By Brandi Shuler
Bring in the cold vibes! This was one of my ‘judge a book by its cover’ decisions and I was pleasantly surprised. The Erased series by Kei Sanbe was written for a Japanese manga magazine from June 2012 to March 2016. Since then, an anime and live action film has come out based on the original story. The themes throughout the series have a beautiful message about how people act in the present in order to change the course of the future.
Almost the whole story is set during the cold season in Japan where snow is falling and gives the landscape a cute, cozy atmosphere (it’s easy to romanticize snowy weather when you don’t see it often). There are also themes of friendships within childhood and feeling as though you are performing an act all the time. Both Satoru and Kayo feel like they are hiding parts of themselves from the rest of the world, except Satoru is doing it in order to get along with his classmates while Kayo is doing it to hide her feelings from everyone.
This graphic novel is a wonderful recommendation for someone who is trying to get into manga but doesn’t know where to start. Manga can be intimidating with so many tropes and genres, not knowing which ones are good and which ones to avoid. Erased is a good choice for anyone who loves a good mystery while still wanting to dip their toes into a Japanese genre, like Isekei. This refers to a story where the main character is transported into another world, which doesn’t exactly happen in Erased. Satoru is sent back in time to relive some of his childhood in order to try to stop a murder from happening in his hometown. With the knowledge he has from his adult years, he is now able to retrace his steps and help those he overlooked before. The whole series has a theme of closed cases still being able to be solved years after they’ve been closed, this story gives its readers hope for justice against such horrible crimes.
I would give this book a 4.5/5 star rating because it has been my favorite graphic novel for forever. It’s a longer single issue manga compared to others, so I was reading each issue for a little longer than your typical manga book. I think its themes are also an important message for anyone to remember. How you treat the people around you now can not only affect your own life but their livelihood and future as well.
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