Netflix’s ‘Erased’ Is Like A Time Travel Soap Opera

This past year has been a surprisingly great one for Netflix and anime. In August, Netflix announced it would add 12 new series to its growing slate of original anime, and this December the streaming service is closing out the year with at least one last manga adaptation. If the idea of a live-action anime about time travel and a dark murder mystery sounds appealing, Erased should probably be your next binge.

Adapted from Kei Sanbe’s mystery manga series Bokudake ga Inai Machi, Erased tells the story of aspiring manga artist, Satoru (Yûki Furukawa). Between his pizza delivery job and his rocky relationship with his mom, Satoru seems to have exactly the kind of life you would expect for a moody 20-something artist. However, Satoru has a secret superpower that makes him the perfect comic book hero — he’s able to go back in time and prevent bad things from happening. These “Revivals,” as the show’s protagonist calls them, have happened all throughout his life, but when he’s sent back in time, he never immediately knows what he needs to fix. He just knows that something is wrong about the moment he’s reliving, forcing Satoru to both guess the disaster that’s about to happen and what he can do to prevent it.

As long as you don’t take the details of time travel too seriously, it’s an interesting premise. Trying to guess what’s about to go wrong along with Satoru is an oddly satisfying viewing game. That being said, as someone who has never read the original manga and is unfamiliar with the property, Satoru makes for an initially irritating protagonist. Despite what’s happening around him, his default mood seems to be gloomy, making him a bit too dark to be counted on as a traditional hero. Also, the show takes its world a bit too seriously for there to be any comedic joy from the character’s situation. 

However, that perpetual grumpiness does do one thing quite well — it gives both Satoru and the show as a whole room to grow. After Satoru’s mother (Tomoka Kurotani) is murdered, he experiences his biggest time leap yet, transporting him back to fifth grade. The rest of the series follows a young Satoru as he attempts to figure out how to stop a string of child kidnappings and eventually save his own mother. Through this forced adventure, Satoru slowly starts to value the positive elements of his life he previously took for granted. 

Netflix’s adaptation of Erased isn’t an ambitious exploration of the conventions and implications of time travel like the German Dark. Instead, the Japanese series a fast-paced murder mystery. Tonally, the live action series is a bit closer to CW than HBO, but there’s certainly value in that. Sometimes all you want from a murder drama is something scandalous and a bit over the top. Add in some time travel and a manga tie in, and that’s the fun binge that is Erased.

Stream Erased on Netflix