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We all had that one friend. The one who was a bit weird and maybe sort of smelled, too, but he still tried so, so hard to be liked by everyone. He made up all kinds of bullshit to make himself look cool, jumped into conversations to add some witty remarks, always doing his best to be noticed and make an impression. Of course, he failed spectacularly most of the time.
You still couldn’t help but love him, because underneath all that you could see a very interesting and worthwhile guy. Or maybe because someone who tries so hard deserves something in return. Possibly both.
Well, ... Mirai Nikki is pretty much that feeling. Sort of. At times it’s not.

Bear with me, we’ll get through this.

Mirai Nikki is a 2011 show, production by Studio Asread, adapted from a so-so manga (or so I’m told) from 2006 with a very cool premise: 12-people battle royale where everyone is able to see their own future via cellphones, hence the name ‘Future Diaries’. The last man standing will become the new God of Time and Space or something like that.
Our protagonist, Yuki, is an anti-social good-for-nothing fuckwad that I would most likely place three or four steps below Shinji Ikari in the anime foodchain. He’s selected to enter the fray by chance, and somehow is not the first one to drop dead.
Meet Yuno, a pink-haired chick who’s crazy good at fighting, crazy uncaring of other people lives’, and crazy in love with him. The two form an unlikely yet effective couple in order to see the whole thing through to the end. Synopsis, done.

Mirai Nikki is, as one would probably expect from a story about lunatics trying to slaughter each other, schizophrenic. I mean, everything is. The characters are schizophrenic, the pacing is schizophrenic, the tone is all over the place.
Ranging from the most absurd and deliberate camp (6-year-old serial killer, mind-controlled dogs, nurse hiding rockets under her skirt, and I could go on forever) to the oh-so-dark and tragic backstories of the Diary users, who seemingly are not allowed have a past without including violence, multiple rapes and disgustingly twisted family issues. You are supposed to laugh, then cry, then laugh again, and after a while I was having such a hard time reacting to all the nonsense happening on screen that I stopped caring. Loads of useless characters pop out of nowhere without accomplishing anything, Diary Users can’t make up their mind on whether they’re good or evil, the romance between Yuki and Yuno keeps switching between ‘chillax’ mode and ‘WHAAAAT’, making their whole relationship charming and weird at the same time.

The cast is, overall, a mixed bag. Most of the participants are tokens with some very peculiar design choices and fucked up personalities that burst in, try to put together some silly plan, and get killed shortly afterwards. Some are fleshed out more than others (by which I mean they had some unfathomably yet unnecessarily horrible flashbacks), but in the end they’re just pawns to be disposed while marching towards the big finale. I LOVED Minene for some unexplained reason and enjoyed MurMur’s screentime, but in a ‘lol cool’ kind of way rather than ‘Such exquisite character development.’ one. Bite me.

Main characters. Romance, then. I guess it sits fine with me in the end. Yuki is, uh, abysmal as a protagonist. All he does is crying, running way, and acting silly until the last few episodes or so. He has no depth to speak of, no interesting quirks, nothing at all. You’ll find yourself cheering for some of the other twats during the battles, which might have actually been the point. Who knows.
Yuno is very likeable and unique, the series’ strongest point. However, since all she says and does is somehow related to her beloved, she ends up losing steam after a while. I can’t quite grasp why the couple works, yet it does. They’re quite bad individually, but since they’re together 99% of the time, flaws and silliness shine less bright and become more bearable.
The final bits, mainly focusing around their relationship, are easily the best ones out of the whole bumpy ride.

Technically there’s not much to speak of. Again, quality dips and rises episode to episode, and I would rate it average overall. Animation is wonky at times, camera work is by-the-numbers. Good backdrops, though.
It’s in perfect sync with the rest of the show: highs and lows, rinse and repeat.
EDs and OPs are alrighty (first OP is the standout for nagging the themes with both visuals and song). Sound design and OST are, unfortunately, bad.

To wrap it up, I’d say Mirai Nikki is crap. A very good kind of crap, though.
It tries sooooo damn hard, showing you how gritty and mature it is, how despicable and pathetic its characters are, and you’re just there asking him to please, please be done with it quick, you have lunch sitting in the oven and cats' videos to watch and pressing matters to attend to.
It’s similar to a kid doing his best to ape what adults do, and making a commendable, but poor impression. You can’t have a pulpy do-or-die love story inside a B-movie. Or it might be the other way around. Hard to say.
Still, my very personal opinion is that it oozes with effort, and love for its setting and backstories and fight scenes, and I’ll be freaking DAMNED if you manage to find another show that had me laughing so hard at a sexual abuse flashback, just because it’s all so stupid and trashy yet entertaining in its own deranged ways.
It was an effort for me to elaborate on this show. I can see all its numerous flaws quite clearly, but can’t bring myself to hate it. Its heart is in the right place and that’s more than enough for good ol’ softie here.

Anyhow, this is a review, so I have to stick some random number on Mirai Nikki’s bumber.
I’d say it sucks, but I’m glad I watched it. Just like that dude back in the day who wasn’t that great but you still enjoyed talking to him.

6/10