Future Diary aka Mirai Nikki Review

ABC Challenge Review and this week F is for Future Diary aka Mirai Nikki. You may ask, why put both titles as I only care about the English one? Well first off it is more commonly known by its Japanese title.  Which honestly is kind of funny because Mirai Nikki literally translates to Future Diary, but people only remember the Japanese title for some reason. The other part is that even the dub of the series does not remove Mirai Nikki from the title cards. Which is also funny because they include the title Future Diary in it as well. I don’t plan to make including the Japanese title a common occurrence. This was a special case. Not many dubbed versions of shows are going to reference their Japanese title except during non-translated songs. But this one did, so I felt compelled to keep it. The reason I chose Future Diary is again for research for my Halloween most psychotic characters list. Future Diary has a rare distinction of having a single character so popular that she completely transcends the series itself. That’s another part of the reason I chose to watch it, I wanted to remember more of the actual plot than just her. More on her later, but without further ado I bring you my review of Future Diary. Spoilers ahead.

Basic Plot

In Future Diary, you are introduced to Yukiteru Amano or Yuki that is a high school student that maintains a diary of his observations. Due to concentrating on only his diary he basically because ostracized from the rest of society. Thus he has no friends other than two that he thinks are imaginary in Mur Mur and Deus Ex Machina. Deus is the God of Space and Time. Deus asks Yuki if he would like to see the future and play a little game. Yuki agrees thinking it’s nothing more than his imagination going wild on him. He wakes up the next day with his diary telling him the future up to ninety days. He utilizes his diary to get better grades in school and avoid being bullied. His rapid change in personality draws the attention of a girl in his class named Yuno Gasai, who appears to know about his future diary. Later he receives a message of a ‘Dead End’ that means he will die at that entry. Yuki suspects that Yuno is going to kill him and runs away until she catches up to him. She reveals that she has a future diary herself that has entries of everything about him in 10 minute intervals. She tells him the actual killer, the 3rd future diary holder, is coming and so they change the location of the meeting between them and 3rd. Yuki destroys 3rd’s future diary which causes 3rd to cease from existence or die if you prefer. Deus then holds a meeting between all 11 remaining future diary holders to explain they are in a survival game against each other. The object being to kill each other by either destroying the future diary which their existence is tied to or kill them outright. The winner of the game will inherit Deus’s godlike powers for use however they see fit. Most the other players see Yuki as the biggest threat and vow to kill him first, the exceptions being Yuno and the 4th holder who both vow to help him. Yuno then fully reveals her crazy obsession with Yuki. From there the attacks against Yuki come in order from 9th, 12th, 6th, 5th, 10th then 4th all of which are unsuccessful because of Yuno’s interference. Yuno then takes it upon herself to kidnap Yuki and hide him so that he was out of danger. This came after 4th betrayed them and she thought it was the only way to protect him. Yuki is finally saved by his new friends. He tells Yuno to leave him alone. She comes to his aid anyway when 8th and her followers which also the 7th holders attack him. The 7th holders test Yuki and Yuno’s love which initially they fail miserably but then turn the tides and beat the 7th holders. Yuki’s father kills his mother and when he was going to confess he is then killed. Yuki decides to become God and bring back the casualties of the survival game. Then Yuki and Yuno take out 8th’s minions, 11th, and finally 8th. Which set up the final confrontation between the two of them. I’m not going to spoil the big twist the end, but it’s pretty big.

Commentary

Right out of the bat, I’m going to say this loud and clear. “Future Diary is NOT for children!” I tend to not mention whether a series is good for children or not unless it’s deceptive. For being a survival game series this series does not have much blood. Your main characters and four of the minor characters are youthful high school students. You also have the cute characters of Mur Mur and the 5th diary holder. If you miss certain episodes you might think this is prototypical shonen series. For those that don’t know shonen is a young male audience think Dragon Ball or Naruto. You would be wrong. This series has a fair but not overwhelming amount of nudity. A lot of cursing much of which is unnecessary. And while the series does not have much blood the amount of blood does ramp up in the last 7 episodes or so. The series is also a complete psychological mind screw with the several character’s having lost much of their mental stability either during or just prior to the events of the story. I mean the survival game took an innocent Yuki and turned him into a borderline monster by the end.

Elephant in the room, Yuno Gasai makes this series. This series without Yuno is a good but not great survival game series. Yuno takes this series to arguably the best survival game series. She doesn’t care about her life, the universe, being a god or anyone else, she only cares about Yuki. This is so deep into her personality that she will kill anyone that gets in the way of her being with Yuki. It also turns her into a killing machine during this game. She is the only character that every other diary user is afraid of. The case in point is the face that 11th gives when he realizes she is the bank vault with him. She completely transcends this entire series. When people who have never seen the series, know your face from a meme you have easily transcended the series. The funny part is the picture they have for the meme is honestly one of her more docile moments. Her insanity along with the rest of her over-the-top personality, is just great.

In stark contrast to Yuno and many other characters in this series, your main protagonist Yuki is kind of weak. He is a blah character for much of the story. He is meant to be your every man in a situation with a lot of crazies. Because of this his personality takes forever to develop. It’s bad when a character like 5th, a 5-year-old boy who’s not even in 2 full episodes is more entertaining than your main protagonist. In fact, every diary holder except for 3rd who died prior to getting any real-time on-screen have more personality than Yuki. His saving grace as a character is his development to being a killer later in the game and even with that he reverts back to his old personality pretty quick. Now he’s not a horrible character. In fact, he fits very well into the type of character necessary for his portion of the story. It’s just kind of disappointing when all of these other characters are very entertaining and the guy you are with for the long haul is not.

This is a second week in a row for me a series is its core is a very messed love story. All of Future Diary is a buildup of Yuki and Yuno’s relationship. Albeit because of her insanity and the situation they are in, the buildup was just leading to another tragic ending. They basically start as codependents for their situation and that eventually becomes true love. She was looking for someone to attach to, to make her life less miserable and he was looking for someone to help him. Basically in both of their situations it could have been pretty much anyone. Over the course of the series though he realizes he has been selfish and really does love her and she realizes that she really doesn’t want to see him die. It’s actually very beautiful, but tragic nonetheless.

This series has minimal in-story humor. The series is designed this way to convey the seriousness of the situation. Your passing in-story jokes are ones with their friends from school and their interactions together and a relatively funny flashback with Yuno in a bunny outfit trying to stop Yuki from asking out another girl. That’s pretty much it. With that said there was a minute or so sequence at the end of every episode featuring Mur Mur which were hilarious. Most of the time it had minimal to do with the actual story but they were all funny. Memorable sequences with her include giving relationship advice to Yuno, giving Yuno’s mom counseling, and forcing Akise Aru, one of their friend’s from school, to take her to an amusement park. While the actual plot had minimal to give for humor this was a pleasant change of pace.

Conclusion

Future Diary is a very good series for a more mature crowd. It’s a series with a lot of great characters many of which have sever mental stability issues. The series’ main protagonist while weak in the personality department does fit into his role quite well. The main female protagonist is instantly memorable and very interesting. The series maintains its serious tones throughout. I would say if you have never seen this series then to give it an attempt. I caution you, that you don’t get the full Yuno psychological experience until about 5 or 6 episodes in and it’s still not the “full,” full experience until much later. An additional caution, if you can’t handle a lot of deaths please look elsewhere. Most of the deaths are not gory but there are still a lot of them overall. This is a very good series. I would recommend it just for Yuno. The other diary holders and the good overall plot are just nice added bonuses.