Customer Reviews

Future Diary, Vol. 1

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this up with fairly high expectations. With Tokyopop raising their prices of regular manga to 10.99 and the economy the way it is, it goes without saying they can't afford NOT to put out successful and good selling series.

This is just that. Read the amazon story review for what happens.

Future Diary by Sakae Esuno seems like a cross between Death Note and Fate/Stay Night with cell phones. The story is interesting for any type of manga fan that just likes a good read. The suspenseful moments are suspenseful. The story is told well with clear writing and clever characters.

It's art is easy to follow that's appeasing and fitting. Not to serious and not cute. A unique blend that's cool and thriller like. The characters are all interesting with well established personalities. Another plus was that I didnt feel I needed to reread the book to get down the character's names.

A good buy for any manga fan that likes an edgy and well written story that will defiantly leave you wanting more.

Yukiteru is a boy who keeps to himself. He keeps a faithful diary on his cell-phone, and he makes up characters to entertain himself. One of them is Deus, the god of space-time. He enables Yukiteru's phone diary to predict the future. He thinks he's the only one, but a girl in his class, Yuno, also has a future diary.

After a close encounter with a serial killer, the two discover that it's part of a survival game Deus has set up. The twelve players must outwit each other with their diaries, and the last one standing wins. The winner will succeed Deus as the space-time god. Yuki and Yuno don't want to kill anyone, but they don't want to be killed, either. They team up and do their best to survive.

I thought the story here was pretty interesting. Survival game manga aren't uncommon, but this one had some good concepts. Players get a "dead end" warning when they're about to be killed, and they have a limited amount of time to change their futures. Also, each player has a different kind of diary. Yuki is an observer in his own life, and his entries are only about his surroundings. On the other hand, Yuno has something of an obsession with Yuki, and all of her entries are about him. This makes their partnership essential to survival.

I liked the characters. Yukiteru is aloof and acts like he doesn't care about being on his own. His pretension disappears when things start happening, though, and he regrets not taking part in life. He's scared, but he wants to do his best to protect those around him. Yuno is a little weird. She's more adept than Yuki, but her only goal seems to be to protect him. Her obsession with him is both sweet and a little disturbing. The side-characters are also good, though I found one of the antagonists detracted from the realism of the manga.

The art in this manga is good, but not anything spectacular. It's typical for shonen manga.

Overall, this is a suspenseful psychological thriller with some good twists. It's not too bloody or overly moralistic. Great for fans of Death Note, Vol. 1, and good enough to stand on its own, too.

I actually read this more as an after thought then anything else. I had never heard of it before and saw it while perusing the bookstore looking for another title. I have to admit I'm glad I did pick it up.

Storyline: Yukiteru has always been rejecting any offers to go with friends, and he just keeps writing a diary on his cell phone. He has an imaginary friend, a god called Deus Ex Machina. However, Deus now wants to play a game with Yukiteru, a game of survival. There are twelve contestants, Yukiteru is one of them. The winner of the survival game will become the next Deus Ex Machina. In order to win the game, the contestants must use their diaries to eliminate one another. For Yukiteru to survive, he must team up with another diary holder, a girl by the name of Yuno.

Each player is assigned a number based on the order that Deus modified his or her diary. The diaries now record the future in the same manner their future selves would have written down events that have already happened; the only exception to this rule is when the holder reaches a "Dead End", a time when their lives would be finished without significant intervention. Each diary varies in properties and functions depending on the holder's personality, occupation and lifestyle. All the diaries have their shortcomings, some more so than others, and can be used without the diary owner's consent should they fall into another's hands. Because the diaries are written from the perspective of the holder's future self, the future can still be misinterpreted and the diary entries can then turn out to be inaccurate. Each of the diaries have become the diary holder's future, so if the diary itself is destroyed or broken, so too is the holder's future.

The first volume covers Yukiteru finding out about his new 'power', meeting a classmate with the same power as he does and finding out about this game that Deus has sent into motion. After the initial chapter the action and plot keeps coming at you--almost as soon as Deus explains the 'Game' to everyone (there are 12 people with the Future Diary Ability and in order to succeed Deus 11 must die) he puts a bulls-eye on Yukiteru, naming him 'The First'.

One of the aspects of the series is figuring out who exactly has a future diary and what strengths and weaknesses that grants them--Yukiteru's Diary has detailed accountings of what's happening around him, but not about him in specific, so any action that happens to him isn't recorded in his Diary. Yuno, Yukiteru's classmate, has a diary that is called 'Yukiteru's Diary' because she (in a stalker like fashion) records every little thing he does in ten minute increments. This helps Yukiteru because together they are able to piece what is happening around them through their entries.

I think this is a great manga--its tense, and made me think and puzzle out what each entry meant, or could mean, or would mean.

I was browsing the shelves of my local library, and came across this manga. I decided to check it out and give it a try.

Anmano Yukiteru is a second year high school student who has trouble making friends. He sees himself as simply a bystander, and records the things he sees in his cell phone diary. He begins to imagine a friend named Deus X Makina, who turns out to be the Lord of Time & Space. Deus gives Yukiteru a new ability: his diary will now record events that will happen in the near future. Yukiteru also finds out that he is now forced participate in a game with eleven other contestants to determine Deus' successor.

While there was an interesting concept being utilized for this manga, this first volume just didn't quite grab me enough to want to try and track down other volumes of this series. It's not necessarily a bad manga, but it ended up not having much of an appeal to me.

I wrote this review after checking out this manga volume through the King County Library System.

As others have mentioned Future Diary is about a boy who can see 90 days into the future using his phone. The concept is great, the action is fast paced, and it's simple to follow leading to a quick read. Overall I enjoyed the book but a flaw in the first 25 pages let me know I won't be purchasing any more volumes of this manga. One aspect of the concept is that he cannot change or adjust the future that appears on his phone. One of the first things he sees in the future is "I scored a bullseye on a dart board." Two pages later the diary says, "I scored a double bullseye this morning." Why has this changed if he can't change his future? I'm probably the only one who will ever notice this but it's annoying when a writer makes mistakes so early in a book.