First Impressions: Mirai Nikki/Future Diary

First Impressions is a line of reviews on my blog that are my first impressions of whatever I'm reviewing. With TV Shows and Anime, they will be my impression of it based off the first episode. First Impressions for movies will be based off the trailer of the movie. For books and such, it will be based on the first few chapters or whatever is appropriate for the media type.

This review will be spoiler free for the rest of the anime.

As of this posting, this anime is not on Netflix.

Ah, the infamous Mirai Nikki, or in English, Future Diary. Many know this anime for one reason: Yuno Gasai, AKA likely the most recognized and referenced yandere in anime. This is going to be fun.

My first impression rating is 4.5/5

Before we get into it, let's meet the two characters who we will likely focus on for the entirety of the anime.

Yukiteru 'Yuuki' Amano

He seems like a loner but is a great observer. He often is on his phone writing down every detail he sees as it happens in his diary.

Yuno Gasai

She's just another student in Yuki's class who also happens to apparently write a diary on her phone. She's well admired by other students and loves Yuki. Yuki refers to her as a stalker.

Now let's get into the entire premise of this anime. There is a god whom Yuki interacts with named Deus Ex Machina (yes, really.). Deus seems bored and decides to pull a Ryuk by creating a game involving twelve different people; two of these people are Yuki and Yuno. However, these people are not put into the game all at the exact same time; Deus chooses them. Yuki was the first he chose, Yuno the second, and so on with the other ten. There is one thing before this game that all twelve of these people had in common: they all kept a diary. For most, it was on their phones.

I WILL CONFESS I MAY HAVE GOTTEN CARRIED AWAY AND KEPT WATCHING PAST EPISODE ONE BEFORE ACTUALLY MAKING THIS. DON'T WORRY, I'M STILL EARLY IN THE ANIME AND I AM GOING TO BE KEEPING THIS REVIEW FOR THE FIRST EPISODE AS I DID WITH LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA (AS BEST AS I CAN ANYWAY).

Once in this game, each 'player' had to use their diaries (we later find out they all have some different special function unique to the 'player') to hunt down the other 'players' and kill each other until one remains who will take Deus' place on the throne of being a god. So how do they do this? Well, Deus gave their diaries a special power shared throughout all of them: they can tell the future, thus why the anime and the diaries themselves are called Future Diary. I will be referring to these as Mirai Nikki.

In the first episode, we learn there is a serial killer (who we later find out has a Mirai Nikki) who is using his diary to kill people. Now, this is the premise of the game they're playing, however the people with a Mirai Nikki are supposed to use them to find OTHER people who possess a Mirai Nikki and kill them, not innocent, regular, run-of-the-mill people. This serial killer is using his to kill whoever the hell he wants. At some point after Yuki gets freaked out from Yuno following him around (he mostly freaked out at first because his diary said he'd be cornered in his classroom by the killer, and ended up being alone in the classroom with Yuno so he ran) and they end up in an elevator together going to the 14th floor of some random deserted building (building ex machina). Yuno tells Yuki "Hey, you're using your diary too much and that's how the killer is tracking you," so Yuki freaks out again and she explains how they work. This killer's special trait to his diary is that it helps him be a serial killer. What's Yuno's special diary trait you ask? IT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU'D EXPECT IT TO BE: A LOVE DIARY. Her diary tells her Yuki's actions every ten minutes, and since the Mirai Nikki can give a telling 90 days in advance, she knows his every move pretty damn well, thus how she tracked him. The entries do change depending on the actions that happen in the world that don't follow what the Mirai Nikki said was supposed to happen (for example, Yuki saw in his Mirai Nikki that some bullies were waiting to ambush him at the back of the school so he avoided it, causing the diary entries to be rewritten).

So why is this pink haired stalker following Yuki around right now? It is the day after everyone received their Mirai Nikki so one might guess it's because she now has prime ability to stalk Yuki, but she is literally stepping on his shadow as he runs from her all the way to the elevator, so she has another reason other than she forces a kiss on Yuki as soon as the elevator closes. So she tells him he's being stalked by a killer that isn't her, tells him how the Mirai Nikki work, explains how hers works, and shows him the entry on her diary that basically says that if Yuki gets off at the 14th floor, he's burnt toast. So they reach the 14th floor, Yuno presses the button leading to the roof, and up they go. Yuno gives some more info about the Mirai Nikki, mainly explaining that if the Mirai Nikki of someone is damaged, then the owner will die. Yuki is understandably wondering why the hell they went to the roof where they can't really escape easily when Yuno tells him they're going to kill the serial killer on the nice open space of a roof. Yuki is still freaked out but they hatch a plan and hide. Using their phone cameras so Yuki can see the killer once he prances out of the elevator Reaper style and wondering where the hell his mark is, Yuki has to wait until the killer pulls out his Mirai Nikki to see where Yuki went. Surprise for this guy, Yuno comes dashing out the shadows and scares the absolute hell out of the killer since he was only expecting a boy up there, not some cute pink haired chick, let alone some pink haired chick practically diving at him. Yuki gets up, throws a throwing dart at the guy with amazing accuracy (thankfully this isn't a random 'Yuki gets a random accuracy boost' thing as Yuki just has amazing accuracy) and gets a direct hit on his phone which was his Mirai Nikki. After an interesting scene involving the serial killer being sucked in on himself into nothing, Yuki and Yuno basically just go home.

So why a 4.5/5, you ask?

Well, I gave it a 4.5/5 because the plot and everything is pretty solid. The animation and style is beautiful and it's actually relatively easy to follow despite how thick and convoluted the plot feels when you're trying to actually explain it in a blog post. So why not a full 5? Well, I only said it's pretty solid. Not completely. Let me explain. First of all as I said above, Building. Ex. Machina. That building just happened to be under construction but also happened to have a fully functioning finished on the inside elevator. It was coming to late evening at the time but it was also absolutely deserted. We learn in the episode earlier that the killer had cut through Yuki's school after killing someone the night before to escape, which seems odd (wouldn't they lock the doors? Maybe he just cut through the campus?). Why does this matter? Well, this killer had amazing luck to be able to happen to end up tracking someone else who had a Mirai Nikki. Sure, he passed through the school, but that was at night when Yuki was having a snooze at home. It's because of these tiny ex machinas that it is a 4.5/5. I really like the anime, but some little things bug me. We learn later soon that this killer was the third person to be chosen to possess a Mirai Nikki and was the first of the twelve to die. Deus has a meeting after Yuki gets home post murdering a killer with the other eleven people who hold a Mirai Nikki. Their identities are all obscured but naturally Yuki recognizes Yuno. This meeting happens in some sort of dream space or something. Now, this anime game wouldn't be complete without the god guy putting a target on someone's head, so Deus sits there on his giant throne and talks about how amazing Yuki is to have avoiding a 'DEAD END', which is basically when the Mirai Nikki of someone tells them that they are extremely likely to die. Deus even tells everyone that he was right to pick Yuki first and that they should watch out for this previously relatively harmless kid. Naturally, everyone but two people immediately bade their goodbyes by vowing to be the first to kill the First (Yuki). They refer to each other by the position of what number they were to be picked since they don't know each other's names really. Second (Yuno) obviously isn't going to kill the love of her life so she is one of the two people not to vow to murder Yuki. The second is Fourth, who leaves after saying that he'll protect Yuki. The episode ends a moment later with Yuki freaking out.

Hey, you'd freak out too if you were just some some loner kid who observes people and lives alone since their mother is frequently out of town.

I am watching this anime exclusively in sub as since it is not on Netflix, finding it in dub would be too much of a hassle and I honestly think the only dubs that might exist are fan ones on YouTube. I also think their voices sound more like their characters in sub. This anime is finished and as of this posting has 26 episodes and one OVA titled Data Migration.

See you when the next review is up!

-J