Mirai Nikki: Manga Review

Title: Mirai Nikki
Author: Sakae Esuno
Volumes: 8 Volumes (ongoing)
Released: January 26, 2006




















The Plot

Amano Yukiteru is an antisocial boy whose only two interests seem to be writing in his diary on his cell phone and visiting his imaginary friend Deus Ex Machina, the lord of time and space. One day Yukiteru goes home and visits his imaginary friend only to be told that his cell phone has been gifted with the ability to tell the future. Yukiteru soon learns to enjoy his new toy and everything is going smoothly until the diary's latest entry foretells his own death.

After narrowly dodging his own death Yukiteru is soon stunned to find out that there are other people with future telling cellphone diaries and he has unwittingly become a player in the Battle Royale to decide who is going to be Deus' sucessor.

What's Good

For starters the characters in Mirai Nikki are nothing if not entertaining and watching how different characters take to their new powers is certainly something interesting to see. The way the different diaries work is a nice touch, especially with some of the more unusual ones such as the audio diary for the blind player and the 'escape' diary which allows its owner to find any possible way out of a situation. The story moves at a nice pace without dragged its feet much, and the build-up towards parts of the series is as intense as you would expect from a thriller. The characters' back stories are also exciting, especially those that are even now shrouded in mystery.

What's bad

Some of the scenes are a bit unrealistic; such as feats of strength and accuracy that aren't exactly believable at times. Some parts are a bit idealistic in the way that things seem to go smoothly at just the right moment, though this can also be reversed in respect of that things also go phenomenally bad at just the wrong moment, a minor flaw that has been pointed out is that the characters are able to foretell up to 90 days into the future and yet most characters don't seem to bother doing much more than checking their diary right after or just before a momentous event, though it has also been pointed out that the future changes so often that it becomes pointless to bother. This brings up the flaw of how quickly things can change in the Manga, which could be seen as confusing sometimes.

Conclusion

While it has its good points and bad points I feel that Mirai Nikki is definitely a must see . While it may not be for everyone I have thoroughly enjoyed the plot (thus far) and the characters, and while some of it may be unbelievable and convenient in places I personally loved every second of it. After all, even if it is sometimes unbelievable it doesn't suffer from it. In fact in places the unbelievable feats may leave you cheering for more. If you're looking for a good psychological thriller then look no further, if not then I definitely recommend you give it a try regardless. Who knows, you just might like it.