Future Diary 3
Posted: December 1, 2009 Filed under: Future Diary Leave a comment »Sakae Esuno – Tokyopop – 2009 – 9+ volumes
The premise and story continue to carry the day more than adequately here, as does the extremely dark nature of the series. Yuki and Yuno fight their way out of the clutches of the cult in a bizarrely violent way, and as Yuki comes to terms with the fact that Yuno is his best ally and would never harm him despite her obvious violent tendencies, the fifth diary holder comes into Yuki’s house and begins making trouble with Yuno and Yuki’s mom.
Now, reading this, there’s something just slightly off, something that keeps this series from being something extraordinary. I realized that it’s the fact that the characters aren’t developed at all. None of them are terribly likable, and in fact, the story seems to go out of its way to keep them as shallow as possible. This winds up being a good thing, because so far all the diary holders except Yuki have been violent, delusional psychopaths. This makes sense, in a way, since Yuki wound up with his diary after making imaginary friends with Deus, so perhaps the delusions unite the characters, and if this is the case, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop on fourth.
The interesting story more than makes up for what the characters lack. Since they stay one-dimensional, it’s possible to have the simple struggles that Yuno and Yuki have as far as their stalker/wary prey relationship goes, and it’s easy to have Yuno or anyone else go off on the necessary random and violent rampage. The game this time around was less overtly violent than the cult confrontation, and was more of a hilarious cat-and-mouse game between Yuno and Fifth. Ridiculous things tip Yuno off to the fact that something’s not right and perhaps they are about to die, and usually it doesn’t have anything to do with the future diaries.
I also liked how completely different all the confrontations with the diary holders have been so far, and I also like the side plot that’s beginning to develop between Eighth and Fourth. The psychotic characters and the way they interact with each other through their diaries, their way of telling the future and getting a leg up on each other, definitely make this series truly worthy of notice, especially for those looking for a horror manga. I’m completely hooked.
