(L) Mirai Nikki (Series)

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for ep20:

Oh, pleasantly surprised at Yukiteru going the whole "Yuno is Yuno" thing. The hand releasing at the end of the previous episode seemed meaningless though. In other words, just done to trick the viewers but didn't really happen? Eh~~?

In the meantime, the whole Nishijima x Minene thing really felt... sudden. I think mainly because of this, the episode felt too packed. But still, you'd wonder if Nishijima's character suddenly changed or something. Yeah, they did have a few scenes together, but if that was enough to get a marriage going, I'd have a girlfriend by now.

A Stock Diary sounds good.

[Dengar]

What about Murmur's fanfic?

Anyway, of course Akise is going to try to do something to Yuno. Akise is Yuno's biggest rival in love after all.

[warita]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

In the meantime, the whole Nishijima x Minene thing really felt... sudden. But still, you'd wonder if Nishijima's character suddenly changed or something. Yeah, they did have a few scenes together, but if that was enough to get a marriage going, I'd have a girlfriend by now.

Actually, it wasnt urprising at all. It was obvious that Nishijima has a thing for Minene from the start and that she isnt immune to it either, even though she tricked him in that episode where he caught her.

I didnt expect him to propose to her..... but I must say it is something typically japanese. My dad used to work in a raffinery some years ago and a delegation from Japan came to look at the equipment and what not.... and a cute small girl from my country was translating for them. Obviously, the japanese took liking to her, because she was exotic for them, but had a small frame and spoke fluent japanese and before returning to Japan, one by one proposed marriage to her... well the ones that were single. All of them. And she never even dated them, nothing!!!

Originally Posted by Sackett

To be fair, even if that does turn out to be the explanation Mirai Nikki was first. So it'd be Madoka copying the idea, not Mirai Nikki.

"Please bear my child"

Oh Nishijima, you sure know how to sweat talk the ladies.

Lol.... yeah, but it worked, didnt it? He sure has more success with that fraze than Miroku from Inuyasha, hahaha

Well, I suspect that it prolly will be Madoka style ending. Its just this anime is so refreshingly different, I hope for an original ending too.

If I were to pick something, that makes little sense from this episode, then it would be Minenes injury. So her hand was torn off in this episode by the explosion. I get it that maybe she doesnt have so much pain due to the shock the tissue suffered. But that woudnt stop the bleeding. She would bleed out in no time, yet someow she doesnt. She dragges Nishijima to some corridor, has a talk with him, bla bla..... Nishijima gets killed and Yukki patches Minenes hand up with a simple bandage and they are set to go? No massive blood loss, no unsconsciousness? She is ready to fight.... oh Minenene, you impress me the most so far, really..... even more than Yukkis unexpected 180 degree turnaround at the beginning of the epsiode.

[Dengar]

Wouldn't an explosion scorch the wound and thus close itright up?

[willyvereb]

^Highly unlikely, given the mechanism the Claymore works on.
It's like a fragmentation grenade turned up to eleven. The Claymore mines explode and send a deadly spray of steel ball pellets against anything unfortunate enough caught in the radius.

In short imagine a more extreme version of a shotgun. That's how the Claymore mine works.

[Dengar]

Maybe she's just that badass?

What? It's anime.

[willyvereb]

Anime physics tend to ignore such petty things like severe blood loss.

That much is true.
I just responded to your theory about the explosion.

[Dengar]

And I just came up with a new one in response to that.

[yourfriendrick]

Originally Posted by warita

it may well be, that the power of God doesnt include the ability to resurrect people, but just to manipulate time and place. If that is so, then Yuno could easily be God from a different dimension, who in this dimension doesnt have her powers, because in our world she is not God.

OR!!! Yuno actually won the game in the future and has become God. But she cant resurrect Yukki, that is not part of her abilities. She can however go back in time to try to save Yukki and thats precisely what she is doing. She goes back in time, she kills her old naive self, takes her place and does her outmost to change the outcome this time. And for all we know, this cycle might be repeating itself endlessly, because she fails over and over again to save him.... and thats why she is the perfect killing machine. She just had loads of practise by now! (although, it doesnt explain how she won the game in the first round.... but this anime doesnt dwelve so much on details, does it?)

That is the best theory I have heard so far. I don't have a better one.

I'm hoping that the actual story is somewhat different, but we'll find out in a few weeks.

Time travel has already been done with one of the Murmur side stories. One of the first side stories showed the psycho killer destroying his own diary, and Deus and Murmur had to rewind time so that they could explain the deal.

[yourfriendrick]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

Is 8th some sort of super being? All the other characters in the show not named a god had normal body proportions. Yet 8th looks like a giant representation of murmur. Also, I'm surprised no one shocked about her appearance.

I would really like to believe it's somehow mythological, but probably not. I would really like to believe that the original mangaka tried to make some special message based on the exact attributions of the 12 Consentes in classical mythology, but that's probably not the case. It seems the original manga has all kinds of Greco-Roman deities, and the opening theme song is the first place where the 12 Consentes were mentioned.

Edit: My Anime List Dot Net has several mythological links, with possible spoilers, on the character pages.

According to MAL.net, the Orphanage Lady is supposed to be Vesta. She teams up with the Mayor, who is named after Bacchus. But Bacchus was not one of the 12 Consentes! Also, there is nothing alcohol-related in anything the Mayor has done. So "Bacchus" seems to be a very inappropriate name choice.

The Consentes were arranged in pairs:
Jupiter-Juno, - This is Yuki, the dart-thrower, and his yandere bride-to-be.

Neptune-Minerva, (MAL alleges Minene is Minerva)

Mars-Venus, (the Brawler Diary and the Flirt Diary holders)

Apollo-Diana, (MAL alleges the dog-trainer is Diana, which makes sense)

Vulcan-Vesta - Takao Hiyama, and the Orphanage Lady

Mercury-Ceres - MAL.net alleges the cop, Kurusu, was Mercury.

The Mayor can transmit lots of information - thus he is like Mercury, messenger of the Gods. (On the other hand, he made the diaries, so he's like Vulcan.)
The Orphanage Lady cooks food for orphans - thus she is like Ceres, or possibly Vesta.

Edit:
MAL claims that she is named after Vesta.
http://myanimelist.net/character/21817/Kamado_Ueshita

MAL claims that the cop, Kurusu, was named after Mercurius.
http://myanimelist.net/character/4968/Keigo_Kurusu

If that's what the mangaka originally intended, I am a little bit saddened, because the god Mercury is not very appropriate for police officers.

The original sentai guy was named after the god of death, who was not on the above list of Consentes.

http://myanimelist.net/character/8308/Yomotsu_Hirasaka

The serial killer was apparently Vulcan, which seems entirely inappropriate to me.
http://myanimelist.net/character/8307/Takao_Hiyama

[KoiYuki]

Third is associated with Vulcan because his last name is read as "volcano". I'm also guessing that's probably the only reason he has flowing red hair. I'm not sure if it's appropriate or not though.

Also, according to TV tropes, 4th is Mercury because "the kanji in his last name "kuru" means "to come" and as Mercury was the messenger to the others gods, he is probably closest to Mercury in the Dii Consentes."

[Dengar]

You know, it could be that orphanage lady has a genetic defect that caused her to be so large. In fact, that's probably it.

[miketyson]

yourfriendrick: this came up earlier in the thread.

IMHO it comes across as though the mangaka was more serious about trying to make the mythological stuff relevant earlier on, but wound up giving up on that idea after awhile (too hard to make it work). The temple arc is full of references to various versions of the persephone stories and stories of mortals visiting the underworld (like Orpheus). The arc with the dogs isn't *as* reference-heavy but still has some overlap with stories of Artemis and her pack of hunting dogs.

Seems like after that the mangaka just gave up on trying to have the events in his story reference various greco-roman myths beyond the occasional bit of name-dropping.

About Vulcan: the attributes that line up are ugliness (e.g. where's a mask) and having a lame leg (his plodding walk). Which kinda shows what happened: author just assigned everyone a namesake, and "decorated" the character with some of the namesake's attributes. The fact that it was done that haphazardly is probably why the character namesakes don't line up perfectly with the consentes; he simply wasn't that systemic about it at first.

About 8th: I tend to agree that she has that weird design to try and fake you out at first into thinking she's some sort of demon (or whatever) like Mur-mur.

[Guardian Enzo]

And indeed, Esuno is well aware that Eight's physical proportions are odd to say the least. There's a beauty contest in "Mosaic" and one of the observers asks, "Is #4 a human?" in reference to Eighth.

[SkyFlames]

The author actually did a pretty good job, taking out the 5th everyone seems to have one or two similarities with the Consentes.

1st (Jupiter): since he is the main char.
2nd (Juno): roman Juno, both are extremely jealous, crazy and they have the same name, could not be more obvious.

3rd (Vulcanus - following the above post ^): This god created armors and blades that could not be break by anything, and Takao made some kind of modern version of an armor since it was unbreakeable even against explosions and bullets. His machete was also unscratched so kinda fits.

4th (Mercury): Mercury was a born the fourth day after his conception.

5th (Apolo): both were rude fighters at very young age.

6th (Ceres): Because of her rivality with 12th (Pluto)

7th (Mars & Venus): Diary of Brawl (god of war) and Flirt (god of love)

8th (Vesta): the god was a simbol of family warm.

9th (Minerva): she was also a combatant, but way smarter than Mars.

10th (Diana): both are associated to animals, specially hunting dogs.

11th (Baccus): the greek counterpart was the god of inspiration. And 12th somehow inspired Deus to create the diaries.

12th (Pluto): real god of death rules over all the non-living ones, the blind guy used persons that seemed to be dead as puppets.

[MeisterBabylon]

It was only recently that I managed to decipher the lyrics of DEAD END. (On epi 18 atm) But I CANNOT unsee the idea that the song was written for Yuuno, which means the later parts of the song...

...Yuuno really is from another timeline! Like Akemi!!

[yourfriendrick]

Originally Posted by miketyson

yourfriendrick: this came up earlier in the thread.

IMHO it comes across as though the mangaka was more serious about trying to make the mythological stuff relevant earlier on, but wound up giving up on that idea after awhile (too hard to make it work).

Thanks, I should have read the thread more closely.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

And indeed, Esuno is well aware that Eight's physical proportions are odd to say the least. There's a beauty contest in "Mosaic" and one of the observers asks, "Is #4 a human?" in reference to Eighth.

There is that part in Ep. 20 where:

Spoiler:

She starts taking off her clothes and Bacchus asks her, "Why are you taking that off?" and she replies "That's where my diary is hidden."

But it would have been much, much funnier if instead she had

Spoiler:

demanded hot sex in return for her cooperation.
Vesta was a virginal goddess, of course, so that wouldn't have fit her name.

Originally Posted by SkyFlames

The author actually did a pretty good job, taking out the 5th everyone seems to have one or two similarities with the Consentes.

1st (Jupiter): since he is the main char.
2nd (Juno): roman Juno, both are extremely jealous, crazy and they have the same name, could not be more obvious.

3rd (Vulcanus - following the above post ^): This god created armors and blades that could not be break by anything, and Takao made some kind of modern version of an armor since it was unbreakeable even against explosions and bullets. His machete was also unscratched so kinda fits.

4th (Mercury): Mercury was a born the fourth day after his conception.

5th (Apolo): both were rude fighters at very young age.

6th (Ceres): Because of her rivality with 12th (Pluto)

7th (Mars & Venus): Diary of Brawl (god of war) and Flirt (god of love)

8th (Vesta): the god was a simbol of family warm.

9th (Minerva): she was also a combatant, but way smarter than Mars.

10th (Diana): both are associated to animals, specially hunting dogs.

11th (Baccus): the greek counterpart was the god of inspiration. And 12th somehow inspired Deus to create the diaries.

12th (Pluto): real god of death rules over all the non-living ones, the blind guy used persons that seemed to be dead as puppets.

That's the explanation that I wish I had written! Thanks.

[miketyson]

That list is pretty good, although it's worth adding that Yukiteru's seemingly-random dart skills (why darts? they're lame, and hard enough to use in the story I don't think they're used after the 6th dies...?) make a lot more sense for a character attribute once you know he's Jupiter.

The deity matchups I think Esuno actually changed after the fact. I don't want to go at great length, but I'd assume what he did is like: (1) pick mythological figures to match up with the diary holders; (2) find out later about the dii consentes and realize his initial picks weren't all "major" gods; (3) for the official series guidebook volume, come up with new match-ups from the dii consentes that fit as well as possible.

The 6th is the most obvious this way: iirc the official publication says she's matched up with Apollo, but just going logically on in-story evidence the fan theories tend to identify her with Ceres or Proserpina (and imho Proserpina is a better fit).

In any case, if you read the manga carefully I think you'll notice the author seemingly shifted course a few times, and thus this "starting with one idea, ending with another" wouldn't be out of line with the rest of the work. There's also a bit of last-second revision in the tankobons, especially with the ending; the tankobon version added a few pages that come across as the author saying "look, don't you get it? this scene is a callback to an early scene in the story!".

[Stiletto]

Spoiler for episode 20 spoilers:

Way to Nishijima, you lay it thick and make me ship you and Minene and then you die. Don't remember you being given permission to die. Why'd you do it? Jerk.

Seriously though my approval rating for Nishijima has skyrocketed. Figured he was the slouch of a cop and wouldn't really do anything but he managed to do something meaningful in my eyes.

Solid episode, though the ending has me bitter. Poor Nishijima. The world will miss such a lady killing stud.

[Malkuth]

... and with this episode all the good parts of the manga got animated, now onto the ridiculous finale

Censoring was bad, but as the cult arc proved it will get properly rectified, if not expanded with the BD/DVD release.

Finally, for Nishijima X Minene, Paradox had more background, that unfortunately didn't make it into the anime