Mirai Nikki – 09 Review

Episode 09 – Blocked Call

What an oddly inconsistent episode.

 

The tension through the whole episode was pretty much a hit and miss for me, coupled with some anti-climatic moments thrown into the mix. After watching this episode, all I want to say is that I hope we see more of Akise in the future episodes to come.

Review

I will probably make this a quick review about the episode even though the episode had quite a few issues.
(Seems like the review wasn’t as “quick” as I thought it’d be afterall)

What I had expected to be an intense and interesting episode had turned out to be somewhat of a incoherent mix of scenes. It had felt like too much was covered in a time period that was too short for the amount of content present. This had of course resulted in a few choppy moments, but as oppose to it being an execution problem, I would have to say that it had seemed like the issue might lie with the actual manga material.

As I had mentioned, there were a few anticlimactic moments with the way things had turned out. The match between Akise and Hinata was played-up during the first half of the episode, but the scene had ended in a pretty abrupt manner. It had felt that the whole scene had accomplished lesser than I had expected and was unfulfilling apart from the couple of revelations – Yuki’s diary is based upon his personal knowledge and can be misconstrued, and Akise is in fact not a diary owner after all. The funniest part was at the end of the scene when Yuki’s classmate (can’t remember the guy’s name) had suddenly appeared back on screen and had dashed out of the place together with Yuki and the gang. As he had been silent throughout the episode before that scene, I had totally forgotten his presence at that place.

Another anticlimactic moment in the episode was when the dangerous/tense atmosphere had simply disintegrated when everyone had turned back into being chummy old friends upon Yuki’s declaration that Yuno was his girlfriend. Now that was a weird moment. The abruptness from being at each others throats to suddenly being friends was too much. Sure, Hinata’s reasons had been weak all along but I had found her change of heart to be really odd considering how much she supposedly “cared” about her friend, Mao. I mean, it was only in the previous scene where she had lost her mind and decided to scream revenge. But hey, apparently love is what makes the world go round and can settle any problems. XP

You sure did. XD Can’t wait to see your dismembered body Yuki!
(Hey, I am entitled to a mental break or two every season XP)

However, in that similar “declaration of love” scene, we were shown Yuki’s totally dense personality as well as the first sign of intelligence emitting from him. The guy had finally gotten the picture. It was only after Yuno’s loud declaration of love did he comprehend the fact that she was doing it all for him. How dense can this guy get? It seems like he is constantly given amnesia after every big revelation. I wonder if he would revert back to his old self in the next episode – totally clueless to Yuno’s reasons behind her actions.

Speaking of the revelations, the episode did have a few good moments in it. We got to learn the fact that the exchange of diaries had been a hoax the whole time, and this information had been withheld simply to allow us to conjure up our own conclusions. This is similar to how we were force to think that Hinata had died. We had also learned that Akise is supposedly not a diary owner. I am still unconvinced that this is the truth doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of a mobile phone.

A key rule of the game explained through this episode was the fact that Dues doesn’t allow any form of escape from the game. Whether we will be revisiting this rule in the future leaves to be seen, but I hope it will somehow be integrated into the plot.

We get it, we get it… you are a suspicious person Mr. 4th.

As I had said, this is meant to be a quick review. As such, I shall finish it off with a few notable moments:

• I’m no Dog Whisperer so I don’t have a good grasp of the intelligence of dogs. However, I had felt it was a tad bit of a stretch for dogs to be following the orders given to them via a wireless communication device.
• I know this is not a big matter but I don’t get why Akise had bothered saying “Left or Right” in English. I know people wouldn’t question it since it is English and common in Anime, but I had felt that it was as odd as if he were to suddenly speak it in Mandarin.
• I know I shouldn’t be shocked by Yuno’s actions but I was. This is the first time where I hadn’t liked Yuno’s psychotic behaviour when she had suggested that Yuki and her should use the other two as baits in order to escape. That was just a cowardly action for her character, even if it was logical. I mean, there was nothing kickass about it and that was what I had liked about her character, and even though I am able to understand the reasons behind her actions, I still feel somewhat disappointed.
• For someone who was so worried about her friend, Hinata sure as hell didn’t bother calling the ambulance to save her friend. Some precious friend Mao is. =P Now we know where her true priorities lie. (I don’t care if she had wanted to keep her secret, it was such a hypocritical thing for her exact revenge without helping her friend)
• It was nice to see Yuki step up to the plate and had lied to save everyone despite his weak and whimpy idealistic thoughts/actions in the episode.
• Did anyone think that the scene with Mao on the ground had seemed like she wasn’t wearing a bra? Just thought I’d ask. =P
• What a “subtle” hint that was at the end of the episode about having to be weary of the Fourth. Who would have thought eh? (being sarcastic) =_=” I mean, seriously, I would have rather the episode end with the guy being mysterious shot in the head instead of a hint about having to be weary of those that treat you nice. Hopefully the useful thing about it is that Yuki will now be super cautious and weary of the Fourth’s actions. But judging by Yuki’s dense and idealistic behaviour, I doubt that would happen.

The girl just tried to kill you a second before and now you are smiling and acting all chummy with her? (=_=)?

Overall, it was still an entertaining episode to watch (minus all the stalling scenes during the coin toss match). Hopefully things will pick up again in the next episode.

Episode Rating: 6.5/10 – I wanted to give it a 7 because it was still interesting to watch, but the episode had it’s fair share of issues maintaining a consistent atmosphere.

-ra

Ra’s Question of the Day Corner:

What is your view on foreign languages being interjected into a conversation for no real reason in a show?

I know that most languages have it’s fair share of words integrated from other languages. But sometimes it gets on my nerve when random English words are tossed into an Anime when the language has it’s own version of the word. I can accept it if it were some sort of slang or common use of the word in the culture, but other than that, I think it is too much of a “try hard” to use a foreign language to make things seem cooler when it is unjustified.