r/anime • u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky • 22d ago
Rewatch [Taste of 2016 Rewatch] Erased • Boku dake ga Inai Machi Episode 12 Discussion
Episode 12 - Treasure
← Previous Episode (Erased Episode 11) / ← Previous Episode (Yuri on Ice Episode 12) | Index | Overall Taste of 2016 Rewatch Discussion → / Next Episode (91 Days Episode 12) →
Information:
MAL | AniList | ANN | Kitsu | AniDB
Legal Streams:
In a town from which only I'd been erased, my friends lived through their most precious moments for my sake.
Questions of the Day:
1) Are you satisfied with how Yashiro was dealt with after all that?
2) Are there any parts of the "life goes on" epilogue you would have liked to see more of?
Wallpaper of the Day:
8
u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce 22d ago
Erased First Timer
Okay, this ending is the one I most looked forward to! I’m not sure if anything can hit me as hard as seeing an adult Kayo with family, but I’ll give this episode its fair chance and promise to fully concentrate on it!
And hey, I even go in after a rather productive day writing the next essay (about starting to learn to draw and how I look back on it) so I don’t have any bad conscience. Maybe sometime I will have regular uploads...
Erased Ep.12 – Treasure
Well damn, it actually was the touch of Kayo’s baby that triggered his memories. Probably more thematically fitting, but I really booked on Kumi for connecting so much with him.
And man, I love seeing this other side to side-characters even if they have left the story already technically. Misato was a bitch, but like I said in that one episode, it always has a reason of some sort and rarely are people genuinely bad people. Iirc they all never really bonded with her, no? Satoru just stalked her and they had some plans to act, but never really did. So, even more than that she is actually doing this out of her own heart and not loyalty.
I respect that a lot.
I don’t know if I wished for more than „pep talk hype-up“ but somehow I’m really touched by them just talking it out here. After all, it’s really simple to keep this kinship alive with all the other ‚hamsters‘ when you stay honest with them. Communication is all that’s necessary, really. How convenient that talking is one of the easiest things to do, then.
As a side note, ever since Airi had this talk with Satoru I wanted to ship them. I’m glad it also came up again. On the one hand it’s because this bond between friends, family or other close relationships is always egoistical to a degree. And that’s good. It’s part of the reason why I feel like the two of them feel so natural together. She’s honest in a very intimate way and now it’s Satoru who really should do the same. Shame, though that he never met Airi in this timeline…
Speaking of timelines, Yashiro getting caught by that very prideful trait of his fits so well. Not just in the sole individual vs. group metaphor, but he correctly assumes by accident that Satoru has special powers. Not because that makes sense, mind you, like we as audience know. It’s because through his isolation and superiority complex he cannot think of any other reason than someone else also being so very special to specifically stop him and him alone. He can’t wrap his head around the fact that normal people could also foil his plans simply by being communal.
The funny thing is that he’s technically even right, but being right doesn’t actually help him either way. This fatal flaw gets him in. If he’d just swallowed his pride and left the city, Satoru would’ve never been able to get him. But Yashiro just had to know. He couldn’t get over his ego and just had to try to find out what’s so special about someone that isn’t him.
Gotta say, I love how they turned Yashiro’s writing around in the end here. It fits so well!
Still, I wish they expanded a bit more on Yashiro’s logic about who to pick from the ‚spider strings‘. As I said when he first explained it, I cannot really identify any innate reasoning to his targets. But just as last episode, his smooth plannning of murders is genuinely scary when he gets the time to think it all through. https://imgur.com/Vbc2OKs The moment where I knew anyone else, even if not involved prior by Satoru, would get suspicious was him texting Sachiko. There is an estimated -518% chance she or anyone close to her would ever believe that. Which again, is something Yashiro wouldn’t ever understand. That’s because she’s a demon!
Speaking of her, her talk with Satoru was so sweet and warm. Yeah, that shit gets me teary… I grant all the best feelings to mom getting rewarded after all these years.
Satoru’s confrontation with Yashiro on the rooftop was quite the gamble, but it’s a really nice touch that his hair gets ruffled into the old hairstyle when catching the wheelchair. I don’t know exactly when, but I also speculated on if this show would go for saving Yashiro, too. Turns out, it did almost convince me of it. But man, it wasn’t even really a fakeout, it was that Yashiro is so fucked he took that in his very own version of acceptance that makes him try murder-suicide.
I went two or three times, „hmm, I guess we could…“, during these 5 minutes only to be met with an even stronger emphasis on the original interpretation of him. I don’t know how to say it, they managed to dupe me with every line somehow.
What also impressed me is how his „loss“ of life isn’t really that much of a loss per sé. It’s just that he got to know people in different timelines and it somehow is like fate fixing this extra time he got. He’s more or less in sync again (probably less, but price to pay, timetravel, etc. etc.).
And goddamn, you can’t present me with such a group shot specifically closing off the childhood-plotline that also includes Misato and Yuuki and not expect me to cry a bit.
But then we go right back into fantasy territoy.
While I think it’s for the better they never really explained how Revival worked, it’s pretty poignant that it revolves around this theme of isolation. He doesn’t have it anymore because like those around him he, too, is now not alone any longer.
But look, I get it. It makes sense. It’s not just logical, but with how she was portrayed by the end I also deeply felt for her.
But you cannot, I repeat, you cannot exclude Airi from this group and immediately replace her spot with Misato! It’s not against Misato! I’m extremely happy that she eventually got into this group, too.
But Airi and Satoru are my ship, for fuck’s sake!
Okay, I should stop writing my fucking stuff while there’s still runtime left. They duped me with Yashiro and then they duped me with Misato, again.
His Revival butterfly, now that he’s aware of it, leads him to the last person still isolated and damn, that’s a beautiful ending. Yeah, I’ll join him here with the tears, again.
All is right in Star4ce-land and damn, this was a wonderful ending! Really, there is so little I could criticise in the entire show by now I won’t even bother.
Erased is truly a masterpiece. I loved it! All of it!
I think one last thought I want to share is that I am in a sort of awe of how cleanly this story ended. Yashiro is somehow all, a bit saved by being reminded of a truth that connects him to someone else, still the full-guilty murderer that didn’t get away, and also not a murderer since there are no victims. Similarly the stuff with Misato and the others. It’s so believable how they stayed a group. Everyone’s work in some way not only was important, from Kenya to Sachiko, but it also had a payoff that reflected back on them, too.
The story didn’t forget anyone and made sure they had a place in the story that will continue outside of our audience’s eyes. It’s so clean.
1) Are you satisfied with how Yashiro was dealt with after all that?
Yeah, absolutely. It’s so satisfying seeing all of them having solved the case together!
2) Are there any parts of the "life goes on" epilogue you would have liked to see more of?
More of Misato, honestly. She came a bit short in the series itself. But I mostly mean the child-scenes. She really only got the bitch moment and then lots of sad face.
5
u/No_Rex x2 22d ago
I think one last thought I want to share is that I am in a sort of awe of how cleanly this story ended. ... The story didn’t forget anyone and made sure they had a place in the story that will continue outside of our audience’s eyes. It’s so clean.
It is so nice to have a well-written story for once. You can clearly see that somebody thought this through fully, before starting.
4
u/Any_Welder_9701 22d ago
doctor and lawyer part is what sells that too, the rooftop save feels planted years ago instead of dropped in for the finale
5
u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke 22d ago edited 22d ago
Fine, I'll shill a bit more for ... Erased... 9... dangit I just realized. Misato's present in Kayo's short story in the manga there, if you want to see some of her growth.
6
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 22d ago
Yashiro has a motive in the manga, but it's still dumb. I don't think his motives are supposed to make sense. People who look at potential homicides they can do as a puzzle because their heart is broken by early trauma are twisted.
3
u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce 22d ago
Hmm, I guess. I just wished that at least the initial idea would've had some sort of hook that is understandable, even if he got more inhuman later on.
But compared to a broken heart I think I do prefer the anime's version.
4
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 22d ago
You can read more about in my own comment. I also mentioned some other stuff. Like how Satoru can't save a kid from a truck while he's in the hostpital
5
u/No_Rex x2 22d ago
Episode 12 (first timer)
- They are double dipping on the cliff-hanger, repeating it in the cold open, but not immediately resolving it after the OP.
- His friends became doctor and lawyer – very deliberate choices of occupation.
- 15 years statute of limitations for attempted murder?
- Satoru brings up Yashiro’s happiness about the Kayo resolution.
- “You can’t kill me” – high risk proof you are doing there. Even if he can’t kill you, he might not be able to save you.
- “I bear you no hatred. In this world, the only one who knows the real you is me.” – Satoru is going full Jesus.
- Falling onto the prepared air cushion – miss and you are dead.
- Epilogue time – Satoru became a mangaka.
- “Revival hasn’t happened since” – while showing an airplane in the background that is clearly stalling and will crash catastrophically.
- The friends you made along the way ending.
- Airi is still into older guys.
Satoru and his friends outsmart Yashiro in the end. While they can’t catch him for his attempted earlier murders, they can make sure he is convicted for trying to murder again now. I think the execution was lacking, but the idea was a good one. Yashiro has been priding himself on his glorious schemes all along, but they were never all that good. It makes sense that Satoru and the others would outsmart him. The “stop me from killing myself” part is a bit awkward, though. Falling from a high building is never risk free, even without a wheelchair to potentially end up below you, and momentum is a thing. He could easily have overshot that air cushion. The last talk with Yashiro is fine, but it is a tad too dramatic for me. Like dangling the redemption at last second in front of the viewers before going for the arrest. Overall, the finale is not an emotional high point, but it gets the story done competently, which must be good enough, given how badly this could have gone wrong, looking from an ep9 perspective.
Overall thoughts on Erased
The strongest of the four shows I watched and easily my favorite among them. To be clear, this is not due to the setup. Time travel to prevent accidents and crime is a decent setup, but not novel in the least. Nor is the catch a serial murderer idea anything new. What Erased does so well, however, is painting the characters onto that standard setup. With Kayo and Satoru’s mother, we get two extraordinarily well written characters outside of the protagonist role. Kayo is the highlight for me, even though I must admit that I tend to fall for white knight bait: she triggered my must protect instincts hard. However, she is not just a passive item to protect, but we get a full character arc for her. Satoru must not simply stop her from being murdered, but do so by making her life better! Episodes with her were the absolute highlight. Sachiko has less of an arc, but is the rare competent anime mother. She also is responsible for the comedic and homey touches in a series that is usually bleak and dark. Well, except that one time she got violently murdered …
The other school children are clearly side characters, not intended to take the spotlight, but they work just fine. That leaves Satoru and Yashiro. I think Satoru carries the protagonist side very well. Having the man in the body of a boy is a bit awkward at first, but Erased does not fall into the usual trap where this “super power” makes Satoru OP. Quite the contrary. Satoru spends most all his time being the underdog, trying to stop a murderer he doesn’t know, while also being handicapped by being a young child. Yashiro on the other hand, is the one big misstep of the series. He is the standard clever & driven to murder serial killer that media loves and which is basically completely absent from reality. I already discussed the avalanche of clues about him before and while I see a way to defend that choice, I don’t personally like it.
One thing to mention is the use of two time planes. You could imagine writing this show with only one hop to the past, forgetting about the present after the first episode (or to an immediate rebirth in the past, akin to Re:Zero). I think that, despite not being my favorite of the two, the present time plane plays an important role: it keeps the audience on their feet. You never can tell exactly what will happen, because Satoru’s story is not a linear one of getting better and better in the past, he has to deal with being thrown back to the present and we, in turn, have to deal with not knowing where the story will continue.
For the technical qualities, not much to say. The animation is not outstanding, but good enough that I almost never thought about it. The music is good and occasionally great.
Recommentations:
Well only one really, but if you loved the story, pacing and mood of Erased and want to see the antagonist done maybe a bit better, you should 100% try out Monster.
6
u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke 22d ago
Rewatcher, Subbed:
So it's been years since I watched this and I didn't remember too much beyond the fall and the bridge. And now everything is muddied up with the manga too.
Rewatching, I think I did catch the "working together with friends" theme more, though it still wasn't as prominent as it could be. I don't think the "present" emphasized that he was still a bit of a misanthrope that had trouble making legitimate human connections and relying on others: maybe this is just post-pandemic brain, but he barely seemed abnormal to me with no hints until he was in the past, and it was still mostly told, not shown, that he had problems making genuine friends. For that to then be the big climax, his friends working alongside him to do something he couldn't do alone... I don't think it was sufficiently set up.
Outside of that, it's still a decent episode, if rushed for obvious reasons. I still don't really buy the Satoru/Yashiro mirror that the story tries to tell, but... welp, nothing that can be fixed this late in the game.
Returning to the hometown for a meeting after everything goes down is a nice touch, as well as being anime-original! You might note that almost no one talks: it's probably because they have no source to work with for the dialogue. Visually the banner is great closure to that part of the story, and the bridge scene is the closure to the "present." All in all, quite satisfactory.
Comparison with manga: this episode covers volumes 7-8. I... don't know if volume 9 was published when this was screenwritten, so that explains the complete absense of that info. Obviously they had to compress things: the murder plot is completely different, different setting, more cat and mouse while there's more backs and forths with Yashiro. Not gonna even begin to try to compare that.
One change that I kinda miss but dunno how to do in a voice-acted format: that entire spiel where Yashiro is saying how his life is empty and barren without Satoru? In the manga, it's a complete bait and switch, the scene right before it is with Sachiko rejoicing that Satoru had woken up again (he falls into another year-long coma. Dunno why, really.) and the manga panels still depict Sachiko as these words are displayed. It's not until like 3 pages into the spiel where it starts feeling off and then you realize that it's not Sachiko's narration about finding joy again that her son is awake, but Yashiro's narration of his obsession. Again, no way to do this fakeout in an anime form, just thought it was pretty cool.
Second major change is how he regains her memory: Anime has it touching Kayo's child, manga is on seeing Airi, remembering her, and having to remember why he recognizes her. With how much they cut Airi's importance, this change also makes perfect sense. Kayo is the FMC in the anime while the manga tries (and kinda fails IMO) to have Airi be the FMC.
Minor bit of info: manga notes that Yashiro confesses in the aftermath and that he's committed 8 more murders since Satoru's coma, including his romantic rival and his father in law (the previous councilman) But Kenya also notes that Yashiro didn't target any more children during this period.
I'll give overall thoughts next week, but I will say that if anyone wants to read just 1 manga volume from this, I'd highly recommend 9: it gives insights into Sachiko, Kayo, Kenya, and Airi, and especially Sachiko's understanding of Satoru helps flesh him out quite a bit IMO.
QOTD 1) It's... fine. I think the problem was always with the setup, not the execution.
2) Not really, all ends have been tied up nicely. Maybe another 5-10 years when Hiromi's and Kayo's child is going to school himself, and Satoru can teach him the patented paper airplane techniques?
3
u/Heda-of-Aincrad https://myanimelist.net/profile/Heda-of-Aincrad 22d ago
the scene right before it is with Sachiko rejoicing that Satoru had woken up again (he falls into another year-long coma. Dunno why, really.)
Poor Satoru! Was regaining his memory the trigger, like an overload with his brain trying to process both timelines?
Minor bit of info: manga notes that Yashiro confesses in the aftermath and that he's committed 8 more murders since Satoru's coma, including his romantic rival and his father in law (the previous councilman) But Kenya also notes that Yashiro didn't target any more children during this period.
That's an interesting difference. So they can get him for more than just attempted murder.
1
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 20d ago
Minor bit of info: manga notes that Yashiro confesses in the aftermath and that he's committed 8 more murders since Satoru's coma, including his romantic rival and his father in law (the previous councilman) But Kenya also notes that Yashiro didn't target any more children during this period.
I kind of took Yashiro's final words to young Satoru as saying that he was going to lay of killing completely, to cement his escape. That he was going to create a new identity out of town and to preserve that he'd have to never kill again.
1
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 19d ago
the scene right before it is with Sachiko rejoicing that Satoru had woken up again (he falls into another year-long coma. Dunno why, really.)
To be honest even though the confrontation with Yashiro is weaker in the anime, I much prefer the anime ending. The fainting when seeing Airi in the manga just makes me facepalm. And that wasn't even needed for the plot to advance! Also in my own comment I mentioned a bit of math. It's implied Satoru had saved others since in Episode 1, the Revival thing is like "oh darn not again" so he was doing it long enough to work out the rules. The author at one point mentioned how many Revivals Satoru had in high school, which means with a bit of math we can get a rough estimate of how many times it happened. And as opposed to any incidents in high school, the truck scene in Episode 1 is on screen and who is saving him if Saotru is in a hoposital?
4
u/Quiddity131 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Quiddity131 22d ago
Rewatcher, Subbed
Good for Satoru getting his memories back, but why in the world did you tell Yashiro? If he wanted to kill you he's absolutely going to do it now.
So things worked out with Misato too, that's good to know. She actually fundraised for him!
Listen to your friends! No fighting alone! I do wonder if his friends will come through to save him from Yashiro.
So now Satoru is even remembering stuff pre-rewind, as he never encountered Airi in this timeline.
Oh, so Yashiro already knew he recovered his memories. Saying something didn't matter.
Flashbacks to Yashiro going "Rats! Foiled by that kid!" over and over again.
Ah, he brought a cell phone with him? Even if he doesn't capture evidence of recent crimes his friends could be on the other side listening to it.
Jeez, now he's gonna kill that sick girl Kumi too?
And he's going to send messages on his cell phone to get people to think he committed suicide? Ugh!
Depressing to know that Satoru felt like Yashiro was in this father like role to him for a time and it turns out the guy's a killer and is about to kill him here.
Satoru thinks he was Yashiro's goal and the reason for him being alive all those years. Well that got to him. Why's he willing to let his wheelchair fall off the side of the building though?
Yashiro had access to him, he could have sliced his neck with that razor. I suppose he gave him a shave instead.
Yashiro's true love, Satoru. He can't live without him! And after Satoru falls he's willing to jump off himself... only to find that Satoru's friends did know about this and were there to save him.
Satoru, you lost all that time from 11 to 25, but you already lived that part of your life once before your rewind. It's not all bad.
So in this revised timeline Satoru's a successful mangaka! Wow, he's even getting an anime adaption!
No more revivals, and I suppose no return to his pre-revival existence and this existence overrides it.
Good to know that friend from when he was kids was let out of jail. And Misato is friends with them now.
Wow, he's got two assistants for his manga too.
That's his old boss in the original timeline on the pizza bike?
I am surprised we're not getting more of his mom in this epilogue especially since his actions were able to prevent her from getting murdered.
Satoru gets to see Airi again, albeit in a timeline where they wouldn't have known each other since he didn't work at the pizza shop. Kinda an odd place to end the show? Maybe it works better if in the original timeline she died when her house was set on fire, or if he didn't know if she lived or died and gets to see her alive again. Ending on something with his mom may have worked better. Anyway, an overall satisfying ending. As I write this up the night before I'm not sure if the post will be just for episode 12 or also a series-wide one in which case I'll have to throw some stuff together ad hoc.
5
u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke 22d ago
Good to know that friend from when he was kids was let out of jail
Yuuki was never jailed in this timeline; cut during last episode, but Kenya gave Yuuki an eyewitness alibi and there's no reason for me to believe they modified this just because they cut the explanation.
5
u/Heda-of-Aincrad https://myanimelist.net/profile/Heda-of-Aincrad 22d ago
Revival Rewatcher
I started this anime as a first-time viewer, but loved it so much that I ended up binging the rest after the episode 10 cliffhanger and watching the whole thing again with my family in the weeks before the rewatch ended. It's a fun conclusion to the rewatch for me, to add in my own little "time loop" like this.
Satoru really took a risk with this one. Even with the countermeasures he set up, he doesn't have the benefit of knowing the future anymore, so if Yashiro reacted differently than he predicted, the results could have been disastrous for him. But he's always been the type to take risks with his own life for the sake of others, so I'd say this is in character. It does feel like some things wrapped up a little too neatly, like the killer on the loose not committing any crimes during the past 15 years, but they did provide a good enough explanation that he was still obsessed with Satoru, The Boy Who Lived™.
And it was great to see the connections Satoru made come full circle in the end. His friends became lawyers and doctors so they would be ready to help him when the time came, and after all the lives he saved, Satoru trusted them in turn by literally putting his life in their hands when he fell from that roof. The statute of limitations may have run out on Yashiro's original crimes, but they can still get justice for his attempted murder of Satoru now that he's tried the same thing again, but in front of half a dozen witnesses. Satoru has been through so much because of this guy, I can understand why he'd resort to drastic measures to see him arrested at last. Now they can truly say it's over.
I loved all the little glimpses of everyone in the future - Satoru's friends all grown up, Kayo being happy, and even Yuki as a free man with a wife and kid. Satoru's career as a manga artist is more successful now to, presumably because he can tap into those deeper emotions in his writing instead of avoiding them. The only thing I thought would be missing is that Satoru didn't meet Airi in this timeline, but fate brought them back together again! Well, fate and Satoru hanging out in a place he knew she used to come often. All's well that ends well.
I really enjoyed this series. Great combination of mystery/suspense and wholesome moments. It's an easy 9/10 for me.
Questions of the Day:
1) Yeah, I'm pretty satisfied with the way it ended.
2) I think what we got was good, but even more scenes of everyone would have been appreciated. Kazu and Osamu only had brief appearances.
4
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 22d ago
First Timer
So, are we going to be stuck in this timeline?
WAIT HE GOT HIS MEMORY BACK FROM THE BABY? WHY????
- last chance for me to notice a change in the OP
- I never found out what the tsunami imagery was about.
- Is this a flashback to a conversation we skipped over?
- He's not going to be alone on the roof! #concealedexcitement
- I still say Kenya is up on the roof, and he had another recording going.
- A whole lot of boku was.
- Oh, yeah, and I predicted that he was concealing his recovery strength, too.
- hinted at by the OP....
Okay, it's just a little beyond belief that they would predict he'd go up on the roof.
I'm impressed that the show broke almost every prediction I made for the entire series. So it was either really good or really bad at foreshadowing.
I really never understood Yashiro's madness, so I don't get the bit about the silver threads.
It's weird that Airi kinda disappeared, and was replaced by by Kamu. She's the right age. But they had to do that to have the final scene.
3
u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke 22d ago
WAIT HE GOT HIS MEMORY BACK FROM THE BABY? WHY????
They need something to do it, and it was supposed to be Airi (memory from his "present" that shouldn't exist) but they decided to sideline Airi to give more time to the past and Kayo. I... don't really have a better solution with only episodes 11 and a fraction of episode 12 to work with... Maybe Kayo's final "Thank you!" to him? Or something from the period... maybe a "Are you stupid?"
I apparently really just want Kayo to ask Satoru if he's stupid again. This is like the 3rd time I've suggested it for various things
4
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 22d ago
Rewatcher
I can FINALLY say stuff without spoiler tags. No need for anyone to worry about "hey what if that part you said was in the manga was skilled was just reshuffled around." There is nothing to spoil because we reached the end.
On one hand Satoru's contingency really only worked because of the specific murder method Yashiro chose of "death by fall damage." Yashiro could have just grabbed any old heavy object. And despite Satoru having some mobility in a wheelchair, a man in his late 50s with a bludgeon is going to be able to beat Satoru easily. On the other hand, we can see Yashiro has a bit of a pride thing and I can see Satoru and Kenya being able to predict the rough outline of his attempted homicide.
Satoru's confrontation speech of how they filled the hole in each other's hearts kind of reminds me of Naruto vs Sasuke at the end of Shippuden only Yashiro is a little too far gone for redemption as proven by the murder suicide.
Oh, Hi Misato. You know the funny thing is that this is the second character of the 2016 Rewatch who was the school bully in elementary school and ended up joining the main circle of friends. Nishigori, father of the three triplets of Yuri on Ice did the same thing. Although he spent 20 seconds of screentime of being a bully instead of a while 1/3 of an episode like Misato did. Misato looks classy in that epilogue with those gloves.
Nice to see the trip back home.
Well Satoru you were able to achieve your super sentai hopes. You brought peace to the town, but it moved on without you.
Hi Airi! And So we have happily ever after.
Oh some stuff I wanted to show but couldn't because spoiler
Concrete Angel - Boku Dake ga Inai Machi - Erased - AMV Boku dake ga inai machi ED [cover] EN Cover Erased - "Re:Re:" (Opening & Ending Medley) | ENGLISH ver | AmaLee
Comparison to the manga. Well early manga seems like it's going to go "Revival of the Week" format. Satoru explicitly mentions it is always to help someone else to prevent a bad thing from happening and it always throws him from a minute to 2 hours before the event he's supposed to prevent. He's been doing this since middle school or possibly earlier. That said Revival never throws him before a Revival, so he had plenty of reason to question if he truly knew how it worked. The term "bad thing" could mean anything from death or simply getting a purse stolen the way it is worded, but every example shown or mentioned in exposition were him saving someone from explicit or implicit death, so I don't know if "bad thing" was euphemism or if it really was broad and some of the incidents were not lethal.
Manga does this odd thing of giving ship tease of Fujinuma Satoru and Hinazuki Kayo before stopping after the Science Center incident, like with him getting flustered at holding hands. After this, although his friends push for it, their relationship is more like anime fraternal twins since the narrative no longer does. Anime keeps the ship tease going through episode 10. Oh and manga Satoru in the 2006 scenes never wonders why he says something out loud, the closest is "I shouldn't have said that out loud" to Airi once in an equivalent of Episode 6.
Yashiro's motives are also mysterious in the manga. His helped his older brother commit crimes until one girl accidentally died and said brother tried to frame him then he killed the brother. But uncovering the crime caused a scandal and his rich family had to go hide in another town and live modestly because one of their sons killed a girl. Then he was inspired by a series of hamsters that drowned, except spice. Those spider strings appear when he sees someone in three categories. One is what I'll call "put them out of their misery." Kayo was abused and Hiromi and Aya were lonely and Yashiro had this urge to kill people whose shoes he wouldn't want to be in. Also he would only make a move on those he could get away the crime with and children's bodies were a lot more portable than adults. Hiromi looking girly had nothing to do with it, it was just a nice bonus the cops got confused. Next are "puzzle" targets. He sees strings over those who seem like an interesting challenge. Satoru had this in the new timeline. Third are strings that appear over people who can expose him. At one point he went 3 years without commit a crime and thought he'd go legit, but when his hot fiancé was about to find out about his past, string type 3 appeared over her. If you think "wow these motives are dumb, at least people who steal shit and kill witnesses make sense" yeah, the motives are dumb, but the scary thing is the execution isn't.
The final confrontation was slightly better done with a trap from Satoru and Kenya that did not reply on Yashiro picking a specific homicide method, but there are other downsides to the manga. At least 7 moments I had to face palm. Like for example Airi not Yashiro goes after the cameras of the spies. Satoru thinks she's pretty and something about her is familiar.... and then collapses unconscious. I honestly think the anime is better by getting rid of these stupid moments but in exchange the final confrontation of Satoru and Yashiro is a bit weaker. The anime still ends on a happily ever after.
Next Reply is a Bit of Math
3
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 22d ago
So the author said that Satoru had Revivals "dozens" of times each year in high school. This puts a minimum of revivals at 36 in high school and at least 60 is more likely.
What happened to this kid I talked about? Remember in Episode 1 when Satoru saved him? Say Satoru was in a hospital at that time...
If you knew an event had many possible outcomes, how would you estimate the probability of each outcome? As an example of an a priori prior, due to Jaynes Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (2003), consider a situation in which one knows a ball has been hidden under one of three cups, A, B, or C, but no other information is available about its location. In this case a uniform prior of p(A) = p(B) = p(C) = 1/3 seems intuitively like the only reasonable choice. More formally, we can see that the problem remains the same if we swap around the labels ("A", "B" and "C") of the cups. It would therefore be odd to choose a prior for which a permutation of the labels would cause a change in our predictions about which cup the ball will be found under; the uniform prior is the only one which preserves this invariance. If one accepts this invariance principle then one can see that the uniform prior is the logically correct prior to represent this state of knowledge. Or consider an event can have the outcome of giving out an integer from 1 to 6. Would it make sense to say the outcome is 1 1/2 of the time but the others have the probability 1/10?
What about if we have some data? If say you then sample the event 3 times and each sample is independent of each other. If the number 5 comes up all 3 times, do we think that the outcome will be 5 100% of the time? Well that would be a strange conclusion. It would be like rolling a die, getting the number "5" 3 times in a row and then concluding it was a loaded die and our guess is that 5 shows up with probability 6/6. You shouldn’t do this. In fact you probably should roll at least 42 times on a die before trying to decide if it is loaded.
A good way to make an estimate is just pretending you pretend each outcome happened 3 extra times. So if we rolled a die and got “1” our estimate should be P(1)= 4/19, P(2)= P(3)= P(4)= P(5)= P(6)= 3/19. If we rolled “1” 3 times instead, our estimate of each outcome should be P(1)= 2/7, P(2)= P(3)= P(4)= P(5)= P(6)= 1/7. If our sample rolls were “1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2” then we should estimate P(1)= 6/24, P(2)=5/24, P(3)=4/24, P(4)= P(5)= P(6)= 3/24.
What we have seen is Revival used to save the boy from the truck, the girl in the parking lot, and Hinazuki Kayo (or maybe it wanted Satoru to save Hiromi, to be honest it’s hard to tell which one Revival forced him to save. 3/3 times the “something bad happened to someone else” was a lethal event and 0/3 times it was something like a theft, being late for work, or someone losing a key to their house. Out estimate on Revival saving people from lethal events should therefore be 6/9 and non lethal 3/9. Assuming “dozens” mean 60, this would be 40 people Satoru saved in High school.
In the altered timeline, he saved a girl in his class, his friend, some other girl, and he’s in a hospital around dozens of time people need their help, but since he’s in a hospital they’ve all lost their savior.
3
u/BaytaCosmico https://myanimelist.net/profile/AnimeBayta 22d ago
First-timer, subbed
I was a bit underwhelmed by this final episode tbh. Thematically it is good but some of the details of the final confrontation bother me. Like, how did the wheelchair not fall on top of him - that stunt is hard enough to pull off even otherwise but for a person on a wheelchair, it feels downright miraculous.
More than this though, it bothered me that they showed us Satoru's attempted murder in the past again including that bait line of his to Yashiro and still left it unclear if the latter was the one who then fished him out of the water. That would make a material difference. If Yashiro had "rescued" him, depending on the cover story he came up with, Kenya could've been always suspicious of him, which would've been an interesting angle. Feels like a lost opportunity.
The rest of the episode was nice. I liked seeing Satoru's conversations with his friends and with his mother. Wish we'd got more of a sense for why Satoru felt like he had no allies when he was a kid. With that downright amazing mother and his nice group of friends, it's a bit of a wonder he still turned out to be so closed off even before the triggering kidnapping incidents as implied by Kenya's line to him in one of the earlier episodes and confirmed now in this one. This could've used a bit more fleshing out.
I'm not a fan of the very end with Airi's return. I find that ship a bit uncomfortable with the age gap and her being a high schooler when he first meets her in the original timeline. I'm guessing that's why they meet now, a few years later when she's officially an adult, in the new timeline. It still doesn't sit right with me. There's no need for a ship at all in this story imo.
I liked that Satoru ends up being the one to realise Kayo's story of the town with only him erased. The coma time skip is a great idea and such an elegant way to avoid having to make Satoru live through all those years again but also drive home the core thesis of the story.
Very very nice show overall and like I've said before in the daily threads, this is my AOTS, the one I've enjoyed the most. Still, I felt just a touch dissatisfied with this somewhat clunky final episode and ended up giving this only an 8, when up until the previous episode it had been at a 9.
3
u/No_Rex x2 21d ago
The coma time skip is a great idea and such an elegant way to avoid having to make Satoru live through all those years again but also drive home the core thesis of the story.
The coma time skip is outright genius. It solves so many problems at once: It gets us back to present time and Airi. It does away with the problem of how to stop the adult murderer. It prevents an ever longer and now save this girl redundancy. It even is set up very decently via drowning.
3
u/jazy921 22d ago
Are you satisfied with how Yashiro was dealt with after all that?
Yes, because it makes sense why Satoru is still alive after all that time, which implies that Yashiro is kinda not a threat anymore after all. IMO, they did it better than how The Joker feels toward Batman. i think it's also special since it's rare in anime for a villain to feel this way towards the main protagonist.
Last time i commented on a rewatch in this sub i was asked to specify if it's my first time watching this, so no, i've seen BokuMachi twice by now and can still remember the ending.
2
u/ShadowGuyinRealLife 19d ago
You know the funny thing is I think Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi might have influenced the early reaction to Re: Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu. For the first 3 episodes, people were calling it things like "Erased meets KonoSuba" which I doubt would have happened if Re Zero was released in 2019. Other than Re Zero and Kono Suba both being Isekai they don't have that much in common, but I think the Re Zero being aired so soon after this show created a lot of memes. I mentioned it here. Spoilers for Episode 1 of Re Zero in the link. Were Comparisons to KonoSuba merely due to The Year of Release?
7
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky 22d ago
Re:Rewatch Host, subbed
Welcome back, everyone!
Starting the episode directly on recapping the Kayo “sore demo”, nice.
Touching the baby’s hand was what made Satoru’s memories click back into place. That’s kinda sweet.
Nice to see Kazu and Osamu in the future too!
Aw, nice.
Mm…
Dang that’s messed up.
And Yashiro even targeted Kumi…
Yashiro being the one who Satoru tells about his time travel first is crazy.
Finally, something that surprised Yashiro.
Title drop from Satoru this time!
Good for Satoru. He’s hitting it big as a manga artist again.
Yuuki has a family of his own!
Eyy, we finally got to see what Satoru’s own essay was back then!
Nice group photo.
The butterfly leads him to Airi!