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Honestly surprised at the high score this has. If you want cutesy, "slice of life" I guess, 1d interactions between characters, you'll get that from this. You can take the Steins;Gate cast out and insert any random characters in this with the same ultimate results. In that way, I'd call this fan-service-y. I'd rather just go invest in an actual S.O.L. anime.

If you want to see characters you liked in the show interact in more "random daily life," surface-y ways, by all means! No judgement - enjoy! And to be fair, there were certainly moments in the original that went beyond "character development" and into ... "just meeting some tropes/fanservice." These ads hit those tropes.

The problem for me is these ads really fail to deliver on any level that made me like the original show in the first place - anything beyond tropes and fanservice (again, not the ecchi kind). Obviously. They're each 3 min. shorts designed to get IBM generally on the brain.

It takes all of ~7-15 minutes to watch all of them (depending on the watch speed), for any completionists. The point is simply that you (arguably) gain nothing by watching them. They're overall pretty "meh." This was 100% just IBM taking advantage of Steins;Gate mentioning them, and collaborating to make an ad... idk...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Watch them off of the high of finishing steins gate if you "just need more steins gate!!!" or if you're feeling nostalgic. Otherwise, meh. I'm skeptical of any scores beyond a 5 ("average") being anything other than complete adoration for the series. On their own, this set of shorts are average. As "extensions" of the series, they're arguably bad (they add nothing except more teasing of Kurisu x Okabe shipping).

Note: I watched them a long time ago off of the high of the original, which is when I gave them a 4. I rewatched them on 2x myself just before this review to try to be more fair. At the time of writing this review, I find myself being more forgiving to these ads for being average, and less forgiving for little moments of tropey fanservice in the original (which I'm currently re-watching for the 3rd time, and seeing more of than I did the first or even second time I watched). So let that color how you read my review and what you expect out of these.

By now everyone knows the premise of Mirai Nikki - if you don't, seemingly every other review gets into it. So instead, lets just discuss the good and the bad - why this anime may be compelling for some and disappointing for others. *If you don't like even *possible* spoilers, I understand, but, while I don't say anything explicitly, I do make hints about spoilers, as the overall ending contributes to my dissatisfaction and feeling of inconsistency within Mirai Nikki - you should be safe with my pros and cons, but I make no promises in the summary.

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The Good:
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-Art:
Not the worst, but not ... my favorite or the best. This is absolutely watchable. It is often similar in style to Attack on Titan, I'd say.

-Humor (possibly divisive):
The humor was Mirai Nikki's saving grace. This show could have been slightly too "Im12andThisIsDeep" without the humor. Humor is what made almost all of the characters likeable, and made me invest in them.
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The Bad:
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-Overall plot consistency:
There wasn't enough. It felt like writers wanted to quickly tie off loose ends to chase another idea they had in the middle of writing the story. Somewhat like the show "Lost". Plot wasn't the *most inconsistent*, but it wasn't consistent enough for me to feel gratified and rewarded by the end of the series.

-Overall character development:
Characters are inconsistent, changes in motivation don't have enough connecting thread to previous development and motivation, so they can come off as shallow and too "hot and cold." That said, they're better developed than some shows (*COUGH*DARLINGINTHEFRANXX*COUGH*). Regardless, too sudden and too unexplained of changes in characterization within characters is unconvincing to me, and is something some characters (including protagonists) suffered from.

- NO. It is not a PSYCHOLOGICAL SHOW:
All shows have characters that have to make choices. Some characters are shallow or nuts. Shock is shock. Hard choices are hard choices. None of these make this a psychological show, but it seems people think shock, gore, and hard choices make for psychologically thrilling elements. DON'T GO INTO THIS EXPECTING *SOLID* PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS.

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SUMMARY:
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**Mirai Nikki ends up being too much of a shallow romance with thriller elements, instead of a thriller with some romance and personal elements, for me to have found it interesting (especially when the listed genres are: Action, Psychological, Supernatural, Thriller, Mystery, Shounen).** Plots NEED relationships between characters to develop characters and help flesh them out (not necessarily romantic, but romantic relationships aren't going to break a plot) - the issue with the relationship, in Mirai Nikki, between Yuki and Yuno, is it becomes less and less believable, and increasingly shallow, and poorly developed. In fact, any supposedly meaningful, or important, relationships are not deeply developed, with the exception of 2-4 side characters' relationships with each other. By the end, focusing as much as Mirai Nikki does on Yuki and Yuno's relationship with each other, it delivers a lukewarm, unsatisfying, and unbelievable finish to Yuki and Yuno's relationship with one another, as well as a sort of moral that falls flat based on previous episodes.

**There's less focus on the intrigue of the diaries and the expected strategy of surviving the game, and more focus on Yuki and Yuno than expected**, which, especially when Yuki and Yuno feel so underdeveloped in their own right, **leaves the entire show feeling generally underdeveloped or unfinished.**

Some people may be satisfied with the way things turned out, and find Yuki and Yuno both compelling based on quick pieces of information tossed in rather than on the story as a whole.

Some people may be okay with the focus of the story on Yuki and Yuno (it is expected from the beginning that they'll be a large part of the plot, motivations, and important events), as well as a kind of "moralizing" ending based on the two.

I was not satisfied with either of the above, and so was left with a "meh" impression of the show.

It's also worth noting: this may be one of the first anime people watch, so they're more likely to forgive story shortcomings than other viewers, and find the show more unique or complete than other viewers would. This is absolutely understandable, but may be an important reason for the division people have concerning the show. If this is one of the first anime you've watched, out of only a handful, you're probably going to like this a lot more than I did.

I gave DITF a review after 6 episodes, which I decided was both unrepresentative and unfair. Now that I've completed all episodes, I'm back to give a more comprehensive review. Unfortunately, my opinion only got lower...
I've made a quick pro, con, and "irks" list, followed by a quick summary of my opinion on the show, a more in depth discussion of those pros and cons, and finished with a short mention of what I see as the context of and some reason for the show's wildly varying scores.
After the pros/cons and summary, the review is possibly more just a rant than anything else - ... if you don't want to read a lot, I'd encourage you to just stop after the summary
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PROS: Some nice character design/some enjoyable art.

CONS: Feeble "plot," both content/theme-wise and development-wise. Poorly developed characters - no actual character growth.

Irks: Inconsistency with the art. Overly-similar "mecha" themes *which lack meaning and value within DITF*, and so read as shallow copies. Eye-roll worthy theme which I largely found pandering.
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Summary:

DITF as an anime lacked not only compelling themes, but also a consistent plot, interesting world-building, as well as creativity. Where creativity was applied (character, mecha, and enemy design), it far too often fell short - the exception being 002, whose character design is the only real reason to watch the show. Other designs were, frankly just overly silly, and looked dumb to me - it looked like nick jr animated all of the mecha fights, which is doubly frustrating when the writers are shakily trying to push plot and character motivation forward through those childish looking fights.
The show watched as if it was being written as a fanfic by a group of middle schoolers', which would make more sense to me given the "I'm 12, and this is deep" themes given throughout the show, and which would also explain why the show felt like it was written on the fly each week, or by 50 different people (exemplified by the following two words: "beach episode?"). Plot inconsistency could have been reduced with interesting world-building, but the world, too, was underdeveloped, only borrowing heavily from previous mecha shows to form a skeleton of a world to house the dissatisfying plot and themes.
DITF feels like a slap to the faces of the audience, and seems to lack respect for the audience and their intelligence. It watches like an attempt at combing Neon Genesis Evangelion's thoughtful nature, with Kill la Kill's edgier but fun jab at anime, while lacking both the depth of the first, and the self-awareness and satire of the second, and possibly taking the worst of both. Out of context, this gives the show an insufferably pretentious air. It leaves behind a generally shallow experience that comes off as a romantic drama attempting to give a moralizing lecture to its audience (while placating those interested in mecha action, as you would placate ducks in a pond by tossing stale bread), all the while taking itself far more seriously than it should and delivering nothing compelling in either romance, theme, or action.

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PRO/CON DISCUSSION:
The best part of DITF is 002's design. Plain and simple. I could leave it at that, because frankly, whoever designed 002 I think is the metaphorical "Atlas," who has single-handedly allowed for the show to be anything more than average scoring on MAL. 002's design is gorgeous.

Beyond 002, there are bits and pieces about the animation that are really lovely. Some of the landscape shots are peaceful and attractive. I found myself being intrigued by the hair of some of the female characters, which was drawn in the most lovely way. Some of the lines of the animation were nice.


...Aaand that's unfortunately where reality hits. Once you're over some of the enjoyable art, there's really nothing particularly compelling about this show.

Let's talk plot:
I like the media I consume to have a good, consistent plot. I think I'm fair with suspension of disbelief in fiction (e.g., I'm not going in to a mecha show to critique the reality of the mecha's existence, or the exact physics of an explosion), but I do expect a show to give its audience a certain amount of respect for their intelligence.
With DITF, I'm surprised I didn't snap my neck from constantly throwing my head back to roll my eyes while watching DITF. Inconvenient character development, world building, and plot/character motivations were far too often abruptly wiped away to make room for new plot direction, sometimes with the convenient hand of Deus Ex Machina, and sometimes with the convenient hand of "flashbacks."

Now you may object, saying, "flashbacks can be perfectly reasonable as a story telling device!" And you're right - they can be!! But not with how DITF used flashback - DITF flashbacks watched as if I could literally hear the writers saying "oh shit - we need a reason to change direction, and we didn't develop any character motivations that support it - lets just insert those motivations in here so that the audience won't notice the character's 180 degree change in actions and behavior, and will think it's excusable!"

This gets into the concept of "show, don't tell" in plot. Too many moments, too many motivations, too many themes, were literally spoken by the voice actors to give the audience an indication of what was happening, or why a character was behaving in some way. When combined with the inconsistency in the plot, and when used randomly throughout the show, this kind of attempt at a sudden first person narration reads as contrite, as well as more inconsistent and heavy handed rather than thoughtful or purposeful. If the entire show were based around each individual's perception of various situations, I think the show would have overall actually been far more consistent, and possibly better (for one, it would have required a little more soul, or at least motivation development in all of the characters). But, it wasn't used consistently or in any way meaningful to the other half of the plot: the "post-apocalyptic-world-meets-faceless-Illuminati-overlords" attempted plot, which was also underdeveloped, and never went beyond a shallow recreation of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Seele council. No really - they never contributed *any* forward momentum to the plot.

The plot inconsistency feeds into the issue with character development - primarily being that there wasn't any. Characters were *changed* after flashbacks or convenient plot points. Instead of going on a journey where subtle changes may build up, leading to character growth, DITF watches as if you've skimmed through episodes - in one episode, a character may be one way, and in the next episode, they're completely different with no indication that their previous traits or motivations ever existed at all.


This has gotten far too long, so I'll end by saying that I think the biggest reason DITF has anything above a 6-7 is that it was so hyped as a Trigger animation in particular. When the hype-train is moving at 60 mph, it's harder to feel like you can or should jump off, and it's far easier to continue to be swept away. I recommend going into this show by some form of transportation other than the hype train. In doing so, there will likely be some episodes you enjoy; I find the 002's character early on to be overly tsundere and insufferable, and shallow later on, but a lot of people loved her character in general - you very well may enjoy her character too. You may like some of the world building, even if there's not very much of it. But as a whole, with all of it's pieces, I found it to be underwhelming, and not much worth my time.

I wrote a review for Kokkoku when only a few episodes were out because I felt that the scores didn't give a good representation of the story. Now I've deleted my old review, edited my score (slightly... maybe) and am back to give a better rounded review - hope it helps!

First - **Kokkoku isn't going to be a widely liked anime.** It's a bit too off-key, a bit too targeted of a general overarching concept/tone/genre for that. If you aren't a fan of something that gets its primary draw from being simply surrealist, or if you don't want to sit through a bit of a ... slow burn for the good in the beginning, end, and for the general sake of the tone, this isn't worth a watch for you.

BUT, if you have an itch to watch something generally surrealist in tone, if you appreciate David Lynch, Mousou Dairinin, Junji Ito, or old school Twilight Zone, and especially if you can sit through some slow burn I think it's worth giving Kokkoku a shot!

My overall rating for Kokkoku lives and dies by the plot (and surrealist tone). Overall, while I really enjoyed Kokkoku, it fell short for me plot-wise. The beginning was well-paced and got me on board for some surrealist drama with some possible psychological horror undertones. Then... it dragged. It felt like there were great ideas, great bits of plot to be followed, but that they just *weren't going there*, and it was incredibly disappointing. Then the last 2-3 episodes happened, and suddenly Kokkoku was back in its stride. Those first and last episodes were great, and are making me conflicted between giving Kokkoku an 8 or a 9 (because, it was still "good" to "very good," despite the dragging plot). The middle episodes had me questioning how many ideas Kokkoku had going for it, and whether it was going to fall short, or fall *terribly* short, of my expectations. Happily, it ended up being something in the middle, and I'm glad to have watched it for the ideas that it did end up offering the viewer.

Characters were great - I'm surprised when I see people complain about them. Each character added a different perspective to the plot and the setting (there were no redundant or particularly uninteresting characters), and everyone felt very *human* - neither too perfect nor too imperfect.

Art was really enjoyable - scenery was beautiful, and characters had artistic quirks where it counted. I think the art deserves a ton of praise for how intelligently done it was.

So, summarizing the negative characteristics of the plot, which are really the negatives overall - Kokkoku starts off great, then drags, repeats certain "dramatic" moments too much to the point of some predictability, then gets great again. There was so much world building, and plot development, that could have happened that Kokkoku doesn't, to my liking, take advantage of, and which I think it suffers for.

I had originally said that the intro and outtro songs would, combined, give a good perspective on what Kokkoku is like. I rescind that now. If you want a better idea of what Kokkoku will be like, watch the outtro (though the show itself doesn't rely as much on fanservice as the outtro would have you believe, the tone of the outtro is closer to the overall tone of the show).

The intro is amazing, and well worth a watch even if you aren't someone for whom Kokkoku will tickle your fancy.

Edit: I just re-watched Steins;Gate, so I added a sentence or two more with my fresher perspective on how this episode really fits in:

This won't have explicit spoilers, but it will have implied spoilers, so read at your own risk!

I personally didn't like this episode as much as I liked the original ending. That said, this was still a great episode and retained most of the important parts that I liked about the original episode 23. I'm slightly disappointed by this ending, because it feels like more of a cop out than the original ending was, and it doesn't cleanly end the series. I think ... that the cleanliness of the original ending is one of its strengths. This ending is the same as the original for about half of the episode, before it turns away to do its own thing.

WHY I LIKED THE FIRST ENDING MORE: The original ending felt like the one that the series was leading up to throughout the show. This made the original ending feel like it gave adequate closure. It fit in line with the development of all the characters throughout the series, and didn't vary from that development or the previously established plot. For those reasons alone, I think that the original ending was slightly better than this one.

WHY I LIKED THIS ENDING: This ending was still true to the spirit of Steins;Gate, and, besides changing the overall way the series ended, retained moments that made the first ending impactful. It offers a few new ideas that were absolutely relevant to previous plot and character development, but that felt a little too sudden for me to be happy with them. Additionally, I think that a different ending doesn't take much away from the series because it just feels like an alternate world line; so I'm not terribly mad at it for simply being different. The biggest thing I think it brings to the table is building off of the original episode 23, and building excitement for Steins;Gate 0.

The 4 sentences immediately after this one (which I'll put inside of [[brackets]] to make it easier to see when it's done) will be the heaviest implied spoiler, so skip it/move straight to my summary if you want to avoid even implied spoilers!!!!! [[While I'm fine with, and can appreciate, the fact that they chose a darker ending, I think that this ending suffers from the fact that it is such a shift from what happens throughout the series. It felt like there was a bunch of development that happened throughout the series that was just ready for a bit of a push to climax and falling action, but then character development in a different direction suddenly occurred halfway through this episode, which gives it a sort of whiplash and disjointed feel - a sort of build up to nothing. That's the primary thing that makes this ending slightly worse than the original, IMO. That said, the point of this episode *isn't* to tie off Steins;Gate - it's to lead into Steins;Gate 0, so from that perspective, it gets the job done.]]


SUMMARY:

Regardless of which "timeline" ending you prefer, this is still a great episode. Definitely worth the watch if you like the series, and I think worth watching immediately after finishing Steins;Gate, and/or immediately before Steins;Gate0 (since the point of this episode is to lead into 0). If you're watching it immediately after the original ending, you can skip to about halfway through, because the first half is the same as the original. If you're taking this episode as an alternate ending to Steins;Gate, it's the weaker ending of the two, IMO, but it's fine, and still interesting, as a lead-in to Steins;Gate 0 (not sure that it adds much substance to the Steins;Gate 0 overarching plot, though)!