The next episode will be important. This episode was mostly dull, but it did promise things to get very interesting next week. In fact, this entire episode was saved by its premise: not knowing what the hell Yukiteru and Yuno have been doing, and yet they dropped a lot of hints about what went on. Next episode should be the explanation, and that will be the opportunity for this series to show whether it can grow or not.
As for this episode, my biggest problem with it was that the characters it did decide to focus on were rather dull and didn’t really keep my attention. In particular the classmates were dull and just bait for pointless fanservice at the beginning, while Akise himself showed that he’s a decent character in that he at least is smart, but can’t really carry an episode alone. Not to mention that convenient brain-fart he had when he walked right into an obvious trap. A lot of people seem to like him, but I don’t see why he’s so enjoyable yet.
This is something I realized when writing up my end of the year post, but in terms of crazy series with over the top and psychotic characters, Mirai Nikki wasn’t my favorite of 2011. That was Deadman Wonderland. Sure, it was incredibly rushed, but nearly every episode had something interesting and was over the top, with all kinds of larger than life characters. This show in its turn has the advantage that it’s twice as long, so I really hope that it can take advantage of that. What I’m really missing so far is some good character development. Because of that this episode was rather sneaky, because Yukiteru and Yuno are about to change into something interesting that can keep the show going. This episode served as build-up and there it did its job really well. However, I do hope that these side characters will either change for the better, or just disappear, because I still don’t really have confidence in them.
And for god’s sake, the skits at the end are actually only getting worse…
Rating: (Enjoyable)
I think you got the number wrong. This is episode 13th.
I forgot to watch the skit.
Interesting that you draw a parallel with Deadman Wonderland, because my brother who reads the manga, says that Deadman is better.
Yeah if Akise is meant to be so smart, why did he fall for that trap??!
And also I really don’t care for the group of friends at all, nothing much has been done to develop them.
Actually, you can predict this coming (what happened to Yukiteru) if you look closely at what Yuno brought in her bag in the end of last week’s episode
This was an interesting change for manga readers but seems like it would’ve actually weakened the flow for non-manga-readers.
I’ve watched the entirety of the Deadman Wonderland show (sans the OVA) and frankly I can’t agree.
While I haven’t finished reading the manga (to preserve my enjoyment of the anime) I suspect Deadman Wonderland had worse pacing issues than Mirai Nikki: many of its concepts and characters were shoved in a single cour, which deadened the impact and trivialized the story.
Mirai Nikki has the fortune of a diligent adaptation of the manga instead. That alone puts it over.
The main character is a toss-up and I’ll have to go with Yuno Gasai as the superior “anima” to the main character over Shinobu, who was almost as dangerous, but somewhat unsatisfactory as the Wretched Egg.
The rest of the cast (Akise Aru, Minene, Kurusu) are all more well-rounded than any of the supporting cast in DMW (with the exception of the female warden, who was severely under-utilized, almost wasted).
hmm, i actually like mirai much better than deadman wonderland. but i guess to each their own.
The hot spring fanservice part was completely anime-original. Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “Akise walked into an obvious trap.” He specifically told Kousaka to hold the door open and was pretty much only screwed over by that guy’s idiocy. He had to check if it was Yukiteru or not himself, even if it was very risky.
And of course Mirai Nikki wouldn’t be your favorite psycho show of 2011 – it hasn’t finished yet, so it’s a show of 2012. Plus you’re comparing a finished series to one that’s still running. Also, Deadman Wonderland was horrible. You can go over to Scamp’s Terribad review of it to see all of the problems I had with it.
http://thecartdriver.com/terribad-anime-review-deadman-wonderland/
Akise didn’t walk into the trap…the stupid kid didn’t hold the door as he told him to.
This episode wasn’t very thrilling to me but the end of it got my attention again. I’m quite interested in Yuno, and look forward to an arc dedicated to her story. On the other hand, I keep hearing about Deadman Wonderland.. perhaps I need to give it a watch after all.