With psychological anime it is to the viewers most of the times a hit or miss, as seen in the reviews of others, a low scoring review will be down-voted by its hardcore fans, and a high scoring review will be down-voted by its non-fans. But that is all small talk, this anime's main selling point is the atmosphere it gives in each tense situation, and you look at the story from the eyes and thoughts of the protagonist. Can I trust her? Will he be betray me? Those are the thoughts of our protagonist, so for an psychological anime, it has done that part really well, not much anime can keep such a feeling while not letting it get boring.
Obviously no anime is perfect and Mirai Nikki is no exception, to keep telling an interesting tale while not being a bit confusing is hard, and Mirai Nikki was not able to make every viewer understand, you can say that it tried to be too clever, towards the end things get rather tangled up with each other, and the result leaves with a confusing lead up toward the end of the anime.
Action-wise, it has done good, but not much more, seeing overprotective middle school girls or yandere to the experts swinging around a katana or firing a gun stays one of the more awkward things to see. The death of characters is done well, not too sudden, but not that you can see it coming fairly soon. Surprising, but subtle is how you can sum it up.
Art-wise it is not too amazing, the character designs are not amazing, especially if you look at something which is supposed to be a god, this could have been portrayed better. In terms of animation it has done quite well, no skippy animating, and they probably did their best with the budget they got.
Mirai Nikki's theme was creepy and very tense and it has done well with it opening themes, these maintain the theme of the anime and didn't bring you out of the mood, you can see that seiyuu wise they might have put less money in this department, every voice actor is less known, not that this matters, what matters is how well they match their character. This is done surprisingly well, Yuno's VA has the voice of an over-obsessed girl, while Yukiteru's VA also has the voice of a lonely, slightly pathetic middle school guy.
Characters, in numbers it has the perfect amount for a season lengthy anime, it has two main characters which creates for lots of development, and this could be called this anime's second flaw, its development. Once somebody decides to do something they should not revert back. Yukiteru has made decisions only to not follow them up, this could be part of that he is supposed to have a somewhat pathetic personality, but if you decide to do it, then revert, and later decide to do it again, it wastes time and interest of its viewers.
On the other hand, Gasai Yuno, the over-obsessed girl/yandere of the series has been done to perfection, she has been the main talking point of this anime, and maybe even its selling point, the creation of yandere is simple, you add creepy with moe, but this time the basics has been done so well, although she is a main character, she does not have a lot of development. And that is not needed neither, she was already done with developing in the beginning of the series, which has reasons explained in the anime itself.
In a survival anime there are lots of deaths needed, these get shoved to the supporting characters and sometimes to the main characters as well, the line-up of supporting characters is variable and of interesting personalities.
Overall I thought Mirai Nikki was a good anime, it had a classic survival plot with some strong characters.
Strong points:
- Good concept and interesting story.
- Sound-wise it was very strong as well.
- It had some amazing characters, female MC and supporting characters were exceptionally good.
Weak points:
- A lot of time and viewer's interest wasted on the protagonist and his "development".
- Not so outstanding art, could have had better character designs.
- It sometimes was too confusing, could be explained better.
So if you like survival with some good characters set around middle school aged kids and don't mind blood and gore, then Mirai Nikki is the anime for you.
Life lesson learnt: Don't live in the future, live in the now.
