Boku dake ga Inai Machi (Erased) Episode 2 TV Review
Episode: Palm of the Hand
I was curious to see how the next episode of the show would follow up to the way the first episode ended. Even wondering how Satoru gets out of that ridiculous situation, but to my surprise this went into a completely different direction than I initially thought.
The second episode flashes back to 1988 to a much younger Satoru. I don't know if this is his power or not or just coincidentally his body or mind just flashed back to this year?
He walks into class to find out that it is February 15th, 1988. 18 years in the past from where the first episode took place. The class starts and he follow through with it. His first reaction is to run to his mothers house to see if she is there. He remember that she is at work but has a hidden key near the front door.
He falls asleep only to be woken up by his mom who makes him dinner. Having this time gives him flashbacks to how great times like this were which leads to an insinuation that he will be changing time. Satoru returns to class the nest day and begins noticing things about his classmates, especially a girl who disappeared from his original timeline. He tries to get to know a bit more but finds out that she a bit on the loner side. But he especially notices bruises on her leg that could the main reason she acts that way. The other classmates have been noticing his interest with Hinazaki and poke fun at him for it.
Satoru creates a goal for himself, to change Hinazuki's behavior to prevent her disappearance from happening and to do that he will need to get to know her better. He knows that bad things will happen, but he thinks that doing this will some how change that from happening.
So he invites her to to upcoming birthday...
I know they kinda hinted at it in the first episode, but I didn't expect this show to go full time travel. It reminded me a bit of Back To The Future, except this character doesn't want to get back to his original time. What I am noticing so far is that the show doesn't have a clear message of what it is trying to say. It has a goal, sorta... by trying to figure out this mystery of disappearing children and the murder of his mother, but it doesn't seem the to be the main focus. It is a bit interesting that his mind is still his old 29 year old self while his body is back to when he was 11.
In terms of style, I did like how the entire episode was in a different aspect ratio, basically to show that this takes place in the past. Its neat and not many shows seem to do this. I don't know what to expect from next week, but this show is so far kinda shaping up to be a romance.
Rating:
