Goddamnit Tanaka (The Future Diary)

I swear, I've shaken down so many pieces of lovesick sharkbait¹ this last week that it's interfering with my life. Tanaka pays overtime though. I guess that's pretty decent of him.

So anyway this is late.

This post is about an anime called The Future Diary. I decided to continue with the magic cellphone theme from the last post and go with actually magical cellphones.

Look: key art.

Alright. This one is even more like Battle Royale, but crazier because it adds in a whole "god of space and time" element. Oh and a crazy stalker love affair and demigods. With cellphones.

It starts with this middle school loner (yeah, I know they all do) named Yukiteru Amano -- from here on I'll call him "Yuki". Yuki's such a loner that he's created an imaginary world in his head complete with crazy looking "people" he talks to -- Deus Ex Machina, and Muru Muru (Murmur). Hold on, I'll get screen grabs.

This is Yuki, looking terrfied. As he does.

This is Yuno (she with the crazy eyes).

This is Deus Ex Machina (I know, right? What is he even? Is that his skull?)

 And this pipsqueak is Murmur.

So the basic plot is that these imaginary folks are actually real (which is a bit of a relief, honestly, because you'd think sitting under your sheets and talking to imaginary people would be a bad sign otherwise). Deus Ex gives Yuki a cellphone that tells him his future. Just his own. And he's playing a game (read: battle to the death) with eleven other cellphone users, each of whose cellphones tell them different things. Whoever lives gets to be the new Deus Ex, ruler of space and time. They have to destroy the other cellphones -- and when they do their users bite it.

Now, going around killing people isn't really a middle-schooler's normal cup of oolong, if you get my drift. But don't worry, Deus Ex has rigged the game a little, and given our brave little pacifist a claws-out, knife-in-the-brainpan girlfriend.

Oh yeah, she's totally sane.

Did I mention he doesn't know she's his girlfriend? I don't really know much about the stalker trope, but man these anime seem to get a kick out of it. Anyway. She's, uh, special. And she wants to protect her Yuki (play ominous music here).

So it's a blood-soaked, nutty ride through the magical world of love and ultra-violence, and it's strangely touching at times. It also has some pretty awesome time-travel-recursive-parallel-universe-stuff that's a little mind-blowing. I may have exercised twice as long to watch the last two episodes together.

A little less original than Eden of the East, and a lot more violent, but overall a fun ride. I give it four crazy eyes out of five.

Next time I'll really post on Sunday.



1. loanshark customers doing it because their women -- the women they wish were their women, that is -- love money and they don't have any