Erased is a stunning story from writer and illustrator, Kei Sanbe, and involves drama, tension, murder and that ever popular theme, time travel. The Blu Ray used in this review is Volume 1 which contains the first 6 episode, the next volume is coming next month from Madman.
Erased tells the story of Satoru Fujinuma, a young male who has the ability to travel back in time through a process he calls, “Revival”. Revival seems to be triggered by a life changing event that’s about to occur around him. He see the events of the time shift and as he realised he’s watching future events, he’s thrown back to the past to prevent it from happening.
Satoru is a part time pizza deliver driver for Oasi Pizza where he is also friends with a female high schooler, Airi Katagiri, who becomes caught up in Satoru’s life after she becomes aware of his gift. Satoru makes ends meet by also being a manga artist. His life is altered forever after his mother is tragically murdered due to witnessing a kidnapping in progress. This event triggers Satoru’s Revival and transports him back in time to when he was a young boy of only 10 years of age. Some how during this time, he needs to set in place a series of events which will cause a ripple through time to hopefully alter the events of his future timeline.
Needless to say this sets the scene for a cracking pace in the anime, a pave which rarely lets down and see each episode finish on a cliffhanger every single time. People you come to like in the series will ultimately end up being completely different people and it becomes a case of Trust No One. The episode that this volume finishes on is a particular stressful and tense episode and will have you screaming, “Nooo!!” at your TV, hungry for the next instalment. It features stunning animation, an amazing soundtrack with great, likeable characters.
If you haven’t seen it, then you’re doing yourself a MASSIVE disservice and it’s a story that is so rich, so well told and crafted with all the necessary elements to support it and make it become an addition to your collection.
*Thanks to Madman for the review copy*
Final score: 10/10
