Welcome to Mono's Anime Rants! The critical analysis for Future Diary continues now! As usual, I want to make it clear that I don't hate this anime and I'm not going to pretend to hate it, either. The point of this blog series is simply to practice being more critical and objective than how I normally do for an anime I enjoy.
Episode 18: Interference
Episode 18 is critically important to the anime, or at least to understanding Yuno's background. I'd like to discuss that just to make sure we're all on the same page. We know that Yuno was adopted and was being forced through a strict education program considered "elite." We also know for sure that Yuno was being badly abused by her mother. My opinion on this matter has always been the same since I saw the anime 10 years ago. High stress levels and abuse are not excuses for what Yuno did, but they are explanations. I honestly can't blame a child in that situation for retaliating.
Importantly, Yuno didn't intend to kill her parents. She explains that she wanted them to know her suffering, so she neglected them in the cage. Unfortunately, this led to their deaths. At that point, Yuno lost all hope for her future and had no idea what to do. If she reported this, she would be arrested. She was probably in a near psychotic state from shock and horror. So she lived on by herself for about a month. During that one month, she noticed Yukiteru in class, as they were both unable to fill the survey for future hopes. That's when Yuno latched on to Yukiteru, became obsessed, and began stalking him.
Now, I think Yuno's history is interesting and believable enough for a psychological/horror-ish anime. That's not the problem with this episode. The problem was the bunny-suit scenes and their bizarre attempt at humor. Why would the makers of this anime choose something so weird? Why did they try to force humor on the audience when it was no unnatural? All the scenes of Yuno sabotaging Yukki in her bunny-suit were stupid and also out of place in the same episode that covered Yuno's dark history. I feel disappointed in this show.
We're already three paragraphs in, but there's still more to discuss in this episode. The second half of the episode goes back to the present, where Yukiteru is grieving for his recently deceased mother. There are several things wrong with this second half of the episode, but the biggest issue is how unbelievable it is that Yukiteru forgave his father so easily. That's not remotely understandable.
The other huge issue is how contrived it is that Yukiteru's father gets killed. The deaths of Yukki's parents are both extremely contrived and show poor writing. It's too obvious they were setting up their protagonist to have newfound motivation for winning the game. Surely there was some way to make this less grossly transparent.
Episode 19: Memory Wipe
Episode 19, in stark comparison to the previous installment, was fairly well-written and convincingly executed. There were no major problems I can think of to mention. It's always a little hard to watch this episode, because Yukiteru is being deceived by Yuno, and the kids from the orphanage are brutally killed in the betrayal. No matter how many times I see it, I still feel sad and frustrated about it. That's not a problem with the writing, however. It makes sense.
Episode 20: Data Transfer
Episode 20 had some nice action and important moments. Once again, there were no real issues that I can think of to mention. I did feel mildly annoyed at some of the misogynistic things Nishijima said related to marrying Ninth. However, he really did love her, or he wouldn't have died for her. Still, he's an annoying character to me and I won't miss him. I think that's it for now.
Takeaways From These Episodes
Issues | Positives |
Yuno's bunny-suit rampage was stupid in episode 18 | Interesting character psychology for Yuno in episode 18 |
It's not believable that Yukiteru forgave his father | Good action scenes in episodes 19 and 20 |
The death of Yukiteru's father was too contrived | Great music as always |
Thank you for reading