The Series (4/5)

     Yukiteru is a 14 year old with no friends. He is the type that would rather observe the world than participate in it. Rather than simply observe, however,  “Yuki” records his thoughts into the diary application of his cell phone. The diary is named as a friend Deus (Greek for God), and is believed by Yuki to be a figment of his imagination.  This is until one day Deus reveals himself to not only be a real entity, but to be the dying God of Time and Space. Deus is looking to fill the roll of his successor, and has chosen 12 people including Yuki to participate in a 90 day death match. Each of these people have a tool that grants them some direct prophecy over an element of their future, and thus will help them to win the battle royale.  The series follows these characters in their quest to become the new God of Space and Time.

    When I first read about the series, I immediately thought it could either be quite interesting, or derivative of something like Death Note. I was pleased to find out that it is certainly its own thing, and thoroughly interesting at that.  The first half of the series, is filled with a lot of extensive character and world building. Each of the battles 12 main participants has their own backstory, that is important to how they interact in the main plot of the show, and we are fed enough of this information to keep us in the know, and to keep each individual distinct.

    The first half also drives the plot with interesting episodes with great cliff hangers, and suspense, unfortunately the first half concludes in a strange way, that doesn't fix itself until the series has almost reached it's conclusion. That doesn't stop it from being entertaining, and it's still worth watching all the way through, as it's still a fairly fun, and exciting anime.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Future Diary is presented in a very solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer that presents the series quite well.  Detail is excellent throughout, blacks are deep, and colors are nice and stable throughout.

    Audio is presented with a Dolby True HD 5.1 track in English, and a True HD 2.0 track in Japanese. I stuck to the Japanese track, as i loathe dubbing. The dialogue, score, and effects came through nicely, and I did not detect any issues.

Extras (3.5/5)

     Funimation have put together a solid extras package together for Future Diary. The Blu-ray includes commentary tracks, shorts, trailers, and a clean opening and closing.

Overall

    Future Diary is a pretty fun and exciting anime, more so in it's first half than it's last. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, and comes with a nice slate of extras. RECOMMENDED.