Satoru Fujinuma is a twenty-nine-year-old failed comic book artist with a nightmarish power he'd rather not have: "Rewind," which sends him back in time a few minutes whenever tragedy threatens. But when his mother is brutally murdered at home and he's framed by the police as the sole culprit, his power spirals out of control and he treacherously travels eighteen years back to 1988, his elementary school days. Encapsulated in the body of his childhood self but with the mind of an adult, Satoru realizes that to save his mother in the present, he must stop a serial kidnapper who disappeared three of his classmates that distant winter, starting with the young and abused Kayo Hinazuki. Thus begins a desperate and psychologically intense race against time, where every single choice can change the future or send Satoru directly into the hands of a ruthless and unsuspecting killer.