PLOT:
The story revolves around a life or death survival game in which the god of the universe Deus Ex Machina; ok gonna stop you right there. If you're gonna rip off names from Greek mythology at least rip off you know a real name not a plot device that's suppose to wrap up a story. The irony of that name we'll get to later. As I was saying life or death game to see who will succeed Deus because he is dying; STOP STOP STOP. Isn't he a god? Why is a god dying that doesn't make sense. Did this seriously get through editing? No one asked the writers, "Umm hey nice ideas but why is a god who is suppose to be well a god dying?" The setup of the game is rather poor if you ask me. Anyway enough beating the horse. Life or death survival game to see who will succeed Deus Ex. There are a total of twelve participants in the game called "Diary Users" Each player is given a so called "Future Diary" that allows them to see what is going to happen in the future based on certain characteristics of the user. For example one of the Diary users is a cop so he gets future info on case information. To win the Diary User must be the last one standing I.E kill everyone else. The plot follows Yuki Amano and Yuno Gasai, two young high school kids who are trapped in this game and want to survive. Oh and by the way ROMANCE because this is anime and if there is a female and male lead you're damn right they gonna be lovers. The worst aspect of the story has to be the romance between Yuki and Yuno mainly because it isn't a romance. It's a one sided obsession. Lucky for us the writers had a good idea and didn't completely make the show about them. The show just follows them on their quest to win. The show goes in arcs usually with a new diary user of the arc coming in to be ripped to shreds by a combo of Yuki finding an interesting way to use the diary and Yuno being... well really good with an axe.
CHARACTERS:
Meet Yuki Amano a cry baby wimp who turns into wannabe Lelouch/Light ripoff 2.0. Yuki is just a quiet kid who soon discovers he can read the future and when that happens his whole life gets flipped upside down. Despite my first statement on him Yuki is actually a rather decent character. He's a bit on the bland side of "Just wanting to end the game and kill no one" but he does it an a unique until events happen that I won't mention cause spoilers. He gets some good development but I wish he became more that generic crybaby hero. Then there is the case of Yuno Gasai... a girl cloaked in mystery that is in love... and I mean IN LOVE with Yuki who also happens to be very very very very VERY good at killing people. I many be in the minority but I did not like Yuno as a character. To start they wasted the potential she had as one because the development she gets towards the end gets derailed because the writers thought that a super mind blow plot is better than characters they had been developing. One thing I do give the show credit for is having Yuki realize that Yuno is phyco... a statement that is often repeated by him throughout the show. I think they also tried too hard to make her back-story tug at your emotions. The supporting cast is rather mediocre but a stand out is Akise who comes around later and has spoilers all over the place if I try to explain why he is a good character. The thing that makes the characters good was the interaction between Yuno and Yuki. It seemed like a rather believable interaction between the two if you took out the crappy romance that was jammed in there.
ART/ANIMATION:
Mmmmm I love me some well animated action shows yes I do. The animation for Future Diary is top notch. The action sense are well do and even the regular sense have high quality animation. A note, if you don't like blood.... I would recommend not watching this show because there is a lot..... a lot... of blood. Almost to much blood for my taste but some of the sense that have Yuno smiling with blood splattered on her face just creeped me the hell out which is a good thing. The character designs are also very tasteful as well.
SOUND:
Dat opening. A very good opening song gets the adrenaline running. The music in the show always seemed to fit the mood but none of it stood out supper well but it did its job non the less. The dub for Future Diary was done by Funimation and was done very well. Josh Grelle does a wonderful job as Yuki. Something to point out, this is one of the main things that I really liked about the show was the voice acting of Yuki, I'm not exactly a fangirl of Josh but gosh dang his portrayal of Yuki made his character probably better than what it really was. Brina Palencia is the voice of Yuno and does a great job in a creepy psychotic way. She made Yuno sound so positive as she is killing people left and right. A special shout out to Kent Williams for doing an amazing job as Deus Ex... his voice is just mmmmmm.
ENDING (NO SPOILERS):
And here is where the 9 drops to a 7... Oh dear me why did you have to do this. Why are anime studios allowed to get away time after time of making great show and then RUINING it by making the ending absolute garbage? First off they try to hide the fact that the ending is so awful because they make it seem like "Oh no really everything is sunshine and rainbows" WRONG! Plot holes everywhere. I can't even begin to describe how infuriated I was by all the plot holes they just left open and said "deal with it" I tried really hard to accept the ending they gave to us but I could not accept it for what is was because of all the plot holes they just left unexplained. This kind of thing drives me up a wall and it needs to stop. To anime studios... for the love of Deus start making your shows have proper endings.
OVERALL:
Future Diary is for a fact ruined by its awful ending. However! I still enjoyed this show to an extreme amount. The character interactions were quiet good. The animation and action of the series was also quiet good and the show at least had an interesting idea behind it that never quite ended up were I would've like it but alas we can't be so lucky. I am hesitant to recommend this show because the ending is just so bad, but I do give it an recommendation to watch cause at the very least it is an entertaining watch until you start to notice all the plot holes... Future Diary.... you will be missed... because we can't find out which hole you fell into.
