[Review] Mirai Nikki

[Max]

Here's to hoping Shea hasn't copyrighted these review segments



Dead End. This warning flag appears on your phone, signalling that your death is drawing near. Armed with this knowledge, you must outmaneuver those trying to kill you, in an intense survival game of kill-or-be-killed stakes.

Amano Yukiteru is just an average kid, going through the motions of the day like everyone else. His hobby is recording small events that happen around him in a diary on his cell phone. At home, he has an imaginary friend, Deus Ex Machina, the God of Time and Space. If only he really were just imaginary... Deus has granted Yuki's cell diary the ability to read the future, giving Yuki countless advantages during everyday life, but things can't be that simple. He soon finds himself faced with death looming around every corner, as it is revealed that he is now unwilling a contestant in a free-for-all survival game involving other owners of Future Diaries, and to survive, Yuki will have to find an unlikely ally in the form of Gasai Yuno, his psychotic and obsessive stalker who is far more than she seems.

Okay, that wasn't so much a review as summarizing the plot basis. The anime just finished airing, and follows the same plotline of the manga of the same name. I really enjoyed the ride this anime put me on, featuring an intense and fast-paced story that just refuses to stop pulling out plot twists at seemingly every corner, stringing together scene after scene with the help of highly varied and deep characters, all of whom have a backstory, and all almost every one has justifiable reason behind their actions in this brutal game orchestrated by a god. For those like Yuki, who don't wish to participate in the game in the first place, aren't left with much choice in the matter. Aside from the unpredictability of the other contestants, -whose identities remain unknown unless each player meets in person- a compromise is out of the question as the last contestant standing recieves Deus' powers, and his status as the God of Time and Space.

Also, Yuno, the resident yandere, has managed to reach slight memetic mutation with her now-iconic Yandere Face which has already been broken down into a template and redone with almost every character in any fiction, ever.

Spoiler:

[Sh-Rumia]

#Votes for Mirai Nikki Alt. Universe text adventure on Kongregate this summer.

[Max]

#Votes for Mirai Nikki Alt. Universe text adventure on Kongregate this summer.

All my monies. Take them.

[Sh-Rumia]

*Thinks of fellow River-regs as diary holders.*

This will be amazing!

[Max]

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I must point out the large hurdle involved in turning this into a game: we can't tell the future actions of the other players. Unless of course all 12 diaries are focused on an aspect of reality that doesn't involve the other player's intervention.
Or, they function like [possible spoiler] the diaries of both characters making up #7 in the show, where both diaries tell the future of the other diary holder, allowing for better teamwork.

[Sponsored content]