First Impressions – Boku dake ga Inai Machi

Everyone knows you can’t change the past, but….what if you could?

I first came across this story while looking at anime news last year and it instantly clicked with me. Not because of mini-Shiki or even a Mikiya representative of a main character. Rather the story is intriguing and the first episode lived up to my expectations of brilliance. AKFG’s Re:Re: was a beautiful bonus.

Have you ever wished that you could change the past? That if you could, even for a few minutes, to go back in time and redo past events in your life? If you could have just changed that one thing, if you could go back in time with the maturity and mindset and knowledge that you have now, everything would be different? I think everyone has had moments like that from time to time. However, as the old adage goes, you might want to be careful what you wish for….

Time Erased

IreneSharda// The year is 2006, Satoru Fujinuma is a pretty average guy that many of us have either are, have been, or at least have known at some point. He has his dream career of being a mangaka, but that’s a hard road to climb and so in order to have the career he wants, he has a job as a part-time pizza deliveryman. I can follow and empathize with Satoru’s situation pretty well. He’s almost 30, and his career hasn’t really taken off yet, he doesn’t have any friends really other than his coworker acquaintances, he doesn’t really have a love life, and his life just really seems to be going nowhere and in a rut.

In fact the more we listen to our main character’s inner monologue, we find that he doesn’t really have that high of an opinion of himself or that he really has any importance to the world at all. Even going so far as to say that his dying wouldn’t make any difference at all.

Just a normal average guy with a normal dead-end job.

But I guess a wingless angel that’s waiting for its bell to ring, is looking after our hero, and has decided to teach him a lesson, as Satoru also happens to have been struck with a power that he neither asked for, nor can fully explain. An superhuman ability that he has dubbed, “Revival”.

Now, while the episode gave you an idea of how Satoru’s “Revival” power works, in order to clarify:

• Revival will send him backwards in time between 1-5 minutes or so in order to prevent a catastrophe within his area of notice.
• It is an involuntary power. Satoru cannot control it and it can strike at any moment.
• The power of Revival does not give Satoru the power to choose. He must stop the catastrophe that triggered him to go back in time in the first place. If he does not, he will get sent back in time again and again until he succeeds.
• Once he has prevented the disaster, he is not sent back to the original timeline in which the disaster occurred, but will continue on down this new path in time after the disaster has been averted.

Let’s Do It Again 

Butterfly Effect

Irene//I like the way that the Revival is shown, as a figment of a butterfly, before all the colors suddenly invert and it feels like someone accidentally hit the rewind button. I also find it interesting, that the power requires for you to actually look for the disaster and doesn’t just drop it into your lab. I also like that it actually forces you to do something about the event, and doesn’t just leave it up to your choice. Cause I have a feeling that a guy like our MC would often opt out of getting involved if he didn’t have to.

However, Satoru has had this power for a while now, and he’s experienced it to the point that he has a pretty good idea of how it works. Yet, after saving who knows how many others and preventing disaster over and over again, our young man’s estimation of himself hasn’t really changed all that much. It has become just another part of his monotonous life. And yet, despite his disenfranchised demeanor, there are times that we as the audience see another side to him that glistens and glints with life when he’s saving someone else’s life, or even at moments when he’s interacting with his mother, and we have to wonder how and when he got wrapped up by so much “membrane” (as Airi Katagiri puts it) that he’s prevented even himself from seeing the real him that is underneath? Is it truly as he says that he’s scared to get to the heart of his own mind…and if so, why?

Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fainter

Kyo//Airi definitely seemed interested in him as an individual but he never paid it any mind except for labeling her as weird. Even with his own blood, his own mother, he acts distant. I know nobody likes to have a long trip of folks after they leave their first home, but Satoru is an extra amount of prickly for having his mother visit. But who knew, things would deteriorate so quickly? I am not sure if we would be seeing the adult Satoru for a while, but I hope it’s not too long as the adult version sure has grown on me. Though, from promotional poster, it seems a big chunk of events will happen around his chibi-self. Whatever happens, this was a delightful first episode and I can’t wait find out more!

Airi’s not going to take your stuff, Satoru.

Irene//Well, we’re going to find out all about the inner workings of Satoru Fujinuma, because this series is split into two different types of show that is perfectly blended for our consumption. The first part is that of an internal introspection and drama. The other part, is quite a mystery….a murder mystery in fact.

Okay, I think there might be a typo in this script. In scene 29  I’m going to get what now?! 

It turns out that Satoru’s childhood wasn’t as bland and boring as his adult life would lead you to believe. In 1988 (the best year ever, by the way) while Satoru was in elementary school, two of his classmates became the victims of a serial kidnapper and murderer, and the culprit to the crime ended up being an adult friend he had as a child, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death row.

The adults of his hometown did their best to make the children forget the event, and while it might have faded from his memory, the tragedy left its mark on the young man. His feeling of childlike guilt never went away, and the fact that his mother didn’t believe his claims of his friend’s innocence, caused a schism to form between the two that continued to grow. In fact, by the time we see them 18 years in the future, while Satoru and Sachiko are comfortable with each other’s presence and behavior, there’s a distance there that sometimes causes both tension and angst to rise up at the slightest provocation.

Dark and troubled past

For years, Satoru forgot the murders and went on with his life, never knowing that while he thought he was done with that event, it was never quite done with him.

The Past Will Catch Up With You

Irene//Through a series of events and an act of coincidence and fate, his mother realizes that the man accused of the kidnapping murders from 18 years ago, may have been innocent and that she might have just witnessed the real perpetrator up to his old tricks in her son’s town. However, in FMA fashion, just as she pretty much has the entire crime figured out, the murderer just so happens to be a step ahead and gets rid of the loose end permanently.

Crime of Cruelty

And just like that, Satoru’s rather blase life is turned upside down and he’s now dealing with the murder of mother all the while on the run from the police who believe him to be the culprit. But then again, there IS that pesky time travel power as well. But doesn’t it only work for a time period of a few minutes before? Well, not this time. For Satoru was getting on that wingless angel’s last nerve, and so going the extra mile, decided to go all in and turn up the power of Revival to 11. And now our 29 year old Satoru finds himself in his 10 year old body at the starting point for all these events back in his hometown of Hokkaido in the winter of 1988…

Can he see what needs to change in order to stop the disaster this time? And now that this has become personal, will he begin to find things out about himself that he didn’t know before?

Oh come on, I just shampooed this carpet! Mom, you have to do your body paint somewhere else. Mom…?

Boku dake ga Inai Machi has in one episode become the frontrunner of the season, showing both insight, depth, tension, and danger all wrapped in one streamlined package. The animation and music are a delight, and the mystery is intriguing. The building apprehension throughout the second half of the episode, the cold presence of the faceless murderer as he plunges the knife into Sachiko’s back and calmly removes the phone from her grasp and waits for her to bleed out. The disturbing scene of he and Satoru passing each other on the stairwell, and he just smugly tips his hat all the while hiding his face, knowing that he’s leaving the young man to take the bag for the crime. We have no idea who the murderer could be and considering that the time that our main character is going back to is almost 20 years into the past, the man could look like or be anybody.

That angel is going to get his wings if it kills him, and by “him”, he’s talking about Satoru.

And as Sotaru is now stuck in a child’s body, there is significantly less he can do in the face of such violent crimes. However, he does have his 29 year old intellect and experience to aid him, as well a knowledge of future events. Will he be able to fix the problem during this Revival, or will he have to continue the heartbreaking cycle?

All of this atmosphere that has built up around this series, is thanks to excellent writers, directors, and animators. A-1 Pictures and noitaminA offering this year is off to a stellar start. Shinnosuke Mitsushima, a first time seiyuu but veteran actor, does well the older Satoru, who sounds just a disinterested in life as he acts, and yet when asked to give powerful emotion, can seamlessly gun it full throttle. Minami Takayama also takes a break from doing her day job as Detective Conan to do a praiseworthy job as Satoru’s ex-reporter mother Sachiko. The original material has already won several accolades and we as the audience can already see why. I can tell you first hand that the manga is dangerously addicting, and I will admonish you that whatever you do, do not read the manga! You will spoil yourself to an amazing, heartrending, tension-filled wild ride that is as much about the keeping the human soul alive, as it is about finding out who would be one to cruelly and purposefully rip it away?

Yep, most promising first episode of Winter so far. Once the episode ended, I replayed it just to see if I missed anything. Not many series can achieve this kind of inquisitiveness and interest. It’s on the right path and I hope the pacing continues to keep us guessing each episode.

An interesting fact is that Satoru’s seiyuu is a newbie. This is Shinnosuke Mitsushima’s first anime role and he has real potential of doing great things as he reminded me of a young Yoshimasa Hosoya, when he first voiced Juuzawa Juu’s character in Denpa Teki na Kanojo (a brilliant OVA series, which I highly recommend).

There are enough puzzles at the onset for this to run a season but I hope it stays true to its original source like any other good adaptation as I believe the manga has not ended yet.