series review: Orange

Serious Problems Not Given a Serious Solution

I had seen some things about this series, but hadn't thought much about watching it, until it was mentioned in a friendly exchange with someone with Redeemed Otaku Podcast, so I decided to give it a shot.

Summary

Now in their mid-twenties, Naho Takamiya and her four closest friends from high school meet to dig up a small time capsule they had buried ten years before, and to remember their friend Kakeru Naruse, who had died in an accident not longer after the time capsule was buried. Ten years earlier, Naho Takamiya is preparing to start her second year of high school, when she receives a letter from the person she will be ten years in the future. The letter tells her of events that will happen during the school year, things the future Naho regrets doing or not doing, and she wants her past self to do differently. Much of what the future Naho writes about concerns a new student, a boy named Kakeru Naruse, a boy Naho will fall in love with, a boy who will die in an accident that might not have been an accident.

Characters

One of the big strengths of this series is that the characters are well portrayed and developed. The way the group of friends interact with each other is very much like how one might expect a group of high-school friends to act around each other.

Given the speculative element of the time-traveling letters, it's makes sense that the older people would want to try to tell their younger selves how to act in certain situations, especially when it comes to something as serious as a friend having committed suicide.

And while the time-travel thing is kinda-sorta explained with references to black holes and parallel universes, the focus is still on the characters and what they want to do. And in some cases, what they want will involve sacrifice, something one of the older men is honest enough to show to his younger self, by showing him the future he might lose by acting in different ways.

Regret

The biggest theme of this series involves regret; the older people wanting their younger selves to not do things they had grown to regret; Naho's often faltering attempts to act on the advice her older self wrote to her so she would not live with those regrets; the guilt and regret that eats at Kakeru over his mother's death, and his friends' attempts to cheer him up and help him carry the things that are dragging him down.

On the one hand, there is something good about watching these people really try to help each other, especially as they try to help the one among them that is going through a hard time. It is good to see how they will not give up on Kakeru, not just let things play out as their future selves say it did until he ends up taking his own life. There is something very admirable and even noble in their actions.

On the other hand, the solution, which is basically friendship and love, comes off as being too much like putting a bandage over a mortal wound. It isn't that human friendship and love aren't good things; they are, but are they things to put such faith in? Can someone like Naho really be sure that she'll be able to pull Kakeru back from the edge if he is ever overwhelmed again by guilt and regret? Can any person really keep themselves, let alone another person, from feeling pain, from doing things they will regret later on? It may be good to tell a person to not die by his own hands, but that doesn't mean that that person will not eventually die anyway.

This kind of shallow solution simply cannot survive reality. No person can be happy all the time, and no person can keep another person happy all the time. In fact, a person takes on a grinding and crushing burden when they try to make other people, or even only one other person, happey all the time. What is wrong with each of us is simply too deep, too profound, too much a part of us, to allow for such a shallow solution.

Make All Things New

It is very easy for me to think about things I've done in the past, and wish I'd done them very differently. I can easily think of times when I was selfishly, when I was arrogant, when I was dishonest, when I supported things I later came to regret supporting.

For me, the forgiveness of sins promised in the Gospel of Christ to those who repent and believe in Christ is a great promise. I have some idea of the truth behind the biblical saying “All our works of righteousness are as filthy rags”. For me to say that we are sinners is not some kind of attempt at self-righteous boasting about my supposed virtues, but rather it's a statement of reality from one sinner to others. I know that even now, there is some sense in which I am a new creature, but I do find comfort in the Bible's promises in Revelation 21, that there will come a time when God will make all things new.

I've heard it said that “The Gospel is for Christians, too”. Christians need to be encouraged to do good works, true, but we also need to be reminded of what God has done for us. While we are still on this earth, still not completely sanctified, still at the same time both justified and sinful, we need to be reminded that our salvation is not something we had a hand in, and that Christ of His own choosing and by His Father's will was the sacrifice for our sins. I've been comforted in remembering that, when guilt and regret haunt me.

Conclusion

This is a fairly good series. It's well written and has many very moving moments. Of course, you should watch it with discernment, and not just let the emotional moments cover over its weak ideas. You might find it worth a look.

Erased: An Intriguing Time-Travel Preventing Murders Mystery

This review appeared at Speculative Faith, with a few changes.

I usually don't consider time travel stories among my favorites, though there are some exceptions. My favorite Discworld story is “Night Watch”, where Sam Vimes goes back to a time when Ankh-Morpork was a boiling pot of revolution. My reasons for abandoning “Doctor Who” are mostly that the series has abandoned me by pushing their social crusade—in a real sense, “Torchwood” is the reason I no longer like “Doctor Who”.

All of that to say, while I didn't start watching “Erased” because it had a time travel element in it, that element didn't drive me off, and in the context of this story it worked very well.

Summary

Satoru Fujinuma is a man in his late 20s struggling to break into the world of manga artists. Occasionally, he'll experience what he calls “revivals”, where his life will rewind itself for a few seconds or a few minutes. He's aware when this happens, and uses this time to try to prevent something bad from happening, such as in the first episode when he prevents a runaway truck from hitting a boy crossing the street. When he comes home one night to find that his mother has been murdered, he experiences a very drastic “revival”, one that sends him back to a few days before his 11^th birthday. This was the winter one of his classmates, a girl named Kayo Hinazuki, went missing, and her body wasn't found until after the snows melted. His return to the past is also just before she goes missing, and thinking there may be a connection between his mother's murder and the death of his classmate and other children in the area at that same time, he tries to prevent Kayo from getting killed.

The time travel element of the “revivals” is intriguing. Satoru still possesses the mind and memories of his 29 year old self, but he's in his 10 year old body. This does cause some amusing situations, and some problems, too. For example, his older self has forgotten where he and his friends had their “secret hideout”.

But it also allows him to see things that his younger self had missed. When he notices a bruise on Kayo's leg, and then reads a composition she wrote about wanting to be alone on an island, he realizes that even before she was killed, bad things were happening to her. So his attempts to save her life also end up being attempts to get her out of an abusive home.

Btw it's the name of Kayo's composition, “Boku Dake ga Inai Machi”, that is the Japanese title of the anime and the manga it's based off of. The translations I've seen of this title go something like this, “The Town Where I Am Missing”.

Finding New Mistakes to Make

I'll try to avoid too much that might be spoiler material, but what comes next might fit that category for some people, so be warned.

Satoru's first attempt to change the past failed, and he got booted back to the present into the middle of the same predicament he had left. He does discovers that he had been able to make a few small changes, but nothing significant. Then, when he gets another chance, he is able to keep some things from happening, but makes other mistakes that are costly to him.

I'd guess I'm not the only person who's ever wanted to jump back in time a few minutes or a few hours and redo something. I've thought it would be helpful, though, really, I'd likely just be trading one set of mistakes for another. I'd probably spend most of my redos exploring new and creative ways to really and monumentally mess things up.

Mother and Child

One thing that's evident early in that story is that the relationship between Satoru and his mother is strained. The reasons seem to range from his own lack of success to some things that happened during the kidnapping spree when he was a child.

One of the things I liked during the series was seeing his view of his mother change. Returning to the past after seeing her dead reminds him of many of the good things they'd had that he'd forgotten about. It's good to see them on good terms. And I'll not spoil the last part of the story, except that it shows her love for her son in a particularly strong way.

On the other hand, there is another mother-child relationship that is very much worse. Some of the series' most disturbing scenes involve what Kayo's mother does to her, and how she tries to cover it up. The contrast between the two mothers is most clearly shown when Satoru's mother allows Kayo into their home while Satoru is trying to hide her, particularly the breakfast scene. I'll just mention it here, but let you watch it for yourself, if you wish.

God of Second Chances?

I remember something from when I was a kid. It was Sunday mornings, and sometimes there would be these church services on television. On one of them, there was a man who often sang a song with lyrics which were something like “Our God is the God of a second chance”.

That's not the last time I've heard such an idea. It seems to be fairly popular. But is it true?

Because the truth is, the revivals of “Erased” are fictions. We don't get replays or rewinds, we don't get to go back to the last saved moment, the past will always be the past and never again be the present. The things we did wrong yesterday will always be done and be wrong.

Although I can understand the point trying to be made, I'm not sure it's a point that's true. The truth is, there are no second chances. God doesn't give us chances to redo what we did wrong yesterday, or even five minutes ago.

God isn't the God of second chances. It's more accurate to say that Christ is our only chance. As Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, but by me”.

King David could not undo his adultery and murder, he could only confess his sins to God and ask for mercy. “ Have mercy on my, O God, according to your loving kindness. According to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions...Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight...Wash me thoroughly from my iniquites, and cleanse me from my sins.”

God doesn't give us rewinds, but he has redeemed those who are His.

Conclusion

“Erased” is a very engaging series. The time travel element is done intelligently, and the story is told in a way that does well in increasing the tension and the stakes. There are some disturbing scenes where ugliness is shown, but also ones where kindness is well displayed, too. I can give it a strong recommendation.