Mirai Nikki

This OVA isn't as bad as people are making out to be. In fact this is less of an OVA and more of a trailer presenting some scenes from the first volume of the manga and showing what it would look like in anime form.

After watching this I can say that it looks fantastic.

From a story perspective this OVA was really confusing. A first timer may understand about the future diary and not a whole lot else. However this OVA were different scenes made to sorta tell a story, not really the whole thing. If an actual anime was made it would be ... much more coherent. Speaking of which, the parts that were shown were faithful to the manga almost perfectly. Once you realize which scenes they are animating, they are all pretty much identical word for word.

Art and coloring was very good as well. What I saw was animation that was on par with Highschool of the Dead and The World Only God Knows. Yuki looked fine and they did a good job with his facial expressions. Yuno did look a bit strange but we barely got to see her. People complain that her breasts are too small but if you compare the scenes from the anime to the manga she's about the same. The only real trouble spot was the CGI used for Deus. It's clear they didn't have the budget to do better but if this series got turned into a full project it would get a bigger budget and in the process look much better. In other words this can be fixed.

Voices were alright. I personally have no problem with Yuno's voice. Honestly we saw too little of her to really tell but in the end if she really is that bad they can hire a different actor if they make it into a full series. Other voices were fine and most characters sounded how I expected them to.

Overall the OVA gave me the feeling that Mirai Nikki should give. It was a little creepy with action and suspense.There is definite potential for an excellent anime here, no questions asked. All the flaws are easy to fix. Once they iron out the kinks this will be a masterpiece. Asread has made good anime before like Shuffle!, and Ga-Rei-Zero. Both series were good. Have some faith. These guys know how to make a good anime.

What can I say about what amounts to a 8 minute sizzle reel to an anime adaptation that may or may not happen. Not much. But here we go.

Impressions:

Pro:
Yuno sounds okay. She's a little high pitched but she'll do

Yuki sounded alright

Uryuu was perfect
...
Music was decent

ED was kickass

Cons:

The Length

Yuno barely appearing or doing anything that we've come to love her for

The animation made the characters look chubby

Deus looks terrible in CGI

That's pretty much all I can say. Hopefully a future anime adaptation will be in the future. One that's good and not......this soul shatteringly disappointing.

The Mirai Nikki OVA is a short, eight minute OVA that was bundled with the eleventh volume of the manga on December 9th, 2010. (My birthday – a coincidence? Hahah! …Not the year, of course.) It basically takes a bunch of random scenes from the first volume of the manga and shows how they would look in animation form. I was actually rather pleased with the scenes they depicted, since they were very accurate (almost word-for-word) with the manga.

For those of you who don’t know what Mirai Nikki is, it means “Future Diary” in English. It’s about a boy, Amano Yukiteru, who isn’t very interested ... in many things. The one thing he does like to do is record daily events in his diary in his cell phone – he calls himself an “observer”. He also has an imaginary friend, aptly named Deus Ex Machina. One day, Deus decides to make Yuki’s cell phone into a “Future Diary” (Mirai Nikki) which records his future for the next consecutive ninety days, as if Yuki had already made entries for them. At first, Yuki thinks he is the only one with this mysterious diary, until he has a near-freakish encounter with Gasai Yuno, the most popular girl in his school. Suddenly, Yukiteru is plunged into a dangerous survival game where having your cell phone broken or destroyed means that you yourself will die as well.

Getting back to the OVA, it’s quite obviously aimed at people who actually read Mirai Nikki, which makes sense considering that it was bundled with volume eleven. As stated before, I was pleased with the OVA in general – the scenes were adapted accurately, the animation was pretty good, and the seiyuu were good as well. I’ve always imagined Yuno’s voice a little deeper for some reason, but it’s passable as well. The only thing I’ll nitpick at is that Deus’ CGI looked a bit weird, but that’s really all. All in all it is a good OVA for the manga, although I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t actually read it before. In all honesty, it seems more like a long trailer than an actual anime episode (which is what it was probably meant to be, anyway). I really do hope that Mirai Nikki gets a chance to become a full-fledged anime series, since it has a lot of potential and, judging by the OVA, it’d look pretty good, too. And with the manga having just ended, I hope that an anime series is in order.

(Coincidentally, as I post this review, the anime is nearing its end.)