Today I present you a review of the pilot episode of the fantasy/horror anime series “Mirai Nikki” (Future Diary). I don’t want to anticipate the outcome, but I have to say, I’m impressed!!!

The show follows Yukiteru Amano, a socially awkward high school student, who likes to write everything he sees and experiences into his cell phone diary rather than socialize with his classmates. He has no friends except for “Deus Ex Machina”, an imaginary god of time and space, whom he made up in his mind (Or did he?) and his servant Muru Muru who acts as the obligatory comic relief.

deus ex machina

Eventually Deus endows Yuki a peculiar cell phone diary which predicts the future (This comes in handy in classworks!!!) for the purposes of what he calls a “survival game” with the guide line “Lose your diary and you lose your future!”.
The last entry in Yuki’s future diary is a note saying he gets killed by a serial killer who has murdered several women around the area of the setting in a side plot. Unforeseenly his high school crush Yuno Gasai who appears to be madly in love with him up to the border of obsession knows about the dilemma he’s in due to her own future diary, that seems to deal exclusively with Yuki’s life, and decides to help him. Somehow Yuki manages to finish the fiend, who is also in possesion of a future diary, by piercing through his mobile phone with one of the darts Gasai interestingly brought along. As it turns out all three of them were participants in the previously mentioned survival game that proves to be a battle royal in which twelve people fight to the death for 90 days. According to Deus the survivor will acquire his throne of god.

If you lose your diary you lose your future!

Already in its very first episode Mirai Nikki shows a lot of potential. It’s full of suspense and manages to create a captivating atmosphere. Additionally, as far as I can judge it’s decently animated. Therefore it gets 4.5 out of 5 Kurisus.

In order to get attuned here’s a trailer OVA which is admittedly a bit confusing:

Anime,

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Mozilla seems to fuck up everywhere. Thunderbird used to be great, too, but again since version 3, it got so slow that even a snail seemed like a 400 HP race car.

Since Thunderbird kept one of my CPUs busy for minutes while downloading new messages, possibly because of the hundreds of thousands of mails I have in my mail accounts, before it finally reacted to user input again, I decided it was time to look for something better.

I tried out Sylpheed and I’ve got to say: It’s very good! Not only does it handle the amount of mails I have with ease, but it also has a much cleaner look, while having the same functionality as Thunderbird (at least the parts that I need).

Random, Rant

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This pizza was extremely delicious! The dough was made from normal sourdough that I treated like normal bread dough. Except that I kneaded some olive oil into it.

The tomato sauce was seasoned with salt, chili powder and basil (garlic might be a good addition here).

The chanterelles were fried for a short amount of time in (very!) little oil. The onions and the cooked ham are simply cut into smaller pieces and added on top. Finally, add the cheese.

My pizza took about 35 minutes. You can also easily warm it up in the microwave and it will still taste great.

Food,

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Aww… loli Rin and soon-to-be tsundere queen. Cute.

Aww… loli Sakura and soon-to-be… well what, really? Cute and pretty anyway.

AHHH!!! NOT PRETTY!!!

Poor loli Sakura is getting eaten(?) by worms. Achievement unlocked: cause a billion doujinshi with a single scene

Eyegasm! Iri wins. EOD

It’s finally there! We all eagerly waited for it the moment it was announced: Fate/Zero!

Fate/Zero is a prequel to Fate/Stay Night and takes place during the 4th Holy Grail War 10 years before FSN. The first episode is roughly 50 minutes long and adds a great deal to the story of FSN already. While it does give you some new information about old characters like Sakura, who is revealed to be more than just your everyday girl which happens to be born with magic in her blood, other characters, such as Emiya Kiritsugu, get quite a bit of screentime and yet remain a mystery.

We know from FSN already that the final battle in this war will be fought by Emiya Kiritsugu and Kotomine Kirei and while they simply comment on the other masters and their abilities, they fear each other already because they simply cannot comprehend one another’s ambitions and perceive each other as dangerous. Emiya Kiritsugu used to be a mage killer and used methods that were very “unmagely”, such as poisoning, bombing and so on. He also worked as a mercenary in wars, but only offered his services when the battle was most fierce. We know this kind of self-destructive behavior from Emiya Shiro (FSN), but the cruelty is something I did not expect. Kiritsugu struck me as a very gentle, noble man in FSN. That is what it is that so inspires Shiro and highly influences who he becomes. So why is Kiritsugu displayed as a cruel, cold man with hardly any emotions? Iri loves him and talks about their goal, so there must be something of that noble and gentle nature in this goal.

Then there is Matou Kariya, who sacrifices himself to protect Sakura. While he is butt ugly (at least after he got infested by those crest worms), I do believe his ambitions are pure and his will is strong. The other masters I won’t bother going into, as they don’t seem all that interesting. I am very eager to find out how this war will proceed. I’m especially eager to see our star Arturia again.

Fate/Zero episode 1 easily gets a full 5/5 Kurisus:

Anime, Fate/Zero

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I just watched the series finale of Blood-C yesterday (Wtf?!!!) which had kind of an open ending. That way I’m glad to hear that there’s gonna be a sequel movie coming out next year on june 22nd.

Blood-C is a reboot of Production I.G’s Blood franchise (“Blood: The Last Vampire”, “Blood+”) by all female manga artist group CLAMP. In case you haven’t watched it, read this!
Currently no information about the movie’s plot has been revealed other than it’s going to be “a continuation and conclusion to the anime series”. However, if you ask me we can assume that Saya is going to seek revenge since she seemed really pissed in the closing scene.

Anime, News

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