CONTENTS

Kevin James | Comps | B.Tech. 4

It is the year 2006, and the protagonist of this anime is Satoru Fujinuma, a 29-yearold who time travels. But this is not the usual time machine story. A supernatural phenomenon called ‘Revival’, resets him back in time. And this happens randomly at any time. Using ‘Revival’, he is put into situations where he can save people’s lives, which he eventually does. Usually 'Revival' happens in a short span of time – minutes and hours. However, in one scenario, he travels all the way back to 1988, as a 10-year-old school kid with the mind of a 29-year-old.

The show has made an interesting choice in making the scenes of Fujinuma’s past as cinematic widescreen and his present life as normal aspect ratio to differentiate between the time frames. The background music is so well made that you will be hooked onto the anime as the plot twists arise. Also, they have done a great job on character development as the story progresses. Erased has won an award in “… I’m not about to share my pretending with anyone, because pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better, safer worlds you create for yourself.” ‘The Good Luck of Right Now’ is a fiction by Matthew Quick, who is most famously known as the bestselling author of the book – ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ which was made into an Oscar-winning feature film. It is the story of Bartholomew Neil, thirty-eight, jobless and clueless about life, who is coming to terms with the death of his mother, when he finds a letter from Richard Gere, the famous movie star, addressed to his mother. Bartholomew’s mother, an ardent Richard Gere fan, diagnosed with brain cancer, is shown to be heavily depended on her son in her later years, calling him Richard in her bouts of hallucination and diminished mental faculties. Neil, more than happily plays the part for his mother’s happiness. Post her death, he decides to correspond with the movie star, hoping to get some answers. The novel is a chronological series of letters that Neil writes to Richard

the IGN Summer Movie Awards under “The Best Anime Series” in 2016. Apparently, one of the voice actresses for dubbing in English in the same show admitted that she was really scared after watching it for the first time. This was because she was so engulfed in the intense story. This show is usually compared with 'Steins Gate' even though they have several differences. 'Steins Gate' completely focuses on the theory of time travelling but Erased deals with an inexplicable phenomenon. Some reviews found that the ending was too obvious Gere. These letters explore wide-ranging topics – from philosophy, friendship, cats, Buddhism, grief counseling, China-Tibet relations, Jung’s Synchronicity, alienabductions and the mystery of women. Matthew Quick does a fabulous job of assuming the role of Bartholomew – the simple-minded, child-like innocent, middle-aged man, who is grappling with all the newness around him with a sense of amusement and wonder. Just like a child might ask profound questions in moments of unfettered curiosity, Bartholomew too, ponders over his situation – lack of family and friends, the ‘need to find his flock’ and relationships and their complexities – with a dazzling mix of self-awareness and humility in easy-to-digest proportions. The story unfolds as a concoction of life after the death of a beloved parent-meets dilemmas of a teenager suddenly being pushed to responsibility/independencemeets midlife crisis. Quick’s narrative is easy to follow and does not make the reader feel like the author is pontificating. Most of the philosophizing is sprinkled throughout the story as an almost absentand were not happy with it. But I believe that they took enough time to build a satisfactory ending. Erased is a psychological thriller that will surely excite a newbie who wants to experiment with anime or an anime lover willing to take up another classic. It is just 12 episodes long, making the show short

The Good Luck of Right Now (Book Review)

4 Renesa

and topical. Shivansh Shandilya | Civil | B.Tech. 2

minded, ignorant afterthought. That’s what makes the story easy to follow. The characters are fleshed out beautifully. Their flaws, imperfections, gullibility, bipolarity and indecisiveness give the story a realistic feel.

‘The Good Luck of Right Now’ is quirky and strange and beautiful and wise and funny. Sometimes it’s sad, too. There are places where you will feel goosebumps at the life-affirming insights and thoughts of the narrator, who is not the cleverest of the lot but that is exactly what makes this story work. Any other narrator couldn’t have worked as well. It had to be Bartholomew Neil. Episodes of childhood bullying and deaths (yes, there are more than one deaths) are tear jerking but you still laugh at the narrator’s perspective (and feel guilty and question the kind of person you are). At the cost of sounding like the biggest cliché, ‘The Good Luck of Right Now’, at its core, is a simple story with a lot of heart.