The finale of Erased is Here! The episode picks up right where last weeks left off and finishes off the story to the end. We find out that the only reason Yashiro has kept Satoru alive is because he is the hamster in his life. The one who understands him and is surviving no matter what. To the point that Yashiro actually begins to suspect that Satoru has some sort of power to see the future because he has been able to prevent every murder he goes after. Satoru does have a plan ahead of him as he find to a way to prevent Yashiro from killing him because he now knows that Yashiro doesn't want him to die. This does lead to Satoru throwing himself off the ledge of the hospital building but surviving the fall thanks to his friends. Yashiro gets arrested for the attempt at trying to kill Satoru as is taken away. There isn't much to say for the ending as we go through the typical motions of any ending where everything is perfect now and Satoru even gets to meet characters from his previous life. My big problem with the finale was the lack of addressing some questions and elements that this show was based off of. From his childhood friend to the time travel powers to begin with. It is never really brought up and even when the butterfly element shows up at the end it doesn't do anything but to remind us he still has the powers??? This show has continued to spiral out of control to the very end and even the final conformation with Yashiro wasn't at all handled well or smart in the context of the world this show takes place in. It is interesting because nothing was exciting or tense mostly based on the way the entire situation was handled. Even once the story was finished it never felt like it closed it all the way it should've.
A mixed bag the series has been but an entertaining one for the most part. I don't see myself re-watching this show again but it was nice ride while it happened. I do however want to check out the Manga as I know it fleshes everything out a bit more and even extends the story? I guess I will have to find out for myself. Rating:
Satoru is back in the future, but not the same way you would think! Once again we jump to a new direction for the series, now back in the future but this time, having Satoru being in a coma for the past 15 years! It is interesting because we never see how he lives from the car being put into the lake from last episode but it is incinerated that the teacher went back to save him. Either way for the next 15 years from that point, his mother is forced to take care of him until he wakes up from the coma.
For most of the episode, we are spent time at the hospital as Satoru's friends show up to support him and he even begins to gain his health back. We see that Hinazuki is now married and with a child and most of the people haven't forgotten about him even the press. But while at the hospital he runs into Mr. Yashiro, his homeroom teacher from 15 years ago. Unfortunately he doesn't remember anything from his past and I would even assume from his previous future self as well. There are little things in this episode that I like, how he now talks in his mind as if is still were a fifth grader even though he is in his late 20's. How the mother was able to take care of him for so long. Even that Hinazuki and most of his friends that he tried to protect ended up being okay in the end.
When his teacher showed up it became very clear that he was there to either kill him or make sure that he doesn't remember anything. This leads to him taking Satoru to the roof with what you can obviously assume what he is planning to do. But the episode ends off with a twist pulled on Yashiro, that is that Satoru remembers everything! I like the idea of having Satoru grow older in a world that is now much different, but I wish he had his memories right out the gate. If that were the case, most of the episode could've been him trying to gather his friends for one more mission! Now that Yashiro is a politician, they could've taken the chance to pulled up moment he is finally exposed. Maybe they will do that in the finale, but I'm sure is won't be as exciting. Normally the episode before the finale tries to build up to a moment that you don't see coming and takes you for a turn. With this show, I already have a feeling on where the finale will go and how this series will end. I guess we will have to wait and see till next week. Rating:
Kayo's life is actually getting better this time around, but shouldn't this have been the first time? The episode picks up where last weeks left off, only to make it clear that the person sneaking onto the bus Kayo is hiding on is the actual killer. Only he doesn't do anything he just kicks a box and leaves. We are to assume maybe because of Kayo's disappearance, but that made me question, why is the hiding place for the killer's evidence on the same school bus that Kayo happened to be hiding on?? Its something that is just too coincidental.
The next day Satoru brings food and she tells him and everyone else about the person on the bus. They make a new plan to move Kayo to a better and safer location by taking her to Satoru's home. Before that they check out what is in the boxes and backpacks of the killers and find just about all the tools he use. I was surprised they just looked at them and didn't even bother to taken them to show to the police. Especially because Satoru recognized them instantly. Satoru and Kayo make it to his house and he brings her in to show his mother. She takes her in and makes her feel at home. The episode spends a while showing how much of a better mother Satoru's mom is than her own mom as she makes them dinner and generally shows love to her, something she has never gotten. It all leads up to the next morning where Kayo is awoken to a very nice breakfast made for her. She ends up crying because she has never been treated so kindly. It was a pretty effective moment, except for the fact that I kept thinking that this moment should've happened the first time around in the first past travel, back when there was emotion. This time around it just doesn't work as much because we pretty much can assume the fate of everything that will happen. The episode ends with Kayo finally approaching her mother for what I would assume for the last time. When we had a chance to go back in time again I was hoping for the series to get back to what it was good at and actually have a message to say. That notion is long gone as the show is just focused on finding who this killer is while at the same time making it pretty obvious who the main suspects should be. It is lacking any of the emotion that the first half had because the goal has changed. No longer is it about learning about Hinazuki and trying to save her from her abusive parents that would ultimately prevent her death, but now it is a bout trying to stop a possible time traveling killer. The show continues to to lower in the quality of its story telling but does deliver a overall good presentation of the material and for that I will keep watching.
Satoru final prevents Kayo's kidnapping! But did he change it for the better? We pick up from last week where Satoru makes eye contact with his villain but at that moment decided to quickly go back in time one more time to fix the situation permanently! He goes back to the day at the science museum and once again spend the day with Kayo, there are little subtle differences going on but nothing to dramatic. The one change of note was that his friend Kenya confronts Satoru about his recent personality change. He is able to play it off, but Kenya wants to help him out with trying to save Hinazuki. They come up with a plan to falsely kidnap her in order to protect from during the date of the day she goes missing.
Satoru even goes out of his way to make sure the Yuuki has an alibi from the police by throwing a rock in his homes window. He then begins to follow Hinazuki's mother but Kenya stops him before he can do anything. When the day comes of Kayo's disappearance nothing really happens. No phone call from her mother and even the teacher doesn't make much of it. Satoru gets his friends involved in the kidnapping as they wait for time to pass so they can get the attention of the police. Things are starting to look up a bit, until the last moment in the episode where a mysterious person is walking into Kayo's hiding place, she wakes up and notices leaving the episode on a cliffhanger until next week.
I liked this episode but I do have to acknowledge that there were a ton of dumb stuff that happened. I don't know if it on purpose on Satoru's part because it is like he is making irrational decisions without thinking them through all the way. He hides Kayo in a save place for one night, but leaves her alone for a good chunk of the time, it is explained so he can sneak out, but why couldn't he have just included his mom in some capacity in the first place? Also they couldn't have made it more obvious that there is something suspicious about the teacher. Even to go so far as to give visual queues that something is off about him. Do I think he was the person at the end of the episode? No, I have a feeling it will be Kayo's mother. Unless its the killer. Then it will probably be the teacher... Also wasn't there a moment in episode 2 where it shows Kenya and the teacher were secreting talking??? That would explain why he is so interested in helping Satoru so much in this episode. I do like this timeline much more than the future one and I hope we stay here for a while longer until everything is fixed.
Satoru is closer to finding his villain than ever before! When last weeks episode ending I had a strong feeling that Airi was going to make it out of that burning house. I was right, Satoru runs into the house to save her. She gains consciousness briefly and gives him her phone that could expose him even further if she kept it. His manager shows up and takes her to take to the hospital because Satoru is still a wanted man at this point. The next day he meets an old friend of his mothers, who is a reporter and even has records of all the past abductions including Kayo's. They try to figure who this mysterious figure could be and how he has been able to stay invisible for so long. Later in the episode its mentioned that he could be a council member of some kind, one that has control and it able to go under a different alias than we would know. It begins to look like the police are going to treat Airi as a suspect now, being involved with Satoru's mother death and even helping his escape and hide form the police. This doesn't last long though because Airi sneaks out of the hospital having her mother take her place. She goes to meet Satoru one last time before the police show up and capture him. It looks like either they caught her mother or they knew that she left and followed her. This all builds up to Satoru accepting the capture and goes calmly, but as he is being taken away someone is watching on the side lines. He turns to look at this person and notices immediately that it is the culprit! The one that has been invisible this entire time. What makes it more interesting is that time seems to slow down drastically, I don't know if it just for added effect or it was really going on in the world. If that is the case, that this person that Satoru is after does indeed have time travel powers as well. It all connects to the name of the episode, Grim Reaper, as this villain has gone out of his way to make sure that people Satoru saves end up dying regardless of how much he changes in the past. But what makes this person cleaver is that he strategically plans out everything in advance, making sure that someone is framed perfectly so the police has someone to go after. This is someone who has been playing the long game, but the question is, Does he know about Satoru's time traveling powers?" We will know soon enough, because I have a feeling we are going to see Satoru go after this person head on very soon! Rating:
Episode: Accomplishment Satoru is set out on preventing Kayo from getting Kidnapped. The day of her disappearing is getting closer and closer and he knows he is going to have to be more persistent in order to change that. The episode starts with Satoru asking to go to the Science Center to his mom during breakfast. He wants to go with Kayo to further his bond with her. This leads to him basically spending every moment he can with her, from being the first to her house to walk to school, to being the last to walk her home.
Things get interesting when him and Kayo spend the afternoon at the Science Center, there he notices something that we have been noticing for some time. He notices that the new timeline he has created isn't all that different from the previous one, all the events are finding their way back to him but with different context. He doesn't know if this is his memory that is causing to put himself in similar situations. As a result he puts extra effect into making the events change even changing his personality. It all leads up to the day of Kayo's disappearance. Its both their birthdays and they spend their parties at Satoru's house. He is happy when the day of over because he feels like he finally changed something for the better. The next day he is late to school but it turns out he isn't the only one who is late as well. Kayo still hasn't showed up yet, our first thought is that he has only pushed the event off by just a day but we won't find out until next week. This has been the best episode of the show by far, we have seen all the character grow in this episode, even the mother of Kayo who kinda takes a step back when Satoru is so insistent on spending time with Kayo. I am also starting to doubt that anyone in the show is involved with her disappearance, but possibly another family issue that we have yet to find out about. I also found the time travel element and past memory to be interesting that no matter how much he changes, he ends up replaying the same events without even noticing. I hope the next episode gets more interesting as we progress beyond the point of the major disappearance of Kayo. Rating:
