Boku dake ga Inai Machi – Ambitious but Has Great Potential

Me every anime season.

Whenever a new anime season occurs, I mostly have no idea what kind of anime I’m looking at other than sequels from established series. I’m not an active manga, light novel or even visual novel reader, and don’t really follow their announcements that closely, so these anime titles are like alien words designated by a secret society. This is why I’m not sure what to say whenever people ask me “what are you watching this season?” because quite frankly, I just have no idea. I always rely on anitweeter’s responses and opinions to see which anime I want to watch after they are aired. You can argue and say “everyone’s opinion is shit though”, but by doing this, I can at least filter the massive amount of selection every season to just a selected few.

I digress. Anyway, one anime this Winter season in particular, Boku dake ga Inai Machi is one everyone in my twitter TL had been singing praises of, and while I’m slow, having finally started it, I can see why.

If anything, this anime has a lot of potential. Episode 1 especially started out great, the groundwork is carefully laid out-character introductory, especially with the protagonist-Satoru’s character, flaws, etc… are well done, then there’s the basis of the story, Satoru’s mysterious supernatural ability that allow him to time travel back to a moment just before an incident occurs. And the fact how the latest incident Satoru got himself involved in, found him time traveled back 18 years ago, possibly connecting to a serial murder case occurred at that time. In fact, Episode 1 ended right after that plot twist, of course whatever I mentioned here is already in the synopsis, but seeing how it all brilliantly plays out still really hooks you in.

Aforementioned, the groundwork had been meticulously laid out in the Episode 1. All the plot points-like Satoru’s “forgotten” memory and how the murder case 18 years ago seem to connect to the latest one, I assume the rest of the story will be filled with story and character development, foreshadowing and shedding more of the mysteries in this multi-layered murder in full throttle. Put time travel in the mix and this is really an overly-ambitious story, but nonetheless, judging from we had seen from the two episodes currently aired (at the time of this post), it definitely has great potential. I honestly don’t want to set my expectations too high, but I’m really sensing an overbearingly gripping tale once the story starts picking up. It seems the manga’s author, Kei Sanbe, really know what’s he’s doing, and combined that with a stellar production value in the adaption…

Notice how bright red Kayo’s outfit is compared to the rest of the colors in this scene, it’s a nice visual trick that casually focuses viewer’s eyes on the “subject”, signifying the character’s importance in the story. The anime is full of “visual cues” like this.

I mean, you have esteemed anime music composer, Kajiura Yuki doing the OSTs for the show, who’s known for composing OSTs for anime like Unlimited Blade Works, Fate/Zero, Kara no Kyoukai and Madoka, her works always has a larger-than-life feel to it, fitting BokuMachi perfectly. Last but not least, with the proficient visual design and an unique voice acting cast, I literally have no complains on the technical side of BokuMachi as well.

I may be a sucker for time-travel stories, but this one sounds like it’s going to be an extremely good one even among it’s peers. If you watched it, what do you think of it so far?