Future Diary

"What are you scheming?"

"An interesting game."

Mirai Nikki (未来日記, Japanese: "Future Diary") is the story of twelve individuals in a fight to the death to succeed Deus Ex Machina in his position as God. Each participant is given a Future Diary - a diary (in some form or another) that can partially see into the future, and in particular warning its user when they are about to die. However, the future is never set in stone, and so diary users can work to change their future if at all possible...

Status

Anime: incomplete. (13 episodes, subbed.)

Thoughts

Simple terms: insufferable protagonist core kills the story.

The battle royale setup isn't hugely unique, but is certainly interesting, even if some diaries are better realized than others. However, the focus on a relatively nondescript protagonist, and his psychotically insane girlfriend figure, is annoying when certain characters have much more compelling backstories and motivations. I myself was attracted to Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Twelfth (hell, Thirteenth of the side story looks interesting too), all of who told better stories and gave better motivations for becoming God than the protagonist duo. Of course, the plot would never allow for that, so...

Yuno is supposed to be the epitome of the yandere character archetype, and in some sense she seems to fulfill that. However, even though the motivation is explored later, in the meta sense, her character seems contrived and unnecessary (typical of designated love interests). Yuki...actually, his angsting and general uselessness wasn't all that bad, but what killed his character was the sheer blandness combined with his contrived victories over much better equipped opponents.

So, nope, not a story worth finishing to me. Too bad, really.