The premise of 'The Future Diary' (aka 'Mirai nikki') is an anime-typical one: the god of the universe tries to find a successor by pitting twelve people against each other in a fight to the death. Each contestant has a 'future diary', a cellphone that can tell certain aspects of the short-term future. The protagonist, Yukiteru, is the anime-typical kind yet isolated middle-school boy. Together with his love interest, Yuno, he tries to defend himself from the other ten contestants' attacks.
What sounds like a fairly generic premise is quickly derailed by one of the main characters being an utter sociopath. Alliances of convenience rise and fall every few episodes, and the character development is quite remarkable.
While this show might seem like something primarily aimed at teenagers (such as shows with somewhat similar premises like the 'Fate' franchise), 'Future Diary' contains some seriously gruesome scenes featuring, for example, gang rape. The violence is not much more graphic than other shows, but the nudity certainly is (including bare breasts with nipples, which is pretty uncomfortable considering that most of the characters are middle-schoolers).
I'd say that the show needs a few episodes to really get going, but it's filled to the brim with suspense afterwards. I especially liked the characters and their interactions, particularly between the protagonist and his love interest, though one of the support characters seems to be lifted directly from Neon Genesis Evangelion (including his character design and the central points of his subplot).
The animations are pretty good but not extremely so, and the overall production value remains high. The English voice cast does a good job.
There is an OVA ('Redial') that serves as an epilogue to the rest of the series.
What sounds like a fairly generic premise is quickly derailed by one of the main characters being an utter sociopath. Alliances of convenience rise and fall every few episodes, and the character development is quite remarkable.
While this show might seem like something primarily aimed at teenagers (such as shows with somewhat similar premises like the 'Fate' franchise), 'Future Diary' contains some seriously gruesome scenes featuring, for example, gang rape. The violence is not much more graphic than other shows, but the nudity certainly is (including bare breasts with nipples, which is pretty uncomfortable considering that most of the characters are middle-schoolers).
I'd say that the show needs a few episodes to really get going, but it's filled to the brim with suspense afterwards. I especially liked the characters and their interactions, particularly between the protagonist and his love interest, though one of the support characters seems to be lifted directly from Neon Genesis Evangelion (including his character design and the central points of his subplot).
The animations are pretty good but not extremely so, and the overall production value remains high. The English voice cast does a good job.
There is an OVA ('Redial') that serves as an epilogue to the rest of the series.