Mirai Nikki – 05

Episode 05 –

Haha, now this is the type of stuff I’ve come to expect of Mirai Nikki. As I had already mentioned in a previous post, all of these future diary users are enemies that have to kill each other. After all, only “the last one standing” can inherit Deus Ex Machina’s abilities as a god. Therefore, it’s logical that these diary users will all fight each other. All the alliance making and stuff that we’ve been seeing in Mirai Nikki is completely contradictory to this very notion of “all enemies”, but it looks like that’s starting to unravel here. For one, the priestess girl did a good job of hiding her true intentions, where she broke her temporary ceasefire with Yuno and Yukiteru once she gained an absolute advantage over the rest of the diary users. And then, there’s also the plotting of the policeman, who seems to have also made some sort of alliance with the escape diary user. I suspect that the policeman is trying to use the ninth against Yuno and Yukiteru, which would also place himself further away from danger.

In other words, all of the diary users have been secretly scheming away at killing each other, even while under these false pretense of cooperation. As of now, the only ones who seem to be genuinely cooperating are Yuno and Yukiteru, while all the other diary users so far have been very selfish and trying to use these alliances to eliminate their opponents. Logically speaking, taking advantage of these alliances is the smartest way to go, because it has the highest chance of insuring one’s survival. Yet as we see in this episode with the priestess, if you’re not careful with how you manage these alliances, it can backfire on you.

Mainly, after Yuno eliminated the blind future diary user, the priestess decided to target Yuno and Yukiteru. Ironically, it’s probably her betrayal that probably triggered her dead end. A key thing to note here is how Yukiteru has one huge advantage over the priestess girl; he can make perfect predictions when he has Yuno’s diary. He can make predictions of the future around himself with absolute certainty, which is why he was able to muster the courage to charge straight into her stronghold. After all, his future said that he wouldn’t die, so there was no reason to fear a possible death. On the other hand, the priestess had no such convenience, and she had already triggered her death flag. A key thing to note here is how even if you seem to hold an absolute advantage, the diaries themselves is what you should actually look out for. After all, even when you have a horde of followers out to protect you, a slight mistake could end up costing your life.

Mirai Nikki as a series remains as ruthless as ever, and though it’s not as heavy and dark in atmosphere as other airing series (mainly Fate/Zero), it is still quite dark. This episode emphasizes how you cannot trust anybody if they hold some sort of interest in being the last one standing of this future diary battle. The paranoia surrounding all the events that unfold keeps things quite suspenseful and crazy, and strangely enough, does a good job at providing character development for both Yuno and Yukiteru. I almost forgot to mention it here, but Yukiteru actually got quite a bit of character development this time around. I mean, he actual comes to accept Yuno and even works up the courage to expose himself to the enemy. The Yukiteru of two episodes ago would have been too cowardly to even think of doing so.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.7/5

Screenshots are later in the post.