to trigger a loop?, What’s the extent and frequency to which Satoru can control it?, How did he come to possess this ability in the first place?, Are there consequences to using it? There were a limitless amount of ways they could have spun the idea, but they did literally nothing with it. It’s mind blowing how so much potential was cast aside here. The only time Satoru ever mentions this incredible ability of his, he always says something to the effect of “it’s something that happens sometimes before a disaster”. The ability is turned into a plot device; an unexplained contrivance which completely negates any tension the narrative attempts to establish. Anytime that Satoru messes up anything remotely important, he is returned to a convenient point without any consequences; Erased ends it’s episodes on cliffhangers in an attempt to force tension, but it’s always followed by an anti climactic payoff in the form of either a time reset, or a character appearing out of nowhere to help him out because plot convenience. The reasoning behind Satoru’s desire to intervene in the these future situations during the early episodes is never explained or justified either, they leave it to the viewer to assume he is ‘just a good person’, which isn’t preferable to providing us with set characterization. This way of writing let’s Satoru act whatever way works best for the narrative, because the audience can just ‘assume’ things about how he thinks.

Back to the narrative’s lead up; after discovering that his mother has been murdered, Satoru becomes implicated as a primary suspect in the investigation, because he ran away from the scene. There is no motive, and no evidence, the decision to run away from the police was a stupid one that only served to strengthen the case against him when he was only implicated because of a misunderstanding to begin with. This is understandable considering his state of mind at the time, but even after he calms down his thought process remains unchanged. The dramatic crux of the introductory arc involves Satoru being sent back in time to 1988 when he was eleven years old. Events lead Satoru to the realization that the murderer of his mother might be the same criminal who murdered a young girl when he was in elementary school, killed the same year Satoru is currently reliving. By preventing the death of the child he can indirectly save his mother. This establishes Satoru’s motivations, and leads us into an interesting setting. The only thing I have to question here is why Satoru is so certain that this will work, he doesn’t question that this is the singular deciding factor of future events, even though there are a lot of things he can do over the next 20 years that would protect his mother.

The unique perspective of an adult living in a child’s body is actually pretty well utilized. The biggest problem being the awkward hints of a possible romantic route for the relationship between Hinazuki and Satoru thrown in despite the obvious age difference, there wouldn’t be a way to write this without it being absurdly creepy, so it’s played off as comedic, and scraped pretty quickly. In his adult life Satoru was almost constantly alone, the only relationships in his life are with his mother, and a coworker who had taken a friendly interest in him. Whenever Satoru provides exposition as to what his life was like as a child, he always mentions that he had plenty of ‘friends’ but never formed a meaningful connection with anyone, something he came to regret as he grew up. This set a foundation of development for Satoru, he has an opportunity to improve himself layered below his primary motivation of saving his mother.

Kayo Hinazuki is the single exceptional character aside from Satoru, her character arc spans through the majority of the series early episodes considering she is the child Satoru is sent back in time to protect. Satoru has vague memories of Hinazuki from before her murder, but remarks that she was always quiet and doesn’t know much about her. While attending school, now an observant adult, he notices a bruise on Hinazuki and quickly pieces together her situation at home. His suspicions of child abuse are later reinforced by the contents of an essay written by Hinazuki found later in the episode. She’s presented to have an apathetic front covering her emotional nature, and she cuts herself off socially because she is afraid of getting hurt. Satoru and Hinazuki share some great dialog between them, and the contrast in their home lives create a really interesting character dynamic that leads into the biggest emotional outpouring in the series; Hinazuki’s realization of what a family is supposed to be like, and her experiencing it for the first time in her life. Satoru act’s under the impression that if he pushes Hinazuki’s life in a direction of stability in enough ways, while watching over her as much as he can as a child, he can make her a difficult target for abduction, and eventually end the abuse she receives from her parents.

Outside of Satoru and Hinazuki, everyone else in this series is made of cardboard. The other children are especially poorly written, their characterization over the course of the series doesn’t even extend as far as being set within an archetype for some of them. They are vehicles in Satoru’s development and nothing else, except for a child named Kenya, whose characterization actually makes him worse. His whole character can be described as ‘the smart one who wants to be a detective’, convenient for a mystery anime. Kenya’s only relevance is to provide insightful exposition in uncovering the murderer’s identity. What makes his character ‘worse’ doesn’t lie in how minimalist his characterization was, but in that they made this 11 year old child smarter than every adult, including Satoru, in the entire series. Every character in Erased seems to act only on what Satoru tell’s them to do, they don’t even ask for specific details as to why a lot of the time. There is a point where the children help Satoru to practically kidnap Hinazuki for a three day span, they don’t know that she is being targeted by a future serial killer, he tells them nothing about the situation, but they don’t even bother to ask for a reason.

Unfortunately, Erased completely fails in the handling of its mystery element. The mystery genre is inherently difficult to write within. The author must attempt to introduce important information in a way that feels natural, while stringing these pieces together in a way that is difficult for the readers to follow, but at the same time, isn’t esoteric to the point where the conclusion feels like an ass-pull. In Erased these clues fall into Satoru’s lap without any deductive work on his part, everything Satoru learns about the killer is provided by info dumping through poorly contrived ‘chance’ encounters. I mentioned that the show has frequently used the ‘red eyes’ motif to establish dangerous elements, and to that effect it can also act as a ‘red herring’ to throw the audience off, but this is made transparent immediately when used for a character that was obviously just introduced for that purpose, or a character whose place in the narrative probably won’t lead to him to be recurring again. I’m trying to avoid spoiling key plot elements, but throughout the entire series there is only one reasonably suspicious and recurring character, and they couldn’t have made it more obvious if they tried. This character is given a variety of creepy character traits that could hardly be called subtle, and he is literally framed in the shadows through many scenes; his reveal as the killer isn’t even through deduction of the protagonist, or a mistake on his part, he outright displays himself to Satoru, and proceeds to soliloquy his intentions aloud like you would see from a cartoon villain. This character is as bland as an antagonist can get. His motivations are nonexistent; the vague reasoning they provide for him targeting Hinazuki essentially chalks everything up to insanity because the author couldn’t think of anything meaningful to give his character. Throughout the final episodes his actions completely contradict his spoken intentions, and just make no sense considering his current position; passing up opportunities under justifications that go against everything he said previously, and this happens multiple times.

Erased tries to present a lot of creative ideas that sound interesting when put together, but there are a lot of times that it fails to bridge these ideas together in a coherent way, it often struggles with basic execution, and almost never expands on anything past the initial premise. Two characters are fleshed out and developed by the end, but most are just blank slates or act with flimsy justifications. Hinazuki aside, the characters don’t really make a lasting impression. The time reset is never explained, and it triggers under so many different situations that any reasonable first conjectures were ruled out by the end, It acts whenever it needs to push the narrative forward without cleaver writing. With its unreasonable resolution and laughable antagonist, it utterly fails as a mystery series. I can’t see myself recommending Erased for anything other than some brilliantly directed scenes throughout the show. Despite getting a fair amount of enjoyment from the series, notably in the early episodes, I don’t feel like the end product is anything above average.

(This review was written after viewing both First & Second Stage)
Following our introduction to the setting of Initial D we understand that everything about this world is pivotal to its characters sense of pride and their desire to drive sideways; for everyone except Takumi Fujiwara.

Takumi is largely ignorant towards anything related to cars, and for the most part he has no desire to learn about them; to him they are just a way to help out his fathers business of tofu delivery, as well as a means to get from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’. While his recently licensed friends talk among themselves about the ... basic details of driving, and later drifting, Takumi consistently and subtly responds with remarks that show an advanced understanding, and even boredom, of the concepts they bring up. We know he has been genuine up to this point about his complete disinterest in the technicality’s of drifting, but that’s exactly what makes his understanding of it unusual, even if he cant properly put it to words. Revealed in a way which is shocking to the rest of the cast, Takumi is a highly advanced driver. Despite having only gotten his licence the previous month, his actual driving experience extends throughout the last 5 years of his life, having taken care of the morning and late night tofu delivers since the 7th grade at the request of his father; a genius street racer of the past generation. In an effort to train his son, his father places a glass of water in the cup holder telling Takumi that he can drive as fast as he wants so long as he doesn’t spill the contents of the glass, ostensibly to prevent breaking the tofu in the back of the car, but at the same time forcing him to drive smoothly. This provides the foundation for Takumi’s self taught technique; learning entirely through the feel of the car over years of experience. Takumi is an innately blank and directionless character, but he is reinforced by the idea which represents everything the show is built on; passion, albeit slow burning, Takumi changes from someone who has to be coerced into anything remotely related to street racing, into someone with a genuinely burning desire to be the best at what he does. Of course, Takumi isn’t the only interesting character in Initial D.

Bunta Fujiwara is easily one of the coolest father figures in the entire medium. I mean that not only in the sense that he is an old man who can light a cigarette in the middle of a drift, but also by the way he subtly guides Takumi from childhood into discovering the passion the defined his own youth. Bunta has a complete confidence in his sons abilitys, rarely even bothering to ask the end results, and offers unconditionally support; providing tools for growth, yet he holds out on providing the answers. He makes sure Takumi has to work hard for everything he receives in life, while still standing behind him to give a push in the right direction. This is what I found to be one of the most emotionally satisfying Father/Son relationships in Anime.

To accurately portray Street Racing in writing is something that requires a thorough understanding of many highly complex elements; these range from driving technique and mechanics, to road conditions and there effect on vehicles. It’s because of this complexity that Initial D has a heavily reliance on expository dialog between characters to convey these details to the audience. This system works well here because the protagonist is skilled enough to be competitive, yet ignorant on specific details and technical terminology to the extent that others have to provide a complete explanation as to what is happening. For audience members like myself who went into the anime without any prior knowledge about cars, its a great form of exposition that doesn’t come off as ham-fisted.

The appeal of Initial D isn’t through the presentation of advanced thematic concepts that drown the audience in how deep and intelligent it is, it never attempt’s to explore psychological ideas, or showcase highly complex character interaction, it’s appeal is in its simplicity. All initial D wants to be is a fun and exciting show about fast cars driving downhill sideways, and it executes this brilliantly. There is never anything tangible bet on a race; only the pride and reputation of the individuals involved, but the value of that pride is conveyed well enough that when added to the element of danger involved with street racing it builds an immense feeling of tension that sucks you in. The basic structure of the races themselves can sometimes be repetitive, but many have their own unique gimmicks, pushing Takumi to develop as a driver, as well as keeping things interesting for the audience; these gimmicks range from racing with one hand duck taped to the wheel, to drifting in rainy conditions. I would say there isn’t a single boring race within the first two seasons.

None of this is to say that Initial D is without its themes, they just aren’t so overt that they detract from what the show is trying to achieve. They sparingly appear, most often in tandem with romance; unfortunately for the first season this is its weakest aspect, coming off as needlessly melodramatic at points. In the early episodes of the first season, Itsuki, Takumi’s best friend was given a completely unnecessary and meaningless romance element, this relationship and its resulting failure felt disingenuous and forced, it had no impact in changing Itsuki’s character from a substanceless provider of comic relief; if anything this contributed to it, by introducing his irritating ‘lonely driver’ shtick. Through the romantic endeavors of Iketani, another member of Takumi’s group, we finally get a semblance of an idea as to what the show is trying to tell us, but while improved, the execution still suffers from similar flaws. Initial D finally hits the nail on the head in Second Stage, where drama has an underlying presence throughout its later half. In the final arc of the season Itsuki is actually humanized; placed in a position where I could genuinely feel sympathetic towards him, because unlike before in his previous relationship he is legitimately affected emotionally by the circumstances around him. Through comparison to Iketani’s situation, the theme is finally becomes apparent; Do everything you can to preserve what you care about, giving in to self doubt will only leave you with regrets.

Initial D’s soundtrack is famous for its Eurobeat tracks that serve as themes specific to an individual character or race. For each piece the tone will vaguely mirror the general mood of the race, but all share the common trait of being very kinetic and rapidly paced; perfectly fitting the nature of Initial D. Outside of race themes there is another selection of music, but they use some particular songs way to often; the emotional songs especially were run into the ground.

The animation definitely shows its age, but that late 90’s look coupled with the unique design style has its charms. The switch to CGI for the racing scenes are surprisingly well done compared to what I expected from the Japanese in that time period.

Initial D remains to be the sole example of a well executed street racing manga. Since the release of the first chapter in 1995 it’s maintained the popularity necessary to run for 719 chapters, eventually ending in 2013. It has spawned an anime adaption divided through 5 seasons, a movie (3rd stage), and various extras; looking into other mediums there has been a variety of video game adaptions and a live action film.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is Hideaki Anno’s most renowned work, and is often hailed as a masterfully executed deconstruction of the mecha genre. By common definition a deconstruction aims to take apart a genre and it’s common tropes by portraying them in the most realistic way possible; seeing how they would work, and how they would fail. These works should build on the foundation of inherent flaws they uncover, and in this case, create something brilliantly subversive and unique. With the creation of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Anno took the Mech genre’s cliched ideas surrounding teenage pilots and subverted everyone’s expectations with a realistic approach focused on ... building psychological tension through the exploration of its characters.

Shinji ikari, is about as far away from charismatic as a character can be. As Shinji is first introduced, every definable aspect of his personality is punctuated by the abandonment of his father at a young age. Shinji needs to be useful to the people around him; but a fear of upsetting anyone he gets close to, as well as a complete lack of social skills cause him to isolate himself away from others. Shinji progresses and regresses frequently, it’s never a straight development. There are a series of highs and lows as stable influences enter and leave his life, pushing and pulling his self confidence in either direction. What’s remarkable about Shinji as a character is how perfectly he encapsulates a realistic portrayal of depression. Throughout the mid nineties Japan had been in a tough spot; the country was on the cusp of economic collapse, the population was rife with depression, and recent terror attacks had eviscerated the country’s moral, but because of a character like Shinji Ikari who resonated with such a wide demographic of people; Evangelion was propelled into the mainstream spotlight, and Shinji was serving as the audience surrogate for an entire country. Usually when a character is relatable to a large viewership they become a vehicle for wish fulfillment; it’s hard to deny that escapism sells well in this medium, but that’s the opposite of what Evangelion wants to achieve. While Shinji is constantly looking for ways to avoid his unpleasant reality, and outright runs away multiple times; eventually he has no alternative left other than to deal with his problems. The final episodes of the series actually take place inside of Shinji’s head, serving to exposit ideas as Shinji works through his conflicting thoughts. This part of the narrative is shown through the film ‘End of Evangelion’ which runs concurrently to the final arc of the main series.

Rei Ayanami is portrayed to be an emotionless doll. She has been backed into a corner of social isolation, and while this is only alluded to early on, she feels disconnected from her role as a pilot. Unlike Rei, everyone else in Evangelion has a justifiable reason to protect others; be it for family, friends, or the furthering of an ulterior motive. By comparison Rei is empty, until Shinji’s father puts himself in harm’s way for her sake; this is a prospect completely foreign to someone like her, who has seemingly never experienced compassion before. The first instance where her development becomes visible is literally shown through subverting a common trope in the medium; Shinji unintentionally falls on top of Rei with his hand on her breast, but instead of the usual comedic slap in the face, Rei say’s nothing about it. The slap comes later when she hears Shinji speak negatively towards his father.

Asuka Langley Souryu is introduced eight episodes into Evangelion, these first episodes until now have all felt dour and depressing overall, but Asuka’s arrival alone is enough to completely shift the tone of the series in every aspect. her personality is comparable to a fireball; she is temperamental and vibrant. The fights which had been psychologically scarring from Shinji’s perspective earlier into the series, have now become flooded with energy, for Asuka they are a way to steal the spotlight and show off. This tone shift is not poorly executed though. Despite how frightened Shinji had been initially, recently he has gotten comfortable in his new life; he has a stable parental figure for the first time since early childhood, he has genuine friendships at his school, and he hardly even protests piloting the Evangelion anymore. By taking us to an unfamiliar environment and introducing a character who is so far removed from everything we’ve known about this world till now that she may as well be an alien here, Anno has taken us, and Shinji, far out of our comfort zone. Asuka is Shinji’s complete foil; where Shinji wants to please the people around him, Asuka wants their full admiration. She has placed herself on a pedestal high above everyone else, this is apparent in how she talks to her fellow pilots. Shinji is willing to be ordered around by the people above him, even if it takes some coercion, but with a bossy character like Asuka around who is the same age Shinji finally has an outlet to speak for himself. Asuka should be considered Shinji’s equal, yet she blatantly regards Shinji as her inferior, much to his annoyance. When the two of them are forced to share a living space together we finally see Shinji start to speak out defiantly towards someone else for the first time, and the dialogue between them results in the most fun character dynamic in the series. Even though Asuka’s characterization so far has been kinetic and vibrant, this is only her at a surface level. Asuka’s character is deeply layered, and while unbeknownst initially, she’s just as broken as Shinji. The person she shows others is a mask of superiority and confidence substantiated by her own burning insecurities.

It’s impossible to compress every idea Evangelion presents into a solitary central theme, but with the characters being such an important focus in the series, most ideas relate to the notion that characters are constantly changed by the influence of each other as well as their surrounding. Shinji is always changing because of how other characters interact with him. Misato and Shinji initially struggle to empathize with each other, describing their relationship through a metaphor of human intimacy, “The Hedgehog’s Dilemma”. They each want to develop a bond, but the closer they get the more they hurt each other in the process. Misato is Shinji’s direct superior, it’s her job to force Shinji into these situations of conflict, and he suffers for it. She wants to be a stable figure in his life, being in an almost maternal position, but her work is in direct conflict with her emotions. From Shinji’s perspective he is completely alone, surrounded by people causing him pain, but before running away he realizes that he isn’t the only one hurting. This is how many of Evangelions character dynamics are handled, with an equal mix of positive and negative influence, creating the closest thing to a character study in all of anime. There are also themes of self betterment, backed by continuous commentary against escapism. As a side note; while evangelion is rife with visual motifs and symbolism, none of the Christian elements are symbolic of anything. Despite the frequent appearance of things that reference Christianity none of them hold any symbolic meaning, Hideaki Anno maintains that it’s just an aesthetic detail.

Speaking of aesthetic details; perhaps the most important element of animation as an art form is the creative freedom it provides creators, this is true in the stylistic sense of art and design, but also in directing. Hideaki Anno is a director that knows how to lead the viewer’s eyes through a scene. When the focus is trained on a static character occupying a set portion of the frame, changing to a shot from a new perspective can be jarring if done poorly, but for slow scenes Anno maintains a visual cohesion throughout the each shot by having that characters remain in the same position of the screen. If he wants to snap your attention to where the action will occur in the following shot Anno will sometimes create a quick movement in that area of the frame, this is usually through an object in the background such as a closing door. Rather than the standard Shot/Reverse Shot between multiple characters during scenes of dialogue, Anno likes having both characters in the frame at the same time whenever possible, this can result in some unique perspective shots. Aside from camera work, with so many socially inept characters there are a lot of things that need to be conveyed through character acting; there is a high attention to detail put towards creating character nuance through subtle glances, movements, positioning, and even posture.

Evangelion’s design work is in a tier of its own. Compared to the cubic and bulky designs common of the time, Eva’s mechs are all vibrantly colored, sleekly designed, and uniquely detailed from each other. The same can be said of the character designs, they have become iconic in the anime medium, Rei Ayanami especially; it’s to the extent that it feels like every other character aimed at being doll-like and mysterious is a dead ringer for Rei. Even Nobuhiro Watsuki has said he feels like his design for Tomoe, a character in his classic work Rurouni Kenshin, ended up as an Ayanami lookalike.

The lineup of talent working in Studio Gainax through this time period is arguably the strongest group that the industry has ever had working under one roof, and while working under Hideaki Anno this team had created one of the most natural and emotional works to ever come out of the field of animation.