(L+CR) Boku Dake ga Inai Machi - ERASED [Manga comparisons forbidden]

[aohige]

Spoiler for Comparison to the source material:

As an Airi fan I am shedding tears of blood at the anime original.

[PreSage]

Originally Posted by ~Destiny~

Actually didnt know op was changed until I saw a post on reddit

I always skip subsequent OP so thanks for the heads-up. Felt bad for him to miss 15-years of his life with his mom and friends, but it looks like he still retained memories of his previous timeline. Yet he lost the chance to make new, happier memories.

Originally Posted by aohige

Spoiler for Comparison to the source material:

As an Airi fan I am shedding tears of blood at the anime original.

Spoiler for Reply to comparison:

Has the anime diverted that much from the manga? To avoid potential spoilerage...simple yes or no will suffice.

[Kanon]

Ah, there it is. The so called NTR.

In universe, Kayo did nothing wrong. Moving on and trying to be as happy as possible was the best way to repay Satoru for saving her life. That's what he would have wanted, and he seemed in fact very happy to see her alive and well. Besides, it's not like they were in a relationship or anything. Honestly, I'm more disappointed in Hiromi. He was supposed to be Satoru's friend, and he sure as hell knew Satoru liked Kayo, yet he still made a move on her (I can't imagine Kayo was the one who seduced him). Of course, we don't know the details so we can't judge him.

From a meta standpoint, however, this decision from the author is quite odd. There's no denying Satoru and Kayo's relationship had heavy romance undertones (how many times did Satoru have to remind himself he was an adult?), but all of a sudden it feels like the story wants us to pretend that never happened. Kayo moving on is definitely more realistic than her waiting for 15 years, but is realism a good thing in this case? I definitely would have liked a more idealistic and romantic outcome. Mostly because I think Satoru deserves happiness too. With a little luck, he'll reach it in the final episode. He's sacrificed so much, he deserves to be rewarded.

PS: Sachiko confirmed for best mom once again.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by PreSage

Spoiler for Reply to comparison:

Has the anime diverted that much from the manga? To avoid potential spoilerage...simple yes or no will suffice.

Spoiler for Reply to comparison:

Basically, yes.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by sikvod00

I really liked the touch of having coma-Satoru's "inner voice" be his middle-school version, while his middle-school version was voiced by adult v1 Satoru. It's a neat way to view the perspective of someone reliving their life in a twisted way.

This element is probably what I liked most about Episode 11. It had a very nice "mirror image" or "role reversal" effect.

Aside from that, though, I have very mixed feelings about Episode 11. Though probably for different reasons than many other viewers have.

This whole "15 year coma" situation is honestly a bit much to take. The show obviously had fantastical/supernatural elements from the very start, but still, this latest plot shift actually makes some of the wilder stuff in Key narratives seem tame by comparison.

Nonetheless, it was very rewarding and cathartic to see Kayo all grown up, happy, and healthy. Satoru's current situation certainly has some bitterness to it, at least at a superficial or practical level. But at a deeper level, simply seeing Kayo and Hiromi all grown up has to be tremendously rewarding to him. He can honestly say that this entire family - Hiromi/Kayo/their child - exists now because of his heroic actions. That's quite the accomplishment, viewed through an altruistic lens.

Now, one can argue that this narrative is overly cruel to Satoru, but there's certainly nothing to fault Kayo or Kenya or Hiromi over. If anything, it's very good of Kenya and Hiromi to still care about Satoru 15 years after they last had a conversation with him. A lot of people in their mid-20s have vague memories of their days as a 10/11 year old kid, so Kenya and Hiromi still remembering Satoru well and caring about him like this speaks well of them. Kayo is maybe an exception here, given the major impact that Satoru and his mother had in her life, but all you can reasonably expect of her is for her to not forget Satoru and to show him thanks and support after he's recovered, which she has done.


I'm not sure what to make of Yashiro's actions in this episode. His character makes for good TV, but I'm not sure what to make of his character aside from that.

There's a lot of questions tied to this whole coma situation, and I hope they get answered at least decently well in the finale. Even if they are answered well, this is one finale I will be mulling over a lot, I suspect. I have very mixed feelings here.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Dop

In this timeline, Airi has no connection to Satoru, so unless she delivers him a pizza I wouldn't have thought it likely.

True enough perhaps, but two points: first, not too serious, there's the concept of destiny that seems to be rather popular in Japanese fiction. I believe the term is "En" and as far as I understand it seems to be about a future bound to another, so that whatever path you may take you can be sure it will be intertwined with the other person. I got a bit of that feeling from her and the way she was just always there and always so interested in him. But enough of flippant debate, it is certainly true what someone else said about tying up loose ends. One way or another, if they don't show Airi then it'll leave everyone wondering where she is now, what she's doing now, whether she even exists in this timeline, etc.
My favorite future for Satoru at this point would be one with Airi, but frankly I don't need that future to be part of the actual storyline. The best end would probably be like many stories, showing just enough to suggest that such a bright future may await the hero depending on what he does, demonstrating the "en" I mentioned by showing the two again finding each other, but leaving what relationship, if any, develops to imagination or whimsical afterword material if the author feels like it.

As for Kayo, I was not exactly happy to find her in love and married, but it's still a happy life for her. If anything, I will admit it did seem a little off for her to bring her baby. It's her first encounter in more than a decade with her first crush, someone who was incredibly close to her and seemed to return at least some of those feelings, who has no memories between now and the time that those feelings were still fresh, and who is still rather weak from all that time. Given all of that, showing up with proof that you'd moved on, left him behind and had a child would be a little extreme. Seems to me like it might have been a little gentler to first meet him, catch up a bit, tell him about how she's doing now, and then either bring the kid over or tell him about it. Not so much because he was her first love, but because he's a very weak, wheelchair-bound boy whose last memories (to her knowledge) are from the time when he seemed to have a child's crush on her too. A little much, a little fast.

[germanturkey]

i have a small hope that Kumi's sister is Airi.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by germanturkey

i have a small hope that Kumi's sister is Airi.

I thought the same thing the moment I heard/read Kumi mentioning a big sister.

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

This whole "15 year coma" situation is honestly a bit much to take. The show obviously had fantastical/supernatural elements from the very start, but still, this latest plot shift actually makes some of the wilder stuff in Key narratives seem tame by comparison.

I got the impression that in his previous "revival" experiences, Satoru had never flashed forward after fixing whatever it was that needed fixing. He didn't after saving that kid in the first episode. Time just continued on from his "revival" point. So the anomaly wasn't that he had to take the long way back to his adult life, but that he bounced back and forth between his past and his present a couple of times earlier in the story.

But then, we've never found out why he goes through these "revival" things, or who's making him go through them. Tralfamadorans, maybe?

(Bonus points for anyone who gets that reference...)

[thundrakkon]

Quote

Originally Posted by Kanon

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I have a feeling this has to do with fate or the timeline theory that things try to correct themselves for events to occur as originally intended. In this case, since 2 people who originally were not alive are now alive, so they end up together to minimize the effects on everyone else. In this same line of thinking, it means that Satoru and Airi will end up converging at some point in the future as well. Of course, the author left out Aya because she is the odd person out in this case, and she is not that relevant to the story-line now.

As for why everyone moves to this city after all this time, it makes me wonder if something major happened in the area in Japan between 1988 to 2003.

Oh, I'm pretty sure that Yashiro kept on murdering children after the car incident. He did say he had to move to a different city, which I figured meant for him to find new prey. He did kill before the Kayo incident, as hinted when Sachiko was talking to her reporter friend, Sawada, in episode 5. In the end, Satoru saved only 3 lives, and the rest were at the mercy of fate.

[germanturkey]

i find it hilarious how so many people are up in arms about the ntr (which it isn't.) it isn't like A-1 is foreign to this type of thing. Lookin' at you Aldnoah!

[Jaden]

His friends' reactions are normal. A coma patient who doesn't wake up within a couple weeks is 99,99% dead. In the very rare cases where they wake up, they are mentally and physically crippled for life. This is because a long coma with no physical or mental stimulus isn't actually a state of recovery, but of decay. No matter how hard one person tries to nurse them.

So, it's silly to think that Kayo and Hiromi wouldn't marry out of consideration for Satoru. The strange ones are his mother who kept him on life support for 15 years and Yashiro who was somehow convinced he would wake up. Though I guess people are never rational in cases like this, so it's fine.

Anyway, this episode reminds me of the way Charlotte went in its last episodes. Everything is so contrived and ridiculous that it's lost the sharpness and weight it had in the beginning. Now I just want to see some kind of ending, any kind, quickly so I can be done with it.

[karice67]

Originally Posted by germanturkey

i find it hilarious how so many people are up in arms about the ntr (which it isn't.) it isn't like A-1 is foreign to this type of thing. Lookin' at you Aldnoah!

Studios pretty much have no bearing on what happens in a story. This is especially true in the case of A-1 Pictures.

[thundrakkon]

Oh, another point I forgot to mention. It looks like Satoru got his memory back when he placed his palm on Mirai, Kayo's son. It was as if the "future" was brought back to him. After that, he wanted to train doubly hard to walk again. He was about to mention it to his mom, but decided against it for her safety. I guess he kept quiet, since he didn't want anyone to know until he was ready to fight back.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Interesting thing is that the inner voice is young Satoru. Which kinda solves the question what happens to young Satoru's consciousness when future Satoru takes over.

He went WTF on having mangaka skill.

I know they are constrained with time. I'm fine with leaving out extraneous bits particularly the creepy one but do they really have to change that scene?

[Benigmatica]

Episode 11:
Gotta say that Satoru Fujinuma survived but I'm concerned about Gaku Yashiro at this point as he's gonna kill him!

Unless there's a way to stop Yashiro, the last episode would become a downer if Satoru can't act quickly.

[Kenu]

Well last episode he also tried to kill him too!

[BBOvenGuy]

Okay, now I've finally seen the episode (good old Pacific time zone), and I've got to say...

What on earth are people complaining about with the reunion scene between Kayo and Satoru? I thought it was marvelous! Satoru was obviously thrilled to see that Kayo had grown up so well and was living such a good life. Kayo was indeed feeling anxious and perhaps a little guilty about leaving Satoru behind. In what way could anyone possibly interpret this scene as nasty Kayo rubbing her ex-boyfriend's nose in what a great time she's been having with his friend while he was comatose?

[mod edit: remove the manga tangent to hopefully prevent the topic from re-igniting]

[relentlessflame]

Everyone, as I said last week, this thread is a manga-free zone. It can't be discussed here. So if you want to discuss the manga or compare the anime to the manga, please go to the manga thread.

Edit: I've updated the thread title to remind everyone that manga comparisons are forbidden in this thread.

[Kenu]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

Okay, now I've finally seen the episode (good old Pacific time zone), and I've got to say...

What on earth are people complaining about with the reunion scene between Kayo and Satoru? I thought it was marvelous! Satoru was obviously thrilled to see that Kayo had grown up so well and was living such a good life. Kayo was indeed feeling anxious and perhaps a little guilty about leaving Satoru behind. In what way could anyone possibly interpret this scene as nasty Kayo rubbing her ex-boyfriend's nose in what a great time she's been having with his friend while he was comatose?

I can see why people can be upset that Kayo didn't save herself for Satoru, but given the possibility of him never waking up, there's little point for her to hold out. In fact, Sachiko being the awesome mother she is, could have advised against waiting for her son to wake up and for Kayo to have a full life. One she deserves after such a traumatic childhood.

Last week we were thinking Satoru had died completely, now we're worried about his love life.. lol. I'm just glad his still alive.

I was a little surprised how quickly this episode finished. The treating doctor appeared to be talking with Nishizono/Yashiro so therefore he has a possible accomplice.

Anyway, Satoru wouldn't allow himself to be taken to a secluded spot with Yashiro unless he had regained enough strength to combat him.

It's obvious Satoru's words caught Yashiro-sensei and he must have saved him because he wants to know the secret to his time-travelling and perhaps use it himself.