Welcome to this week’s article of The Good, Bad, and What The?, where we took a good, long look at characters in movies, video games, anime, and books and put them on the judgement table to see if they are worthy to be in their respective stories. I strongly believe that well developed characters are more important than anything else in a good story, so I always judge them hard. At the end of every character’s evaluation I will give them one of four ratings: Good for those characters that are developed and deserve their place in the story, Bad for those characters that have no place being made or interacting with anyone else in the story, What The for the characters I just can’t figure out, and then the characters who are dull as dishwasher will get the rating of Sack of Potatoes. Today on the judgement table: Amano Yukiteru the main character of the anime “Future Diary.”
I would just like to start by saying that this is my favorite anime, so if you think you hear a bit of bias in this article…it’s possible. The anime “Future Diary” is a very brutal show where twelve contestants are trying to kill each other for the prize of becoming god. This anime is filled with a few touchy subject, and may be triggering for some. “Future Diary” deals with murder, betrayal, stalking, mass murder, children killing people, corporate corruption, and did I mention murder? There is a lot of murder. I say this just so you are aware. This is definitely not an anime for the kids.
*spoilers ahead*
“Future Diary” centers around Yukiteru, who is the first diary holder. Each of the diary holders were contacted by the god Deus Ex Machina. They were all given future diaries which have the ability to predict the future in some way. Each of these dairies are tied to the holder and if you break the diary, the holder dies. They are all told to by any means necessary kill each other and become the new god.
Yukiteru was the first person to receive a future, so he is the most important. Yukiteru, however, does not act like a hero or a macho man. Yukiteru is really a giant sissy in the beginning. He was a kid who had literally zero friends and wrote his whole life in the phone diary because he had nothing better to do. So when this huge life changing battle hits, he freaks out and cries. Throughout the show, his only friend is Yuno Gasai, who is also a psychopath that is obsessed with him. Yuno loves him so much that her entire diary is based around predicting what happens to Yukiteru. Yukiteru being such a huge wuss causes Yuno to constantly protect him, which is fine by her. Yuno has no problem shoving an axe into peoples’ throats. (She kills a bunch of people with just an axe). As Yukiteru is only a fourteen year old, seeing all of this blood and murder cause him to break down. A lot. There are several scenes where Yukiteru looks like he is going through PTSD. He does understand that the situation is dire and as such, keeps trying to survive with Yuno.
Yukiteru at first has no interest in Yuno and is only using her to stay alive. As time goes on, Yukiteru gets a horrible case of Stockholm syndrome and falls in love with Yuno. The weird part to this isn’t the fact that Yukiteru starts to love Yuno, the weird part is as things go on, you see a change in Yukiteru. He slowly becomes crazy himself and becomes more and more comfortable with killing. There is a point where Yukiteru guns down orphans because they were going to betray him. They had teamed up to fight another diary holder, but once they were done, Yukiteru turns around and takes them all out to protect himself and Yuno. He goes from a giant wuss to a brutal human being with a will to survive. This is my favorite part about this entire anime, the motif of mental stability. You watch as many characters can’t keep their sanity, and Yukiteru is the center of it all. You see everything from Yukiteru’s point of view, and you can really see him get more and more insane. Yukiteru started out as a character that nobody could stand and then became one you almost feared. He never really becomes a character that you like, but there is one thing about him that connects you to him: you empathize for him.
He is a young boy who gets thrown into a horrible situation and the only person there to help him is his psycho stalker girlfriend Yuno. He watches this girl kill a huge number of people to protect him and the whole time, she doesn’t mind killing those people. He also watches people he cares about die and watches his school get attacked. The number of times this kid almost dies is also ridiculous. His life is constantly under threat and he sees nothing but violence now. You really feel bad for Yukiteru because he was just some loser kid whose life actually managed to get worse. Having an audience really feel for the events the character has to go through definitely adds another layer to the character.
The verdict for Yukiteru is, of course, Good. He is a character you watch slowly change into something horrifying, as well as a character you truly feel for. He makes you hate and care about him at the same time, and it really makes you think when you watch this anime. The entire theme of the mental state in this anime really peaks a lot of the interest. Yukiteru being the shining beacon of this mental breakdown is what makes him a really good main character. Howver, much like Sora from “Kingdom Hearts“, if you took Yukiteru and put him in any other anime, he would be an awful character. He fits perfectly into this anime, and this anime alone.
You can watch the first part of “Future Dairy” here.