Mirai Nikki Episode 26 – THE END

Slightly delayed due to my involvement in the Aniblog tourney, but here it is. My final post on Mirai Nikki. Up until now the series had been enjoyable, but I was worried whether they’d be able to bring it to a satisfactory close – especially since a few people had told me the manga’s ending was disappointing in their opinion. Would the anime leave me feeling the same way?

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Ep 26 began with Yuki, still in his dreamworld. His chance to see the stars with his parents has finally arrived!

Outside of his bubble, on the roof of the school, Murmur resurrects Yuno’s father from the third world, who was previously knifed by his first world daughter – apparently his death would result in a paradox. After patching him up, she leaves him lying on the roof and heads over to her mistress, the original Yuno, who now stands over her third world counterpart. But while she didn’t hesitate to kill her second self, Yuno seems a little hesitant this time around.

Eventually the third Yuno wakes up, and they talk. The original tells the other what lies in store for her in the future – her mother’s depression and abusive behaviour getting worse, her father becoming more and more distant, until the point where she ends up caging them both. The original then takes out her knife, promising to end that suffering… but the younger Yuno tells her to stop. She claims she isn’t suffering at all, and is optimistic that things will get better. Second remembers that she felt that way once as well, and (perhaps for the first time) seems shocked by what she has become.

Still, even that isn’t enough to make her give up on a third shot at life with a new Yuki, and she moves to attack… only to stop again when young Yuno asks her whether she loves somebody too.

Sitting on a throne surrounded by screens, Murmur suddenly realizes that all is not right in this third world… and somehow Yuki is the cause! The boy is still on the way to see the stars, but once they reach a railroad crossing, Yuki stays behind as his parents cross over. Yuki apologizes to them, saying that he can’t go any further – he feels as though he should be doing something more important.

The police (including Kurusu and Nishijima) arrive at the school to investigate the explosions. With them is Yuno’s mother (who they’d only just finished talking to), and when she gets out of the car, she sees a familiar person stumbling around on the roof of the building – her recently revived husband! Kurusu sends Nishijima into the building to look for survivors… and he finds one. Minene. Nothing can kill this terrorist!

Murmur, still worried about the state of the third world’s causality continuum, tells god Yuno to get a move on. Apparently the future is being rewritten at an incredible speed, which can’t be good if they want things to play out mostly the same as before.

For the third time the focus shifts to the other would-be diary owners, this time showing how their futures are being re-written. A bomb is found in the car of Tsubaki’s parents, and Funatsu’s plot to take over the Sacred Eye is uncovered and prevented. This has a direct effect on young Rei – his parent’s don’t join the evil cult, they don’t die, and he presumably lives his life as a slightly less evil child prodigy. Twelfth doesn’t become obsessed with stopping the cult either, and continues to uphold justice on the streets… by capturing Third!

Elsewhere, the futures of those who weren’t involved in the cult also change for the better – Hinata is found taking care of the dogs at the kennel by her father, and her interest in them seems to please him. At Mother’s Village, Eighth gets a call from the Mayor… offering assistance for her facility! At the same time, Orin gets a call from Ai (one half of Seventh), just to check that everything’s okay. As for the Mayor himself, he’s less enthusiastic about the Future Diary project now that the prototype is predicting his own death! As a result, he changes the future… by telling Deus not to go ahead with the plan. The god says he’ll find a new way to determine his successor.

Murmur becomes increasingly worried by these changes, but Yuno seems to have reached a decision – she wants to be with Yuki no matter what, so it’s time for her third world self to die. But when she moves to attack the girl, she ends up stabbing her father instead! Having found his way down from the roof and seen his daughter (the right one this time) in danger, he rushed in to shield her. Yet another event that makes god Yuno falter. Her mother then arrives, running towards her husband and child.

Yuki continues his discussion with his parents, insisting that he can’t come with them, though he’s not exactly sure why. It’s his parents that remind him of their earlier conversation, where he mentioned a girl who protected him in a dream.

Seeing her family reunited at last, Yuno realizes again that this is what she once wished for, and truly believed would happen. Though that day never came for the first Yuno, anything is now possible in this thoroughly shaken up third world. Kurusu arrives at the scene, and points a gun at her, assuming (correctly) that she’s the cause of all this carnage, but Yuno barely even notices. She realizes that this future changing is all Yuki’s doing.

Yuki’s parents assure him that he should be able to remember the name of his love now, seeing as he chose her over an otherwise perfect world without her. They say their final goodbyes, as Yuki tries to say Yuno’s name, the dreamworld cracking around him as he does so.

Stubbornly sticking to her original plan, much as Yuki did even after being told that dead people wouldn’t come back, Yuno decides to kill the whole third world family together. Seeing her move, Kurusu pulls the trigger… but before either attack can hit their target, the giant sphere explodes. Out pops Yuki, who stops Yuno in her tracks, hugging her.

ANOTHER Murmur with a number 2 on her forehead also emerges, and it’s her who blocks the bullet. She then proceeds to attack the original Murmur, who is confirmed to be just that when the plasters on her head are removed to uncover a number 1. Apparently the second Murmur had been trapped inside that sphere the whole time while the first assumed her identity.

So now that they’re reunited, what does Yuki have to say to Yuno? “Kill me now”. Straight to the point, but I guess time is running out for the second world. Yuno agrees, if it’s what her Yukkii wants. Her desire to kill people and relive the survival game a third time is now gone. However… instead of killing Yuki, she stabs herself! Just as he loves her too much to kill her, she now loves him too much to kill him.

As soon as they’ve kissed goodbye, Yuno dies. Yuki is promptly declared the winner of the second world’s survival game, and whisked back there by that world’s Murmur. The destruction of the world immediately stops, but even so there’s not much left – Yuki is effectively the god of a dead planet.

With that, the main plot is over! What follows is mostly epilogue and closure, beginning with the other diary owners. We hear about the arrival of the third world Minene’s arrival in Japan – the only third world character we didn’t get to meet, but that doesn’t matter since we still have the second one! Who has since gotten together with the third world’s Nishijima! It seems she’s told him everything, but I suppose she’d have to – firstly to avoid getting arrested for terrorism, and secondly to explain why the hell their babies are floating! Not only does she still have god powers, they may just be hereditary!

The majority of the others’ futures were quite predictable – Kurusu’s son got early treatment, Twelfth payed frequent visits to Third in prison, Ai and Mar have a child on the way, Rei’s parents didn’t die, and neither did Tsubaki’s. Hinata got closer to her father, and she and Mao still became ‘friends’ with Kousaka. Aru was there too – seems the observer still has a part to play even without a survival game. 🙂

One final twist remained… concerning Eighth and Eleventh. Bitter enemies in the second world, they seemed to make quite the happy couple in this one! Meanwhile in godland, Aru’s observations confirm that all interference from other worlds has stopped.

As for Yuno, she seemed to be living a normal life with normal friends, her family crisis clearly having been averted by Yuki’s actions. She still keeps a phone diary, but she’s not quite sure why… as she ponders this, she looks out the window, and we see the third world’s Yuki walk by with his parents and Wakaba, the class rep the second Yuki used to have a crush on. Clearly Yuki and Yuno never met in this world, but that’s probably for the best. 😛

So all that remains is the second world’s Yuki – now a god. He’s effectively traded a paradise without Yuno for a wasteland without Yuno. Well done. 😛 He hasn’t created anything in ~10,000 years, instead just sitting in a dark void with only Murmur 2 for company – and she’s bored stiff! Life without Yuno is not even worth living for him anymore.

There is some hope for Yuki though – somehow, after the ED, Yuki’s future diary predicts that Yuno will visit him, and we see the dark void crack and light begin to fill the second world again.

Then, right at the very end of the episode, a new project is announced. I’ve seen all sorts of rumours circulating about what this could be, ranging from an anime adaptation of the manga-ka’s other work Big Order (don’t those character designs look familiar? :razz:) to an anime original Mirai Nikki sequel, as apparently a couple of things from the manga’s ending were changed in this final episode (not sure I’d like that). But as no real info has been so much as hinted at yet, I’m not going to speculate too much.

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So, what are my thoughts on this ending? Not bad at all, a little rushed perhaps, but it managed to bring closure and HAPPY ENDs to all the characters. The series remained interesting, full of suspense and plot twists right until this final episode. For that reason, I’m willing to overlook the minor flaws and give Mirai Nikki a full 5/5. Which is pretty much a spoiler for its position in my upcoming end of season post, but you wouldn’t have needed a future diary to predict that. 😛