Mirai Nikki – Psychotically Alluring

What would you do if you knew your future? While a question anyone is bound to ask themselves at least once, we know it’s nothing more than wishful thinking. In the much anticipated series, Mirai Nikki, however, that couldn’t be more wrong – rather it’s a grave matter of life and death in which one young boy’s most prized fantasy will turn into his worst nightmare.

Amano Yukiteru is your seemingly average, rather useless high school boy with a most unusual hobby – he spends his days writing down random events, many the kind you wouldn’t even blink an eye at, in his cell phone diary. With no real friends to call his own and a social life you’d dread just thinking about, Yukkii’s life amounts to little more than line after seemingly infinite line of pointless text.

Now before you knock off our mellow protagonist for being just about as pathetic as any one guy can be, he does have one thing going for him – that being in his mysterious ability to communicate with “Deus ex Machina,” the self-proclaimed God of Time and Space.

As our story begins, Deus presents Yukkii with quite the tasteful opportunity, an “interesting game” he called it, one in which he can both change himself and end his self-defined “observer” lifestyle – that is Mirai Nikki, otherwise known as Future Diary.

As the name suggests, Yukkii’s diary – the focus of near all his time and energy, has been granted the astounding ability to see into his immediate future. As soon as he realizes this, and in a manner befitting that of any child wielding power beyond its understanding, Yukkii is quick to use it for his own amusement and benefit.

Just as Yukkii is growing confident however, uncertainty rears its ugly head in the form of Mirai Nikki’s beautiful female protagonist, Gasai Yuno. Whilst cheating on yet another test, her masquerading eyes suddenly meet his, an innocent smile on her lips – yet behind it lurks a deeper meaning, one that pierces Yukkii to his core.

…Could she know about the diary, he wonders?

Uncertainty is quick to change to jaw-dropping terror as Yukkii’s diary suddenly foretells of his imminent death. Unable to comprehend such a thing, the poor boy is left utterly vulnerable as Yuno appears before him yet again, reaffirming what the diary has already told him.

With neither thought nor reason, Yukkii runs…

With his mind all a jumble and his heart beating faster and faster, Yukkii runs. All his effort is turned to naught as Yuno finally corners him inside an elevator; and while most any man would give his right arm to be ‘caught’ by a beautiful woman, poor Yukkii is, quite frankly, freaking out – and so with momentum and the element of surprise on her side, Yuno quickly pushes our protagonist up against the elevator wall… and kisses him.

Here we discover that, indeed, Yuno is in possession of her very own Mirai Nikki, appropriately dubbed “Yukiteru Diary” for the now revealed stalker’s ‘hobby’ of monitoring Yukkii. …Why does it always have to be the beautiful ones?

In all sincerity though, Yuno does seem to hold some honest affection for Yukkii, in a really creepy and obsessive way of course, but affection nonetheless – as exemplified through her helping him overcoming a serial killer, in what might through the self-deluding eyes of a yandere stalker translate as their very first date.

Evidently – as seen through Yukkii’s defeating of the serial killer through, you guessed it, destroying his own Mirai Nikki, Deus’ plans for Yukkii have leaped into a full-on survival game where the winner will be awarded the most prestigious of prizes and be allowed to take Deus’ place as the God of Time and Space. With the serial killer’s defeat, there are now eleven participants remaining, Yukkii and Yuno being the only two whose identities we can be sure of.

And so, with an abundance of excitement, mystery and suspense hanging in the air, Mirai Nikki closes the curtains on its first episode with Yuno, her face flushed in a stunning shade of color, looking upon our still weak-willed protagonist, the words whispered from her lips…

“Don’t worry, I will protect you.”

With eye-catching animation, a unique abundance of characters, a suspense-filled soundtrack that will be lining the collection of many a fan upon its release and a story that promises to turn our worlds upside down, it would seem Mirai Nikki has landed its a nice cozy spot as yet another series to look forward to this season.

To what disturbing turn of events will the diaries lead our young protagonists towards? We grit our teeth and grin in fevered anticipation to the second episode in order to find out.

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