Manga Review: Mirai Nikki

Title: Mirai Nikki
Author: Esuno Sakae
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Fantasy
Art: B
Originality: S+
Story: A
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: S

Impression: This is the main story. It’s about twelve owners of diaries that can predict aspects of their future based on their personalities given by a god, Deus Ex Machina, that’s about to die. Whoever survives the longest in this game where they have to kill each other will take on that Deus’ powers and become his successor. The main characters are Amano Yukiteru, a withdrawn boy who uses his phone diary to predict the future events around him and Gasai Yuno, Yukiteru’s psychotic stalker with an absolute devotion to Yukiteru whose phone diary tracks down everything that Yukiteru does in the future. All of the characters are very unique and it gives us a look into how people will abuse the power that they handled with and how far one would go to achieve their goals. The story arcs are very exciting and though it takes a painfully long time, Yukiteru grows from a cowardly loser to a formidable candidate for Deus’ throne. There’s quite a bit of blood being spilled in this series and the way it’s handled is almost comical and yet this style gives a memorable quality to the manga. It’s almost time for this 4-year long manga to end so the big question I have for this series is “Where’s the anime?”(Many also ask the same of Mx0). I’d love to see Shaft pick this up as Akiyuki Shinbo’s directing style really would go well with the manga’s.