Review: The Future Diary (Mirai Nikki)

Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago listing out my top 5 anime so far, I thought I'd start re-watching them (because, you know, they are my favourite) for the purpose of reviewing. First up is the #2, Future Diary, otherwise known in Japanese as Mirai Nikki.

Background:
To avoid giving away any spoilers, I will give a background from our protagonist's, Yuki's point of view at the end of episode 1.

So essentially, we're talking about a Battle Royale: 12 people fight it out to the death, in this case to succeed the God of Space and Time. The story's main two characters are the 'games'' first and second participants- Yukiteru Amano and Yuno Gasai. Each player in the game has a diary that can tell them certain aspects of the future that will in some way aid them in surviving through the game. Yuki is the typical anime loser turned hero with the help of his psychotic yet incredibly cute stalker, Yuno.

Plot:
Yuki is entered into the game by his 'imaginary' (or not as it turns out) friend and God, Deus Ex Machina. With his newly gained diary he is given the knowledge of everything that happens around him before it happens. It is just after he is first targeted that he meets Yuno, who rather gruesomely, helps him survive. The story isn't particularly split into arcs as such as most of the diary users get at least a couple of episodes to interact with the lead characters. It is not until the last few episodes that this pattern stops.

Again, trying to avoid spoilers, it should be said that the 'complications' that arise as we find out more and more about Yuno's past actions do create plot holes as we go beyond. That said though, they don't really take away from the story as a whole. The one part of the plot that does let the story down is the ending, that isn't explained at all, in any way. Not only will it leave you feeling disappointed, but also annoyed that someone thought it was a good idea to make such a huge jump from one point to another.

Unless you watch the OVA episode: Mirai Nikki Redial. Sort of explains how things link up at the end, making the ending much more palatable.

Character Development:
Several of the characters in Future Diary are developed excellently. Besides Yuki and Yuno who I will come to in a moment, Minene Uryu (Ninth), is given a lot of screen time for both filling in her background as well as developing her as a character that is affected by what goes on around her throughout the show. This is refreshing in as much as it seems to be the norm to ignore anyone who you couldn't call a main in terms of ongoing development. The same can be said for Aru Akise who, though not a diary user, becomes fundamental to the story because of the intrigue he provides.

Maybe it's just me, but regardless of everything, I couldn't
stop myself liking Yuno

The two main characters are especially well done. As you would expect in an anime that focuses on such a strained relationship, the emotions they both experience are often extreme. It would in this case be fair to say that Yuki is more predictable but there is a noticeable progression from the character he was at the beginning to the character he was towards the end. I could happily argue that Yuno didn't develop at all throughout the story and what appears to be her development is in fact just a facade. However, I won't because I think the writing of that progression is done very well and deserves praise. At no time after the first couple of episodes (until the ending) did I truly fear Yuno, but at the same time, I never really trusted her not to do something crazy. As I said in my list, I'm dying to write an entry solely on her development, but maybe that should wait until my content dries up a bit?

The only negative to come out of the characters is that despite his ongoing development it takes a while for you to really feel sympathetic towards Yuki. He depends upon Yuno for the first 3/4 of the show. That said, with Yuno being quite as complicated as she is, it might just be a good thing that Yuki turned out to be such a straight forward kind of guy. After all, not everyone's comfortable with killing people.

Sound, Artwork and Animation:
Because of Yuno's nature, this show is creepy. There isn't really any way of getting around that and the sound and artwork don't let the feeling down. When she's angry you know it; even before we see the shot of her terrifying homicidal face, the backing music gives it away perfectly. The openings and endings are also very good, with the first opening Kūsō Mesorogī being especially good both for the track itself as well as the animation itself- highly recommended even if you don't watch the show. The animation throughout the show is generally to a high standard though there isn't anything that particularly stands out, apart from maybe when Yuno goes on a rampage... which happens vaguely often, but there we are.

Yuno isn't the only interesting character in Mirai Nikki

Favourite Episode:
Episode 18, Interference. There are lots of good episodes that I could have gone for here, but I plumped for the 18th. It's true that Yuki is growing as character throughout the whole season, but it's this episode that really sees the most obvious change within him. This is the episode where he stops playing to survive and starts playing to win. It sets Yuno up with a perfect opportunity to work her magic in the final episodes and actually makes Yuki vaguely exciting for the rest of the show.

Overall:
Future Diary is a very enjoyable anime to watch. I've watched it through twice now and I can't say I enjoyed it less the second time round. Further to that, I think there are some aspects of the series that makes it objectively really good. Primarily of course, that would be the character Yuno, at no point could you second guess her actions even though her motives were essentially honest from the start. It also takes the format of a battle royale and gives it an original twist in the form of being able to see the future. I'd have no hesitation in recommending this show and am sure I will be re-watching it in the not so distant future.

Top 5 Anime so far

It occurred to me that if you have been reading this you might be wondering what I'm basing all of my reviews and idea on upon so far, so I thought I'd fill you in on my top 5 for enjoyment. According to My Anime List so far I have watched just 20 different series, plus 1 OVA and 3 specials.

#5: A Certain Scientific Railgun S (Season 2)

As you will have seen from my recent review, I really enjoyed the second season of A Certain Scientific Railgun. I thought the character development was really good and that it used the previous season to really add to the overall quality of the production. The focus on the main character was also really good and made me more invested in the series as a whole. On a less deep level, the action scenes were frequent and fantastically well done summing up the stellar artwork and animation throughout.

Mikoto Misaka attacking the vending machine: well there's an idea?

#4: Clannad: After Story

In truth, this series should probably be higher on this list. I really appreciate that the overall production and emotional response this anime inspires is incredible. More specifically, this was worth watching for the amount of times I thought I'd got over the worst of the emotional shock, the show hit me again with something even worse until the very biggest emotional earthquake at the end of the show. It was great to see the characters, who are fantastic, go beyond high school and get real lives and have real problems happen to them. Without making this too much of a review, I will say that I'm not entirely sure how well I thought the supernatural element of the show worked but that really is a debatable point.

So much sadness.

#3: Angel Beats

Angel Beats was the anime that really got me started on watching lots of series quickly. Watching the English dub, I really enjoyed the voice acting and music. There were some really funny moments which fitted in well with the fundamentally serious and difficult storyline that was the bedrock of the anime. Yuri is also possibly (in competition with #2's lead), my favourite female character in any anime - it was just a disappointment that there wasn't a bit more time to develop her clearly very interesting character. Angel Beats comes above Clannad in my list because of the meaning it has for me in getting me really interested in anime. Why does it not come higher then given the sentimentality I have towards it? Two reasons really: firstly it was too short, I felt that there were several back stories that could have been developed much more in 24 episodes and secondly; the love story that most people seem to think worked very well should have had more time through the anime to develop - being one of the key parts of the show, it should have definitely had more building time.

Kanade and Yuri. They're great, like really great... right?

#2. Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)

Before I say anything about Future Diary, I think I should point out that I know it has a lot of problems. It's not that original, there are some pretty big plot holes towards the end and actually the whole of premise of selecting the next god of space and time by seeing who can kill 11 other people is frankly crazy. That said this list isn't about overall objective quality, I'm going for what I enjoyed the most and Mirai Nikki is right up there. There are of course many reasons why which I will explain more when I do a review of this show, but essentially it can be summed up in one word. Yuno. After watching a 10 hours or so of anime, she is without doubt the craziest and possibly scariest lead I've yet to see, but I can't help but love her. Maybe call me mad, but I often felt myself feel really sorry for her; despite her psychopathic tendencies she did love Yuki, and I couldn't fault her for that. With that in mind, the degree level history student knows he could write a whole essay on Yuno's character, but that can probably wait for another day.

Yuno. She's as crazy as they come, but I love her all the same.

#1. Guilty Crown

Please keep reading my blog after this. I understand that a lot of people don't like Guilty Crown. They don't like Shu as a main character or they thought the ending was awful. Personally, I couldn't see the problem with the ending at all (really, I'm not going to try and pretend that I can) and if I was going to have a problem with a character it would be with Guy, not Shu, who's development was, at time, questionable. The first and most obvious reason to love Guilty Crown is the way it looks: the artwork is incredible and the action scenes are animated to a spectacularly high level. Another reason I loved the anime so much was Shu - as I mentioned above he received a lot of criticism for various reasons but I felt that his progression from powerless, shy school child to authoritarian ruler was very well done and made a lot of sense given the background of the show. Finally, I really enjoyed the overall premise of the show, the love story was strong without being overpowering and the post apocalyptic setting worked well for terrorist/reluctant leader aspects of the show. You don't have to love it, but I really did.

The conflict within Shu might just be the best part of Guilty Crown.

Thanks for reading this one and though I'm sure you don't agree at least you can see where some of my opinions are coming from in my reviews. I've just finished watching the first season of Infinity Stratos, so look out for the review of that one in the next few days!