Erased Season 1 Episode 8 Recap

Satoru is in the passenger seat while Mr. Yashiro drives. “Misato’s in the truck in front of us?” Mr. Yashiro asks. He tells Satoru to calm down and offers him some tea. Satoru tells Mr. Yashiro they’ve been making friends with girls who are usually alone to avoid attempted kidnappings. When Satoru opens the glove box, he sees a box of laxatives and another box of sleeping pills. Instead of following the truck, they turn left to a farm. Satoru tries to remove the seatbelt, but he can’t. Mr. Yashiro says Satoru stopped two of his attempted kidnappings, including Kayo. That’s why he has decided to use Misato as bait. “If you showed up for Misato, my suspicion would turn to conviction,” Mr. Yashiro says. He has put laxative in the tea he gave to Misato. So when Satoru followed Misato, she actually went to the toilet. But Satoru thought she went out and was kidnapped. “This is me in my true form,” Mr. Yashiro says. Satoru is disappointed with how things turned out. “I’m such an idiot. I didn’t even suspect him at all. By trusting Yashiro, I was trying to eliminate him from suspicion,” Satoru tells himself. Then he starts to lose consciousness.

Mr. Yashiro tells the story of his childhood. He had a brother who was two years older than him. Because their parents always doted on young Yashiro, his older brother would punch him every day. Eventually, it stopped, and young Yashiro’s brother put his attention on something else — he started molesting young girls. Young Yashiro’s job was to guard the place, stop the girls from talking by giving them gifts and let his brother know if someone was near. One time, he left because he was sure no one would come to the place. But when he came back, he saw two women talking outside. When the two women left, young Yashiro quickly went inside to tell his brother there were people outside. He saw his brother covering the mouth of a young girl. When his brother removed his hand, he realized the girl was dead. “This is your fault! This happened because you didn’t keep watch!” his brother says. Then they put the dead body inside the box. From that moment forward, young Yashiro realizes what he wants to do. He starts reading books on Forensic Medicine. Then he kills his brother and manages to make it look like a suicide.

Mr. Yashiro rolls down the windows on both sides of the car. He tells Satoru they both deserve something for their hard work. “What you will be getting is peace for this town,” Mr. Yashiro says. “And what I will be getting is a death by my hands, just for myself,” he adds. He watches as the car starts moving, sinking into the freezing lake with Satoru inside. Sachiko waits for Satoru to get home that night when she receives the news. Mr. Yashiro tells his class that the car carrying Satoru got in an accident. Satoru is in critical condition.

Years after that incident, Sawada approaches Kenya and asks him to come to his office. That day is when the statute of limitations is up for the case Kenya’s father, Takanari Kobayashi, took. They have some suspects, but they can’t find any conclusive evidence. “I can’t let things end here,” Kenya says. “In that case, do you want to find the killer with me?” Sawada asks. Tears fall down Kenya’s eyes as he shakes Sawada’s hand.

Our Thoughts

So Satoru found the real killer. But because he fell asleep, he couldn’t really do anything. He couldn’t even fight back when Mr. Yashiro tried to kill him. We thought Mr. Yashiro was just there to help, but when he started appearing more often, we realized he was a big part of the story. That’s when we started suspecting that maybe he is the killer. He had a tough childhood, watching his brother do all sorts of nasty things that played a big part in why he is the person he is. But the thing about Mr. Yashiro is he looks calm. You won’t suspect he’s the killer if you look at him — until you realize he always shows up unexpectedly.

Because it’s himself who got into an accident, Satoru couldn’t go back to his 2006 timeline. Everyone in the current timeline grew old already, like Kenya. We want to be happy for Satoru because his mother is alive in the current timeline he’s in. But then he can’t really enjoy some time with her after getting into an accident. We’re glad Kenya looks like he didn’t change a lot. He’s still that smart. Maybe with Sawada’s help, they can finally catch the real killer.