Friday, August 23, 2013

Mirai Nikki

The most recent anime I've watched is Mirai Nikki, which means "future diary" in English. I can't remember where I first heard of it, but I think it was one of those suggestions down the bottom of the page when I watched Death Note. Anyway, I got the anime off my friend and I found a chance to watch it. It was...pretty amazing. I thought I wouldn't like the art style or the story... but strangely the art was tolerable and I didn't mind the story.

The plot in general is about this boy who writes a diary with his phone, and one day his phone writes his diary for him, in advance, telling him what happens into the future. He can then base his actions on known outcomes to then change that future into something that benefits him. Then it turns out that he's not the only one with a future diary, and there are 12 diary users in total. I think the selling point of the whole plot was that they diary users had to kill each other, and the last man standing gets to become the God of Time and Space.




Anyway, the story wasn't that interesting, but the characters were. The protagonist, Yuki, freaks out after finding out he's been entered into a survival game and breaks down. Now he would usually be one of the characters I really hate, because he's weak, pathetic and generally wimpy. He wants to hide behind others or beg for mercy when he's in danger, or he'll just flat out cry while someone's holding a gun against his head. Then when the situation turns around (because he is the protagonist after all), he wants to let everyone go...

Maybe I've just watched so many animes with the really "cool" characters (Lelouch from CG, Light from DN, Yamato from DS 2) that an ordinary protagonist seems pathetic. Yet for some reason I was actually able to empathise with Yuki, because when I think about it, there's not much a 14 year old kid can do when someone's holding a gun against his head. It's amazing how he progresses over the series though--- Yuki's not one of those "wild growth" characters who become completely different after an episode, the change is natural, gradual and I quite liked it.

But my favourite character was his girlfriend, Yuno. Even if you haven't heard of Mirai Nikki, you've probably seen pictures of Yuno on the internet somewhere. She is just... so cool. And psychotic. Never have I seen an anime where the character is literally insane, but Yuno pulls it off beautifully. Like, I've seen characters go "mad with rage" or w/e, but this is not the same. She is actually crazy. I guess you'd be thinking, it's an anime, how crazy can it be? Well, I freaked the fuck out as Yuno character became more and more developed, and I imagine I would just kill myself if I had a girlfriend like Yuno...

This post isn't really going anywhere, and it's not much of a review of Mirai Nikki either. I don't know whether I'd recommend Mirai Nikki... I personally thought the story was terrible, but overall I liked it. I still can't get over my fascination with Yuno, and that sole character was probably the reason for me to finish watching the series. So uh, if you're up for a bit of horror or you're just looking for a really good character study, watch for Yuno.
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