The Future Diary Part 1 Review
“Our life is made by the death of others.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
Middle school boy Yuki Amano is a loner who seems content to bury his face inside his cell phone, choosing to record what he observes in life rather than participate. When he’s at home however Yuki spends time with his imaginary friend Deus Ex Machina, the God of Time and Space, who one day decides to bestow on Yuki the power to show the future in his cell phone for the next 90 days. Yuki is skeptical at first but realises that the entries in his phone are completely true, down to the smallest detail. Deus Ex Machina fails to mention however that Yuki’s not the only one to suddenly have this new power; there are eleven others like him who can see into the future in different capacities and they are all now part of a Survival Game. They must kill each other, using their new gifts as weapons to keep themselves from getting a ‘DEAD END’ and win the ultimate prize: becoming the new God of Time and Space. So basically they are now living inside a Japanese Visual Novel, but avoiding a DEAD END is not as easy as it seems, and they cannot reload from a previous save if they die…
The power to see into the future is regularly considered a gift from God, the highest honour and sometimes comes at a great price whether it is an emotional or physical toll. It’s a power normally bestowed on one chosen soul, and since it’s an easy story device to drive characters to target particular people, destinations and/or items of interests, the power can be frequently found in supernatural stories. But it’s not as common to have multiple people with the gift of premonition, and to have each person receive flashes on a frequent basis, which is a unique spin that The Future Diary offers and, in some part, succeeds in exploring.
The knowledge of what will happen is filtered through human made objects, such as a cell phone or picture book, further bounded by the user’s creativity, so the information is flawed and open to changes. Yuki’s cell phone records what he sees in acute detail and updates very frequently, however the entries avoid bringing up what is actually happening to the diary user; for example, one entry can record an earthquake happening but will not say if Yuki has lost a limb or escaped unscathed in the process. Yuno’s diary on the other hand DOES record this and focuses solely on Yuki’s well-being, as his emotional state means more to her than what’s actually happening which makes them a perfect team. Not every diary is limited to our leads however; The Third’s diary focuses on the location of his numerous victims and how to kill them effectively, whilst The Fifth’s diary is a children’s picture book with detailed colourful drawings but is limited to a child’s vocabulary and merely three entries a day, leaving him vulnerable outside those times. With every new player a new diary is introduced and keeps the overall game interesting to watch as it unravels,;even if most of the teenage users are stuck with a cell phone tool, each one reads the future differently.
The future is, as it’s been said in many stories before, not completely set in stone. There are twelve players in total, and once a diary user comes into contact with another, the future can potentially change; when one reads an entry and decides to change what happens, their diary and those around them also drastically alters. Combined with another diary user or other persons of interests coming into contact, sometimes the future alters multiple times within the same second, which is fascinating to consider that the smallest actions can have big repercussions for someone. These constant updates keep each encounter high in tension for both the characters and the audience; just one update can come too late to stop a move that can be the difference between a GOOD and a DEAD end.
It’s also a test of character to see how people read the future and choose to react to it. If anyone in the world received that kind of power, would they use it to help others or further themselves? However The Future Diary doesn’t excel in exploring this notion very well, because everyone in the cast is either a naïve imbecile or a murderous psychopath. According to the world of The Future Diary if you were given the ability to see the future, all you’d want to do is kill everyone in your path. Granted; some of the characters’ supposed reasons for going Leather Face on everyone are not completely far-fetched, but there are too many instances where a character is introduced, appears to be perfectly lovely, then later we learn that they’re just a blood-crazed killer underneath this facade. It’s a trick that The Future Diary pulls one too many times to the point of hilarity; why trust or attempt to sympathise with any character if you know they’re going to get kill-crazy within a matter of minutes? The idea of the game is to kill each other but the characters never seem to struggle with the idea of murder, they’re all too willing to jump into the wagon. Take Battle Royale for instance; it too is trashy and violent but it has far more realistic human reactions to the situation. Some jump at the chance to kill but others struggle to conceive of the idea, a few commit suicide, others have to be pushed into fighting back and lots of them choose to hide from sight. It’s the lack of variety and humanity that The Future Diary has trouble with throughout.
It isn’t just content with murderers running around either; The Future Diary also tries to tackle other mature and dark themes such as violence, rape, insanity and child neglect. It’s all handled with the maturity of a prepubescent boy on a sugar high and the gracefulness of Gordon Ramsey politely telling his staff what he really thinks. Each diary user has their own psychotic issues and reasons for wanting to become God, but instead of using their trauma to help build deep, layered characters, they’re tools used for cheap shock factor. It thinks it’s being outrageous and cool, but when you have one diary user a 4-year-old boy using hand puppets to plan out his evil schemes, and an episode where the leads have a fake wedding at a local fair, it’s clear that it’s too shamefully stupid and tone deaf to be taken seriously. When the series does attempt to have character development outside of dark subjects matters, such as Yuki’s crisis of character mid-way with making friends, it struggles to make it impactful in the moment or matter in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t help that none of the characters, even the sap Yuki or the proactive (if insane) Yuno, are likeable at all.
Controversial recommendation: watch the English dub. Forgive the iffy subtitles within the first few episodes and sadly not knowing the lyrics to the kick-arse opening song ‘Kuusou Mesorogiwi’ by Yousei Teikoku, it’s the performances and English script that comes recommended. The script is, for the most part, similar to Japanese but Funimation choose to adapt it with a more tongue-in-cheek flavor to performances and wording. Japanese purists will, understandably, be furious with Yuno’s additional pet names for Yuki, and Yuki’s older sounding voice (I admit I kept forgetting he was suppose to be in middle school, not high school) but it’s the occasional humorous re-write, snarky comment and campy changes that make the English dub more fun to watch and fitting with the content. The script director knew how ridiculous the series and characters are, so it runs with it, rather than sticking with the Japanese’s straight script. One such example is when Yuki and Yuno kiss in the second episode just after an explosion threatens Yuki’s life; in Japanese his traumatised, emotionless response is ‘This is Necessary’, whereas in English it’s ‘I’m not using her, I’m utilising!’ which has a fourth wall vibe to it and is more in line with the shameful nature of the content.
Part one contains the first 13 episodes of The Future Diary; the Blu-ray edition only comes with clean opening and closing as extras, but visually it’s very crisp and vibrant. The animation style is strongest within the opening, where the red-and-black colour palette and fast editing really get the blood pumping for the episode. Then there’s Deus Ex Machina who isn’t on screen very often but he and his realm have a unusual technological design to them, with effective use of 3D in small doses but successfully so as not to stick out like a sore thumb.
The Future Diary has a basket of good ideas but chooses to smear them all in blood, boobs and bullet shells. It has the potential to be a supernaturally violent head trip but due to its stupid characters, cheap shocks and a tone that’s all over the place, it can’t elevate itself above being tasteless. It’s mind-numbingly stupid fun; but be warned, once you travel down the rabbit hole, it can only go deeper and darker.
