Save her!
A young man who has a special ability that allows him to turn back time when something serious is about to happen finds his mother killed. And the police believe he’s the one who murdered her. Suddenly he has traveled back in time when he was a kid, and he now has a chance to stop the murder of a girl who’s in his class. He tries to get closer to the girl so that he can stop a serial killer from killing her. He also hopes that this will change the future so that his mother isn’t murdered.
Erased aka The Town Where Only I Am Missing is based on a manga and anime series. I liked the anime series, but I felt that 12 episodes were too short to tell the good story it has. Did we need a short live-action movie after the solid anime series? No, we didn’t.
Many narrow-minded people have problems with animated series or movies. They associate animation with children and childhood, which may be true sometimes. But there are plenty of animated movies and series that work just as well for adults and children. Ignorance is something I don’t appreciate, especially if you love movies and series. If you do, you shouldn’t have a problem with another art form that tells a more mature story.
And after watching the movie, I have to say that we didn’t need this movie. The anime series is much better. The movie doesn’t manage to create the sadness you feel for the young girl and the dark atmosphere that you find in the anime series.
If you have watched the anime series, you will not get the same feeling in terms of the atmosphere and the great story it has to tell. We also get another proof that real humans in front of the camera won’t make a movie or series better. Lately, I have appreciated more and more animated series that are out to tell a good story.
You see the shortcomings in this movie. The characters are one-dimensional, and the movie changes the ending in the anime series so that the protagonist seems stupid and does things that make little sense.
The biggest problem is that the movie fails to engage with the story it tells, which is pretty well done. But when you look at who plays the protagonist, Tatsuya Fujiwara, the guy I call the mop head, the entire production started with a big handicap with this actor who stinks in emotional scenes. The guy is just useless. He’s the Japanese answer to Orlando Bloom, and he no longer has a career. So why does this mop head still have a career in Japan?
Watch the anime series rather than the movie adaptation. I guarantee you’ll get much more out of the anime series than this unengaging movie adaptation. If you have watched the anime series, I can guarantee you that the movie adaptation will only be a big letdown. It fails to offer an emotional ride which was the best thing about the whole anime series.