The 2016 winter season of anime is wrapping up. One anime that stood out this season was Eraser. Eraser was adapted from the manga Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, which was written by Kei Sanbe. The story focuses on Satoru, a manga artist who possesses a gift that allows him to go back in time to prevent fatal accidents. One day his mom is murdered and the police think he murdered her. His time traveling gift sends him back to when he was in 5th grade a few days before a serial killer starts to kill his classmates. It is up to Satoru to attempt to identify this serial killer and prevent any further murders. The anime is a unique anime based on its plot and how it combines the past and the present to create a mystery thriller.
Eraser is an interesting anime as it uses time as a major focus point, but not only in a time traveling way. Rather it uses time in an information setting. The character Satoru is sent back to when he was in 5th grade, yet he retains all of the knowledge and skills he has amassed before he was sent back. Thus he has knowledge of who the three students are that will be murdered, along with the locations of where they will be murdered. Furthermore, he also understands which order that the three students will be targeted. Now he has all this information due to living through the event and having read police reports and articles that have depicted a timeline of events. The second piece of information that Satoru has is that he has live through the events of this serial killing already and has information from just being a student at the school. As a result of these two sets of information Satoru attempts to put into motion a means to prevent and stop the three students from being victims to an unknown kidnapper/ murder. Satoru through various techniques chooses to incorporate the three victims into his circle to rob the murder of his opportunity to commit the crime, thus effectively preventing him from committing the crime. Yet, despite preventing the crimes from happening he has failed to identify the murderer.
The anime applies the same technique of information; traveling across time, to determine the identity of the kidnapper/murder. Before Satoru was sent back the real murder was never found and the case was never truly solved. Now in the present time Satoru and a few others created a list of possible suspects, but the likelihood of one of those being the murder is slim to none. Since the murderer was never found, when Satoru was sent back to the past, he had no idea who the murderer is or how close they are to him. This makes the anime balanced as it creates a disadvantage for Satoru. In creating this situation the anime forces both the murderer and Satoru to change and modify their plans in accordance with each other. This provides a challenge for both parties if they want to maintain the past or change it. The idea that the anime creates resistance to the past shows what Satoru is doing is a difficult and complicated process as once you change the past the future changes. This is evident in the last episode of the show.
Eraser is a unique anime that is an interesting take on a mystery thriller. In particular it introduces a time traveling element of information that is used to help solve the mystery, which ultimately leads to the future to be changed. This anime is a different kind of mystery thriller, but it packs excitement, thrills, and chills and leaves you satisfied as a fan.
I recommend the original. The original is very good