Why You Should: Erased

So, let's say you have a friend. Let's say this friend is close to you or at least close enough to you that if they recommended something to you, you'd check it out and vice versa. One day, your friend finally works up the courage to bring up that "anime stuff you're always watching" and you explain to them that anime is the most advanced medium of story-telling and that they are missing out on some of the best content ever written. They seem intrigued and they ask you that one question that EVERYONE who watches anime has been asked:

"If I wanted to get into anime but like, I've never seen anime and I don't want to watch anything weird, what would you recommend?"

What do you say? Well many people suggest the popular basics like Naruto or Dragon Ball Z or anything that has been on Toonami in the last 5 years which is fair and fine, but not necessarily the right answer. In fact (and yeah this is unpopular to say but if you had sense you'd agree) I believe the only proper first anime for your stubborn yet open-minded friend is Erased and if you truly cared for your friend you'd not only enthusiastically recommend it, but you'd let them borrow your crunchyroll password so they can watch it.

Erased is easily one of the best anime to come out in 2016 (a landmark year for anime) and is one of the strongest anime I've ever watched in-terms of storytelling. From the excellent pacing, to the genuine dialogue, someone was really in their bag in the writer's room. Not to mention, this is one of the few ANYTHINGS I've seen that does a time-travel concept well and not with hokey science or unrealistic consequences. Not even a massive blockbuster like endgame could do that. Without spoiling it, which I desperately want to, Erased is an emotional roller coaster of a thriller anime with stakes that feel very real and grounded and manage to keep you guessing all while balancing its hard to tackle concept. Even with all of these factors that go into the sheer excellence of this anime, the strongest aspect of this anime is the lesson.

It's true that often media that tries to teach you a lesson is lame, which is why lessons are often relegated to kid shows about talking pigs. For adult content especially, it's almost impossible to teach the audience a lesson without coming off as condescending, preachy, and out of touch but Erased NAILS IT. Instead of trying to relate the lesson to you, they ground it firmly in the story and instead hook you to the character who they've crafted to be the perfect, self-insert avatar for the watcher and that's very special. I know I recommend a lot of anime and I tend to gush over all of them but please believe me when I say that Erased is special. It's so universal and it hurts that it's been so overlooked in the past few years so please... WATCH IT!!