ERASED

Episode 9

ERASED jolted forward this week, resolving the Hinazuki conflict for now and initiating the next stages of Satoru's plan. He still doesn't seem to have much of an endgame beyond “make sure the bad things I know about don't happen,” but with Hinazuki's mother out of the picture, the story seems to be focusing in on Satoru's duel with the serial killer. It's still unclear how ERASED might resolve this conflict in the last three episodes, but saving Hinazuki from a broken home is certainly a good start.

The confronation with Hinazuki's mother that opened this episode was one more in a string of great visual setpieces for the show. The visual storytelling was evocative and impactful, from the closeups on Satoru's mother to the consistent shots framing the action through the crows hanging overhead, along with the sequence of shots that used the child custody workers to frame Hinazuki's mother as trapped between them. This was also quite the heroic moment for Mr. Yashiro, as not only did he coordinate this ambush between Satoru's mother and the civil servants, but he even brought in Hinazuki's grandmother.

The grandmother's sympathy for her violent daughter made sense, but I was even more happy to see neither Satoru nor Hinazuki were moved by her mother's breakdown. Every awful person has reasons for the things they do - that doesn't justify their awful actions. The grandmother's “I know very well how hard it is for a woman to raise a child on her own” offered some context for the mother, but was really more of a condemnation of society at large. ERASED is full of isolated children and single parents, and the show's constant refrain is that without a strong community and people who believe in us, we all suffer alone.

The show's framing got even more ambitious near the end of this scene, as we witnessed a sequence of shots that first swung the camera down to frame Hinazuki and Satoru against her empty house, and then retreated along with Yashiro's car as Satoru ran behind. Shots like that aren't easy - in order to shift the perspective of all the objects in view relative to the frame, you have to continuously redraw every single object. ERASED managed to sidestep this issue by relying on CG houses and just redrawing the actual characters, resulting in some uniquely dramatic sequences that peaked with a pan away from Satoru up to a bird escaping in flight.

The episode's second half focused on Satoru attempting to make sure both Hiromi and the girl going to a nearby school would be safe from the killer. Satoru's methods here seem fairly questionable; though Hinazuki's situation was so terrible it demanded immediate intervention, it seems like protecting these two from the killer won't really change the nature of the situation. Satoru seems to be operating under the assumption that if he puts a bandaid over the bad events he knows about, everything will be fine - but if Satoru makes abducting these kids difficult, there's no reason to suspect the killer won't simply switch to other targets, or even abduct Satoru himself. Satoru's battle is with the killer, not with the past, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

Satoru's questionable methods aside, the episode's second half also had a couple nice scenes pointing to the show's larger themes. At one point, a car ride shared by Satoru, his mother, and Mr. Yashiro seemed to strongly emphasize the idea of Yashiro as a surrogate father, when Satoru looked like he was pretty much on the verge of asking Yashiro to date his mom. The moments of camaraderie between Yashiro and Satoru were a consistent pleasure this week, but that particular scene ended on a somewhat ambiguous note, as the reveal of candy in Yashiro's dashboard simultaneously offered a silly bit of characterization and also stood as a weird warning sign.

Considering there's a serial killer who targets kids on the loose, having one of the show's only major adult characters reveal he's got an improbable supply of candy in his car seems like a bit of a tell. But honestly, I'd rather Yashiro not be the killer, and it somewhat frustrates me that ERASED's thriller frame makes that a necessary question. ERASED often walks a difficult line where its thriller roots and "difficulty of trust" theme demand a certain level of character relationship ambiguity, whereas the general need of a story to create emotional investment pulls in the opposite direction. The unquestioned bond between Satoru and Hinazuki has up until now been the real emotional core of the show, so I'll be interested in seeing if the show can maintain its quality without that relationship, or if its last act will lean into more emotionally inert thriller material.

The episode's last major scene was far less ambiguous - as Satoru explained his theory to his friends, Kenya responded with a firm “you trusted me enough to tell me about it. So I want to believe in you, too.” Once again, communal trust was established as the glue holding any group together. As long as Satoru's relationships with Kenya and his mother remain central to the narrative, I suppose I shouldn't worry too much about the show's ability to arrive at an emotionally satisfying ending.

This week's ERASED was more a collection of disparate scenes than a cohesive dramatic statement, but it offered a fine ending to Hinazuki's drama and also reflected nicely on the show's central themes. ERASED continues to be a propulsive, well-directed, and generally thoughtful thriller.

Overall: B+

ERASED is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.