Mirai Nikki Factual Review

Story
Mirai Nikki is an anime that will creep you out in one way or another.

The story is simple but gets surprisingly deep with tons of twists as well. The premise is that there’s 12 people who are selected by the god Deus to play a game, Deus is dying and must select someone to pass his powers of time and space onto someone, these 12 people must kill each other to become god. But here’s the trick of the anime.

Mirai Nikki means Future Diary, and a Future Diary is what these 12 people get. They normal diaries change into these magical items which get filled with the days happeneings and change accordingly when a person doesn’t follow what it says. The trick is, if your Future Diary is damaged heavily or destroyed, you die.

The plot has many twists and all the 12 Diary Owners are very unique and for the most part, well written. The story does have some flaws when stuff is going on however, obviously I can’t spoil but there are some problems in it but nothing major except with the 7th Diary Owner whose personality is just badly made.

When it gets towards the end it has some silly moments but things do turn pretty freaking grim while in the first half of the show there’s nothing but pure creepiness that will grab you and hold you for the next episode.

Alongside this creepiness there is also tons of sadness, some funny moments here and there but overall the story is pretty grim and I do have to say that the main protagonist is the most realistic character in this entire scenario. Pay close attention to how the main protagonist changes throughout the show.

Animation
The animation quality is pretty good, yeah there’s just 3 mouth animations in existence for every single character and it doesn’t exactly match the characters speech but that’s anime for you. But the animations in the show are actually pretty good, it mixes some 3D animation to go with main 2D animation which does look pretty good and doesn’t feel all that out of place since they are pretty well mixed in.

I do have to say the animation of the eyes in this show are truly outstanding, I can’t say they’re the best but they make every single scene that much more special.

Sound Design
I have noticed some stock tracks been used on the show here and there but otherwise, the usage of sound effects throughout the show are spot on.

The soundtrack itself is pretty great, the first opening is amongst my favorite anime openings of all time, it gives a small image on the show and is a great song altogether. The show uses its soundtrack very well, never overusing a song and knows where to put sad tunes, scary tunes and happy tunes.

It’s a great piece of proof that real instruments simply make the superior soundtracks.

It also helps that the voice acting is really great, Japanese dub that is. I haven’t bothered with the English dub.

Final Word
Can I recommend this? Yes, if you are an anime fan in general and/or want to watch something that is truly going to be a creepy and a sad experience.