Mirai Nikki Episode 23

Wow, a new monthly record of blog views for the 5th time running! All this despite the fact I barely posted anything all month, and what I did post for Mirai Nikki was usually about a week late. 😛 I have a lot of posts planned out in my head though, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a lot of writing done this weekend and over Easter. 🙂

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So much happened in the previous episode of Mirai Nikki that I didn’t know what to think anymore, but ep 23 answered a lot of my questions. Despite this, my post is unusually short, almost Kaiji length!

Firstly, the reason for Murmur’s treachery, which should really have been obvious from the start. What could the powerful servant of a space-time god, second only to Deus, want other than the power of the god himself? It seems there are limits to what she can do though – her powers are restricted by her bracelets. She keeps Deus ‘alive’ in the form of a red crystal (another for the list of ‘strange objects voiced by Wakamoto Norio’, methinks), so that the world may survive until the 28th of July. Which happens to be the date of Yuno’s predicted HAPPY END…

However, with no enemy diary owners left to fight, and with Murmur simply sitting back and observing, there isn’t much for Yuki and Yuno to do in the week beforehand. They stay at Yuno’s house, which now has water and electricity (from dubious sources), and live almost like a regular couple for a few days. Yuno cooks, chops wood to heat an outside drum bath, and adjusts some of her father’s clothes to fit Yuki. But all the while, he watches his diary for signs she may betray him, also avoiding her food out of fear it may be poisoned.

Yuno notices his lack of trust for her, and eventually breaks down crying, saying that she’d hoped he’d love her once the survival game was over. It doesn’t take much to change Yuki’s mind, and he soon starts doubting Aru’s story. After all, she could have killed him any number of times over the past few days if that was her plan.

Two days before the end of the world, Yuki visits what’s left of his home, seeing flashbacks to happier times with his parents. He then visits his old school, where he tries to sort out his feelings for Yuno in his mind. Yuno herself shows up there, no doubt having found him with her diary; she talks about the time they first met, again insisting that Yuki is her only reason for living.

Then, the day before the end arrives. By now, Yuki is fully convinced that Yuno’s love is genuine, and wants to make up for his behaviour over the past week. And what better way than to give Yuno her Happy End a day early? First they bathe together, then they finally ‘become one’ in a short and obviously censored scene.

With that out of the way, Yuki’s choice of subject for pillow talk soon kills the mood – he asks Yuno to tell him the truth. Specifically, the reason she lied to him that a god could bring people back to life. Her response is to pull out an axe from beneath the bed covers… and embed it in the floor on the side where Yuki isn’t laying.

Carrying on as though nothing happened, Yuno claims she said that only to console Yuki while he was grieving for his parents, and that she’d known from the first time she’d participated in the game that dead people couldn’t be saved. Something in that statement seems a little odd, but moving on… Yuno says she’s now happy enough, and asks Yuki to kill her. He refuses, saying that he’d rather die with her than live without her. Yuno’s response is, again, odd, as she says quietly “it’s going to be like that again?”.

Still, Yuki is now happy that all his questions have been answered… well, apart from the one that Aru believed to be so important, he continued to deliver it even after he’d been decapitated. He mentions this in front of Yuno, and it’s also the first time we get to hear what it said: he claims that Yuno is already a god, and that they are living in a second world created by her when she went back in time!

Yuno’s reaction to this is to pick up her axe again – and this time, she’s definitely swinging it at Yuki. Choosing flight over fight, Yuki escapes the room and tries to leave the house altogether. But just as he reaches an exit, the one with the bottomless pit right outside it, he is pushed into the pit from behind… not by Yuno, but by Murmur!?

When Yuki hits the ground, he finds himself inside his old classroom! He’s actually inside a flashback of his past, the day when he and Yuno wrote their ‘dreams for the future’. Appearing behind him, Murmur decides to tell Yuki the truth. She tells him what we already know from episode 18, that Yuno had lost all purpose in life, and that his throwaway comment about their future marriage gave her a new future to look forward to… one that could never occur, however, as the survival game started soon after.

Murmur then leads Yuki to a dark, open space, lit here and there by scenes of Yuki’s past. She confirms Aru’s deduction that there are two worlds, and when Yuki takes a closer look at the images around him, he notices they’re a little different from the past he remembers – these are images from the first world, where Yuno became god.

How did she win the first survival game? Much in the same way, up until only she and Yuki remained. Then, the two of them decided to commit a double suicide. Yuki #1 (First the First?) did actually die, but Yuno only pretended to take her ‘medication’, living to become god as a result. She then tried to do the same thing Yuki planned to do – use her powers to bring back the dead. However, only Yuki’s body returned, his soul gone for good. This is one of the short teaser scenes shown way back in the first episode.

If you can’t bring a dead person back to life in the present, why not go back to a time when that person was still alive instead? This is definitely possible with dominion over time, and is exactly what Yuno does, creating the second world. One slight problem: Yuno was also alive at that point in time! So the first thing god Yuno does is kill her past self (Second the Second?) – which is the other scene from episode 1.

So now we know why there were two Yuno’s. Still inside the flashback, Yuki calls out to the one who’s just been dealt a fatal blow by her future self. Murmur tells him this will do no good, since they’re just images of the past… yet somehow, she seems to hear him. She uses her last moments of life to write ‘help me’ in her own blood.

Yuno (the time travelling one now – this is getting confusing) finally breaks apart the flashback, bringing everyone back to the present… which is where this penultimate episode ends. I can’t see Yuki and Yuno carrying on as though nothing happened now – he looked pretty angry with god-Yuno at the end there!