The Future Diary

Every once in awhile I will watch an anime, and at the end of watching it I will sometimes think, 'What the heck did I just watch'? But in the end, I will look back and think of how complex the story was and how it was well thought-out until the very end. The Future Diary is one of those animes.

Here we have a bunch of people trying to kill each other to become a god, using different diaries that can tell the future. This story is very well thought out but also extremely complex in its own right. There will always be a feeling of suspense and you wonder what is going to happen next. You will think, what will happen now, and after that, and after that. But every time a question is answered, immediately another takes its place to basically try and blow you away. And sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. That being said there were plenty of moments when I was like, 'What?' And it forced me to think, and question my previous answers which made the show a little bit more complicated until it all tied together in the end... sort of. Now the constant suspension and turn-around moments in this anime may throw some people off, but all in all this is a very enjoyable anime. If you are not shy of blood, suspense, sex, and complete mind-boggling questions, then this is a show for you. As I said before some might be turned off by the constant complexity and changes in the story, but you may still enjoy it. Give it a shot, and you might just be as surprised as I was.

its kinda hard to review this without giving too much away...plus the 1st episode aired 26wks ago now, so my memory of how it started is a bit hazy...

Yukiteru loves playing around on his phone and has an imaginary friend named Deus. But Deus is not imaginary, and Yuki gets caught up in a strange battle royale type game where the players, all holding phone diaries like Yuki's, must kill each other off until the final survivor becomes a God. Their diaries each predict the future in different ways, allowing them to evade or capture each other. One of Yuki's cute classmates, Gasai Yuno, has a diary and is strangely attracted to Yuki for reasons he can't quite understand...

This showed rocked! Yuno is an awesome femme fatale, and all the other characters are well written too...the animation is great and the story action packed and violent (probably not for kids)...Yuki is a bit of a pussy, but he mans up over time...still, you can't blame him for being a bit hesitant to kill friends and strangers alike...watch this for sure!

Mirai Nikki is an action series depicting a battle royale between selected individuals who own diaries that tell the future. Overall, the show combines elements of science fiction, action, suspense, romance, and comedy to some success; however, it had several weaknesses that marred the show. Unfortunately, many of the action sequences were either irritatingly unintelligent or plain impossible, with kids dodging bullets and fighting while reading their diaries. Moreover, the whole seriousness and suspense of the plot was ruined by the banal romantic comedy and a cute little girl recapping the story's events every episode. Additionally, the whole middle part of the series dragged on without any remarkable moments: the storyline was somewhat bland, the deaths were anti-climactic, and a suspenseful mood was lacking. The most detrimental weakness, however, was the logical fallacies in the plot, especially noticeable during the turning point at the end. These gaping plot holes took from the credibility of the anime and made it seem like more of a pretentious attempt at seeming clever rather than a genuinely brilliant masterpiece.

Despite these weak points, Mirai Nikki did nonetheless provide quite some entertainment, as the show was packed with intense violence, exciting romance, and bits of comedy. Even with the plot holes, the ending episodes were remarkable, providing a shocking turn of events that made enough sense to be memorable and mind-blowing. In fact, if the series was judged based on the ending itself, I wouldn't hesitate to give it an 8/10, but I have to evaluate the entire experience of the series as a whole. This series, additionally, had amazing character development, vivid imagery, and an impressive OST (most notably, the opening theme). Overall, this anime is an amusing show that provides cheap thrills and lighthearted humor, but does not deliver enough to deserve the excessive praise it has received.

I still have no idea how to feel about this show. The hero is given a diary which can predict the future, and is thrown into a battle with 11 others where the last survivor becomes God.

This anime is different in that the main character is not equipped to handle the situation at all. In most shows, anime or otherwise, they never throw at the hero more than s/he can handle, no matter how ill equipped they seem at first. The hero here has no natural talent, nor is he given time to explore his power. From the start he is thrown into survival mode and makes most choices out of desperation, and even though it seems for a while in the middle of the show he has a handle on everything, he loses his grip and inevitably digs himself into a hole he can't climb out of.

The characters are insane, and the relationships they develop are even more so. The appeal is watching a character trying to be moral in a situation where doing so gets you killed and starting to hate him for it. It's seeing him slowly but surely lose his moral compass and become just another contestant, and watching him regret it later. It's fighting the urge to shout "you moron!" as he falls deeper into a toxic relationship and yet empathizing with him.

This show is absolutely insane, and I love it.

Future Diary (Mirai Nikki) is an anime that was on between October 2011 and April 2012. It's a survival game among 12 people who have mobile phones receiving diaries about what will happen in several minutes within the future. Each future diary holder receives a future from a different perspective. So, the diary holders fight each other while avoiding their expected death by knowing the future.

The survival concept in a story such as Battle Royal, where everyone has to be killed until only one person remains, is not new. So you may figure it would be another survival story where only the protagonist survives in the end. But this survival game is interesting in that the diary folders use techniques in order to change their expected future. Another striking thing that stands out is that Yuno's love toward Yukiteru goes out of control to be psychotic and violent, showing her affection crazily to him. Although a typical 'Yandere' character like Yuno would be annoying, I could even develop a love for this crazy character toward the end. I think it's a new type of survival story in that the audience could be moved by a 'Yandere' girl.

Meanwhile, I couldn't help but compare the character Aru Akise from Future diary with Kaoru Nagisa from Neon Genesis Evangelion because both are played by the same voice actor, and the character's personality and the feature are very similar. Once I started comparing the two anime, I realized that there are other common points between the two. The protagonist, Yukiteru is shy, naive, cries easily, and a negative person, which is similar to Shinji in Evengelion. A similar character to Asuka found in Future Diary would be Yuno Gasai in that she is strong, sort of crazy, and strong-minded. You might find some other similarities while you watch Future Diary after Evengelion.

While I was wondering if the two anime have some common themes in the characters, I was drawn to the story of Future Diary towards the end. It is painful and upsetting to see Yuno's unruly character where she doesn't care for anybody but Yukiteru, and she cannot be in love with him. But I felt like I could accept everything from her in the end.

Overall, I like Future Diary. So I give it 8 stars.