RogerBW's Blog

Boku dake ga Inai Machi 03 December 2016

2016 seinen manga adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB, vtt "Erased" and "The Town Without Me". Fujinuma Satoru sometimes slips back in time to just before a life-threatening accident, which lets him try to correct it. When his mother is murdered, he finds himself thrown back to eighteen years earlier, when he was in elementary school and someone was killing his classmates.

The occasional show like this is the reason why I keep watching anime, and plough through all the derivative and second-rate stuff. After an un-promising start showing Satoru's drifting modern life, it's straight into the action: as a schoolboy retaining his memories of the killings, he has to try to befriend the victims and stop them from being on their own and vulnerable – and of course to try to work out who's the murderer.

I must admit, I thought that was pretty clear, but Satoru doesn't spot the answer until rather later. Given the way anime often understates things, I'd thought he was just playing his cards close to his chest, but no, he was really surprised to find out. Ah well; this isn't really meant to be a mystery show, and the big question is how he'll do what needs to be done to put the world right rather than whether he'll work out whodunnit.

There's a certain amount of Important Life Lesson in there too, as the alliances Satoru has to make to try to keep people from being killed start to change the way he looks at his friends, and they at him. If or when he gets back to the present, he will find himself feeling differently about his life, even if the closing shot of Virtue Rewarded feels lifted from James Hogan's Thrice Upon A Time.

Art is workmanlike rather than stunning, though the snow (of which there's quite a bit) is well-animated, and the Foley people did a good job there too. Characters are distinctive without all needing to have different-coloured hair. Music sets the mood, but I won't go out looking for the soundtrack album.

This is a solid psychological thriller. Don't ask how the time-travel works: this isn't a superpowers show, but comes closer in concept to something like Groundhog Day in that there's a single unexplained gimmick to let the plot happen. Yes, there are occasional plotholes, but overall I very much enjoyed this.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1