I spent my weekend watching the live action adaptation of Erased, or 僕だけがいない街 which is based on a manga about a young man who can go back in time for the purpose of saving someone from dying. In his late twenties his mother is murdered and he is framed for the crime so he hurls himself back to the 1980s to piece together a grander murder mystery involving three of his former classmates. The bulk of the story takes place in Sapporo during the mid-eighties, actually beginning around the day I was born. Good lord that makes me feel incredibly old. It was an interesting watch for many reasons but mostly because I am kind of fascinated by japan in the 80s but I’ve never really seen a place like Hokkaido depicted. It’s always the hedonistic glamour of Tokyo that you see, like in The Naked Director where the setting is almost as much of a character as anyone in the cast. Sapporo is depicted as rather bleak and decrepit and in all honestly it felt like spending a winter in my home town in the Colorado Rockies. The cold seeps into you and weighs you down but it also adds a clarity to the air that is completely unique. There is a silence that only comes from oppressive snowfall that kind of envelops you, especially at night. Also the little things like how you always have a fire burning somewhere in your house during certain months, or how you have to suit up like an avenger when you decide to go outside.

As for the show itself, it’s about a feckless man in his late 20’s named Satoru who, as stated has the unique ability to go back in time specifically to stop someone from dying. It’s weirdly specific but acts as a good foil for the story. You find out throughout the story that he was traumatized by the death of three of his classmates when he was in elementary school and it’s kind of implied that that event kept him from realizing his full potential. He’s shown jumping back in time for a few moments in the early episodes to stop random accidents but the story really starts when he goes back 18 years to before the three deaths happened. (Side note: the main character is a pizza delivery person and he rides these amazing three wheel motorcycles that they have in Asia where the rear wheels are independent and you can lean hard on them. I love them and want one as a friend.) Anyway, I won’t spoil the plot but in short Satoru befriends one of the disappeared children who comes from an extremely abusive home and he and his friends band together to try and save everyone. It’s a lot more like Stand By Me than I realized the first time I watched it, only it’s actually pretty wholesome, aside from the child murder. It also breaks a trope that I see in Japanese media a lot where stories involving young children as the main characters often show just abject bullying where at least one character is mercilessly tormented by their classmates. I understand that bullying is a serious issue in Japan as they have a culture of extreme conformity but on a personal level I just hate watching it. There is parental abuse which is awful but school is shown to be a kind of safe place for the child in question. The group of kids are painfully wholesome and support each other in ways I do not think real kids would, at least not from my experience. I dislike the Stephen King approach to writing kids where he makes them foul mouthed, abusive mini-adults, which to be fair is exactly how kids really are from my experience of growing up as one, but it just gets old. I’m 35 and at this point I’d rather just watch something that makes me have at least a little faith in humanity…most of the time. Anyway, Satoru and his band of incredibly well spoken 11 year old friends come together to try to save their classmate and this involves thing like going to a fun science museum, having a joint birthday party that is tear jerkingly adorable, and building a living space in the back of an abandoned school bus to hide said classmate. I’ve also watched the animated version of the series which is quite good in its own right but I really like the cast of child actors that they got for the roles in the live action. Child actors are notoriously hit or miss but for the most part this one has a bunch of good kidlets. The child version of Satoru is a little stilted but he comes across as really empathetic and caring. I’ll write some more about the specifics of the story but this has already gone on a little long.