Welcome to the final (planned) review of Horror Month 2014! I hope you liked this project, and let me know if you’d like for me to continue it every October! Anyway, let’s move onto the review.
Something that I’ve picked up during my experience of watching anime is that the medium can be dark, and that I am all for dark anime. I believe that utilizing more serious topics in shows can make them more realistic, intense, terrifying, and overall satisfying. For example, Kara no Kyoukai, a series that delves into the darkness of humanity and questions just how moral our species is. Another example is Parasyte, a show that’s not afraid of showing gore and contains aliens that only think about their survival and lack empathy. Heck, Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is incredibly dark when it wants to be, and showcases some pretty pessimistic and agnostic themes such as hopelessness, the ability to wipe out an entire village based solely on racism, and the consequences of actions that may have had good intentions. I could go on for days about how much I love anime that take themselves seriously in this regard, but that’s not what I will be talking about in this review. Today, we’re going to be talking about an anime that tries so hard to be dark and serious, but results in a disgusting and pretentious show that never finds its own true identity. Sit back, relax, and read on as I review The Future Diary.
The Setup:
This is probably the best aspect of Future Diary. The show follows a fourteen-year-old boy named Yukiteru Amano, or Yuki for short. He’s a social introvert who thinks of himself as an observer, recording everything that happens on his cell phone. An incredibly outdated cell phone, I may add, but I guess it can be excused because the manga came out in 2006, the year before Apple came out with the iPhone. But, then, why does one character have an iPhone in later episodes…you know what, I’m just going to ignore this incredibly minor complaint because I’ve got way too many to cover later. Then again, the creators could’ve modernized the phones…I’m spending too much time on this! Anyway, Yuki also has some imaginary friends in the forms of Deus ex Machina (who, despite popular belief, does live up to his name) and his assistant Murmur. Deus then tells Yuki that he’s going to give Yuki a “Future Diary” that can, well, tell the future. He then uses this to cheat on a test and avoid some bullies that wanted to beat him up…for some reason…but then things take a turn for the worse when a serial killer begins to come after him. To save him, the famous pink-haired yandere mascot Yuno Gasai tells him that her diary is all about Yuki and his actions, and they work together to kill the serial killer. As it turns out, the three of them (and nine others) are part of a battle royal where the prize is to become the God of Time and Space. The reason? Deus is apparently real, and he’s dying. How will people accomplish this? By trying to kill everyone using his or her future diary, of course! What a nice way to choose the new god of the world; let’s have the winner be a raving psychopath! Actually, here’s a new nitpick that I haven’t seen: why the heck is Yuki the only normal person participating in this game? Everyone else is certifiably insane, why was Yuki dragged into this? Okay, logic gaps aside, this is a pretty good setup. Who wouldn’t want to watch a battle royal where the prize is to be god? Apparently a lot of people wouldn’t, though, especially after viewing this anime.
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| The story focuses on 12 people given the power to see the future and kill the other contestants |
The Characters:
Contrary to popular belief, the characters aren’t terrible. There were quite a few that I did like and were memorable, but those are side characters. The main characters are some of the worst that I’ve ever seen. Firstly, there’s Yuki, the quiet and reserved character that becomes stronger by the end…except he doesn’t develop at all. I normally really like weaker protagonists, a la Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul and Shu from Guilty Crown (they were the best parts of their respective shows), but Yuki takes having no backbone to unbelievable levels. You know it’s bad when you have a villain character yell at Yuki to assist Yuno during a fight scene, and that I was agreeing with the villain character. I would be fine with this, except for the fact that he uses Yuno to do everything for him. His inner monologues about Yuno are normally along the lines of him thinking of her as a tool due to her undying devotion for him to survive. What an a-hole! And this is never addressed as wrong, as he thinks this is the best course of action. Not to mention the fact that he practically controls her, telling her that they’re a couple to prevent the death of someone who betrayed them, and saying “I love you” whenever it’s convenient. How manipulative can someone be?! Also, whenever the show realizes that Yuki should probably change, he’s somehow made even more unlikable. To avoid spoilers, I’m just going to say this: Yuki, you will never be Lelouch or Light no matter how hard you try. Moving on, there’s Yuno, the insane stalker character who loves our main character for unexplained reasons, and the reasons given are incredibly weak. Outside of being in love with Yuki and being willing to do anything to protect him, she has no character. Actually, no, that’s not it. Watch this, it’s a good summary of her character.
She’s annoying! Whenever she’s not insane, I wanted to punch her in the face half the time. I also hate the fact that everything she does is for the sake of someone who, in all honesty, doesn’t care about her whatsoever. However, whenever Yuno switches to her insane side, she can be very entertaining to watch. As for the other characters, as stated before, they aren’t terrible. My favorites were Ninth, Sixth, Akise Aru, and Seventh (in that order). Due to spoilers, I can’t really discuss them, but if those characters were the mains, this anime would be so much better. However, despite all this, Future Diary’s biggest problem character-wise is just how many of them there are. Future Diary is 26 episodes, so it’s okay for it to have a lot of characters, but this show is so overstuffed with so many unnecessary characters that it makes the anime adaptation of Tokyo Ghoul look like it doesn’t have enough characters. The thing about Battle Royal stories is that you should: 1) only focus on a few of the characters involved, like in The Hunger Games; 2) not include too many characters in said Battle Royal, like in Btoom!; or 3) put some time aside to decrease the action and focus more on character, like in Fate/Zero. Future Diary goes on the Hunger Games path, but focuses on all the characters within the fight, and adds on other characters that aren’t even part of the death game. This bloated cast does nothing to improve the plot.
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| The 12 diary users |
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| Akise Aru |
The Story:
Where the heck do I even begin with this mess of a story? How about the romance? If you couldn’t guess, Yuki and Yuno have no chemistry whatsoever. Yuki has no reason to love Yuno, and Yuno’s reasoning is just about as ridiculous as you can get. I didn’t believe it for a second, which just made Yuno all the more annoying. Speaking of not believing, Future Diary does a terrible job when it comes to covering its tracks in terms of logic and plot holes. Why would Deus want a psychopath to become the new god of time and space? Why would Ninth only blow up part of the school in episode 2? How would a five-year old have the brain capacity to obtain poisonous gas and be able to kill people with it? Why do popular girls think rape is a good punishment for a girl who shows interest in a popular guy that she’s known for years? Why does Yuki think he can go back in time and change everything? This is all I can say due to spoilers, but have you noticed a trend with a good percentage of these logic gaps? Most involve something dark, but that dark element is used in a completely illogical and over-the-top scenario. This is what makes Future Diary fall from a bad but enjoyable show to something that is completely repulsive. The anime uses real-life problems that actually scar real people to emotionally manipulate the audience in completely unrealistic ways into feeling sympathy for these fictional characters, and that is the only reason why these characters are memorable. That is so insensitive, so vile, and so detestable that this makes Future Diary one of my least favorite shows of all time, up there with Code-Breaker (which, by the way, I hate for similar reasons). It also doesn’t help that the show tries to make you take this seriously, like this is how real life works. I’ve got news for you, Future Diary; that’s not how life works, and that’s not how you should portray real life under any circumstances. You can either be realistic, or you can be escapist; that’s how entertainment works. Future Diary tries to combine the two in the laziest way possible, by having a completely illogical story but simultaneously including some really heavy stuff like child abuse, murder, rape, and terrorists, without really realizing how demented it really is. Some say that ignorance is bliss, but in this case, ignorance should not have been the anime’s course of action.
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| The story sacrifices decency and taste to come across as dark and serious |
The Animation/Sound:
There’s nothing really special in this category. The animation is okay, nothing too bad or incredible. Sometimes the movements look really clunky, though. The character designs are nice; though sometimes they look a bit disproportionate or straight up weird. Who the heck thought that Eighth’s design was a good idea? For some reason, though, I really like the characters’ eyes. I’m not entirely sure why, but I thought they were pretty cool. I thought that the color pallet was pretty terrible, though. I get that it’s supposed to be a contrast to the harsh violence, but in my opinion it just made the show’s ignorance shine through even more. The CGI is awful, just like it is most of the time when it's used in anime, so it's something I can't truly complain about. The music was actually pretty good. It’s not the best, and this may just be my optimistic mind scrambling to find something worthwhile about this show, but I did like the songs and found some to be pretty memorable. I thought that the effect that some had to sound like clocks or time was pretty well-integrated, and gave a nice atmosphere in terms of the fact that the show involves time travel. The first opening is fantastic, with wonderful visuals and a fast-paced song, but other than the second opening (which is sung in terrible engrish), nothing else stands out in that department. Finally, sub or dub? Sub. The English dub for Future Diary is abysmal. I normally love Funimation dubs, but this is one of the worst I’ve heard from them. It sounds like no effort was put into making this dub good, with lackluster voice acting and a script that sounds like it was written by that five-year old with the poison gas. The Japanese dub, on the other hand, features some pretty strong performances, with Yuno’s seiyuu being the standout.
First Opening:
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| Animation and sound are average, but the dub is terrible |
The Scare Factor:
Future Diary, despite its best efforts, just isn’t scary, the main reason being the fact that it’s predictable. I know that this line sounds clichéd as all heck, but it’s an idea that I think is pretty relevant when it comes to horror: “People fear what they don’t understand.” Due to its run time and 12 diary users, you can tell using simple math after the first two diary users or so when a diary user is going to show up and when they’re going to die. So, there are ten diary users other than Yuki and Yuno. Therefore, around twenty episodes will be dedicated to killing off the other diary users, and whenever a cycle ends, the new character(s) that is introduced will be the new diary owner. The other six will either be filler or the final battle. In other words, you get into a comfort zone, because “no one panics if everything goes according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying. What we need is a little more chaos!” – The Joker, The Dark Knight. Now, people are probably going to ask, “Well what about Yuno? She’s scary right?” Objection, she’s also predictable! Whenever someone or something threatens Yuki, she goes insane! That’s it! Granted, I will admit that there were some moments where I was scared of her and the lengths that she’d go to protect Yuki, but that’s it. You can easily tell when Yuno’s going to snap, and the fact that her character is so one-note just makes her feel unrealistic! If you want a scary psychopath, how about the original psycho, Norman Bates? His actions, while not the most unpredictable, were scary because he didn’t seem aware of the crimes he was committing, and that lack of morality makes him frightening! Yuno both seems aware and only commits crimes whenever she thinks Yuki is jeopardized! That’s it! It’s just not scary to me.
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| Yuno can be scary at times, but mostly the story is devoid of scares |
Final Judgment:
I know that a lot of people may not like this review due to its negativity and how I barely found any positives in this anime. I’m not going to lie; there were moments within the show that I did like. Whenever the show doesn’t take itself all that seriously and just had fun with its over-the-top story, I enjoyed myself a lot. However, this edgy ignorance makes this show detestable in my eyes, and its unlikable main characters do nothing to help that. This makes my overall enjoyment incredibly low, as whenever I look back at this show I feel dirty. I give Future Diary a 1 out of 5 stars, and a recommendation to never check it out. However, if you like the show, I have nothing against you. Continue to love it, like it, hate it, or feel however you want to feel about it. Like always, it is up to you to decide your own opinions.
ScoreCard:
ScoreCard:
Further Recommendations:
Death Note
This is a supernatural thriller anime that shares some similarities to Future Diary, but is overall a lot more conscious of reality and has much better characters.
Higurashi
Higurashi is an anime that I haven’t seen yet, but it’s an iconic horror anime and a show that you should probably check out. Also, like Future Diary, it’s apparently really gory.
Well, that’s the end of Horror Month, and…oh, wow…I’ve been blogging for almost a year now! That calls for a special review! See you next time!
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