Ranked #158

Mirai Nikki (TV)

This is the first anime review I've ever written, so hopefully everything will turn out ok. Any feed back would be appreciated as long as its constructive ;)

This review won't contain any spoilers.

What would you do if you had something that told you the future? If you already had all the answers for an upcoming test, or knew how to avoid bully's on the way home from school? What about if it told you were going to die?

Mirai Nikki is a brilliant mix of a Psychological Thriller, Action, and Romance. Yuki is a boy who gains the ability to read the future through his personal diary, which is awesome until he finds out that there are 11 other people who also have their own diary's and are his opponents in a competition to become a god. But thats not all bad, he happens to have someone to protect him. Enter Gasai Yuno, a cute girl who goes to Yuki's school. She also has a future diary, and it turns out she has a bit of a crush on Yuki.... and is an insane psychopathic stalker, or Yandere if you will. The story follows these two as they try to survive in the killing game they've been placed in.

Personally, i think the anime is a 10/10, but for this review i gave it a 9 because of a few small problems in the story.

Story 9 - The story of Mirai Nikki is at its core a Romance, though its so much more than that as well. It explores how ones actions and willpower can change the future and how good people can do go insane or do terrible things because of traumatic experiences. The pacing is fairly fast, but not forced, even when there's no intense action going on, you find yourself on the edge of your seat knowing that an enemy could pop up at any time. I experienced all sort of emotions throughout the anime, fear, happiness, excitement, sadness.The shock value was insane. My reason for a 9 instead of a 10 was that some of the things that happen in the anime are soo over the top ridiculous and unbelievable that i just couldn't reasonably give it a perfect score and that some of the things that happen in the last few episodes get a bit out of hand, you'll see what i mean when you watch it.

Art 10 - Don't know what all there is to say about the Art. It's not the best ive ever seen, but there's no problems with it. The action scenes are fast paced and well animated and the characters all look fine. I see no reason to dock an anime points unless the animation is so miserable that it has negative effects my viewing experience, and one of my favorite animes is Berserk, which is terribly animated.

Sound 10 - The Opening and ending themes are fantastic, and go along perfectly with the anime. The first opening theme is my favorite song of all of them and does a perfect job of maintaining the feel of the anime. The music generally goes very well with the scenes that its played over, especially when Yuno does something awesome.

Character 10 - I would rate this higher if possible. The characters is where Mirai Nikki truly shines. Yuki is a kind of a wimp who has to rely on others to protect him, and ive seen plenty of people complain about this, but in all honesty i think that makes the anime so much better. He's a 14 year old boy thrown into a battle royal with people trying to kill him, I would probly be a bit of a wimp if that happened to me too. He's forced to seek aid from and rely on others in order to survive. And he isnt without redeeming moments either. All the side characters are well developed and have their pasts and motives explained in the story and a few of them are just plain awesome. All that being said, the part of this anime that got me hooked, and the reason its become one of my favorites of all time, is the female lead Gasai Yuno. She's incredibly cute, and incredibly psychopathic, and the perfect yandere. Shes also one of the most unique characters I've ever seen in an anime. Most of the psychological thrills stem from trying to figure out what the heck shes going to do next. At one moment your scared of her, another you can't help but smile at how cute something she does is, then you notice the knife in her hand and your scared of her again. Sometimes you want her to do something insane and at others your shocked about something insane shes doing. She's the selling point on the entire anime for me.

Enjoyment 10 - I couldn't stop watching Mirai Nikki, i watched it over the span of 2 days. And spent the entire day at work the second day anticipating what would happen in the anime after i got home. I have yet to watch an anime that kept me on the edge of my seat to such an extent as Mirai Nikki.

Overall 9 - Mirai Nikki is a great and unique story, the characters are excellent especially Yuno, who is one of the most unique characters ive ever seen in an anime. Mirai Nikki is certainly worth giving a shot. read more

This anime series left me speechless... and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way.

The story was engaging from the beginning. Don't get me wrong. It was just that the premise was completely and utterly arbitrary. For the most part, especially throughout the first two thirds of the series, you can forgive it as the story keeps hinting that there is a meaning behind it all. It tries to make out that the premise isn't arbitrary, that its a deep story line which will have an ending that will blow you away. Well... the ending does blow you away, with a sawed off double barrel shotgun. So yes... it does do that at least. Essentially its a narrative about people who can read the future all trying to kill each other.

And then there is Gasai Yuno. WHAT THE...?!!

Possibly one of the most bizarre, interesting and (dare I say it) entertaining characters I've seen. She's what makes you keep watching, to try and find out what the hell is really going on. I won't say more.

However, apart from this one character, the plot holes are too deep, too wide and too glaring. I suppose I can forgive one lapse in logic. Two begins to bug me. But in Mirai Nikki the annoying plot holes keep adding up.

The term "plot holes" doesn't really do justice to what is happening. They are not so much "holes" as they are rice paper sheets plastered over windows in order to keep the sun of reality from shining through. It does an admirable job, and you admire it for trying its darned best... but when the dawn comes, there ain't nothin' those thin sheets are going to do when the rays hit.

I'll be watching and then a sudden red flag pops up in my mind warning me that what I am watching is illogical. I'll push it to the back of my mind. But that annoying feeling just keeps itching away, until you are finally forced to vocalise your annoying niggling feeling either aloud to yourself or to your just as bemused friend sitting next to you... before they voice it first.

Okay, I'm exaggerating here.

Mirai Nikki is entertaining. The fight scenes and some of the scenarios of the participants of the "survival game" are quite entertaining. You'll have to suspend your disbelief for quite a while in order to enjoy this anime. It is most certainly possible given the music, the action sequences and the animation are all really well done, slick and sharp. There will be moments when you'll be wanting to question "why?" or "what?" or "when?"... Just ignore those irritating questions, sit back and enjoy the Gasai Yuno show...

sorry? I mean Mirai Nikki... Did I say the Gasai Yuno show?

Story: 6
Art: 9
Sound: 9
Character: 7
Enjoyment: 6 (although this fluctuates dramatically so it's hard to give it an exact score)
Overall: 6

(nothing special, although it tries... by golly it certainly does try) read more

I'm going to tell you all a story. Once, there was a man. A man who loved trains. This man loved trains so much that every year or so he would put different things on the train and send it off for other people to see and enjoy. Sometimes he would put fruit on the train, othertimes he would put toys. All to see the end result that his precious train would deliver.

One day, said man decided to put as many fucked up things that he could find on this train. He put razors, cyanide, bombs, and even decided to mix in some sweet things with all of this, like boxes of sugar and a pink dress fit for a loli. He piled the train up, barely being able to fit in all of this stuff onto it, and set it off - awaiting for the end result.

Of course, with the train being overloaded with a bunch of different shit on it, it was only natural that the man's train would crash. And crash it did. However, the man did not care. For he would see it that this trainwreck made all the way to its destination, no matter how much shit he had to pull out of his ass to make it work. And so, with everything in the train clashing into one another as the man pulled his own strings to make the train continue going (no matter how much logic it defied in the end) he eventually got the train to reach the end.

Some people looked at the mess of the train and thought, "Wow! Look at all of this stuff! There's knives in this train? Stuffed animals? Explosives? Books? How marvelous! What a wonderful thing this train has brought everyone!" while others looked at the end result and knew right away what a terrible mess all of this stuff was. Rest of the town was too busy watching K-On! to care.

The moral of the story? When you take as much random crap as you can and load it all into one train, it will crash. And if it crashes you should end it. Oh, and people like trainwrecks.

If you haven't already voted this unhelpful for the seemingly irrelevant story, I'm here to tell you that this tale was my description of "Mirai Nikki's" story - a trainwreck. I won't give you a rundown on what the story is about. You have the synopsis and Google for that, so I'll just get straight to the point. The story doesn't really have any idea where it's going or how it should be directed. They made sure to throw in as many psychotic characters, themes, events and mix it in to be able to attract as many viewers as possible. Seriously, you'll find everything from rape to child abandonment to feeding children grass - all to make the story and characters look like they have depth and the viewer to feel "cool" for watching such miscellaneous shit. The transition between events in the story doesn't flow and all seems very random at best. It's as if these events happen just because the plot demands it.

The story had some strong points - while the fighting scenes didn't always make the most sense or had little to no build-up, they were very entertaining to watch and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in seeing how it played out. However, the poor writing and lack of common sense in most of the story is what makes it so terrible. The plot loses all of it's purpose by the end of the show as well, which just makes everything worse. It's a good story to be mindlessly entertained, but for those of us who were paying attention you can tell just how often things failed to make sense. It was all driven off of shock value and crazy, psychological things.

Speaking of crazy, psychological things, let's talk about the characters, or as I like to call them, "plot devices." Each of the character exists only for convenience of the plot and nothing more, and same goes for their past. Every diary holder, save for First & Eight, has something that makes them insane or crazy in some way or another so that way they can serve purpose to the plot. If these characters weren't all deranged or had these insane backstories than they would be of no threat. So why did a bunch of characters with messed up lives get chosen to be diary holders, and then someone like Yuki (I won't focus on the Eighth) who lives a completely normal life gets chosen as well? It doesn't add up.

As for the characters themselves, Yuki is just a normal guy thrown into a pit of madness. Many hate him, some pity him. Me? I pity the guy. You can't help but look at it realistically - he's a normal kid thrown into this survival game where everyone has some type of mental issue and is out to kill him. This doesn't make his crying and patheticness any less annoying, but it's justifiable. At the same time you can't help but wonder why Yuki was chosen to be a diary holder in the first place considering how out of place he is. Then we have Yuno, the main reason why everyone watches the show. Yandere. That's pretty much her whole personality. (save for her own fucked up past that tries to give her depth and reasoning.) Yuno is like a robot, per say - only programmed when desired to scream "Yukii!", act innocent, then kill people. And apparently that sells. She's a selfish, unreasonable character who's popularity is earned from her constant blushing and murdering. While she was indeed suffering from major emotional trauma, none of that justified the actions that she had towards Yuki and the people he cared about. Despite her "love" for Yuki, she still constantly hurt him and the friends that he loved - doing what she can to turn him against them instead of letting him be happy with both him AND his friends. She's simply an annoying character with no actual depth or personality.

As for the other diary holders, they're mostly forgettable and run a cycle of "appear for a few episodes, fight Yuki/Yuno (mostly Yuno), win, reveal traumatic past, fight Yuno, lose" and repeat. In short, most of the diary holders were just forgettable and used only for the sake of being killed and adding excitement to the show. Side characters like Yuki's friends (namely Akise) are on-screen more and provide more to the story then even most of the diary holders. That doesn't change the fact that everyone is pretty flat. No real development is given the the majority of our cast. The development that does occur for a few of our characters is written or presented pretty poorly with very little reasons to back it up. I won't say too much as to not spoil the series, though. As I said before, these characters are nothing more then plot devices - created to make the story more "interesting" and to shock the viewer into thinking they're looking at an emotionally deep character.

Artwork is nothing to be fawned over and is mediocre at best. Character designs aren't terrible but they aren't something that I'd call memorable either. The bloodbath scenes are the ones that look the most realistic and it's obvious that the animators took their most time in animating these. The animation is pretty fluid throughout the fighting scenes, but it's an overall forgettable performance save for the blood and gore that they flesh out so well.

The soundtrack was again, not very memorable, but you can at least say that it stood out. Emotional music fit those so-called "sad scenes" pretty well (despite the lack of real feeling in the scenes themselves) and was well-played out. The battle music and of course, suspenseful tracks were also well-fitting and it's easy to say that those tracks were what helped keep you on your toes as to when something may be getting ready to happen. The seiyuu's did a pretty good job considering their roles, but based on a personal experience I can't say that hearing Yuno screaming "Yuki!" every episode and listening to Yuki cry every episode didn't get annoying or ear-aching. But overall no real complaints here.

Did I enjoy "Mirai Nikki?" I don't know, do I enjoy not knowing where the hell a story's going? Do I enjoy watching pink-haired girls who only exist for "love" do a bunch of random, messed up stuff to everyone every other episode? Do I enjoy trainwrecks? No, I can tell you right now that I don't. The thing that made this show bearable, however, was Minene and Akise, who were probably the two most interesting characters in this show for me. Minene got more screentime then most of the diary holders and was actually tolerable, while Akise held that intelligent personality that always spices up a show for me. Otherwise no, this show held little to no enjoyment for me. Even though I'm a sucker for thrillers if there's nothing to hold it up, not even a simple plot that can be explained in a few words, then I won't enjoy it.

Overall, "Mirai Nikki" left a bitter taste in my mouth. The lack of any reasonable directing - or even reason at all - along with a mix of unlikeable, forgettable plot devices, or as we all call them characters made this show nearly intolerable for me. It took as many different, fucked up things as possible in order to appeal to the general audience, threw in some blood and a horny yandere and viola! A masterpiece! Or so says the people who only look on the outside of the trainwreck. For those of us who are examining this train and everything that actually happened for the end result to be.. this, then you'll be able to see just how terrible "Mirai Nikki" actually was.

But hey, kids love trainwrecks, right?
read more

Mirai Nikki - you won't stop shaking your head.

Mirai Nikki is a poorly executed show filled with contradictions, illogical character behavior, forced plot advancements, haphazard personality changes, inappropriate scene changes, moronic plot twists, lunatics and most of all: imbeciles.

The plot is quite simple. The God of Time and Space (Deus Ex Machina) is looking for a successor. Thus, he invites Yukiteru (our male protagonist of this story), Yuno (our female protagonist and Yukiteru's ally/classmate/stalker/girlfriend) and ten others to a battle royal in which the last survivor becomes the new God of Time and Space. While everyone's identity is concealed from each other, Deus Ex Machina declares Yukiteru his favorite to win this death match. Subsequently the other participants decide to focus their attention on Yukiteru. Strangely they are kind enough to stand in line, waiting for their turn to make their appearance. Coincidentally the majority of the contestants are wacky, deranged individuals.

All contestants are given a "Future Diary" (in most cases integrated in their cell phones) which tells about future events as the holder would perceive it, as long as the future doesn't change due to any interfering actions of a diary holder. That means: First, the diaries can be used to change the future, which also automatically rewrites the entries of all Future Diaries. Second, the diaries don't necessarily tell the truth.
Example: A person holds a coin in his right fist, while his left is empty. Your diary tells you the coin is in his left. You respond accordingly. Without revealing the coin he assures you that your answer is correct, and your diary had predicted your perceived future correctly, even though it was a lie.
What kind of information those predictions contain is unique to each holder and seems to depend on his job and interests. Best example would be Yuno's diary: As she is quite obsessed with Yukiteru, her diary contains information about his future actions in ten-minute intervals.
Disadvantage of those diaries is, that damaging them results in the owner's death.

While the setting of Mirai Nikki had any means to create clever, sinister characters and stories, it turned out to be a badly executed, mindless slaughter show. That is primarily because of the vast number of inept characters and the implausible changes in their personality.

The average IQ of the cast seems to be crawling around the ten point mark. The plot advances often by exploiting the sheer stupidity of the cast, forcing them to behave in such unrealistic manners that it insults the intelligence of the viewers and ruins even the slightest bit of credibility of the characters as they simply don't act like humans.
Example: Your friend 'A' is sitting unconscious on a chair, located in a very suspicious-looking room which looks like an obvious trap. Your friend 'B' wants to go into the room to check on 'A', but before going inside, he tells you to stay back and hold the door open. You shout enthusiastically "Leave it to me!". Satisfied with your response he goes into the room.
So, what do you do as a brainy character of this show? Damn right: Ten seconds later you waltz into the room, the door closes behind you, locking you all inside, and you make a face which literally screams "Oh snap! I totally didn't see that coming!".
(While the manga handles this scene slightly differently, it isn't errorless either.)
The worst thing is, that such irrational behavior is being used all the time for almost every character as if there were no intelligent alternative.

Adding to the characters' idiocy comes their fluctuating personality changes.
Yukiteru is an antisocial, gullible, pathetic, insecure, unmotivated, spineless, gutless and brainless teenage boy and Yuno is a crazy, insane maniac with a psychopathic obsession with Yukiteru.
While the original personality of most of the characters can be accepted by itself, the real problem lies in their unpredictable and unreasonable personality changes - especially those of Yukiteru - making them do the most ridiculous and unbelievable things.
Turning a coward into a leader-like figure, letting him kill several dozen people with a callous countenance and then, just moments later, turning him back into his coward self, making him sob "I never wanted to kill anyone!", is just one example of many baffling personality changes.

As Mirai Nikki is a show about a tournament in which the winner becomes nothing less than the new God of Time and Space, you would expect that some events had an influence on their surrounding world or that they would carry some other sort of significance. But many events are just swept under the mat, as the characters act like they've never happened in the first place. That is not only due to a poorly written script, but also thanks to absurd and erratic scene changes. The combination of both makes it feel like the viewers are supposed to forget these events, as it seems much more important to see the characters visiting a bridal fair or grabbing boobs in a hot spring.

While the ending was already predetermined, the rest of the show felt like a messy series of introductions and killing offs of characters. Although some individuals were given a background story, none of them played a significant role or showed any ambition to win this death match. In the end they served no real purpose and were quickly forgotten.

Animation-wise there is nothing extraordinary to mention. It's pretty much mediocre. The animation shines best when showing one of Yuno's many facets of her going crazy.
The voice actors fit the cast quite well, the soundtrack is nice to listen to and serves the show as a decent musical accompaniment.

To sum it up: The combination of lacking intelligence of the cast, the fluctuating, random changes in their behavior, the nonsensical, erratic scene changes and the stolid, rushed plot advancements makes Mirai Nikki an utter disaster.
While I never take fictional work too seriously, Mirai Nikki's overkill of stupidities made it difficult even for me to enjoy myself.
Otherwise, I can only recommend this show to people with a predilection for trashy shows as they will most likely have their fun with it.
read more

Oct. 9, 2011:
Mirai Nikki's anime adaptation begins.

--DEAD END--

A mess. That's probably the easiest way to describe Mirai Nikki. From beginning to end, it was simply a total mess. The story begins as an apparently simple battle royale between a bunch of varyingly crazy people who can predict the future. By the end it's a dimension-hopping cluster of ridiculous plot twists and some veeeeeeery half-assed writing.

I wouldn't want to spoil this... unique series for anyone, but I'm just going to say that it involves stuff like one character killing and impersonating herself, a gay guy pooped out by GOD who sends texts while getting his head chopped off (yes, while), and a crazy bitch with a bomb fetish who can fly and has babies that can also fly. Around the final arc it has completely ceased being about the survival game and has degenerated into Dragon Ball Z-style energy beam fighting. Yes, really.

And, really, most of it comes out of nowhere. Whole plotlines are dropped and brought up very suddenly with alarming frequency. Character arcs are usually resolved in an extremely hasty manner with some form of contrived ass-pull excuse. This is just a very poorly plotted story, not that I've read the manga it's based on. Maybe that fared better? Probably not.

The protagonist is beta as fuck, too. I sympathised more with the 'villains' (using that term verrrrrry loosely) of the "Yukki's daddy issues" arc, as they had a genuinely sad, yet heartwarming backstory. Yukki is just a pussy and Yuno is a crazy bitch who makes no sense half of the time. Best character is Minene, though. She's cool. But her hair in episode 2... honey, no. That look is so not you.

The nicest thing I can say about Mirai Ball Z is that the opening songs are both fantastic. Particularly Dead END by the lovely Faylan, which I loved before I even started the series. The lyrics don't make any sense at all (The girl with the sharp thorn in her flesh, I met you at your story...?) but it sure is catchy. The first OP with its dramatic choir and counting up in German (EIN ZWEI DREI) was also very memorable.

It was fun, though. This is the kind of series you make fun of with friends. It was all just so ridiculous and stupid that I couldn't help but kind of like it.

If you want a solid "so bad it's good" series, Mirai Nikki will prolly satisfy your desires.

--HAPPY END-- read more

You know, having a future diary for myself would have been ideal for my viewing of this anime, so that I would be warned of how nonsensical and down right retarded the anime gets, which is a shame because I happen to have been enjoying the bloody fun so far...

STORY: Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) is, for lack of a better way to describe it, fucking nuts. A psychogist would be laughing at this mental breakdown of a plot, but I got to be fair, I do enjoy this anime to a certain degree, but it's the crazy sharp turns it loves to take is what nearly throws me off into complete confusion, not the "I don't understand" kind of confusion (Though is still includes that from time to time), but the "Why and how is this happening" kind.

However, let's avoid the deep end for now.

The series is based on a manga of the same name originally created by Esuno Sakae about a battle to the death style of competition between 12 eccentric characters, from a terrorist, to a leader of a cult, to a lovey dovey couple, to even a orphen caretaker for the chance for one of them to take the place of a god, who is literally Deus Ex Machina, before he himself dies. Each will battles each other by using future diaries commonly being in the forms of cellphones, which each one varies on what type of future it fore tells.
It's sounds like the love child of series such as Eden of the East and the Fate/ series, though doesn't even get close to them in the intellect or character development department.

The main character, Yukiteru Amano, holder of the future diary that works as you'd think every other diary holder's would work, is an outstanding leading... total pussy. He is your typical spineless wimp, borderline disgusting even (A kid who would stay behind the sidelines and let the guard dog handle everything as he runs away shamelessly, the hero ladies and gentlemen). From having no friends, to even recording what he does daily in his phone (Pre-future diary), he is the definition of an unlikable main lead, one would or should never root for him, under-dog traits or not, his actions are hardly redeemable, he's easily fooled countless times, and develops at the pace of paint drying on the wall... A wall that is told to pretend his character development... Seriously, he remains the same way until he is told to "act" like a badass and and forgets about being a total wimp until later on, but he's my best friend compare to the lead female character.
Yuno Gasai is what makes this anime surpremely entertaining and utterly batshit insane, this is an arkham asylum of lead character (I honestly believe she'd give the Joker a run for his money), but damn she is just fun to watch, wondering what she will do in the next episode is a one hundred post forum topic in of itself, for good and bad. She is also, for reminder's sake, totally insane and major threat to the cast by her self and a catalyst for the series' plot and character development breakdown. She is hopelssly obsessed with Yukiteru, calling herself his future bride, so she's your classic case of stalker too, but to disturbing lengths. She even goes to far so to kidnap Yukiteru, keeping him tied up, all the while prancing around in her underwear. She is a character that indiscriminately kills anything in her way, she's fun to watch but damn, how can anyone like this character? Especially Yukiteru, which he never can't get his hands washed of her.
I know that she's commonly categorized as a "Yandere" type character, but that's not a good reason to fawn over a character like her, she's not a character type, she's a damn psychopath with an endless thrist for blood in sheep's clothing.

But this where I jump right into the twenty feet deep portion of the swimming pool called the "plot" where seemingly anything goes, anything no matter how much sense it doesn't make. The future diaries do seem to be too convenient (Which is understandable since each character gets that advantage for themselves), but one of them practibly, or just flat out ruins the anime completely, as everyone seems to be pulling a future diary for their selves at random, and more over a lot of the diaries range from creative to just gimmicky, where the later is more common (Diaries predicting the actions of other couples and one that literally breeds more diaries is just absurd). Even the majority of the cast come down to one trick performances (Or well they only get one try before they're dead and forgotten forever), just a enemy of the week type of formula rules the most of them (And a lot of side characters that don't contribute to anything, like the stout Mur Mur, what is her purpose anyway? Sigh... You will laugh when you find out).

The anime is indeed addictive, from bloody murders and crazy fallouts from the lead characters, but it's stupidity is overwhelming and just wants to make you tilt your head at the story developments and the absurd character display (Yup, trusting the stalker that just doesn't know how to stop killing everything is the best choice of action Yukiteru, while you're at it, go ahead and hide right behind her back-? You're there already? Then disregard this then and watch your back, like you care pfffth).
But seriously, the main problem with Mirai Nikki is the inclusion of a character being Deus Ex Machina, it's rare that a story can do this effectively and even rarer for a story to not be confusing nonsensical gibberish, which by the way, Mirai Nikki ends up becoming. The anime is still capable of displaying solid moments with the main couple from time to time, but you'll be far from invested with it as the anime marches forward as it makes up shit as it goes along all the way towards the end.

ANIMATION: While it's not among the best, it's not terrible either. While the blood bathes in general get the most of the budget for the animation crew, it's overall pretty average, even character designs are pretty regular too outside the quirky ones and the 3d animated god.

SOUND: Outside of the craziness, the theme music is extremely addictive, with the first opening theme song, Kuusou Mesorogiwi by Yousei Teikoku, being the best. While the performances from the voice actors give off a love and hate vibe, especially where Yukiteru is concerned, his performance only reinforces the pathetic wimp that he is, from whining and freaking out the time... But that's good casting in hindsight (I'm trying to state a positive as a negative, I think this anime is making me crazy...).

OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Great theme music.

The Mixed:
+/- Bloody good fun with crazy as all hell characters / When the plot goes off the rails, it's not a pretty trainwreck.
+/- Creative ways for character to combat each other / Most of which is one time gimmicks.
+/- Yuno Gasai / The unlikable wimp of a main lead, Yukiteru and Yuno Gasai.

The Bad:
- Character development isn't acting like something you're not, which the main proceeds to do so.
- Towards the end, the story begins to literally make up shit as it goes along.

It's not okay for people to go "That just her character type heehee," when that character in question is unlikably insane, and it doesn't help when the show is almost a competition to see who's the craziest. An over the top psychotic free for all death match is one thing, but when you start to consider a line getting crossed, that line has already been beaten, stabbed, mutilated and and sculpted into something completely unrecognizable before your consideration begins to come across your mind, that's when it's time to get the fuck out. read more

I basically had went to the trouble of signing up an account for myanimelist.com just to write this positive review for Mirai Nikki after watching episode 5.

Like the synopsis said this is a psychological thriller, with murders, gore, sins and some demented killers.

However unlike most thrillers the story is extremely good, the characters are all very unique, each with deep, well developed personalities that are slowly revealed to the viewer as they watch more and more episodes of the series. Its a mechanic that makes shows very addictive to watch, just like how you want to spend more time with your date as they reveal more and more nuggets about their interesting personality.

Story 10 - Story is amazing, the first 5 to 10 minutes of the first episode was pretty typical, and it was deceiving (in a good way) because the story quickly ramped up and starts to deliver. Every time I watch an episode it delivers something new and unexpected, like a plot twist, or a revelation about the certain existing characters. And every time these plot twists had me wide eyed in pleasant surprise, thinking "Wow this is so cool!" or something like "OMG, holy S*&t! I didn't expect this!"

Art 8 - Art is decent i guess, the action sequences are well done, but pale in comparison to this season's "Guilty Crown" for action. Overall art is 8 as I compared it with last season's artistic masterpiece "Hanasaku Iroha" , which the art was so good for a weekly anime series that I believed it set a new benchmark for artistic quality in weekly anime.

Sound 8 - The music (OP and ED) are decent, they wisely avoided sound during some of the intense, dark & scary moments where they let the suspense and fear build up in the viewers.

Characters 10 - Characters are fantastic, awesome for an anime (or manga). Each and every starring character had unique personalities that are uncommon to the typical person. I am only at episode 5 of the anime and I have never seen such a demented and crazy cast. Only the main character Yukiteru-Kun seems the most normal, but even he has his fears and complexes that makes him withdrawn. The best thing about the characters is that the story only reveals small nuggets of their personality and motive every now and then as you keep watching the series. This means that the uniqueness and most likely, the demented craziness of each character drives the storyline further and further as each character's motives are revealed.
Best thing is that most of the time you don't expect the revelations made about these characters, giving you a "wow" moment and surprises you with a plot twist.
An yea, many reviewers give props to "Yuno" the other main character of "Mirai Nikki". And I agree, a pretty girl who has a hidden killer personality, stalks the lousiest loser in school like the most diligent killers in slasher movies, and hacks and slashes everyone else with a handaxe. How cool is she! She stays a mystery and keeps viewers wanting to see more and more of her real motives, personality and her backstory.

Enjoyment 9 - I would give this a 9.5 if they allowed it in the ratings system. After watching 1 episode of "Mirai Nikki" at a random anime livestream channel it drove me to find and watch all the other existing episodes and wait fervently for the release of the latest ones. Only thing is that I probably can't have a good appetite while eating and watching this anime, due to the gore :)

Overall 9 - Again I would give Overall a 9.5 rating if allowed, "Mirai Nikki" has a great plot. A psychological thriller with gore is not your typical anime. Most of the time anime makers would turn away from such bloody twisted story for the fear of censorship and lack of young viewers. However "Mirai Nikki" is a great watch for anyone above 16. Everybody can enjoy the suspense of a good thriller and be hooked to the various character developments and plot twists. I would easily rate this anime as my choice for anime of the year 2011. Basically if you are even reading this review, find a way to watch the show by any means possible, yes it is that good, enjoy "Mirai Nikki" :) read more

Future Diary aka Mirai Nikki is a series about a middle school kid named Yukiteru who’s all observant and distant and disaffected. He, apparently, has some imaginary friends called Deus and Murmur. However, these imaginary friends turn out to not be so imaginary. Deus turns out to be the god of space and time. Not only that, he’s turned Yukiteru’s cellphone into one that can predict the future. Oh: and there are also 11 other people who have this power, and now you have to kill each other so you can become my replacement as god.

Though I think the series is largely uneven and, by its conclusion, has completely jumped the shark, I do think it touches on some rather interesting ideas; or, rather, the central relationship and the character behavior/personalities offer more to chew on than whatever the central conceit is supposed to do. The relationship between Yukiteru and Yuno (his love interest) arguably drives most of the series’ action, but it also highlights the series’ attitudes towards dependent/abusive relationships. This is the only interesting part of the show.

Yukiteru’s diary and Yuno’s diary are oddly compatible, so they team up in order to survive the game. However, it’s less of a “team” and more of a “Yuno goes crazy any time Yukiteru is even remotely in danger.” The thrust of the entire relationship is thus: Yukiteru completely relies on Yuno to save his ass, and then feels horrible after she goes way overboard and kills everyone. Not only that, at points, Yukiteru almost begins to feel afraid for his life, that’s how intense Yuno is. Yuno pledges undying devotion and love and bodyguard services, and Yukiteru takes advantage of this, basically using her and lying to her, while benefiting from her protection. This dynamic is deeply screwed up.

First of all, we have the way in which Yukiteru almost seems like an abused spouse character. Because of Yuno’s diary ability, he can’t really escape from her (she knows everything he’s going to do), and it’s because of this that he allows himself to think of her company and her actions as normal. She’s just trying to protect me and win the game (because she likes me). But every time that Yuno goes all ruthless and flies off the handle a little more than the previous time, Yukiteru has to keep making compromises and excuses for her. He’s told repeatedly by other people that she’s dangerous or that she’ll be the death of him. Little by little, her behavior becomes rationalized and coded as “normal” or “acceptable” and soon the feeling that this is what he has to deal with to survive becomes inescapable. He’s trapped in the relationship; Yuno keeps him safe, and he can’t get away even if he wanted to.

Also of interest are any moments where there is opposition between Yukiteru and Yuno. There’s a particularly great episode where Yukiteru tries to make new, “normal” friends. They invite him out to take a look at a dead body (because that isn’t suspicious) and he cheerfully goes, because the prospect of getting away from what he knows is a toxic attachment to Yuno is mighty appealing. She tags along, but mostly watches from the sides, as Yukiteru laughs with everyone, cracks jokes, and whatnot. But then the narrative of the episode kicks in, and Yukiteru’s friends turn out to be not so friendly. Which is exactly what Yuno thought would happen. The drama of the episode is then about Yukiteru’s struggle to redeem this friendship, and make it real; and Yuno’s constant refusal to make friends with anyone else, throwing doubt on anyone who would get close to him, almost stabbing everyone whenever they do something unexpected. But this opposition never even lasts; Yukiteru’s too weak to ever put up much of a struggle. Even after everyone witnesses how crazy Yuno is, he still ends up making excuses for her. He’s terrified by her behavior, but he can’t quite say that he doesn’t need it. Yuno loves Yukiteru, wishes to protect him and all that; but it’s a love that’s selfish, possessive and obsessive. It’s a love that includes no one else. At points, it doesn’t even include Yukiteru. It’s her love alone.

And, ultimately, Future Diary, if nothing else,manages to dramatize this unique dynamic very well. Although it often succumbs to ludicrous plot twists, silly Yandere antics, and literal deus ex machine shenanigans, the series manages to show how crazy and twisted this relationship is. The series’ denouement shows the utter ruination of the main character; he’s destroyed everything he loves for a lie. And still he lives a lie.

copied/pasted from my blog: thenextthingblog.wordpress.com read more

Mirai Nikki is an anime that has a fantastic premise with a lot of potential. The basis for the anime is that the god of the world (Deus ex Machina) is dying and has chosen 12 people as potential successors. They are each given a Mirai Nikki (Future Diary) with its own set of abilities and are told to play a survival game in which the last individual standing will become god. Each diary's ability gives the user a specific edge against their competitors whether it's being able to track down individual just by knowing their name or being able to predict attempts on their own lives. The catch to this is that the destruction of your own diary will instantly kill you. Now this sets up for a lot of interesting plot moments and a message that centres around the morality of it all that's rather subtle and carefully executed. The biggest problem with the story is it has many glaring plot holes. I can't mention many of them for the sake of spoilers, but the most glaring one in the show is they never explain why Deus ex Machina is dying or why he needs humans to be his successors. The plot holes really bring down a fantastic story to the point I can only say that it's good.

The art in this show is great. Animation is almost always clean and fluid showing marks of an anime that had a great budget going for it. The models are almost always anatomically correct and the backgrounds normally look great too. It doesn't stand out, but does an impeccable job at conveying scenes to a high degree of effectiveness.

The music in this show is amazing. Every track represents its corresponding scene perfectly. Some tracks don't just compliment, but improve the scenes themselves whether that be through intensity or subtlety (Track 7 on the 5th ost really stands out when mentioning the score). This anime has one of the best osts I've heard and deserves very high amounts of praise for the amount of quality present here.

I'm going to be blunt here. If you have any reason to watch this show, it should be for the characters. The other aspects of the show are well done, but compared to the amount of depth they give to the back-stories and personalities of these people who were chosen to participate in this game, you could take them all away and still have a solid show. You could choose any character in this show as your favourite and it would be just as valid as picking anyone else. Every single character manages to be interesting in some way even if they're only present for about 10 minutes of the show. This is a rarity not only in anime, but in many mediums such as American cinema or fantasy novels. I can't emphasize enough that these characters are what make this show a good watch as a whole.

This show is actually very enjoyable. It isn't the most enjoyable thing I've ever watched, but it deserves high placement for how it handled itself. It even had me on the edge of my seat in more than a few episodes as I was very interested in what was going to happen next.

Overall, this anime deserves a solid 8/10. If the plot were cleaned up and better executed, it would probably be deserving of a 9 or maybe even a 10. What's preventing me from giving above an 8/10 is that story and plot are the most important things for a show like this to have. With that in mind, I would still recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre. It is a very good show and is worth your time. read more

I'm a type of odd person with odd interests. One of few favorite manga/anime's were Death Note, Code Geass, Gantz, Neon Genesis Evangelion and few others about young character, far from being able of directing their own destiny, obtaining the immense power that is also hardly described in terms of strength, agility or intelligence. Stories that show their struggle with learning curve of how to master it, and not at seldom learning from their mistakes. Mistakes are made, tragedies happen, people are killed, there are regrets, there are tears, countless moments of doubt and game breaking flashes of insight. But our heroes, same as the audience knows that redemption may be achieved only through proceeding this, often gory, heart breaking, full of sacrifices and martyr path.

Story in Mirai Nikki is no different, and it's audience shouldn't expect nothing else but having their minds twisted on this mad journey and hearts tugged at the cruelty of faith. Unfortunately if bright enough to foreseen but never to prevent the events.

I'm from Europe and my standards may seem different but going through the list of 10/7/7/7/10/9 i consider the story very unique, even more as the majority of the problem escalates even from Godly grasp, but let's leave it as that, i wouldn't wish to spoil too much. Art should be set to 6/10 but i gave it a higher note, purely out of combat at the end of the series, the part that annoyed me the most were Chibi characters, which were successfully ruining the seriousness of the show. Sound was good, often i had a feeling that they could try harder, but it was actually acceptable to listen, and i didn't mind listening to credits at times. Characters were pretty average, actually the only characters which death made me care enough to shed tears died at the end of the show and concerning family matter (which hero? You'll see in show). Enjoyment? Yes, very! Watching one episode made me crave to watch seven of them at once, so i eat the whole anime in three attempts. It's like a candy You never have enough of. It's much less complicated then Death Note and Code Geass, but it's still worth seeing, and to some even favoring it.

Good Luck at watching this Anime, i'm giving it a 9/10, and a must see for everyone who enjoys mind games.
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“The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” - Abraham Lincoln

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

When you're little, have you ever thought about the future? Have you ever wanted to know what it would be like five, ten, or twenty years from now before you grow up? It is probably a thought most of us came upon in our lives. However our protagonist Yukiteru "Yuki" Amano is a loner who instead of thinking about the future instead spends his time daily writing a diary on his phone. Talk about a strange habit for a kid without friends. But, surprise will hit him faster than a bullet train when he learns about the future in stored for him.

Mirai Nikki (also known as The Future Diary based off the manga of the same name), is a story of survival game where the ultimate prize is to become God and given the gift to change the world forever. Being a survival game, it is not complete without its contestants. These contestants known as the Future Diary owners are given diaries in their own form whether it's a cell phone, a sketch book, or a scroll which tell them different things about what will happen in the future. The contestants themselves are also worthy noting that have a wide range of stark personalities ranging from a terrorist, to the devoted collective couple, a child prodigy, and a man who seeks justice in his own unique twisted ways.

Then, there are the side characters. Yes, I'm talking about those classmates that later enters on into the story. Despite their relatively normal selves, we can see that the survival game later becomes realistic and changes their view on the world. I can't blame them though, I mean who can act and be themselves when you realize that you can see into the future?

In today's anime series, there are many type of characters. Tsundere, yandere, mysterious, princely, you name it. Then, there is our yandere (hero or anti-hero? you decide) Yuno Gasai. She is described as the typical Yamato Nadeshiko by those who sees her outer self...a girl of perfection who is popular with students, good at academics, and generally an ideal woman. Behind that outer shell however is a girl with insecurities with disturbing stalker-like tendencies for our protaognist, Yuki. Her obssession of Yuki can be labeled as yandere as she is willing to hurt or kill others. In fact, she won't hesitate to sacrifice other people because to her, the only important thing is that she and Yuki survive the game. Her goal of wanting to make that “happy end” (hehe, turn that imagination bulb on) with Yuki is one of the main drives she wishes to achieve in this story.

Of course with survival game genres, there are consequences such as life and death. In the end, there is only one winner and it's every man for himself. Luckily for our protagonist, his stalker is madly in love with him so that means an alliance. So do the math here: two heads are better than one right? Well, that would be the case but Yuki's insecurities tells him in his mind that killing is wrong and things like this can be ended peacefully. However, in survival games like this, there is no peace. There is no true alliances. There is no true God (yet), no angel, no heaven. There is only blood, betrayals, and power. And in the end, there is only one winner if by miracle that you don't reach your own Dead End first.

What I found this series quite interesting is that it sticks to the game from the very beginning. Yes, there are those sidelines and mini-fillers (even ones that weren't in the manga) but it sticks with the pace overall. The memories and flashbacks we see of various characters is realistic and the tragedy and mood of what they been through makes them who they are. And of course, there are those fan-service scenes that keeps our eyes glued to the screen involving our yandere Yuno and some other characters.

As a survival horror, blood and gore is present. What did you expect? This isn't one of those happy love-dovey series involving teenage romance and love triangles. If you want that, go watch Amagami SS or something. Honestly though, I thought that some of the violence is necessary for this series to engineer the reality of the game. In other words, the survival game for the throne of God is real. The contestants are dead serious on winning. And, the consequences for losing are disastrous.

The show being labeled as a psychological on MAL also shows its colors once the episodes progresses especially later on in the series. Like I mentioned before, there is drama, there is blood spilled, and backs being stabbed metaphorically. The moments are tense and for those who have watched Final Destination or any other related series of related theme would understand this with the thriller-like endings that keeps the viewers at our seats. In other words, it keeps the viewers from predicting what's next and what or when things happen. I mean, it's not like you have a real Future Diary to predict the events of the anime as you watch them. Now, that would be something you don't see every day.

Another noteworthy mention of Mirai Nikki in my book would be the soundtrack of this series. I'll be honest here. It is epic. The OST mixes in with the various scenes well ranging from psychological, comedic, emotional, and action. Additionally, the OP songs performed by Yousei Teikoku and Faylan portrays the metaphor of the series. If we look carefully and listen to the lyrics, we can see the realism of a survival game and picture it in our minds as the song plays.

Unfortunately, I found the art of the series to be just average. It's not that unique or something that made me go “wow, I haven't seen something this beautiful before!” I've already had that feeling after watching many Makoto Shinaki films.

Overall, I would say that this series is enjoyable. It's not just because I'm a sucker for thriller and psychological genre despite some of the fan-service and cliches. Thankfully, Mirai Nikki didn't push that too far even if it did in a few cases. Despite my initial hatred for that excuse of a protagonist by the name of Yuki, I did find his later character development and values to be worth noting. Then, there's the yandere Yuno in the series added in like a little bonus of cherry to a delicious cake. And of course, don't leave the terrorist Uryu out as her character development of the series is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects that makes you want to learn about her more and more. (perhaps even fall in love and marry with her like one of the other characters) The soundtrack is powerful and conveys every moment of the series from emotional, comedy, or thriller. It will keep you at the edge of your seat as you predict what will happen next using your own imaginative diary that's called a brain. Perhaps the only problem I had was with the ending of the anime adaptation. I won't spoil it for you but it's not something I originally hoped to see. With a package of 26 episodes, expect psychological plot twists, character development, and thriller that will make you want more and more. Looking to watch something with your best friend on a weekend after finishing your job or homework? Then, you might of just hit a jackpot because our yandere Yuno will surely give you something to remember by.

May 19 12:55 pm

Stark700 finishes writing his Mirai Nikki review.
Hope you like what you see and I wish you a Happy End. read more

--Sorry for my English, I'm from a non-English speaking country--
Ok, right now this show is incredibly overrated, at first I was enjoying it, there is some gore, action, and even some fanservice, but that's about it, because the story is a total mess, it makes no f**king sense at all! There is this God Deus and he is giving cell phones (or future diaries) to some people so they kill each other in a game and the one last standing will become the new God, that's the premise and I know it doesn't sound so bad (it kinda reminds me of Death Note) but things only keep interesting the few first episodes, the rest is just brainless fighting, oh and the characters, OMG, Yukiteru has to be one of the less likeable characters I've seen in my entire life, he's a coward and he's also f**king retarded, for example:
( SPOILER )
There's Yukiteru's loving mother and there's Yukiteru's selfish terrible father, his mother (who has showed love and affection the entire series) is killed by his father, yes his own father kills his mother, and if that's not enough he also tried to kill Yukiterou in exchange of having his debts paid. Ok, here's the problem, Yuki makes more fuss and shed more tears for his father than he did for his mother, it makes no sense, he even was aware of his father's intentions to kill him, and he knew he was the one who killed his mother, but this is Mirai Nikki, the nonsensical anime, so he even forgives him and then he becomes, totally out of the blue, a perfect assassin (he was a coward without combat skills), and all credibility goes downhill from there...
( END OF SPOILER )
Yuno is not as bad a character as Yukiteru is, but she's a very shallow character, she's there just for the sake of gore, I think the writers tried to make her a complex character, but they failed, she's also pretty annoying. In some episodes I was like " I swear, if I hear 'Yuuuukiiii' one more time..." LOL
The rest of the characters are even more poorly developed... there's a detective boy who looks exactly like Kaworu Nagisa from Neon Genesis Evangelion, he's supposed to be the mysterious white haired character, and the three friends of Yukiteru, they serve some purpose but there's no deep in their personalities, the same goes for the villains, there's many of them and they look more interesting than the "good boys" but they get killed so fast we don't get to really know them at the end, the only exception are the cop and the one-eyed terrorist psycho girl, these two are probably the more likeable characters on the show. Oh and I almost forgot, there's this woman with a HUGE head, she looks so out of place, but no one seems to care "Hi woman with the huge face", I know this is anime, it's not supposed to be realistic, but c'mon, she's the only person with such a huge head yet everyone seems oblivious to it (and she's the only character with a huge head).
As I said the story is a mess, a fan fiction could do better, it's full of ridiculous dialogue and laughable plot twists.
Sound is average, opening and ending themes are pretty good, the OST it's just ok.
The art it's not bad, I like the character's designs (especially the character design of the girls), they look a bit generic, but they look great. The animation remains consistently good (just don't expect the quality of Death Note or Code Geass), but it's downgraded in some episodes. If you are expecting a suspenseful psychological thriller, then you may end up very disappointed, Mirai Nikki it's not the next Death Note or Monster, it's all mindless action and nonsense... there's some mystery to the story, but I would rather recommend you to watch Another, it's infinitely more interesting and mysterious than Mirai Nikki.
I'm gonna give some credit to Mirai Nikki, the show is a bit addictive, each episode leaves you wanting more, but that's just because they come up with some stupid plot twist that seems interesting at first, but at the end nothing makes sense.

Story - 2
Art - 7
Sound - 6
Character - 3
Enjoyment - 5
Overall - 4

Bring me all the "Not Helpful" you want, but I know deep inside of you, you know I'm right ;)
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DEAD END. You are facing your inevitable demise. But you possess a Future Diary, allowing you to evade death. However, other holders will be after your life to win Deus Ex Machina's twisted game and to become the next god. But don't worry. Gasai Yuno will protect you...

Mirai Nikki is an extremely excellent anime that does a fantastic job of incorporating the "Battle Royale" atmosphere and creating the perfect yandere. The storyline was complex and well-structured, almost flawless. It does well as a psychological thriller, weaving intense situations and suspenseful moments into an intricate pattern.

Story (10):

It is interesting how the director and character designer of Shuffle! were able to string Esuno Sakae's manga into an exceptional storyline. The story itself may sound a bit odd at first (diaries that predict one's future events), but its compelling components such as the prize, becoming a god to replace Deus Ex Machina, the absolute god of time, definitely justify the method of portraying the story in an uncommon manner. With diary holders trying to kill each other in greed for power, the content of Mirai Nikki is dark; much blood and gore is spilled in the survival game. To a person who enjoys "kill or be killed" style plots or psychological thrillers, such as myself, Mirai Nikki would be very appealing because of the intense survival game and dramatic focus on the character's mental state rather than the physical world.

Artwork (8):

Nothing much needs to be said about the artwork. Although the artwork and animation was good, without anything to complain about, it was not as extravagant as Guilty Crown and not as creative as Bakemonogatari. The animation is violent with much blood and gore spilled; it generally carries a Gothic ambiance of which is fitting for the dark story of Mirai Nikki.

Sound (8):

The first opening was fantastic, perfectly fitting the Mirai Nikki atmosphere. There is nothing wrong with the second opening, but I did not think it resonated as well with the anime as the first opening had done. But overall, the OST was great without many complaints.

Character (10):

The character development of Mirai Nikki is simply perfect. Gasai Yuno is the perfect yandere without a doubt, holding up an innocent middle-school girl exterior. Amano Yukiteru is portrayed as a weak-willed and timid boy, with a voice actress that accurately represents his personality. Yuno is developed into a psychopathic stalker who becomes obsessed with Yukiteru, stopping at nothing to preserve their "relationship." Yukiteru relies on her protection to stay alive in Deus Ex Machina's game. Yuno is a yandere; Yukiteru is a coward. There is absolutely no flaw in the characters' structure and development in Mirai Nikki.

Enjoyment (9):

With people constantly murdering, the little comic relief is enough to release the viewer from the intense buildup, such as the after-credits shorts with Mur-Mur. Generally, the action scenes are exciting but bloody. To some, it may even be nauseating. However, it is definitely enjoyable to one who enjoys these kinds of battles.

Overall (9):

I would recommend this to anyone who likes survival games, psychological thrillers, or yandere girls as it is a great anime. But if you want to watch cute shoujo romances, this is definitely one of the farthest things from it. read more

A woman’s mind can be quite gentle and yet extremely fragile, so don’t go messing with them. You could end up being stalked, tied down, and eventually forced to perform sexual deeds…

…but you should wake up and stop fantasizing about these things. A better alternative is to watch Mirai Nikki.

This show took the romance genre and butchered it in a gruesome but amusing way. Gasai Yuno and Amano Yukiteru is not your average couple, because everything about them works in reverse. Yuno (the girl) is actually the man of the relationship, as she does all the stalking, fighting, and harassing. Yuki plays the role of the bitch, living helplessly under the wrath of the Yandere Queen. Ultimately, if you are looking for a light-hearted love story, then you are at the wrong place. Mirai Nikki’s twisted definition of love takes on the characteristics of obsession and chaos.

Mirai Nikki literally translates to “Future Diary”, which is also the driving force behind the storyline. These cellphone devices can predict the future in a multitude of ways, all having their distinct advantages and disadvantages. A God by the name of Deus Ex Machina granted twelve people these Future Diaries, initiating a survival game between them, deeming the winner to be his replacement for the title of God. By now, the entire premise sounds completely unbelievable and nonsensical. While that may hold true in certain scenarios throughout Mirai Nikki, the true motive behind this crazy story is to create high shock value, which it has done to perfection. This show definitely lives up to its proclamation of being a psychological thriller. The sheer unpredictability of each character generates the craziest outcomes. For me, no show can top Mirai Nikki when it comes down to pure entertainment.

The cast in Mirai Nikki is certainly unique to say the very least. Yuno’s yandere tendencies had gotten so popular that a meme came out of it. To put it bluntly, she is a psychopath that makes this show frightening and thrilling. Mirai Nikki also does a great job in terms of involving all of the characters without losing focus on Yuki and Yuno. There is a backstory for every character which is needed for any significant character development.

The two opening themes makes a perfect match for Mirai Nikki. It was so catchy that I watched them over and over again. After a while, I picked up a lot of subliminal messages and barely-noticeable details within them. The first opening actually featured every participant in the survival game through symbolism and implications. The second opening was sung entirely in English (or Engrish). The soundtracks in the anime helps build up suspense and establishes a dark theme.

The “stickiness” of Mirai Nikki makes it an all-time favorite for me. Years from now, I will still remember how this story went down in great detail. There are certain scenes within this show that are just implanted in my brain. Take Yuno’s leering eyes for example. The ending may leave a bitter after taste for some viewers. There is a solution for that, and that is reading the manga for the clear cut ending.

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Nobody can be completely prepared for all surprises the future holds. Even the most simple and trivial of everyday decisions can coincide with unforeseen circumstances and ruin your day or even the rest of your life in the blink of an eye. At that point, the only thing left do about it is to pour out the frustration upon the pages of dear diary.. unless said pages were to be sent to yourself back in time well before the tragedy has taken place. In that case, avoiding the banana peel of doom becomes a simple matter of deciding to take a strategic detour.

That's the Future Diary, or Mirai Nikki in Japanese. It's a tool that, simply put, tells what happens next, or rather what would happen if you didn't know about it in advance. Diary entries from the future foresee the unforeseeable and report the immediate consequences of any choices you make. Although the information comes from a limited period to the future and only suffices for making the best short-term decision, it helps avoid many of the usually unavoidable pitfalls of life and is enough to completely change the notion of inevitable.

Although this premise offers basically unlimited prospects to build complex plotlines and stories that explore human nature, Mirai Nikki settles for providing entertainment. But Mirai Nikki isn't just any entertainment, it's total mindless fun that goes virtually as far as possible with cutting loose and abandoning realism. While this anime is not the looniest thing ever considering it maintains a coherent plot and laws of physics apply normally most of the time despite the supernatural stuff in the setting, within those limits it's pretty damn crazy.

The ability to get information from the future becomes a tool of war in a merciless battle to the last man standing. Knowledge is power and each contestant has their own Future Diary, all of which foretell the future but each with their own variation to the nature of information. Mirai Nikki's world is an insane place where everyone is clinically depressed, dangerously deranged, insanely eccentric or ideally all of them at the same time. Everyone has access to all kinds of insane weapons and technologies regardless of their age or social standing, creatures, tools and techniques are harnessed into weapons in completely over-the-top ways, nasty secrets and conspiracies are behind every corner, romance blooms in the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways and most characters are absurd concepts that don't care about trying to appear believable by real life standards.

With such crazy characters and implausible scenarios, Mirai Nikki makes it clear right away that you should not question anything that happens. It's basically a challenge that tests your level of cynicism. If you are too grumpy to accept the absurdity of something that happens, you lose. I don't find fiction being devoid of realism a bad thing at all. It's crucial to make full use of a rich imagination, and ideas so ridiculous they must come from the mind of a genius or a madman can make even works with lacking execution take a life of their own. While some of Mirai Nikki's craziness is just normal gimmicks tuned a bit more to the extreme, there are also some fresh ideas in the mix. But all in all, action that takes place in a world like that is bound to be all around campy with occasional moments of something hitting the mark and being stupidly awesome. Be warned though, this isn't the cheerful and carefree kind of silliness. Mirai Nikki often goes out of its way to shock us with horrifying human tragedies and repulsive imagery.

Sounds fun if you ask me. However, the main character in this circus of death is a bit of a problem case. Enter Yukiteru Amano. He's an antisocial guy, but deep down he wants friends like anyone else and immerses himself in his imaginary world to deal with his loneliness and keeps a diary about stuff that happens around him to keep at least some kind of connection to his surroundings. For a while this seemed a great starting point for his character development, but soon it turned out he is in no hurry to change. He stays literally the only one in the whole series who acts even remotely the way he does, everyone else is appropriately cunning and ruthless. All we get is a kid looking lost while trying to represent vaguely realistic hesitation and vulnerability when such thing doesn't exist anywhere else in the anime. Yukiteru's personality isn't even used properly: his attempts to break his loneliness and fear of intimacy are barely touched upon and whenever they are, it's shallow and stupid. Every now and then he finally seems to reach some kind of conclusion, only for it to keep shifting inexplicably each episode after that.

The main character being what he is, it's only natural for the legendary yandere girl Yuno Gasai to steal the show. In her eyes everything is just a potential threat to her and Yukiteru's romance and she is insane enough to go through with getting rid of said threats if needed. She is clingy and controlling to put it lightly and her love for Yukiteru gives her the strength to do brutal and badass stuff while wearing a sweet smile, but that's not the extent of her character. She isn't crazy for no reason, both her fascination of Yukiteru and the extremity of everything she does get justifications in the writing. On the other hand, the writing is not very good.

The side characters are crazy. Aside from a couple of Yukiteru's dull friends, pretty much all of them come with some over-the-top ideas behind them, whether it's simply a warped personality, a tragic background that makes them seek vengeance or redemption, or something completely different that can't be put under a label that wouldn't spoil some parts of the story. They are the main contributor to making Mirai Nikki as bizarre as possible and they do it really well, some by being hilariously insane and others by doing insanely unlikely things for insane reasons.

The use of side characters has its share of problems, though. Most of all, their stories don't make me feel anything. And that's not a matter of expecting the wrong things, Mirai Nikki clearly tries to make almost each of its characters' story moving; they have a combination of clear motivations and likeable traits, and on top of that the author was considerate enough to highlight how all of its female characters have been raped at some point. And yet, direction during their tragic and dramatic moments generally fails with its attempts to emphasize things that would give me to feel a sense of sympathy or attachment. Maybe the whole mood is too exaggerated about everything for anything to stand out, and in the end the moments I felt I felt genuinely bad for a character were limited to a couple of exceptions out of many. Besides the matter of how emotionally uninvolving their development and story climaxes were, some side characters keep reappearing in the story in really unnatural ways. While it's nice they are not just left on the background, their new appearances are awkward and certain characters' roles take absurd mutations along the way with development that takes reckless shortcuts.

Mirai Nikki's writing is lacking in every aspect. The story separates a bit too neatly into different story arcs with their own final boss. With the structure so obviously exposed, the way Mirai Nikki transitions from one arc to another is clumsy and hurts the natural flow of storytelling. The plot doesn't have any inconsistencies to speak of, but the continuity still manages to feel shaky because the flow gets disrupted by the rigid structure of narrative. Aside from slight character development, the only notable tool that aims to keep story arcs connected is a fabulous albino detective. While he makes an admirable effort at keeping everything coherent and connected, he alone simply isn't strong enough of a link no matter how well he does his job. Most plot developments are just laughably stupid, new plot devices and storytelling gimmicks materialize out of thin air whenever needed and sometimes even when they definitely aren't needed, so much that it dulls you and nothing will be surprising after a while. Even during the final stages when the story decides to become more complicated than it has any right or need to be, it still doesn't accomplish much else than confusion over how anyone could have considered those developments a good idea. But at this point you probably won't mind anymore because it's obvious there never was anything of great value to ruin. To top things off, turns out even the abundance of disturbing content in Mirai Nikki is a problem: while it sometimes makes Yukiteru's character development budge forward or backwards, more often than that it doesn't serve any other purpose than shock value, or worse making Yuno occasionally seem almost like a normal girl during times when she should not appear that.

The development of characters is a bit better handled than that of the story, but still awful. After processing the situation for a while, Yukiteru has to face the well kept secret that Yuno might not be exactly normal. But after having to rely on her in order to survive in this wicked game, he starts to rethink his values and adapt to the situation. Just kidding. Soon after any growth he gets shocked at and "betrayed" by something he has already witnessed numerous times before and reverts back to his old self. Yuno, one of the few good things about this anime, gets better treatment. She has to face her share of problems and while they don't exactly give her big development, they bring out new and surprising sides of her along the way.

The Future Diary mechanic itself is nicely designed. Aside from being a fresh idea, all diaries have thorough explanations of their capabilities and limitations and I couldn't spot any inconsistencies. It's just not used to even half of its potential. The action is brash and childish and makes next to no use of the tactical flexibility of Future Diaries. It's barely ever used to plan ahead or trick the opponent and even then in unintelligent ways. Using it for information gathering seems almost unthinkable. But despite the lack of anything that is complex enough to require keeping attention to details, for some reason the anime neatly displays the exact location and time whenever the time changes as if it's a critical piece of information, but in the end doesn't hold any significance at all.

Animation is varied and smooth enough and the quality of artwork is decent in average with occasional moments of greatness when portraying facial expressions. The art direction is effective with its use of grey and black to express a wide range of different emotions well, although it sometimes feels a bit strained. But more impressive is the frequent use of purple, it sets a sense of paranoia and confusion quite well. Backgrounds aren't absurdly detailed or imaginative, but they are diverse and make nice stages for stupid battles. Sections with computer graphics stick out a bit more than I'd like, but thankfully lacking execution of CG is limited to scenes showing traffic, both the vehicles themselves and the swiftly repeating copy-paste landscape. The design and scenery of Deus' realm aren't exactly breathtaking to look at, but that's probably the intention considering its mechanical and practical design. Character designs are quite varied with a bunch of memorable ones in the mix. Their coloring is bright and the lines are clear and succeed at underlining each character design's distinct qualities. And in addition to the playful cuteness of character designs themselves, there are all kinds of cute visual symbols used during times of peace. This cuteness shouldn't be mistaken for an attempt to lighten the mood, they only makes the brutality of Mirai Nikki and how naturally its characters are able to commit such acts a bit more disturbing.

The soundtrack is good and its implementation is always appropriate for the mood of every scene, but it doesn't manage to make a strong impact on the viewing experience due to its lacking interaction with visuals beyond matching the tone. Voice acting is very good, and out of that capable crowd Yuno has the honor of being the best thing Mirai Nikki has to offer once again. Tomosa Murata does an excellent job as Yuno's voice. Her performance makes both extremes of Yuno's emotions come across powerfully, and even her more neutral lines are delivered with a hint of insanity. Everything is just like a yandere should be.

If my Review Diary sent this to myself back in October 2011, would I still watch it (assuming I'd by some miracle bother to read this tl;dr crap)? Probably. Although the anime is by no means good, Mirai Nikki's crazy disposition made it stand out as a fun experience. It gives Fate/Zero a run for its money for the title of the weirdest combination of childish action with mature themes out of all anime I've seen, although greatly inferior in every technical aspect and with characters that are far from being as complex or interesting. You should definitely be watching this if you can stomach stupid fun and would classify yourself easy to entertain like I do.
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Now let me get this out of the way, I'm not the biggest horror anime fan, but this anime is only bit scary first. Let me broaden the animes I watch, which are basically more of the cheerful ones.

Let me go through the storyline first. The story is basically about a kid, Yukiteru, who I guess we could call a "Loner" dare I say. All Yukiteru does is type into his cell phone diary about random things he does throughout the day. Broadening more on the loner character, Yukiteru has "imaginary friends". One of those friends, Deus Ex, is the god of space and time (if I recall). Now this is where it gets tricky. this god gives Yukiteru a cellphone that pretty much predicts everything he's going to do, just, random things. To make things even more complicated, his classmate, Gasai Yuno, also has one of these special cell phones, except her's is basically she knows what happens to Yukiteru in the near future. After certain events, both Yuki and Yuno get teleported into the "imaginary" dimension and see 9 other silhouettes of people. This is basically where the story gets even more intense. Basically, Deus Ex is on the verge of ceasing to exist and needs someone to take his place. So he gathers these 12 people to play a survival game to decide who will become the next "god". These 12 players use their special phones with different powers to play the game and try to beat each other which is of two ways: 1. you kill them or 2. you break their phone.

I also liked the art style of this anime. now again, I usually watch the more cheerful animes so I definitely thought the art style was good. The only reason I rated this a 9 was because the art style does not fit the atmosphere of this anime as its literally about people killing each other, and it gets extremely complicated and dark later on. To be honest, I didn't know jack shit about this anime as I came across this anime from watching a different series. At first it does fit the atmosphere, but boy do you quickly throw away that thinking.

Regarding sound, I thought the sound was extremely well done. The OST for this series is probably one of my favorite, even out of movies and non anime shows. To name a few songs, the sad piano music just fits every sad part. I swear I get the feels everytime I hear that song come on. The Epic Battle Theme was another favorite and its just intense. If you're not going to watch this anime, at least listen to the OST, I promise you, you'll like it.

Characters (a bit of spoilers) , there are a few notable characters I liked. 12 amused me a lot. I totally thought he was crazy and gonna be scary, but the way he introduced himself to the main characters was just funny. My favorite has to be Akise Aru, I can't really go into him that much if I don't want to spoil it. I'll just say he's an extremely smart person and just has a cool aura around him. 9th was another cool character. Deus Ex is probably the biggest troll character I've come across, you'll understand once you watch. 7th probably gave me the most feels out of any of the characters.

Overall, I enjoyed this anime a lot. The storyline was extremely well executed, the music fit every scene and overall and extremely good OST. All of the characters except a few were likeable. I definitely recommend this anime to anyone, if you can get across just a bit of blood and one f*cked up part, you'll enjoy this anime, even if you don't watch these type of animes like me.

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Mirai Nikki is not amazing or revolutionary, but it does have some great aspects to it that make it into an interesting series anyways. Though the watching experience isn't always up to par, the sheer athmosphere and tension which is present from time to time tends to make you more forgiving as a viewer. Unfortunately as a reviewer I can't afford to be as forgiving, and so even though it seemed like a hard series to review at first I felt like there were quite some interesting things to mention, so this one might be a bit long.

Setting
The setting reminds of a lot of things; Death Note, Higashi no Eden and Madoka Magica amongst others. These are not small names in the slightest, and in an attempt to compete with any of the above you must be willing and capable to put a lot of thought into whatever it is you wish to accomplish. The main reason why Mirai Nikki failed to do so is the liberty it took in catering the setting to its story. The story's foundation crumbles when the game whereupon the entire story is based doesn't have the strict rules it's supposed to, and the game leader is uncapable of enforcing the rules himself. This reduces the setting to a pointless game, where you're left wondering why the contestants even compete in the first place, and why the game even started and was agreed upon.
The contestants themselves are also nothing more than crazed murderers and psychopaths, and why the most psychologically instable people were chosen as the potential successors to god himself also remains a complete mystery. And there's very little variety even, it's not a contest to see what kind of person would make the best successor, but which psychopath is best at killing the others. So even though the setting seems interesting at first, reminding of such other great anime; as the story progresses it's obvious that it didn't get as much thought and attention as it should have for it to be any real competition.

Plot
The lack of attention is especially obvious for the plot, it is uncarefully put together and leaves a lot of holes open for the viewer to question. There is so much wrong with what characters do and don't do in certain situations, and there are a lot of characters and other things appearing out of nowhere. I'm still amazed at how easy it apparently is for a couple of civilians to attain firearms and poisons, and how the contestants are capable of killing tons of innocent bystanders, but refuse to kill each other when given the chance.
But unlike killing and weapons, which are widely used and available, the cast remains hidden for extended periods of time, with just as little reason. Instead of having the game kick off in total chaos with everyone trying to kill each other, the protagonist can conveniently deal with his opponents one by one, being the only interesting target for any of them. Not only is this a poor solution for avoiding complicated storylines, it is also much less interesting to watch.

Characters
The cast consists of only a few character types, most of them are murderous psychopaths with a bad history, usually killing in order to become god in the hope that they can make things better for themselves and others. The backstories are intentionally horrifying, with a lot of suffering and pain inflicted upon the character. And while the backstories usually aren't bad at all, this however somehow leads them to doing the same to others. While my gut instinct would lead me to believe that one who has suffered so much him- or herself wouldn't wish it upon others that easily, or at least wouldn't be able of inflicting that harm him- or herself no matter how noble their ultimate goal may be.
This makes the characters very unlikeable and unsympathetic, and even the more 'normal' characters turn out to be like that. They're mainly selfish, violent and cowardly, and these aspects are often glorified by the series. Because of this you won't feel much sympathy towards anyone, and it makes the entire series' intents questionable. Though this isn't always a bad thing, but more on that later.
What is a bad thing though is again the lack of complexity, the characters have one goal they strive for and ignore any other possible rational or emotional impulse. This harms the plot even further, as it doesn't allow for some actual psychological character interactions in a setting which is basically a mind game. The game turns even more into a violent mess, and any tricks and traps don't come from a character's thought process or conversations, but are merely plot-devices and set-ups.

Development
The way the plot functions also leaves quite a few holes in the overall development. A character is brought in, and after revealing their side of the story they are often removed again in one way or another. This makes it so that any development for the side characters is made nearly impossible, leaving their simple characters as they were. The only real character development takes shape in the relationship of the two protagonists, Yukki and Yuno. But, because of the repetitive setup of the arcs, their 'development' fals victim to the same repetition. After an arc they end up at the same point where they started off at, only to go through the same sequence of developments for the next one.
This is mainly the case for the series in its entirety, after the opening arc the story goes through a lot of similar arcs with little change and eventually the final arc brings the story to a conclusion. But ignoring the repetition of the central arcs -- let's say we imagine there being only one arc in between the first and the last one -- we may appreciate a more refined and a much smoother development of the story as a whole. The story can be divided into 3 seperate parts this way, somewhat parallel to the stages of recovery one might experience after a traumatic event. The first part presents the trauma itself; the second part gives the protagonist hope, empowerment and a belief in others; and the final part brings him to an understanding of himself and gives him a meaning and overall purpose.
This is also the reason why so many unsympathetic characters are presented one after the other, it generates an image of the series in which it is promoting violence and general bad behavior, only to make a complete turnaround in the end. Because of this the finale did a surprisingly excellent job in bringing the series to a close, more or less mocking itself and its characters in the process. Yuno being the character most befitting of the negative image which was built up throughout the series came to such a self-realisation the most and got the magnificent honor of openly exclaiming the majority of it herself. But the series might have achieved the same thing better if it had left out a lot of the useless middle part, maybe having only around 15 episodes or so.

Immersion
Though the series can be very interesting, exciting and creepy at times, it fails to maintain it throughout. The many plotholes distract from the action and excitement, leaving you argueing with your monitor or TV-screen instead of paying full attention. And as the plotholes pile up and the plot worsens as a whole you might not be as enthousiastic as you were at first.
The back and forth development will also become repititive to watch, the differing characters and stories will keep you from absolute boredom, but not all of them will be as interesting and the protagonist-duo won't bring you much relief either all the time. When a character's role has ended you're usually left with Yukki and Yuno in some sort of intermission mainly acting the way they did in the previous one.

Emersion
The glorification, almost, of all the bad people, the violence and the general sinister nature of the series manages to create an eerie and creepy athmosphere most of the time. Unfortunately they deemed it necessary to interrupt this sometimes by adding some lighthearted slice-of-life or comedy scenes, but it wasn't so often as to be a real bother and they were amusing in their own way. Also, in turn, an interruption of the immersion will of course also result in a lack of real emotion felt with the viewer.
Though most, if not all, character interactions failed to trigger much of a response whatsoever, even when it came to the main cast. Because of the unsympathetic nature of the characters, even though it does serve a purpose in the end, harmed the main storyline in general. Not only was the repetitive plot not that interesting, it also failed to be meaningful or emotional when it tried to be. The only time when any real identification with the characters is made possible is at the ending, which did most of the sentimental work in the series. It is a nice meaningful climax, though the build-up was simply too long and it was too little too late.

Voice acting
The voice acting is good, but a little too exaggerated at times. Yuno's repetitive dialogue, by which I simply mean; her saying Yukki all the time, might get on your nerves at some point but in general it helps increase her creepyness.

Art
The art and animation is good, yet not used at its full potential. Some great and beautiful shots can be seen every now and then, but most of the time the series limits itself to boring and uninteresting ones. So even though they had the resources and capability of producing something genuinely good looking they seemed to lack the creativity to make every scene as visually interesting as they could have. Which is a real shame, seeing as how the (visual) setting and situations would have certainly allowed for it.

Sound
The sound is genuinely great; the sound effects, recordings, music and overall sound design adds a whole lot to the viewing experience. They make the scenes more immersive and sometimes manage to bridge a plot-hole or two. The athmosphere often relies heavily on sound, and in Mirai Nikki this also one of the main features which keeps it interesting, despite the interruptions by other bad features every now and then.

Overall personal experience
Mirai Nikki is something which becomes worse over time; as the story progresses more questions are raised, more flaws are found and it's just generally more of the same. And even though they manage to pull off a miraculous ending, admittedly covering quite a bit of the flaws generated over time, it doesn't even come close to covering all of them. It starts off promising, but loses its purpose quickly. The ultimate goal for a long time is reduced to Yukki and Yuno furthering their physical relationship, while many of the emotional aspects of their relationship are never overcome. The main part of the series therefore consists of meaningless repetition, until finally an entirely new purpose to the story is found. I genuinely think the series could have been a hundred times more succesful if it had been shorter and less of a drag. It definitely has its moments, but falls short in the end.

Comments
Story (setting, plot, development), Art (art), Sound (sound, voice acting), Character (characters) and Enjoyment (immersion, emersion, overall experience) were split up into more manageable portions so I could remain focused on 1 aspect of the series in an attempt to remain objective and spoiler-free. Also no unnecessary synopsis, and the OP and ED of a series aren't an actual part of the anime! Know that all feedback is appreciated, please use the helpful button as intented, and thanks for reading! read more

This is my first review so no hating, ok? :3 Well a little criticism is fine, but make it constructive.

I've watched many anime, but of all, I found Mirai Nikki the most thrilling. The plot is similar to the Hunger Games, but instead its set in a different time period and darker. The main character here is Amano Yukiteru, a plain student who doesn't like to stand out much, but ends up being caught up in the bloody game, and is one of the few diary owners who are still sane.

Story: 9/10
The plot, like I said, is the same as the Hunger Games, a classic elimination battle royale plot. The story isn't incredibly fast paced, But there is the big twist that comes along the way. Sure, it may be a game where everyone has to kill each other, but this is also where it splits from Hunger Games. Its not what you think at first. Along the anime, the more diary owners are killed, the more the plot dives deeper into the past life of Yuno, a psychotic but sweet girl who is obsessed with Yukiteru (also known as yandere). The reason why I gave the story a 9/10, though, is because this anime breaks the fourth wall a bit too much, giving some pathetic characters a giant edge over something that normally wouldn't be possible.

Art: 10/10
What can I say? Amazing art. It actually compliments the thrill and psychology in this anime. The art is clear and the character emotions and gestures are shown beautifully.

Sound: 10/10
Music is good, shows the aura of the anime and goes along with the anime. Yousei Teikoku is my favourite band since their music creates the best feel for this anime. Dead End (second opening) actually shows what happens in the anime if you look at the lyrics. Voice acting is fantastic, especially when acting out as the personality of the characters.

Character: 10/10
This is what got me so excited about Mirai Nikki. Yuki's personality is a wimp who before, does not want anything to do with the game, due to the horrors he had witnessed at the beginning. The fact that this anime has a pathetic and weak main character is what makes this anime better, and the fact that later in the anime he ends up putting a proud and confident act is what pushes it better. The side characters are also well developed and there are reasons concerning their actions. Yuno Gasai, the female lead character, is also the main selling point of the anime. Her back story is not as tragic as the Sixth, yet her personality was the result of what happened when she was small. Shes one of the best yanderes I've ever seen, as one moment shes cute and innocent, the next moment she does something completely unpredictable and insane.

Enjoyment: 10/10
I loved this anime. The thrill of it was what made me watch it without dropping it. Ever since I watched the first episode, I would wonder what happened in the next episode and would want to watch it in school secretly. Mirai Nikki is an anime that was so unexpected that sometimes I would try to predict what would happen next and then it would completely surprise me.

Overall: 9/10
If you liked Higurashi and Chaos;Head, then I think it would be good giving Mirai Nikki a shot. Sure, not as much horror as Higurashi, but the dark effects and psychological scenes make up for it. read more

This is just a little review based on the art, sound, enjoyment, and overall of the series. But before I beginning, let me tell you that if you have not read the manga, you may no longer need to. Because with what I've seen so far, it looks like it is going to stick as close to its adaptation as how obedient a sheep follows it's shepard. Beware this series does have above moderate violence, blood/gore.

Art- 9/10

I've seen much of the line up this season, and I will not be lying when I tell you that 'Mirai Nikki' has one of the best directions this year. The visuals are absolutely stunning and will leave you refreshed and thankful for its new wave of originality (that is in its palette). So yeah, everything is clean cut, better than you'd expect from something coming from this genre. Only flaw is Deus, but then again it's a very very small flaw. I mean, he's an other-worldly being. You'd expect him to look different from everyone else.

Sound- 9/10

No aggravation here. All the little sounds of nicks, bumps, etc. sound pretty much in place. The voice actors for everyone seem to be on key........except for Yuki. Yes Yuki, look out for him because his voice comes out a bit girly (not really, but more like weak). Which in this case is a moderate problem. His voice could've been a little more deeper. Like tough tough Hehehehe >:}

Enjoyment- 9/10

Hey! If you like blood, tension, a great story, fresh characters, twists/turns, yandere, violence, violence, violence, violence, suspense, and a little mystery; then hey, you'll love this series. If it doesn't keep your ass pumping and pounding at the edge of seat, well good job your'e watching the subs and not the action. I enjoyed this and I KNOW that you all will too :}

Overall- 9/10

Great in all aspects and well worth the time given. Come on it's 26 episodes and another reason....... to WATCH THIS PSYCHO YANDERE NAMED YUNO IN ACTION!!! She is HOT in this anime!!!! She is the character that you will immediately deem worthy of all of your attention. Yuki is Yuki, but YUNO is YUNO. I don't think anyone can top a female lead like Yuno. Put her in 'Highschool of the Dead' and I'll be more afraid for the zombies. Hehehe :} read more

The first thought that crosses my mind when hearing the name of this anime is the word weird.

The story is about a boy who gains a diary which tells the future, twelve other people have different types of diary and the final survivor becomes "God". Their version of God is a little different, but it's just basically someone with tons of power to control things etc.

When first watching this anime, I was definitely sure that I'd rate it no higher than a 7. However as the story progressed the plot sped up quickly I became more interested in the story, but once it got to the middle of the anime the story drastically slowed down and became slightly boring. What kept me watching the anime was the curiosity of what the end result of the story would come to.

The anime has
-Psychotic
-Dark
-Creepy
themes.

Story 8/10: The story itself wasn't bad, it's kind of interesting to see how things work out and the idea of a "future diary" is intriguing.

Art 8/10: Nothing really special about the art. It's not bad, but it's not something that'd amaze you.

Sound 9/10: The songs are pretty good so is the background music

Character 7/10: At times I strongly disliked the two main characters throughout most of the story.. Some other characters I found really touching, and momentous but often times the main characters are simply just annoying.

Enjoyment 9/10: I watched this anime in two days, it was an interesting watch. I don't feel like I wasted my time, it's not that the anime is bad it's just not "blow your mind" type.

Overall 8/10: This anime is probably worth a watch if you're out of anime to watch, or want to save up some episodes on your ongoing series. I would not judge the anime by the first 5-ish or so episodes, because things speed up quickly.

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