Plot Breakdown — Erased

The japanese name for the anime Erased, “Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi” translates to “The Town Where Only I Am Missing”. To know how it relates to the plot of the story, read this article till the end. The genres associated with this anime are mystery, psychological, supernatural and seinen (anime and manga made for young adult audiences). This is one of those animes which takes off from the very first episode. The story starts with the 29-year-old mangaka (manga artist), Satoru Fujinima, who possesses a supernatural ability which can take him back in a time a few moments before a life-threatening incident, allowing him to stop it from happening. He calls it ‘revival’, and according to him, something negative happens to him every time it happens. This ability might have resulted from the protagonist hating his life, and blaming himself for not interfering in the chain of events which lead to the present moment. He uses it to save a boy from a rampant truck as its driver died of heart attack. He gets injured and later hospitalized due to this incident. Later in the hospital, he is visited by Airi Katagiri, a co-worker at the pizza shop where he works part time as a delivery boy due to him being unsuccessful in his mangaka career. Later that day, when he gets discharged and goes home, he finds his mother, Sachiko Fujinima, there who has come to watch over him due to the accident. She reminds him of an incident 18 years ago in which an adult named Jun Shiratori, who Satoru had trusted, was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of one of his classmates. The next day, Satoru experiences another ‘revival’ and therefore foils someone’s plan to kidnap a child. Sachiko takes a note of that man, which she later deduces to be the true killer of the incident 18 years ago; but before she can inform anyone, she is killed at Satoru’s house. Satoru, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, gets accused of his mother’s murder. When he was frantically running on discovering the body, his ‘revival’ sent him all the way back to 1988, when he was still an 11-year-old elementary school student. This event turns Satoru’s life upside down forever and also is the main event that sets the story into action.

Having been sent back 18 years by an abnormal ‘revival’, Satoru becomes completely puzzled and bemused. He finds himself as a 10-year-old in the middle of his old elementary school. He finally sees his mother that evening, and finds comfort in being able to talk to her again. He quickly realizes that this ‘revival’ is related to Sachiko’s future murder, the cost of this revival is going to be proportionally greater than the others. The next day in class, he notices Kayo Hinazuki, one of his classmates who was killed during the kidnapping incident, after seeing a bruise on her leg. Having shown an interest in her, Satoru’s friends, Osamu, Kazu and Hiromi presume that he has feelings for her, meanwhile Kenya suggests him to read an essay written by Kayo, which hints about troubles in her life. Later Satoru invites Kayo to her birthday party to know more about her. The next day, he willingly loses against Hamada in an ice-skating race to avoid changing the future, but he recalls the same outcome from his past; the original cycle hasn’t broken yet. Later, he sneaks into the teacher’s office to acquire Kayo’s birthday date, which would help him to pinpoint the date of her disappearance, but is interrupted by his teacher Gaku Yashiro. He lets Satoru see her birthday date presuming he has feelings for her, which turns out to be the same as his, 2nd March. He deduces that Kayo got kidnapped on 1st March. Later that day, he spends some time with Jun Shiratori or Yuuki and gets convinced that he is not the kidnapper. After some time, when he goes to visit Kayo at her house, he finds her beaten up in the shed and learns about the abusive relationship between her and her mother. The next day, when he explains the incident to his teacher Gaku, he tells him that he suspected her for a year but has no proof to manage the situation. Later, Satoru stands up for Kayo when she is accused of stealing lunch money. Both Kayo and Satoru celebrate their birthdays normally on 2nd March after he invites her to a local science centre with help of his mother, where he feels a sense of déjà vu; the original cycle still hasn’t broken yet. The following day, Satoru is shocked to find that Kayo hasn’t come to school and all his efforts were in vain. He gets infuriated that he wasn’t able to make a difference about Kayo’s disappearance. Several days later, another girl goes missing. After watching Kayo’s mother throw out her belongings, Satoru suddenly finds himself back in 2006, still under suspicion of Sachiko’s murder and forced to go on the run from the police.

When Satoru is running from his manager’s house who gives him up to the police, he comes across Airi. She trusts him and lets him stay at her house, where he finds that his actions did change the past a little. The next day, Satoru investigates about the past incidents and Airi stops the manager from reporting him again. Later that night, Airi helps Satoru hide elsewhere, then she receives a text from Sachiko’s phone before becoming trapped in a house fire started by the killer. Satoru rushes in to save Airi coming across the burning house, she secretly puts her phone in his pocket before the manager takes over the rescue. He sees the message sent by the killer and calls a number his mother gave him to arrange a meeting with her old acquaintance; the reporter Sawada. He tells him about Sachiko’s last phone call and Satoru then deduces that Yuuki along with the other kidnappers were framed. Sawada goes to the hospital to meet Airi only to find that she has swapped places with her mother to prove Satoru’s innocence. They meet under the bridge, their usual place and she tells him about a guy named Nishizono, who she suspects might be the killer. But the police find and arrest him, on the way to the police car, he notices the real killer standing there. Determined not to let things end the way they are, Satoru successfully triggers ‘revival’ through sheer willpower, returning him 18 years back to the science center in 1988. This is his final chance to find the final piece of the puzzle which he could not do the last time.

The next day at school, Kenya tells Satoru that he has known about Kayo for a long time but didn’t do anything about it, and offers his assistance. After the birthday party, Satoru throws a stone at Yuuki’s father’s window to provide him with an alibi for later. Afterwards, instead of pushing Kayo’s mother from the stairs, Satoru decides to kidnap her after Kenya convinces him. They took her to an abandoned school bus to keep her safe for a few days. But on the night of 3rd March, an unknown intruder enters the bus when she is sleeping, which is later found to be the killer. The next evening, Yashiro goes with two people from the Child Consultation Centre to investigate Kayo’s house, only to find no one. Satoru realizes after finding a bag with tools in the bus that he may still be trapped in the original cycle of abduction and murder, he decides to take Kayo to his house where Sachiko had been expecting them. Kayo stays for the night and they accompany her to talk to her mother the next day. She reacts violently and gets caught red-handed by Yashiro and the consultants, who inform her that Kayo has to be taken into custody due to her actions. When she is about to storm off to the police, her mother arrives who apologises for not being able to support her after having her divorce her abusive husband. Kayo then goes off to live with her grandmother. Satoru turns his attention towards the other victims of the abduction and murder case. Finally, the story leads towards its resolution.

With the original cycle now broken, Satoru begins tailing Aya Nakanishi to befriend her, and begins spending more time with his classmate, Hiromi; both of these are the next two potential victims of the killer. The next day, the gang approaches Aya and Kazu invites her to their hideout. She shows up at the hideout the next day and starts warming up to them, especially Kazu. Later, he finds that Misato, the one who accused Kayo for stealing the lunch money, has been alienated by others in the class due to that, and often stays alone. He follows her to the Wakaba Gym, where she disappears after going to the bathroom. Satoru smells something fishy and at the same time sees Shiratori’s truck, so he asks Yashiro to help him follow it, only to discover that he himself is the killer. Satoru realizes that Yashiro being the killer fits perfectly and regrettably, is the final piece of the puzzle. Yashiro tells him how he lured Satoru by using Misato as bait, and to take revenge for thwarting his plans, Yashiro pushes the car into a frozen lake, with Satoru in it. Due to this incident, Satoru goes into a coma for 15 years and wakes up in 2003. This is the ultimate price he pays for using his ability ‘revival’ and saving Kayo and the others. His mother took care of him daily due to which he grew properly, but he lost all his memories of the past. His memories begin to return when he is visited by his friends, especially Kayo, who married Hiromi and had a baby. Later, he meets a leukemia patient named Kumi, who is about to undergo surgery, as well as Yashiro himself, who changed his name to Nishizono and became a politician. He takes Satoru to the rooftop where he tells him that he has regained his memories. He told this to his friends earlier, and makes a plan to prove Yashiro guilty, which he succeeds in after he jumps off the building himself when Yashiro tells him that he has planned to kill Kumi and will frame him for it. Several years later, Satoru becomes a successful manga artist and he meets Airi again at their usual place.

The audience might have thought that Kayo was the one ‘erased’ or missing from the town, but ironically it was Satoru, who paid the price for using ‘revival’ and got ‘erased’ for 15 years. But he was finally able to move on from the guilt he used to suffer for not being able to save Kayo and the others, which destroyed his other life; so, it could be called a happy ending. Also, one of the recurring things in the anime was snow, which symbolized death and sadness; Kayo alone at the snowy park or the frozen lake can be taken as an example. Although the plot was a little fast paced towards the end and the much-expected romantic reunion between Kayo and Satoru was ‘erased’, overall Erased was an excellent blend of time travel and mystery.