Boku Dake ga Inai Machi / First Impressions

「歓喜」 (Kanki)
“Joy”

This episode certainly recaptured my attention. I wasn’t sure when they would reveal the murderer to the audience but they’re cutting it pretty close with only two episodes left. That leaves an episode on how Satoru survives and probably another episode to arrest the son-of-a-b*tch and the aftermath. Now did everyone guess the right guy? Honestly, at this point in the anime, who could be left…? It was a certainly a surprise to see when they would reveal what Gaku has up his sleeve though. I didn’t think he would actually confess his crimes to Satoru straight-up but it turns out he was going to murder the kid anyway. The scene in the car was a memorizing one; I couldn’t look away for the entire half of the episode while Gaku had this murderous face on him. He went from the friendly teacher to a crazy psychopath in 30 seconds flat.

Gaku doesn’t thoroughly explain why he does what he does (yet) but it seems to me like it’s a game for him. He’s “hunting” these girls for sport to try to outwit his “opponents”. Up until his point, I don’t think he was really playing against anyone so his goal was just, not get caught. Now he has a challenger – Satoru, who has actually fouled his plans not once but twice and he’s not going to be beat a third time. I was right last week when Satoru turned into Gaku’s main target. After Gaku realized that Satoru knew more than the “average kid” should, he went on to trap Satoru to confirm his suspicions. I would expect that the murderer would be smarter than Satoru so it wasn’t a shock to see Gaku with the upper hand. It was still interesting to see just how he cornered Satoru and unfortunate at the same time because I never thought Satoru was that bright. If Gaku could go years and cross towns without being caught, there’s no way that Satoru (even knowing the future) could best him. Satoru’s biggest mistake was definitely trusting too many people at once, especially adults like Gaku and his manager whom he didn’t really know that much about. I might forgive Satoru for telling his friends about his plans, but this kid has got to learn that if an adult is commiting these crimes, he should be more careful of who he goes around questioning and telling things to. It actually bothered me a lot that Satoru would spill the beans to his teacher in the car – I get that your teacher should always be someone who you can trust but come on! When you don’t know better, everyone is a suspect.

The question still remains as to… how will Satoru escape and how will Gaku get caught? Will it be something that happens in the past or the future? Given everything that’s happened so far, even if Satoru survives, the future is going to definitely change and who knows what will happen then? Will Satoru’s mother still get involved? After all, that’s the reason that Satoru revived the first time and his primary objective. If Gaku does manage to escape and go to another town, maybe he’ll wreak havoc there, and continue to do what he does. Since I don’t know Gaku’s motivation yet for kidnapping and killing children, I’m going to assume that he’s not going to stop unless he ends up in jail.

Asides from the actual events of the episode, I thought a lot of things were really well down from the inclusion of Aya to the delivery of Gaku’s murderous intents. The episode made me feel hopeful, scared, nervous and happy all in the span of 20 minutes, which is hard to do. Hopeful and happy because Satoru and friends were able to save Aya and Hiromi (and of course, Kazu’s newfound crush!) but scared and nervous because of Satoru’s pending doom at the bottom of the river. It’s crazy how much information was crammed together this week; although I was expecting it given all the prior weeks of less dramatic episodes. Every show will have it’s highs and lows and as Boku Dake ga Inai Machi reaches its final stretch, I’m expecting nothing but highs. The manga ended a bit more than a week ago too so the anime better not fail to complete its ending properly. Please refrain from spoilers as well if you already know the ending, thank you!

Author’s Note – Apologies for the late posts these days guys! I’ve been busy moving across the country so Durarara!! will be posted late as well. Thanks for being patient with me and I’ll try my best to finish up this season properly!

43 Comments

  3. Gaku was usually on the top of everyone’s suspects but due to lack of clear motivation it wasn’t concrete, but now that i think of it the only one who could have planned all this and got away with it was Gaku, none of the other suspects had the people’s trust and direct access to information and the children themselves except him (also adult+candy almost always means kidnapper, but it was presented as a double red herring).

    Overall it was a tense and dramatic (i’m also glad they got things going cause it’s about time we knew the killer), but the whole seatbelt magically fixating Satoru was unbelievable to me, Satoru could very easily slide underneath it with his tiny body, if we was a bulky guy or overweight it would have been way more believable, as a kid i wore seatbelts and i could easily slide from it while pushing it away/upwards, that really weakened this moment a lot to me as i kept screaming at the screen for Satoru to slide his body underneath the seatbelt and free himself but he just sat there.. Hope the way he is saved makes sense at least.

    Hunter-Wolf
    Reply

    1. I guess he doesn’t know much about those seat belts, I mean, about how they really work.
      Her mom doesn’t have a car, you know it when you see her huff and puff with a lot shopping bags and get picked up by Gaku’s car. And while he apparently has a moped license for the delivery job, maybe he doesn’t have a car license. A man who doesn’t have a car license, that’s actually not rare to see in Tokyo and its suburbs, because of very refined public transportation and very expensive car parking.

      Saburau
      Reply

      1. That’s not really a bad reason, but with a picture like this from the scene it’s hard for my suspension of disblief to hold, i mean come on!, there is more than enough space for him to slip under the belt and free himself in an instant, at this point his actions defy even common sense, and remember we are talking about an adult in a kid’s body not even a real kid.

        https://randomc.net/image/Boku%20Dake%20ga%20Inai%20Machi/Boku%20Dake%20ga%20Inai%20Machi%20-%2010%20-%20Large%2033.jpg

        Hunter-Wolf
        Reply

      2. Someone mentioned an interesting theory about Satoru.
        The theory is that, while he has the memories of a much
        older adult, his ability to process those memories is limited
        to his immature eleven-year old brain – he doesn’t have
        the ability to reason as an adult.         So, the seat-belt should’ve
        been a trivial problem for an adult, he’s still has the mindset
        of a kid.

        What’s confusing, IMHO, the audience is the his narrative as
        an adult recounting the event of his flashback to the audience
        in the Anime.

        Can’t wait to see how this all wraps up!

        mac65
        Reply

      3. Another possibility is that it’s because he has the mind of an adult that it didn’t occur to him he was currently small enough to escape, since in his mind he was a full-sized adult and couldn’t do anything about a jammed seatbelt.

        That said, there’s another way to slide out that even an adult could do assuming he/she isn’t too large. Pull the belt out all the way, then thread some of the excess through the buckle to make room for your escape. If necessary, free your upper body first, then transfer all the excess to the horizontal part of the belt, standing up to step out of it.

        Hanabira.Kage
        Reply

  4. I was kinda suspicious on Gaku since a couple of episodes ago. There were too many nitpicking screen time for him. Like the candy scene, the mysterious discussions in the teacher’s room, the phone calls and all.
    Its like the author has purposely build up the suspicion prior to the revelation.

    ornehx
    Reply

  6. Well, they’re doing a pretty good job crunching the second half of the manga into 3 episodes. It feels like they chopped out some slice of life stuff with Hiromi and Aya because they were pressed for time, but I can’t really think of anything specific so probably nothing too important got missed.

    Guile
    Reply

    1. They did cut out scenes and abbreviated the events between saving Kayo and the scene in the car, but none of them furthered the story at all. They were mostly just filler scenes which played with pulling some emotional strings and such.

      The average percentage of new story being given in each chapter drops dramatically here. This ep ended exactly as I expected and I continue to have faith that the anime team will give us a cleaner story than the manga which dragged a bit from here on. Nobody needs to worry about chapter counts, worry about what’s happening inside the story instead! It’s more fun.

      danny
      Reply

  8. i had my suspicions that Satoru would eventually make himself a target by removing all the other victims with only a path to himself.

    Gaku being the culprit was sort of a no brainer if you really thought about it since there were no other suspects that could feasibly fit the criteria we knew about and it was far too late in the series to introduce any newer suspects. Once he had on his gloves in the car with that sinister music in the background all but confirmed it.

    Bamboo Blade Cat
    Reply

  11. I’m so glad that somehow I was able to bypass all spoilers that the murderer is the teacher ( why people are so mean and they’re trying to put spoilers everywhere ;/ because of that i know ‘something’ about the end ). I was suspicious towards Gaku, but it would be better mystery if we would have more suspected. Show focused so much on that teacher that it was like too easy to connect him with murders.
    Everyone who read the manga are saying that two episodes are not enough to show all manga material, so I’m a bit worried that now plot will be too fast paced.

    Shirocat
    Reply

    2. They can do it. They will definitely have to cut on secondary dialogues but they have all the time they need to tell all the main story in a good way.

      The story will lose a little in depth but I think it’s acceptable.

      youkai
      Reply

      1. I don’t need to know what comes after this; cutting Kayo was good for this part of the story. Bringing her back was an needless indulgence that got in the way of the story. I’d say it’s a sign that the mangaka lost his way.

        proper1420
        Reply

      2. I know I read the whole manga, I agree that it was not necessary, I just need my weekly Kayo feels.

        Besides, since they are running short on time, better cut this than what comes next.

        youkai
        Reply

  13. In case one wonders why Satoru couldn’t free himself from the seat belt, please be reminded that the car was equipped with a three-point seat belt. In fact, this was shown briefly in a few shots from this episode, but I guess many people have overlooked that (and this wasn’t captured in the above screenshots too). Gaku had quite probably modified the seat belt (e.g. by fixing the position of the buckle on the strap), so that the section that goes around the waist had a fixed length that couldn’t be adjusted. Consequently Satoru’s waist was tightly strapped and he couldn’t slip under the belt.

    The suffocated
    Reply

  14. So disappointed …..
    The killer being Yashiro ??? he was everyone’s suspect , it wasn’t even close , people were so sure it was him that they were sure it wasn’t gonna be him because nothing can be this predictable ! In a show like this it is always someone you see regularly and he was the ONLY adult in the entire freakin show ! I mean the only other adult was the one who got framed for the murders for gods sake ….

    Urahara
    Reply

  15. I think everyone and their mother knew it was the teacher from the get-go. The “reveal” in this episode wasn’t much of a reveal at all. I’ve gotten over my disappointment, since, well, there really was no other suspect in the first place. That being said, his facial expressions and EVIL SMILE was so silly. I thought that was kind of lame. And the candy scene is just hilarious in retrospect.

    Mormegil
    Reply

    2. I’d say that reveal worked better in the manga, where Gaku and Satoru were going all Nancy Drew on us to solve the mystery, buddy-teamup style, and we didn’t know how long the manga would run. It was entirely conceivable that the killer could be someone we hadn’t met yet, or a very minor character, that would then be built up into a credible villain.

      When we know the anime is ending in 2-3 episodes, conservation of character demands it’s somebody we know, and the most suspicious of those is Gaku.

      Guile
      Reply

      1. Where in the manga do Satoru and Yashiro team up any more than is shown in the anime? I don’t recall it.

        More to the point, I don’t agree that the manga handled this reveal better than the anime. In both media it’s obvious that if Satoru successfully prevents the murders, the smart and observant killer is likely to notice. In both media Sachiko and Kenya repeatedly remind us that Satoru is not nearly as circumspect as he thinks he is or needs to be, and in both media the first meeting with Aya points this out twice: Aya reveals that the secret base is not nearly as secret as Satoru imagines it to be, and Kazu and Osamu follow the other three and spy on them. And both media cast the most suspicion on Yashiro (in fact, with the panels that refer to missed hints after Yashiro gives Satoru and Sachiko the ride, I’d say the manga casts even more suspicion on Yashiro than the anime does). I’m sure that if the manga was my introduction to the story (I’m tailing the anime in the manga, reading the corresponding chapters after watching each episode), at this point in the story I still would have been looking for the killer to turn his attention to Satoru, and I still would have thought, when Satoru got in the car, “Are you stupid?”

        proper1420
        Reply

      2. Chapter 30 is mostly what I was thinking of.

        There’s Yuuki’s business truck, with the girl Satoru suspects the killer is after inside!
        Nice timing, sensei! Grab your car, we’re going after them!
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yic7IRO9d6I

        But also, I remember being more impressed by Gaku’s child services gambit in the manga, like he was working the legal angle and Satoru was working the sorta-illegal angle and they’d meet in the middle and save Kayo together. Not sure what gave me that impression exactly, what the manga did or the anime didn’t do, but it’s how I felt.

        Guile
        Reply

      3. Regarding Satoru and Yashiro’s conversation in the staff room after Satoru hides Kayo in the bus (this is the scene in which Satoru asks Yashiro to call the police, Yashiro questions whether calling the police will get someone in trouble, Yashiro says he has already called child protective services, and Satoru runs off happy that Yashiro is taking action), the manga panels (chapter 22 pp. 14-16) are almost a storyboard for the anime scene (episode 8 at 5:50), so the anime doesn’t portray any less apparent teamwork than the manga. The biggest difference is that in the manga Yashiro thinks the “do your best” line rather than says it to Satoru, so the manga scene end on an odd note that in the anime just looks like Yashiro giving more fatherly advice to Satoru.

        As for the scene at the hockey rink, the manga has a distracting implausibility: Yashiro’s plan depends on Satoru walking outside the building on his own at just the right moment to see the Shiratori truck drive away. The anime fixes this somewhat by having Yashiro direct Satoru outside at the right time. With this change, the “nice timing” line no longer fits, but it isn’t needed to drive the action anyway; losing track of Misato, being told that she went outside, seeing a suspect’s truck drive away, and having a teacher there to ask for help does the job just fine.

        The biggest relevant difference I see between the manga and anime is that Satoru rides in Yashiro’s car twice in the manga before the fateful ride from the hockey rink (the anime eliminates the first ride, moving the relevant dialogue to an additional staff room scene and moving the discovery of the candy into the second ride scene), and in the first of those rides Satoru is alone with Yashiro, so the manga reader may be somewhat more accustomed to the idea of Satoru riding in Yashiro’s car. But each of these rides still have their creepy moments (the discovery of the candy in the first and the advice on picking up girls in the second), so I still can’t see manga readers being any less suspicious than anime watchers of Yashiro.

        proper1420
        Reply

  18. Needless to say, that was the most heart-rending and unfair cliffhanger in a long time. It’s pretty much confirmed that the guy is a demon in disguise, pure and simple. But even though he was also at the top of my suspect list, he still managed to surprise me with how cunning he is. Goddamit, he was scary and compelling in his behavior. And that’s just the making of a great villain for this anime.

    I agree that Satoru wasn’t very wise in his trusting everyone. Even he admitted that he was an idiot for that. But I also think that it was a part of keeping the show ambiguous and not too easy to figure out who the perp is, even though at least most of us suspected the same guy. And also, he was right to trust his childhood friends, especially Kenya, who proved to be quite the helping ally throughout this entire ordeal.

    I wanna talk something that’s either a plot hole or just how the system apparently worked at the time. I find it odd that Sachiko would be on the suspect list because surely she had no priors, but at the same time Gaku would also be on the list and he had no priors as well (at least priors that were not forensically proven). How would the police suspect these people in the first place? Is it witness testimony? Background check? Sachiko being on the suspect list threw me off, and it also threw Satoru off because it caused him to not suspect Gaku as well when he’s also on the list. Though I’m not necessarily complaining about it.

    Just in case this happens next episode, I’m putting it in spoiler tag.
    Show Spoiler ▼

    I’ve gotta say, even though we only have 2 more episodes left, this episode never felt rushed at all. Which is quite the achievement. I’m confident it will rap up satisfactorily in only 2 more episodes. This anime is a blessing on all of us :’)

    yoloalchemist
    Reply

    1. I wonder, about Sachiko.

      I did note that Best Mom was the one pushing to suppress the missing persons on Kayo to try to protect Satoru in a way, although I guess all the adults were playing along (she ‘went to live with her grandmother’). Sadchiko earnestly wished for him to forget, and move on. But that was in the other timeline, when Kayo died.

      I can’t imagine what she did in THIS timeline to end up on some kind of list.

      Guile
      Reply

      2. Best Mom was simply involved in Kayo’s situation because of Satoru.
        After all Kayo’s mom made a phone call to her asking about Kayo’s whereabouts (while knowing exactly her daughter was missing instead) in the first 2 timelines, so the police would check this lead too.

        Solaris
        Reply

  19. It was obvious since episode 7, when Yashiro’s eyes faded into spotlights that flooded the field behind the bus, as if he was metaphorically watching them. (19:39 to 19:44)

    As for what happens next, I’m curious whether the title of the series alludes to the next episode. “The Town Without Me” might indicate Adult!Satoru survives, but everyone thinks that Child!Satoru died. So he literally does not exist in anyone’s memories anymore. This might give him an incredible advantage to catch Yashiro once and for all, because the crook believes (along with everyone else) that Satoru died 18 years ago. That is, if this theory is true.

    Izaak
    Reply

    1. I think the opening was the biggest spoiler of all 🙂 I kind of dropped coffee on myself once and paused and the clear mug of the criminal could be shown and well, nobody looks like that except Yashiro-san but I let many supiscions take my mind of that xD

      At some point though, I believed that Kayo was killed by Yashiro and the mother and the bf were afraid they were going to be framed so they carried out the other murders to make it look like a criminal on the loose.

      That is what I believed :p I guess I was overthinking!

      Mi-Chan
      Reply

  20. It’s funny how we think things like this and other worldly problems started in 2000’s but it’s been going on for decades just because we didn’t hear about it on the news back then doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. We as a society think the 80’s 90s 70s 60s and 50s were great but that’s because we were ignorant to the horrors of the world.

    ilissa
    Reply

  21. I knew it. Lol

    Okay so I’m gonna pass on advice that was given to me after I watched this ep. They condensed a lot of important parts, and left some pieces out this ep so start reading at chapter 28 and end at 32 to get Gaku’s story/motive. Stop at 32 to avoid spoilers. With only two episodes left, and how they altered the story, I’m not sure how they would fit all that plus the ending in two episodes. Happy reading. ,

    Ichigeaux
    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *