ERASED!

Hello beautiful people, I wish you all the best in your work this week, and take good care of yourselves in this quarantine.

Let's talk about exciting series, Boku dake ga inai machi (僕 だ け が い な い 街 lit. The city where only I have disappeared), known in Latin America as "Erased", is a manga series written and illustrated by Kei Sanbe serialized in Young Ace magazine in Kadokawa Shoten since 2012. The first volume launched on June 2nd and ended on March 4th, 2016 with 8 volumes.

In 2016, under the production of A-1 Pictures, the animated adaptation was broadcast by Fuji TV from January 8th to March 26th of that year. The series was directed by Tomohiko Ito and written by Taku Kishimoto, with character design by Keigo Sasaki.

A live action film adaptation of Boku dake ga inai machi premiered in Japanese theaters on March 19th, 2016. Then in 2017, Netflix announced a live action series adaptation, which was released worldwide by the streaming platform on December 15th.

Today I am going to tell you about the adaptation to the series that is on Netflix, Satoru is 29 years old, is a mangaka (manga artist) and works as a pizza delivery boy. His life is apparently ordinary, but he has a special ability: when he is near the place where some incident that puts someone's life at risk occurs, he goes back a few minutes in time to avoid it.

One night, Satoru arrives at the place where a murder has occurred and becomes the main suspect; the regression does not take him a few minutes ago, but 18 years ago, when he was in primary school. Satoru will have to discover the relationship between the events that occurred then, with the murder of his present and try to change the past.

His particular ability will not be helpful for this, but he will have to overcome the conflicts that he did not have the courage to face as a child, and, on the way, rediscover his identity. With this he will not only save several lives but also save himself, discovering the value of friendship along the way, and realizing that sometimes the help of other people is necessary to be successful.

Introspection, monologues, and tenderness (common resources in the Japanese narrative) say present in this live-action and collide with the western way of telling and receiving stories. There lies the magic of this story, in showing us through Satoru how our lack of empathy makes us ignore the problems that people close to us may be experiencing, because when we are lulled by the rays of the sun, it's easy to turn our backs on the black clouds.

Such is the fidelity of this adaptation, that it was proposed to maintain the most important ages, dialogues and characterizations of the original, only by subtracting or adding what effectively solidifies the story. And I can say that it is precisely at this point that the Netflix adaptation surpassed the anime.

In my opinion, this adaptation stuck to and approached the manga in a different way from what was seen in the anime; and they even chose to end the story using the formula written by his mangaka, which was much more logical and forceful, while in the anime everything is hasty and implausible.

The serial killer and criminal genius of the series (whom I will not reveal so as not to ruin your experience) are also given depth, presenting their background and motivations, which were not addressed so well in the anime.

The series does not lose the suspense at any moment and makes us stay on the edge of the seat trying to discover who the murderer is and how Satoru will stop him as a child. Erased is an excellent option for those who love the thriller genre, it has only 12 episodes of approximately 20 minutes.

I leave the trailer of the series:

XOXO Li.