Future Diary, Volume 1

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.