Welcome to my analysis of Future Diary part seven. This is a critical analysis, which means I will try to discern and point out issues with the anime. It does not mean I will be hateful toward the series. While it certainly has problems, Future Diary has been an important anime to me for many years now. I'm probably not critical enough to be honest, and even being this much is hard enough for me. Anyway, let's cover episodes 14 and 15.
Episode 14: Memory Erased
In this installment of Future Diary, Akise and the other teens succeed in rescuing Yukiteru from Yuno. There were a few very minor but odd things. For example, where did Yuno get a frickin' crossbow? How did it fit in her bag with everything else? Or for another example, how did Hinata pass the key to Yukiteru when she was tied up on the floor? And finally, why in the world was Yuno in her underwear? It didn't seem like fanservice somehow. These things may be easy to look past, but I'm mentioning them because I can't find anything more serious to complain about.
There are a few notes to make about Yuno. First of all, she was squarely check-mated by Akise. He was close to finding out her secret, and saying anything to even acknowledge the third skeleton would be dangerous. That's when Murmur fiddled around with Yuno's memories. We know from a future episode that it was done by that little devil, rather than by Yuno's own mind.
After the memory scrambling, Yuno no longer recalled Akise, nor details of her situation, so there was nothing to "give away." I love the way Future Diary gives so many hints about the truth and has a well-integrated plot and plot twists. It's really good writing. On a separate note, it's interesting to question exactly what memories Yuno may have lost, and how often this kind of thing happens. I believe Yuno's memory confusion is constant. It is yet another factor contributing to her mental instability.
My other note about Yuno is speculation, but there is reasonable evidence to point to it. In my opinion, Yuno carelessly let her parents die rather than killing them with intent. She also loved them or felt attached to them on some level, even despite the abuse. When Yuno is going far away from home, she takes the skulls of her parents with her, as to comfort her. She wants to believe they are watching over she and Yukki. Look at Yuno's reaction when Akise says he unburied their bodies. She's absolutely enraged. Those are not the only pieces of evidence. Look at how Yuno was treating Yukiteru, and you may see how significant and relevant it is to the topic at hand.
Yuno was terribly mistreated and forced to spend hours to days in a dog cage without food or a way to relieve herself. But Yuno's mother was always there at home, and we know from other flashbacks that she was emotionally abusive, too. I'm sure she told Yuno that this abuse was actually "love." When the tables turned, Yuno kept her parents in the cage out of the same "love," and they slowly died. I'm not saying this to defend Yuno or anything, but simply to clear up the misunderstanding that she deliberately and spitefully killed them.
In episode 14, we see Yuno trying to feed Yukki some stew while he's restrained and drugged. He refused to eat it, either because he was too weak, or he was simply miserable enough to not care about starving anymore. The same could have happened with Yuno's parents. They could have died from malnutrition, dehydration, or an overdose of the drugs Yuno used to keep them quiet-- maybe a combination of all three. In any case, it wasn't deliberate. Yuno might have accidentally killed Yukiteru too, had the situation gone on.
Moving on, this is the first episode where we see Eighth (Ueshita Kamado). In the last post, I wrote a bit about her future diary and its amazing ability to create apprentice diaries. Kousaka became an apprentice diary holder, and that was that. Also, I have a note about the three apprentice holders who drove past the group near the end of the episode. One of them is indeed an apprentice, but the other two are actually Ai and Marcus in disguise-- together, they form the Seventh diary holder. They will be the next enemies to face.
That's it for episode 14. I still have a few things I want to eventually cover, like notes about Akise Aru. However, this section is already longer than I intended. Let's deal with that content later and, for now, move on to episode 15.
Episode 15: Double Holders
Episode 15 contains the first official introduction of the character I hate more than anyone in Mirai Nikki: Marcus the Seventh. He's a toxic, sexist egomaniac and the worst kind of man possible in my opinion. I could go on a very long rant and fully explain everything I hate about this character and everything he's wrong about (which is most things). But that isn't really the point of this analysis. For the purposes of this post, it doesn't really matter. Because the character is realistic and well-written, I can't present it is a problem with the series. I just hate his guts more than words can describe. But I'm sure some people feel the same about Yuno, or Yukiteru, for their share of flaws.
Moving on to actual issues with this episode, we once again see the unbelievable and over-the-top nature of Mirai Nikki. Don't get me wrong: I love it. But I do also think it's a fair criticism of the series. There's just too much craziness that breaks the suspension of disbelief. For example, there's the part where Yuno defends Yukiteru from Ai's throwing knives. While not actually impossible, it's a little difficult to believe. But Yuno isn't a master of combat either. She can't beat two people with fighting experience head-on. She loses to Ai and Marcus, which brings us to another problem.
It looked as if Yuno got hit in the head with a throwing knife. But she's not bleeding when she's on the floor, and there's no mark on her head when she's shown unconscious in the hospital. The only thing I can surmise is that she guarded her head with her arms, but then got struck down by Marcus. The anime didn't make it clear what happened, though, and it came across as very strange.
There weren't any other issues with this episode that I can find. Although you might at first think it was too convenient that everyone survived the attack, it's actually pretty clear that Ai and Marcus left them alive intentionally. They had no reason to kill Hinata or Mao, so they brought them to safety. Marcus wanted some kind of bullshit rematch with Yukiteru to satisfy his ego, so he didn't bother to kill Yukiteru or Yuno. Anyway, the convenience of it wasn't an issue. This concludes my notes on episode 15.
Takeaways from These Episodes
As usual, my notes for these episodes are summarized in a table below. Please note that part 8 of this series won't follow the usual format of covering two episodes. It will instead summarize everything we've covered so far in episodes 1-15, including the biggest criticisms, some positives, and probably a few random rambles. I hope you'll join me for that post next time. Thanks for reading!
Criticisms | Positives |
A few strange but minor things from episode 14 | Interesting Yuno character psychology |
Unrealistic, over-the-top battles in ep 15 | Good story writing/ plot twists/ foreshadowing |
Yuno's lack of visible wound in ep 15 | Great variety of character types, including Marcus (7th) and Kamado (8th) |