Author’s note: This article contains spoilers for the manga and anime ERASED.
Satoru, you’re…my…hero.
Satoru Fujinuma’s time traveling adventures continue in ERASED, Volume 3 by Kei Sanbe.
After witnessing the murder of his mother by an unknown attacker in the first volume, “revival”—Satoru’s unique ability to travel back a few moments in time—sends him back further than it ever has before, from 2006 all the way to 1988, to when Satoru is 10 years old. The serial deaths of a number of his classmates in 1989 appear to be somehow related to his mother’s death, and revival sends him back to stop them.
BOKU DAKE GA INAI MACHI © Kei SANBE 2018 / KADOKAWA CORPORATION
Satoru has saved Kayo Hinazuki, both from her abusive mother and from the town’s child-abducting serial killer, and he’s on his way to making sure his classmate and friend Hiromi Sugita is safe too. Now he just has to find a way to befriend Aya Nakanishi, the third and final girl who went missing 10 years ago in 1988. But Aya is from another school, and Satoru isn’t sure how to befriend her. Luckily, his mission appeals to his classmate Kenya Kobayashi’s sense of justice, and the two of them, along with all the other friends he’s made along the way, come together and help protect Aya.
Satoru appears to have won. Kayo, Hiromi, and Aya are safe. The murderer has failed. But halfway through this volume, the climax of the entire story finally unfolds. Satoru encounters the killer, and it doesn’t go at all according to plan. The killer was right in front of him all along!
From the moment Satoru realizes what he’s missed, the clues leading to the murderer’s identity smack him right in the face, flooding his mind with fear and anguish. The clues were there all along, both in the story and dialog, but also in the drawings throughout the volumes. If you just look at the art at the beginning of this volume, you will see the answer in the illustrations, and it makes me wonder if the previous two volumes have just as many clues. (I just flipped through Vol. 1 and 2, and while they include little illustrations at the beginning of the volumes, they’re not clues per se.)
If you had the murderer pegged from the start, bravo to you! I already knew who it was, since I saw the anime before reading the manga, but I remember when I watched the show, I wasn’t quite sure who the murderer was until it was revealed.
Soon after the murderer’s discovery, the author provides us with a series of flashbacks as to why the killer is the way they are. I don’t really remember this being in the anime, although I could be wrong, so this was an interesting aside.
Still, I’m not sure if the explanation was enough for me. The murderer describes their experience of abuse in the past at the hands of their brother. Domestic violence and abuse in childhood have been shown to often lead to violent delinquency in the future. But including such explanations in stories can sometimes lead readers to think that must mean all people who experience abuse will be violent in the future, and this is simply not the case.
Still, I thought the author was skillful in making sure the reader doesn’t jump to such conclusions. This story is much more complex than an episode of CSI or similar media. For example, the author shows us Kayo as an adult later in the volume, a person who experienced trauma as a child and yet is happy and healthy in the future.
In addition to the exciting story, the art in this volume continues to deliver. The transitions between panels—specifically between the past, present, and future—are clear, and the surprises—like the killer’s identity, what happens to Satoru after the reveal, and the very end of this volume—leave your heart racing. The layout of this manga continues to pleasantly surprise me. It feels just like reading a crime novel or watching a psychological thriller film.
Where is the key…that unlocks the door?!
ERASED was originally serialized in Young Ace magazine in Japan from 2012 through 2016. Volume 3 is now available in English from Yen Press.
Story: 5 out of 5 stars
Art: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
This review contains affiliate links. While Girls in Capes does make revenue from purchases made at affiliate links, reviews are not paid, and all reviews contain the staff writers’ honest opinions of the work.
[coffee]
