Anime review: Mirai Nikki (Future Diaries)

Mirai Nikki Review

Welcome to my first official review. I'm starting with what's been a recent obsession, which I'm sure any Tv/Anime enthusiast can empathise with. I found a series that I had not heard off before and was hooked from the first episode. I accidentally stumbled across the series from this video:

I was bored, it was late at night and I decided, what the hell, sometimes a 'slice of life' or high school drama series can be entertaining. That annoying yet catchy 10 hour video was completely misleading to what the series was about, and how good it was.


Genre: Action/Drama
Warning! There are some mild nude scenes in this anime (you can see that there is cleavage, not full nudity or anything at any point) and there is a decent amount of gore/violence (nothing compared to Elfen Lied, but I will save that review for another day!)


Plot (no spoilers don't worry!):
We start the series by being introduced to Yukkiteru Amano, a 14 year old middle schooler who spends his life on the sidelines while making a diary of everything he sees. When he isn't observing and making his diary, he spends his time in his imagination speaking to Deus (the god of the space time continuum). By this point (probably about 5 minutes into the first episode) I got the feeling I was correct about my initial impression, with a twist coming from the interaction with Deus. Deus gives the power of foresight to Yukki's diary and he begins using this as any normal person would. He knows the answers to his tests, any dangers approaching him in the futures and any events that happen around him. I won't go much further than this, other than Yukki is not the only person to have a Future diary.

I loved this series plot, from the first episode it was very gripping, and quite often left me guessing as to where it would go next. Even to the last episode I wasn't sure how the series was going to end. The pace of the series is just right so that each episode feels like something substantial is happening, with 26 episodes in total. The anime is of course based on a manga series and I strongly suggest you read that if you don't enjoy anime.
Plot score: 9/10 I loved this series, mainly for it's interesting and intelligent plot which kept me hooked.
The acting in this series, as I feel for the majority of Japanese voice acting, was superb. What I love so much about the original voice acting is how much each voice is intended to tell you about a character. Voice plays a big role in Japanese culture and talks about the character of a person. This translates into anime, and so the important parts of voice such as tone and tempo represent that characters personality. I feel each voice actor was spot on for the characters, and I would struggle to fault it.
Voice acting score: 8/10 The voice acting was fantastic, however due to the main characters their voice can be quite childish at times (the characters are 14, so it's still right, it just doesn't sound nice sometimes). Be prepared to hear the names of the two main characters a lot though!

Art style:
The studio that made the anime, Asread, did a great job on the series. From what I have seen of the manga, the anime captures the original artistic style and brings it to life. There isn't much to say about this other than I never felt like something was animated poorly, and I enjoyed watching the series in about 2 or 3 days flat.
Art style score: 10/10 The anime was everything you could expect artistically, and didn't disappoint at any moment.

Overall score: 9/10 I loved this series and my only complaint is that the ending is slightly different in the manga, and I preferred that ending to the anime's (if you watch the series and then read the ending online, I think most would agree with me). If you've read this review, please go ahead and watch the series. You can find it online, order it at any store that specializes in manga/anime DVD's.