(no specific spoilers but general discussion of plot structures)
Mirai Nikki is the worst anime I’ve seen, and I think it would take quite a lot to dethrone it. The thing with most “bad” anime is that you can’t really be THAT disappointed in them because they usually don’t amount to much. Think generic isekai trash: you already know what you’re getting into when you start watching it, so how bad can the experience be? I think that for an anime to truly be in WOAT contention, it can’t just amount to nothing; it has to TRY to amount to something and utterly fail at it.
Mirai
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Nikki is a failure of an anime. First and foremost, it tries to be a complex, psychological character study, but it ends up having absolutely horrendous character writing. The protagonist, Yuki, is extremely annoying and unlikable. “Whiny” characters are often somewhat unfairly controversial because parts of the audience find them just unlikable while others find them to be realistic depictions of characters in rough situations. I don’t believe that to be the case here: not only is Yuki unlikable because of his whininess, he absolutely has no redeeming qualities either. He doesn’t have particularly good character development, the writing is simply not good enough to make him a character study of an ordinary kid thrown into a rough situation (a la Shinji from Evangelion), and he has no personality outside of his revolving door relationship with Yuno. It’s like he floats through the series contributing nothing until it’s time to cry or make a bad decision. Yuno is a similarly flat character, with no character traits other than being violently obsessed with Yuki. Indeed, I don’t think she has any unique character traits at all. It’s like the author had no idea in mind when designing her character other than a single sheet of paper with the word “yandere” on it. The rest of the supporting cast ranges from “okay, if surface level” archetypes to characters that are just gratingly unlikable. There is legitimately like one character that I kinda liked, and that’s because he bullied Yuki and was kind of a meme.
Outside of the characters, the writing is, quite simply, just bad. The plot moves from one point to another with little to no rhyme or reason behind it. It’s clear that the author had concepts that he wanted to write about (which may even have worked with better writing), but that’s all he had - concepts. At one point, you can tell that the author wanted to do a “protagonist going down the path of darkness” subplot that was popular in mainstream shonen anime around that era. The issue is that Yuki’s “going down the path of darkness” lasts essentially a grand total of one episode before he almost instantly reverts back to being the annoying and whiny protagonist he’s been the whole show. Sure, there are in-story reasons for why this happens, but as an audience member it's just jarring and left me with a feeling of "okay, that happened I guess." There’s another plot point around the middle of the story involving Yuki’s parents that’s clearly meant to be a “shocking moment.” However, it has almost no buildup, the execution is bad to the point that I found it comical, and even with the most lenient lens I can muster, the ramifications it has on Yuki’s character are ridiculously underwhelming. For a final example, a similar criticism applies to the “reveal” around Yuno’s character. Once again, the show tries to treat it as a shocking moment, but it utterly falls flat because it simply doesn’t make a difference to anything that happened in the plot leading up to it. These are just three specific examples, but the show is utterly littered with bad writing that doesn’t deliver on the concepts that the author had in mind.
Granted, not every part of Mirai Nikki is a total zero. The diary battles are fine, if repetitive. For the most part, they follow a pretty formulaic structure of Yuki and Yuno get taken by surprise by a diary holder, a battle of wits ensues, the diary holder has a flashback giving them some sympathy brownie points, and Yuki and Yuno win. The mind games of the diary battles are easily the strongest part of the series - that’s just an issue because I didn’t find them to be particularly enthralling either. They’re just fine, but there are series out there that do more creative and fun “battle of wits” type plot structures.
In a bubble, there are anime out there that are undoubtedly “worse” than Mirai Nikki. However, the gap between what Mirai Nikki sets out to achieve and how utterly bad it is at getting there is truly impressive.
Mar 22, 2023
Mirai Nikki (TV)
(Anime)
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(no specific spoilers but general discussion of plot structures)
Mirai Nikki is the worst anime I’ve seen, and I think it would take quite a lot to dethrone it. The thing with most “bad” anime is that you can’t really be THAT disappointed in them because they usually don’t amount to much. Think generic isekai trash: you already know what you’re getting into when you start watching it, so how bad can the experience be? I think that for an anime to truly be in WOAT contention, it can’t just amount to nothing; it has to TRY to amount to something and utterly fail at it. Mirai ... |
