Mirai Nikki – 14

Well, now this is something I didn’t see coming. I mean, the last episode hinted to this, but I didn’t think that the creators would actually deliver exactly what it promised. Things… are bound to become much different now.

Still, I liked such a crazy turn of events a lot. This is the point where Yuno just drops all pretense and flat-out drugs Yukiteru. It’s a bit of a shame that the uninteresting classmates seem to now have become major characters here. Also, I didn’t expect Deus ex Machina to be such a cheater by randomly appointing new diary holder. And to what extent? To save four random bystanders? Is he so much on Yukiteru’s side that he thought that he wouldn’t win the game without the help of these four? Also, if he’s a god, can’t he just randomly zap people he doesn’t like?

That returns me again to that scene earlier in the series, in which Yukiteru’s destiny got majorly changed apparently, after he looked at the room with the corpses. After watching this episode, I’m still not sure why it was that big of a deal. Heck, it probably just delayed things. If Yukiteru never looked into the room (which is pretty unlikely, but still), Yuno would probably have taken him even earlier on that little trip of hers.

In any case though, I liked how crazy this episode was in terms of plot development. The halfway point is a great point to go into a different direction, and now it’s really time for this show to pull all brakes, while also using the build-up of this first half.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

27 thoughts on “Mirai Nikki – 14

  1. I sense some confusion here because you didn’t read the text message displayed on Kousaka’s iphone. In the previous episode, we know that he has been making blog diary entries. Now when he submitted his “dying” message in the gas chamber, he immediately received a text message from the blog hosting website, confirming he status has been upgraded to diary holder apprentice, courtesy of 8th.

    Anyways, a lot of us have been waiting for this episode since October and despite minor flaws, it certainly delivered. The thrill ride has finally started.

  2. . “I didn’t expect Deus ex Machina to be such a cheater by randomly appointing [a] new diary holder” Hohohoho, at this point in the series you should probably not make these assumptions. Dues didn’t do anything hohoho.

  3. Deus did not give diaries to random stranger…But he did give an eight diary for somebody with the exact goal of protecting Yukiteru if I did not remember it wrong.

    1. Like the above has stated already, Deus did not do anything to tamper with the game. Yukiteru is his favorite, but that’s basically it. He wouldn’t do anything at all let alone doing things in favor of Yukiteru.

    2. Ah sorry, I replied to you by mistake ^^;

      I didn’t mean to reply directly to your post, I’m just saying this in general.

  4. This is the type of anime where everyone shouldn’t say a word…

    I love the straw grasping.

    It breaks reality

    With a hammer

  5. I’m glad this episode picked up speed and finished 2 chapters (25 & 26) of the manga. The omake kinda filled in the missing detail how Kousaka was able to upgrade to a Future Diary apprentice.

  6. I still have the same worry as before, how will they manage to finish in time :S Unless they really compress the next episode’s storyline (which should be possible) I don’t want the ending to be super rushed…

    Anyway, great episode 🙂

  7. but at the start of the series, didn’t we see 12 people on them pillars… so how can someone be appointed later on?

    Or were there not 12 figures already?

    1. Actually, there are MORE than 12 pillars if you look at the opening credits closely… and that there’s more than 12 diarists in the first image of the ED. Count them, and I recognize all but one. Either a diarist is actually a couple, or a new diarist joins the game sometime after the first episode.

  8. While I question the logic of leaving Yuno alive, Yukiteru isn’t one to easily take a life. But just…leaving her there? Why wouldn’t Nishijima lock her up? I guess there was no time with the other diary holders bearing down on them. It’s now obvious that Yuno will return to cause trouble. One bitchslap isn’t enough to make her stop obsessing over His Kneesockedness.

  9. I know I keep saying this… but the shit has not even BEGUN to hit the fan. This is mild compared to what’s coming.

      1. Good shit if you like crazy.

        Basically everything after 6th dies up about now is filler, it gets wild.

        Identity of third corpse. Identities of remaining diary holders. Yukiteru and Yuno: what next?

        Don’t forget that Yukiteru’s friends just lead the 8th’s goons right to him (thanks Kousaka!).

        How much it delivers on depends on the execution, but most of the best stuff not only hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t been introduced.

        1. It all depends on how well Asread shrinks the last 33 manga chapters in the remaining 12 episodes. Logically 59 chapters amount to 2.3 per episode, but then again, pace in manga depends on the story: the action scenes take up larger labels, splash pages, double splashes whereas anime is restricted to 20-24 minutes per show.

          So all manga to anime adaptation is less of a science & more of an art.

          1. Yeah, from my memory I am not worried about pacing, there’s a lot of lengthier action sequences that should compress very well.

            My main concern is more about logic and story structure.

            In the last two episodes we have 6 major story events:

            1. Yuno drugs-then-confines Yukiteru.
            2. Akise and friends rescue Yukiteru from Yuno.
            3. Akise reveals that there were three corpses (and Yuno declares two of them are her parents).
            4. Yukiteru slaps Yuno, then abandons her.
            5. 8th’s diary system gets Kousaka to unwillingly lead the 8th’s foot soldiers to Yuno and Yukiteru.
            6. We see the 8th, and we see her assistant Orin. Orin was also at the 6th’s temple, so we know that whatever scheme she is a part of has been going on for awhile.

            The combined feeling from all six of those should be something like: “Yukiteru is really screwed. Yuno is too dangerous to rely on for help, and on top of that she still has some dark secret. But, the other diary holders aren’t sitting still, either: the 8th, at least, is using some kind of clever scheme that turned Yukiteru’s friends into information sources. The walls are closing in, his fate is looming over him, and all-around things seem bad.”

            The anime adaption didn’t do a great job of communicating all six points. The info is there, but the presentation doesn’t convey its full significance. If it stuck closely to the manga I wouldn’t be as critical, but it added a lot of material the past two weeks and I would’ve liked to see the added material used to flesh out the story structure, rather than fan service.

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