I will be spoiling all of Future Diary so if you haven’t seen the series yet stop read reading this review.
Future Diary is the anime that has a lot of history with me. When I first watched it back in 2016 I actually liked it. While didn’t enjoy because it was actually good I enjoyed for it being a 4/10 mindless guilty pleasure blood feast. However as the years went by as I saw a lot more of anime both bad and good I decided to re-watch Future Diary just to see if the series is truly horrendous as everyone says it is on the net to a point where people said it’s the worst anime TV series ever made. Then I finished re-watching and alright there’s not much to it.
Future Dairy is one of the worst things I have ever seen in any piece of media.
Am not kidding when I say this out of all the horrendous anime that I watched/reviewed Future Dairy is actually the most abysmal anime that I ever had the displeasure of watching from this medium as a whole. As I stand here saying all this shit I still find it hard to believe that any fictional work could be this bad. Future Diary is up there with Ride to Hell Retribution, The Amazing Spiderman 2, Chicken Little and The Asterisk War for being the worst things I have ever in any piece of media. This was the anime the broke me to the absolute core to a point where I started to question that if was any other anime that was worse than Future Diary.
Newsflash there was no other anime that could have topped Future Dairy and even the animes that people consider to be worse than like Big Order, The King’s Game, The Asterisk Wars and Darling in the Franxx. Future Dairy will always be at number 1 in my worst anime list.
Before I start this review I would I stay that I don’t have a problem with anyone liking Future Diary and while I obubise despite with a passion I don’t see why anyone else can like it. People who liked/enjoyed Future Dairy for what it’s worth shouldn’t get called tasteless or called a pleb especially if they are new to the anime medium as a whole. For example I was a 12 years old I thought Elfen Lied was one of the best written series out and despite being called a tasteless casual from many anime veteran fans. I didn’t let they harsh opinions ruin my enjoyment of Elfen Lied. obviously I grew out of Elfen Lied and while I no longer consider Elfen Lied to be a good series I don’t see why I should make fun of people who like it. The same apples for Future Diary.
Ultimately I wish the series nothing but success.
I hope the fans would by the DVD/Blu Rays for Future Dairy as well as finding people who are also fans of the series.
At the end of the day I know what is like to find a series I really adore and the whole idea taking it away from anymore by wishing the series as well it’s fanbase to disappear to a oblivion is not only hypocritical but just plan childish.
None of this however says that I cannot share my frustration about this series though. Let’s get started shall we.
The story of Future Diary follows a anti-social boy named Shinji Ikari I mean Yuki Amano, who obsessively keeps journals. One day, he finds that his imaginary friend Deus Ex Machina (appropriate name isn’t), the lord of time and space, has made his cell phone diary able to predict the future. After getting over the initial shock of having a supernatural cell phone, Yuki enjoys his newfound powers until he comes across a diary entry stating his exact time of death…
After taking out his would-be murderer, Yuki is invited to a gathering with ten other people, where Deus explains that they are now in a Battle Royale for the position of God. Some of the diary holders have personal reasons to claim the throne; others are psychotically insane. And soon enough, young Yuki finds himself struggling to stay alive without any true friends or allies aside from Yuno Gasai, a classmate who has been obsessively following him around without him realising.
Now because I think everything about of the story is pure garbage I will be spitting the story selection into several parts starting with the first 3 episodes. This is easily the worst first set of episodes I have ever seen because not only the writing in theses first couple of episodes were horrendous beyond belief but it essentially contradicts the entity of this shit show that happens later on. In the first episode we are introduced to Yuki Amayo and Deus as well as Yuki Gasao. My problems with episode 1 doesn’t begin until Deus is introduced. Deus is meant to be Yuki imagery friend that he created because he wanted some to talk to. The thing is such a god actually existing in Future Diary world assline. I will talk about this show quote “world-building in a bit because that shit too. Anyway Deus clams to exist in the real world which automatically shits on this anime concept as a whole because apparently Deus created the survival game with the help of the eleventh dairy owner however this doesn’t make any sense. How can Deus even exist in the real world let alone speaking to other people?
You have noticed right now that I didn’t mention Deus partner named MuruMuru who also wants to become god but her motives are never explained. So that says a lot about this show consistency and characters. The incompetence of Future Dairy is such that it betrays itself in the first 15 minutes of the episode and because the show wanted to shove its true intentions right down our throats we get introduced to the queen of Yandere’s Yuno Gasai who is in love with Yuki. Honestly if it weren’t for this one dimensional obsessive psychopath this show would have even over in 13 episodes or less. Not to mention the anime community would easily forgotten about the show month later after the show had finished airing but because of Yuno presents the series has remained relevant thanks to it’s fans. I will get back to Yuki and Yuno as characters in a bit because they are trash.
To be fair there’s is not a single good character in Future Dairy and even if the show small of good here and there such as Minene characterisation which I will talk about in a bit it immediately goes back to its old ways and shit’s on set characters inducing Minene.
To say that the first episode was horrible is a great understatement because it’s nonsensical. This show seriously expects to you to aspects all the bullshit that it throws at you that it tries to feed you about the survival game, Deus and about Yuki and the only way anyone would just deal with it would be turning off they brain because that what you should do plan to watch any episode of Future Diary in both sub or dub.
I find the whole turn off your brain excuse in the anime community to be annoying because it feels like a cheap way to convince the person to watch a show that is clearly garbage that is filled with very noticeable flaws.
Let me make something clear here you don’t see me defend My Hero Academia’s bullshit when it does it nor do you see me giving it a 10.
Not to mention I didn’t have to turn off my brain to watch Gundam Build Fighters because not only that show was logical but it’s was nicely written that did have a lot of charm.
Having a good first episode in an anime is essential because it establishes that the viewer isn’t going to waste they time watching your anime not to mention there should be some redeeming qualities in set anime. Future Dairy has none of that.
Episode 2 is nothing more but a series of plot contrivances that barely makes any sense. Instead of Minene blowing up the whole building like a competent terrorist to kill Yuki she decides to blow up selections and selections of the corner Yuki. She could have easily killed Yuki as save her eye from Yuki’s darts if she just thought logically about things. Whoever wrote this and thought it was a good idea to add in the script should never write an anime ever again.
Episode 3 is pointless. Despite being an attempt at developing Yuki and Yuno as characters for the plot but the episode true intentions completely ruins it as it became a shameless fan-service that only appeals to the horney 12-years-old.
Not to mention the direction is this episode is awful as Yuno boobs in the others episode is small like a typical teenager however in this episode there are the size of volleyballs. Screw consistently.
Since am done talking about the first three episodes of this series let’s talk about the shows other problems.
One of the nasty recurring habits that this shows likes to do is to establish set competitor to be smart in they introduction episodes however because of the show piss poor writing set competitor would get screwed over to a point where they become dumber than rocks. In episode five Tsubaki the sixth dairy owner orders, her men to apprehend Yuki and Yuno because she has a dead end.
So instead of checking her scroll like to see if she has a dead end, she decides to behave like a filthy whore by kissing Yuki and that contrived action allows Yuno get triggered to a point where she overpowers her men as cutting off Tsubaki’s arm. Later in the same episode, Tsubaki apprehends Yuno and once again instead of killing her on the spot she not only decides to bait out Yuki into the room where Yuno is captured but she orders her men to strip Yun. To add insult to injury to all of this Yuki throws an Deus ex Machina ball in the air causing her dairy to track the ball movement allowing Yuki to throw the dart at Tsubaki diary causing her to die.
How ridiculous. There are many more examples of this that cause the other competitors to be incredibly dumb for example when they are up against Yuki and Yuno such as Seventh dairy owners Marco and Ai not killing the Yuno and Yuki on the spot even though Marco and Ai have they phones but the main reason why I chose to talk about Tsubaki’s actions over some others is because her actions were the most infuriating out of the bunch. If this scene happened in any other anime Tsubaki would have killed Yuki and Yuno on the spot after her man apprehends them but because this is freaking Future Dairy the horrendous narrative suddenly shits on Tsubaki’s intelligence to such a high level that allow theses plot armoured dumbasses Yuki and Yuno overrun her.
These two lovebirds have enough plot armour to make Natsu and Touma drool.
Since am done talking about this show nasty habit let’s talk about this show’s quote “worldbuilding ” in future dairy because of its god awful. Not only it lacks any sort of sense, but it adds lots of inconsistency to the characters that freaking live inside of it.
To put this shit in perspective, I’ve probably seen more people inside Amano’s school than I have outside of it. Also at one point of the show, there is a driving scene where there’s nobody on the freaking road except for two idiots aka number seventeen who don’t matter at all to the overall plot. The reason why am bringing this up is that this is a series where you have twelve people fighting each other to the death expect it feels so hollow because there’s hardly ever anyone around. What worse that the characters in this universe have absolutely no regard for the people existing within going so far as to knock out an entire cell tower in some half-assed plan just to stop two dairy holders. This is kind of an understandable action as in-universe mechanics tell us that this plan may work but the anime ruins this with its horrid direction. Does any character ever mention that a large group of people will lose cellar service if they do that? No because that large group of people doesn’t exist at all.
If you thought the world-building in this show is horrendous the character interactions with each other and as well as the universe that they live in is worse. Big events happens in this anime and the characters in this universe don’t ever seems to give a shit in small and large situations alike. One of my favourite examples of this is in episode 2 where are introduced to the ninth Diary owner Minene who is a terrorist.
She shows to kill Yuki wearing your a maid outfit where all the students in the school see her as well the police when they showed up. Does any character in the show question a terrorist wearing a maid outfit? Of course they not. The people in this universe simply accept there’s a terrorist wearing a maid outfit. The worst example of this happens in episode 11 where Minene sets off two explosions near a hospital room. When they go into the room, they find the wife of the fourth dairy owner. Does the wife even ask of what those two very loud explosions sounds were outside of her door? Of course she doesn’t. She acts as the two explosions never even happened. For a fictional city (Sakurami City) that is based off Kanagawa Prefecture it feels so empty and hollow as there’s barely anyone around for most of the events that happens in the series. We don’t see any news spokesperson talking about the events that happen in the series such as a school terrorist attack in episode 2 that lead up to the deaths of hundred including school students.
To add insult to injury at the near end of the series Sakrami city literally starts to crumble under the weight of its own absurdity where there is literally no people and I mean NO PEOPLE even talking about the earthquake and portal disasters that happened in Sakrami City let alone even show up. When I got to that point of the series I wasn’t surprised one bit because this show frankly wasted its budget on the openings and as the result this show both visually and narrative looks like it was fished out off a green swamp.
This shit doesn’t end the second half there of Future Dairy is even worse as it took everything that was wrong with the first half and crank it up to 10. This is also where the show literally becomes more stupid than Johnny Test.
In episode 13 Aru tells Ouji to hold the door open just in case there a trap. However, for some stupid reason, Ouji decide to enter the room causing the door to shut. For gods sakes!!!
The stupidity doesn’t end there in episode 22 Yuki goes around killing all of his friends by himself because he believes that he can bring back his parents back to life thanks to Yuno’s words.
When I saw that scene in my scene, I was disguised by Yuki because not only he literally became a freaking tool at this point but his reasoning for killing his friends was downright retarded.
I honestly could go on and on talking about the shows other plot contrives such as Yuno wanting to become god as well as the existence of the survival game that Deus and number eleventh created but since this show clearly don’t care about constantly and logic so why I should why.
Before I quickly talk about the final 4 episodes I would talk to about the subject of rape. If you guys are not aware rape is one of the most vile crimes that a human can commit mainly because a rapist simply takes the innocent person and decides to break that innocent person both mentally and physically where the rapist does all these sexual acts and as a result a rape victim would mostly like be traumatised for life due to all the pain and suffering that the rape victim endured while being raped in the process.
The reason why I hate rape in most pieces of fiction because more often than not it’s used as a plot device to either make a character artificially sympathetic because that is a horrible thing that happens to people.
This is the main reason why I really dislike Sword Art Online not because of its popularity and terrible writing but the way that both seasons of Sword Art Online present it’s over the top and cringe-inducing rape scenes that completely destroy everything I like enjoyed that series. You can only imagine my anger for this show when I encountered two episodes of this series that deals with the subject of rape. I will only be talking the one that happened in episode 17 because of the rape act as well how it was presented was infuriating. The one that one in episode 5 was horrendous as well but the one in episode 17 s was the one that made me want to break the Blu Ray discs that I borrowed from my friend who also hates this show.
In episode 17 we learned that Ai was raped as a teen. The others girls in the school don’t like her because, and I wish I was making this up with the dub script a stuck-up, a whore and a loser. So the girls left the fake letter in her shoe locker that says to come alone in the abandoned factory.
Being the dumbass that she is she goes to the abandoned and instead of finding Marco she finds a bunch of men which you guess are the other girl’s male friends to rape her.
The boys sexually assault her without any mask on then they put a mask on her head while raping her. To add insult to insult instead of one of the boys guard the abandoned factory entrance he stands right to the guy who is raping Ai allowing Marco her girlfriend Ai by beating up the boys.
There so many problems with that rape backstory alone I seriously don’t know where to begin. Firstly the other girl’s motivation of making Ai suffer was retarded. Ai simply just wanted to have a happy school life with Marco where despite being anti-social to her peers she didn’t do anything that would annoy them. These girls literally had no reason to do what they did.
Secondly why did the boys do not order one of them to guard the entrance of the abandoned factory? They could have easily just have secure the entrance by having one of boys fight off Marco while the other boys hide in the factory where as soon as Marco picks up the now raped Ai and leaves the place the boys could have escaped unharmed.
Lastly why the boys did didn’t bother to wear masks? If they planning to a shameful act like that they should have least order some masks at a cheap local store before even think of doing that shameful act. The logic, writing and directing in theses scene was so horrible it actually cased me psychical and mental pain. How in the hell did these scenes even get greenlit…
Rape is a serious topic that I don’t take likely as it’s a horrible thing that happens to people but the way the show inserts its rape scenes as a plot device is downright insulting as it only makes you show look even more immature than it already is.
Honestly after watching that rape scene in episode 17 I have completely lost all respect for Future Dairy as a show. Even if the show has a few good things, such Minene characterisation and the openings which I will talk about in a bit don’t matter. That how much I hate this series.
Finally, we have the final 4 of episodes which are by far the worst finale four episodes I have sat through because not only the show completely shits itself by devolving into Dragon Ball Z but the ending itself was the final nail of the coffin due to how horrendously written it was. Also let’s not talk Future Dairy Redal because the ending of that show is somehow even worse as it’s just this show shitty excuse for a happy ending.
The characters in Future Dairy are a god damm disgrace to the anime medium. Not only they are a bunch of bottom of the barrel anime stereotypes who only exist to pander to a certain target audience but they are atrociously written to the absolute core.
Now saying that Yuki is a horrendously inconstant character is a fast understatement. He is by far the worst anime protagonist I have ever seen in anime. Just like with every bad and inconstancy Yuki has several personalities that are in this body where they constantly switch with whatever personality that suits the situation of the narrative. At times he’s the crybaby at others, he’s a badass. He can also be the emo edge lord, a total idiot and at times a smart genius. The best example of this happening was in episode 14 where badass Yuki tells Yuno to back off after being drugged and tied in the chair by Yuno in the however in the next episode we, see smart Yuki with his friends clear-fully planning out of to kill number seventh but we also see crybaby as well idiot Yuki being shitless about the situation as well trusting Yuno again after being drugged 2 episodes ago. His personality switching gets progressively insufferable were in episode 22 we see Yuki not only being a crybaby but also a total idiot to a point where the two Yuki actually temporally fuse with each other.
The romance of Yuki and Yuno is as engaging and sweet as the romance of Sakura and Sasuke from Naruto as they zero character chemistry with each other. It doesn’t help that Yuki is willing to trust an inept person like Yuno. At the beginning of the series Yuki teams up with Yuno so they take down the other Dairy owners. Simple duo stuff. In episode 14 after Yuno drugs him as well planning to kill his friends. He tells Yuno to back off. Then after the confrontation in episode 15 Yuki trusts Yuno again not remembering the fact that he was drugged by her.
To add insult to injury in episode 22 Yuki kills his friends even after even the last things they all say is that Yuno is lying. Yuki trusts a inept person like Yuno more than the friends that he has been with during his school life for no reason.
Yuki is everything that can go wrong with a protagonist and I seriously hope that no one would create a protagonist like that ever again.
Now this show is carried by the queen of Yandere’s Yuno Gasai but the problem is she one of the worst written female leads to ever exist. Now let’s be real without self’s. Can you tell me who Yuno is as a character outside of her psycho behaviour and her love towards Yuki? Yuki only has 2 defining character traits. Both of which only seemed to infinted in the character to move the narrative along.
In lots of ways, Yuno is no different to the woman in The Asterisk War who ever piece of dialogue is about Ayato which leaves them void of any personality of own there they become nothing but soulless archetypes. The same goes with Yuno expect she’s much worse. While The Asterisk Wars least tried to develop its female characters Future Dairy doesn’t even try all. She barely has any personality because all her dialogue is Yuki based.
Also as a Yandere she’s awful one as there is so better Yandere characters out there like Rena Ryuuguu and Shion Sonozaki from Higurashi When They Cry. Despite them suffering from the same personality disorder as Yuno them actually resemble people not to mention they are both well written characters who a big purpose in the narrative of Higurashi. Honestly comparing Rena/Shion with Yuno it’s like comparing Burger King with McDonalds. Both companies may be in same playing field of the fast food industry but one of them focuses on quantity while the other focuses on quality. I could enjoy eating McDonalds’ Big Mac for £2.69 as well Burger King’s Whopper for £4.19 I can easily tell that which one is better sandwich. While the Whopper may be £1.50 more expensive than the Big Mac I can easily tell which restaurant putted more effort into the burgers they make in every day base and because of theses reason I came to the conclusion that Burger King is the better restaurant of the of two. McDonalds may be the more popular one but burger king will always be quality one. This is the same as Rena/Shion and Yuno expect Yuno literally falls apart as a character where the only thing she offers in this show is to be this psychopathic Yandere as well being an obsessive lover to Yuki. If you remove these traits you would only end up with a rotten, emotionless empty husk of a character that is not capable of functioning correctly. Screw this character and everything that she stands for.
The rest of the characters are not much better in fact some of them are even worse.
Nishijima, for example, is the worst cop I have ever seen in fiction. Not only his an incompetent barfoon where he asks a terrorist named Minene who is responsible for killing hundreds of people inducing school to marry him but he’s also a dumbass detective where after walking to Yuno about the dead bodies in her house he lets Yuno walk out the cafe. What a freaking doormat of a police officer.
It’s honestly hard to call Yuki’s father a character because the only thing that this dumbass did in the show is to serve the plot and character contrivances left and right to a point where they become insufferable.
Plus every time that this “character” was on screen or even being mentioned the show became dumber and dumber to a point where the show becomes dumber than Patrick Star. Am not joking.
The final character that I want to talk about is Minene because she is the best thing about this show. Outside of her stupid debut where she is so incompetent of killing Yuki she the only character in this show to get characterised correctly as she not only has a backstory that was surprisingly decent but only character in this show to get solid character development. Unfortunately, even if Minene was the only character that I can consider to be solid her pleasant in the anime wasn’t enough to save this abomination of a series especially when this rotten series decides to bring her back in the series as a Deus Ex Machina tool for Yuki completely destroying all of her character development and emotional impact for no reason…
I could go on and one talking the shows “characters” like some other dairy owners as well Kaworu I mean Aru but my time is better spend talking how shit the productions values and the directing in this series is.
At first Future Diary looks like an anime that came out 2011 however as you progressed through the show you will start to see how unbelievably outdated and inconstant the production values are.
The characters designs in Future Dairy is subpar at best as not only they are mostly unappealing for the viewer but the way they are drawn look like they from the 90s era of anime.
The animation is below average as despite have some okay animation every now and then the show is generally horribly animated as the shows have a lot of budget cuts such as missing frames to shitty framerate that not only screws up the fight choreography for most of the fights but the general animation when there is not a lot going on. The best example 1 where while Deus was exposition dumping Yuki about the game the show suddenly runs of a frame-rate of 10 while the show becomes a very laggy dumpster fire.
The vehicles in this anime are dreadful not just because the design or the way they look but also don’t seemed to follow basic rules of physics when they freaking drive. This is all thanks to this shows use CGI which is horrendous. It’s like the show blew all of its budget on the first opening theme.
If you thought the animation for this show was already bad enough the visual direction is even worse as were various times in this show characters literally start teleporting out of nowhere.
There are there in one frame and gone the next without any legit movement. The worst example of this happens in episode 20 when Minene and Nishijima tries to destroy one of John Bacchus super computers.
Nishijima grabs the grenade from Minene.
Nishijima throws the grenade.
We get a shot of the grenade being thrown.
We get a shot of explosion caused by the same grenade
Then in the exact shot Minene and Nishijima are standing on the grass mountain viewing the explosion which is 3 mile away from the building that they have escaped.
Was animating scenes of Minene and Nishijima running out of the building from the explosion too difficult? This is pathetic in every level.
The soundtrack in Future Diary is nothing to write home about as it just features mostly a series of generic and bland horror pieces that you have seen before. Yes there were a few okay tracks every now and then but it didn’t really give the show any atmosphere thanks to this shows piss poor direction.
If there is anything silver lining in it would be the openings because they are pretty good.
Opening 1 Kuusou Mesorogiwi by Yousei Teikoku is easily the best thing to come out from this broken mess of a series.
Opening 2 Dead END” by Faylan is not as good as the first opening theme but still a pretty decent opening despite being in full English.
The ending themes are okay for what they are but they are nothing to write home about.
Now sub vs dub
Am just going to say that Future Dairy is one of the worst dubs I have ever heard. Not only the acting was wooden as hell where they sound like they are reading the script but it also had no impact and punch during key scenes of the series. I am a big fan of dub actors Josh Grelle and Brina Palencia but this is them at the worst as both of the roles feel terribly miscasted to a point where not even trying to sound good. Josh Grelle voicing Yuki was the worst as he tries to portrayal a 14 old teenager but it only ended up sounded like his from he’s 30s.
Brina Palencia as Yuno while not as bad as Josh Grelle as Yuki was still a very bad performances. She sounds like more an angst horney teenager rather than a psychopathic crazy Yandere. The rest of the cast is the same terribly acted and . I honestly feel bad for the dub actors who has read this dreadful script. Todd Haberkorn Caitlin Glass, Leah Clark, John Michael Tatum, Emily Neves and Monica Rial am sorry but you deserved better.
Thankfully the sub version is filled with strong performances left and right. That all I can say about it really.
Future Dairy is the worst anime I have ever seen in my life. That’s right Future Diary You’re Winner. I know that may sound like a broken record at this point but I seriously mean it. Out of all the horrible animes I have ever seen like Darling in the Franxx, Garzey Wing, Black Clover, Gatnz, The King’s Game, The Asterisk War and Big Order never before I had a that anime that caused me such psychical and mental pain to a point where the show officially broke me.
Future Dairy wasn’t the anime that needed to go back to the drawing board like with Black Clover, Darling in the Franxx and The Asterisk Wars. Future Diary needed to go to abandoned London tube station and had it’s skull sliced by a katana then shipped to the US airlines where they can go buried it right next to the E.T Game landfill.
It has been over 2 years since I first watched Future Dairy and now I think it’s finally time to put my worst enemy to rest. There is one more thing I need to say.
GOOD RIDDANCE!!!
Thanks for reading.
TakaCode Reviews 
Leave a comment