by dantd95 on May 30th, 2012, 5:05am

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User rating of this review - N/A out of 5
Story/Plot - 3.5 out of 5
Characters - 3.5 out of 5
Drawing Style - 3.5 out of 5
Enjoyment - 4 out of 5
Overall - 3.6 out of 5

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DISCLAIMER : I apologize for any mistakes on my writing, especially grammatical, because i am not a native English speaker.

Plot/Story
Basically, the premise is not that original. I had seen some other literary works with this 'game to take the throne of god' before. I even tried to make a story about it once. But the concept of Future Diary is quite original and got potential. The opening is also pretty good and well-handled. While the early chapters of the story are great, my interest fell when i read the middle chapters, with more strange characters and outright unrealistically twisted personalities reminded me that this manga is shounen.

But I kept on reading, and were rewarded by the nice twists. Also, the fact that the characters' parents and family are often involved (or even play a key part) in the story somehow amended the strange characters for me, because it makes them less shallow. But then, the story took another downfall with the ending. You see, the build up to the ending is nice, but the ending itself pretty much ruined the other parts of the story (that's why the ending's different in the anime). Also, some holes in the plot, especially regarding Akise, can be mind-boggling if you don't read Mirai Nikki Paradox as a complement.

Characters
The worst side of this manga is that the characters are outright strange and sometimes nonsensical right from the character design. Although the protagonist's growth is good and, for me, well-paced (he was a loner, won't change that easily that's just how adolescents are) but it's just a weak light surrounded by darkness. Yuno's personality is quite amusing, and her past plays a damn good part in the story, but she's too crazy. Kurosu is quite normal, Deus Ex Machina and Muru Muru are good (in fact, they're quite believable, ironically), the one-eyed Uryuu Minene's still got a believable personality, and Akise's mysteriousness is portrayed well. But, aside from them, the rest is really, really bad (aside from the normal side characters).

Drawing Style
The drawing style is mostly good except for the character designs. While some are standard, the other characters are really unrealistic, which is too bad since the art feels polished compared to the mangaka's previous manga. The backgrounds are decent and the art in general is commendable enough (of course not including the characters!).

Enjoyment
For the enjoyment, although this manga's got quite the nonsense, but the concepts, the twists, and Gasai Yuno never fail to draw me in to read the story. Despite the bad aftertaste offered by the ending, but overall this manga is enjoyable enough to me.

Overall
Overall, this is a decent manga. I don't recommend this to fans of realism because of all the quirkyness involved, but to people looking for an easy-to-digest version of mangas with deep plots and twists, I can recommend this. Also recommended for usual 'no brains, all brawns' manga fans looking to step up their taste towards more complex, reality-oriented mangas.

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