As stated... Mirai Nikki has a very intriguing premise to provide. A group of people, ranging from pathetic school boy, to homicidal terrorist, to upper-class business man, quite a good variety of people lets say, are given a gift from god (aptly named Deus Ex Machina). They are given the power to see the future, but in a unique sort of way. Each person in question had one thing in common... they all keep a diary of some sorts, and the future they see is dependant on the type of diary that the person keeps (for example, the lead Yukiteru keeps a diary of everything he sees, as such he can tell what will happen to everything that he can see around him). Even better they are given a chance… a chance to become god. This all comes at a large cost however; they must kill all the other people with a diary in order to achieve such heights.
For the first couple of volumes, this plays out quite well. A lot of the battles turn more into a battle of the minds, where each person tries to dupe their future opponent… so that their diary will not be able to predict a way to avoid their demise. There is a twisted kind of logic to the diaries, which doesn’t totally hold together… but is about as good as you can get when you have people accurately reading the future outcome of things. For a while this kind of battle is really intense. Situations get hairier and hairier and the solutions are usually pretty clever and well thought out. But eventually a shift starts to take place… and around volume 7 – 8, the books start to take a real nose dive. You see, while the battles previously had used a sense of wit and cunning to get resolved, the newer ones started to fall back on a plot device as old as time itself… deus ex machina powers (although I guess that kind of works in a way… considering these are powers given to them by a guy named Deus ex Machina). The reasons for them surviving in near impossible situations become hazier and less thought out with each passing volume. At the end, a couple large plot points are basically forced upon the reader, and little rhyme or reason is used. I don’t want to give away the ending, but let’s just say the author writes himself into a corner here. He’s creates a dramatic and decisive point for the protagonist to overcome, but realizes he has no logical way to get out of it… and so just quickly writes up some contrived reasoning for the ending, before quickly just cutting it off and ending the damn thing.
The characters are probably more subjective than anything else… so I can’t really comment on them without my own bias. Their interactions are pretty decent, although at times it feels like people just turn out good or evil for no real reason at all (the ninth is really guilty of this). The two leads, Yukiteru and Yuno, rather un spectacular in my opinion. Yukiteru is the typical lead… pathetic, weak, lonely, and most of all a huge whiner. Yuno is a psychotic killing machine, who only thinks about her love for Yuki, and kills anyone or anything that gets in their way. I personally find her to be unnerving and really annoying at times, but a lot of people seem to enjoy that “Psychotic for love” trend, so don’t let me burst your bubble. I also kind of detest how the author tries to make us “feel” for their romance when really they both deserve to die when compared to the other numbers… Overall the cast is a decent group, nothing spectacular but enough to keep the manga on its feet.
So… overall, Mirai Nikki is a decent manga that could have been a whole lot better. The first couple volumes feel fresh and interesting, but the last few feel rushed and contrived. In the end Mirai Nikki is like a virgin’s first time. He prepares and finesses over everything, starts out strong, everything seems to be going great, but then it suddenly ends early and just leaves everyone involved with a feeling of disappointment.
