Category: Mirai Nikki

I like this show, but I do have a bit of trouble changing my expectations from what I expected it to be, to what it actually turned out to be. I expected this series to be a set of mind games with a ton of mystery and suspense. Instead, it doesn’t focus on building up mystery at all, instead of suspenseful it’s more over the top, and the mind games aspect of the show is rather held back by Yukiteru being a gullible idiot. But ah well, I guess that that was the intent of this show: it needed someone who can both walk into just about every trap laid in front of him, be wimpy enough to be dragged around so that Yuno can shine, and still at the times where it matters find his balls and act like a skilled action hero. It’s forced, but it does carry the rest of this series, and I do have to say that the new villains here are pretty interesting, with a possibility to be the most interesting villains so far. Yuno in particular was great here. Though was the underwear scene really necessary? I mean, this is no fanservice show. It’s almost if it’s a prerequisite for a guy to bump into a girl and expose her panties like that. And at the very least: if you’re going to do fanservice: make it creative. Pulling a scene like that only shows that you’re not really putting much thought into this. Rating: * (Good)]]>

Yeah, this indeed was a bit of a weird episode in which the creators use a 5-year-old kid to try and outsmart the two lead characters. At first I thought that they’d have some very suspenseful build-up or something, but instead this entire episode turned into a really weird game from the kid to try and kill them. The big problem was that it relied very much on plot convenience. The plan of the kid relied that he would be able to get away from Yukiteru’s mother long enough to send away a package, that Yuno just wouldn’t tie him up. The final ploy with the poison gas would also have been completely useless if Yuno remembered to just open some doors and window and wait a bunch of minutes. So yeah, this episode was full of plotholes, but plotholes aren’t everything. Sure, they don’t exactly help in retaining the viewer’s suspense of disbelief, but there shouldn’t be a problem if it makes up for them as long as the story is interesting. Still, the lack of aforementioned suspense didn’t make this the most interesting episode. This is something that I’ve been noticing throughout most of the latest episode. I don’t know exactly what it is, but this series seems to be missing something in terms of delivery. I also wonder: could another reason why Deus ex Machina picked the twelve owners of the diary be a lack of interest in becoming a god? I mean, so far I have seen nobody who really was burnt on the end goal of this series. Yuno just wants to be with Yukiteru, that twelfth guy just wanted to extract his justice, fourth just wants help with his investigations, Yukiteru just wants to live. And this episode suddenly had ninth helping out Yukiteru and Yuno, who could have been her biggest roadblocks. I wonder for what reason that turned out to be… Rating: (Enjoyable)]]>

Um. Yeah. So I did hope for more time to flesh out the characters. With that however, I did not mean to just devote an entire episode on romantic hi-jinks. That’s just boring. At least try to blend things in a bit. So on one hand this episode was just annoying, with Yukiteru’s mother and all. It’s overdone, it’s not very good, and could have been done much better. It was full of bad cliches from your standard romantic comedy. What also really bugged me though, was that this episode had no build-up whatsoever. We just have a bunch of random hi-jinks, followed by a shot of psycho Yuno, with no attempts to build up atmosphere. The same goes for the new diary holder. You’re supposed to introduce these characters with an air of mystery. Having a kid as the next diary holder is a surprise. It doesn’t work when you don’t build up this mysterious atmosphere around her and just have her immediately show these dolls of her that have been in the OP for ages. The problem with this show is that nearly every character is crazy. You can’t just throw in yet another crazy character and just hope that it’ll automatically work. Rating: – (Disappointing)]]>

It really feels like nearly every diary holder isn’t really interested in winning the game. I mean, so far most of them have been using their diaries to take care of personal grudges or helping in their personal lives or profession. This episode showed that both Twelfth and Fourth had no intentions to kill Ninth… even though she’s a fellow diary holder and helping a professional terrorist bomber escape in a game of life and death is rather… naive… But yeah, this show is really about the suspense and paranoia. This episode helped to establish that you can’t trust anyone in this show. This is probably going to be very important for the future episodes, when we’re going to delve into more developed characters. I also wonder what “good end” means in this series. I mean, a bad end in this series is very finite and clear: death. A good end however has a very vague definition, and it’s definitely not the end. For example, the way in which Yukiteru saw the corpses in Yuno’s room had nothing to do with Ninth getting captured. In fact, it seems that every diary seems to have something that it wants to accomplish, and when it does, it leads to the good end, even though you’d think that the only good ending in this show would have been to win the game. It’s heavily implied that for Yuno, a good end means to have sex with Yukiteru, but what about the others? And is there some reward involved? (To people who read the manga: these are rhetorical questions; please don’t answer them with spoilers of future chapters…). Also, here is something I don’t get: this series’ time is valuable. From what I’ve heard, it only has barely enough time to stuff everything in just 26 episodes. So what is this show doing, wasting two minutes of each episode on these silly pointless skits? Over the course of 12 episodes, that amounts to a full episode’s worth of content there. I mean, for god’s sake use your time better. Take a look at Ben-To for example: there the next episode previews are short and concise, while still actually funny, rather than those obnoxious skits that put some of the cast way out of character. Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>

Okay, so now there are diaries who can turn people into zombies. This episode pretty much continued the trend of this series and lapsed Yuno further into her psychotic tendencies. It perhaps wasn’t the best episode so far, but it still was entertaining. It’s a shame that it’s almost impossible to not get spoiled about Yuno, though. The suspense in this episode probably would have worked a lot better if it was unknown what exactly she was. Now, I do wonder why Twelfth chose a moment in which four diary holders were at the same place at the same time to try and kill even his superior. My guess is that there is some sort of time limitation to his hypnosis diary and that he can only use the servants once or something. Also, we’re only at episode 4 of 26, but I do hope that this show will take its time to show a bit more about all of the different characters, and who they are. At the moment, I’m still missing something from them, and they could have been a bit more fleshed out at this point, compared to other shows. Rating: * (Good)]]>

Okay, I can see why people said that you shouldn’t pay attention to the plotholes in this series. If you’re trying to lure a terrorist bomber out of her shell, then don’t do it in a theme park full of innocent people who can get hurt! In the first half, you could really see that this came from the same direcor as Shuffle (I have no idea why I fully watched that show). Heck, that fanservice scene was directly copied and pasted here. Here though, it was more than just a boring waste of time, because an episode like this was really needed to take a step back. The characters were nicely fleshed out, while at the same time the plot didn’t come at a stand still because enough went on with Uryuu Nenene. And holy crap that ending! The gore in particular was disturbing, but in this episode we got confirmed what was hinted at in the first episode: that Yuno has killed before. Heck… since there is only one way in which “Happy End” could have been interpreted: if they started to live together, there is no way in whichi that room would have been unconcealed. She actually tried to kill her new boyfriend. It’s good suspense and makes great use of its insane cast of characters. I also do wonder a bit about Deus ex Machina’s intentions regarding Yukiteru. I mean, from the looks of it he grabbed the most psychopatic characters he could find, and handed them the future diaries. So where does Yukiteru come in? I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually becomes some deranged mass murderer or something. Rating: * (Good)]]>

This show is crazy. But that’s the interesting part about it. It’s completely over the top action and suspense, and it’s bound to be one hell of an entertaining series. The question now is: can it keep this pace up for the rest of the series, without self-destructing under its own ideas? That bomb girl that appeared in this episode particularly over the top, where she pretty much had planted bombs around an entire school building (not an unimpressive feat, by the way). It lead to quite an interesting episode to watch. Her major flaw again was that she’s portrayed as this complete psycho, without much more (you’re a terrorist bomber? That’s great, but how do you make money and where do you get your materials from?). Thankfully she managed to escape so that she can at least get some development later on, but so far this is the part where this series needs to work on the most at this point: giving a reason to care for the other diary holders. The chemistry between the two main characters is wonderful, though. Yuki in particular is how a wimpy male lead should be done. Instead of just acting bland like how most of his counterparts are done, this guy really acts scared and pathetic, especially around people he believes can help him. Also, did two main characters just kiss willingly in the second episode already? Thank you for not beating around the bush, actually! Rating: ** (Excellent) OP: A contender for the best OP of the season, if it didn’t spoil some of the rest of the characters. ED: A bit more subtle in introducing the rest of the characters, but also a bland song.]]>