Future Diary

Future Diary (未来日記 Mirai Nikki) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by manga author Sakae Esuno. The manga was first serialized in the Japanese shōnen manga magazine Shōnen Ace on January 26, 2006, and is published by Kadokawa Shoten. As of June 2008, six bound volumes have been released in Japan. Esuno has also authored a (side story) manga entitled Mirai Nikki: Mosaic which reveals how the other characters acquired their diaries. The manga has been licensed by Tokyopop, and the first two English volumes will be released on May 11, 2009 and June 9, 2009, respectively.

Plot
Yukiteru has always been rejecting any offers to go with friends, and he just keeps writing a diary on his cell phone. He has an imaginary friend, a god called Deus Ex Machina. However, Deus now wants to play a game with Yukiteru, a game of survival. There are twelve contestants, Yukiteru is one of them. The winner of the survival game will become the next Deus Ex Machina. In order to win the game, the contestants must use their diaries to eliminate one another. For Yukiteru to survive, he must team up with another diary holder, a girl by the name of Yuno.

Each player is assigned a number based on the order that Deus modified his or her diary. The diaries now record the future in the same manner their future selves would have written down events that have already happened; the only exception to this rule is when the holder reaches a "Dead End", a time when their lives would be finished without significant intervention. Each diary varies in properties and functions depending on the holder's personality, occupation and lifestyle. All the diaries have their shortcomings, some more so than others, and can be used without the diary owner's consent should they fall into another's hands. Because the diaries are written from the perspective of the holder's future self, the future can still be misinterpreted and the diary entries can then turn out to be inaccurate. Each of the diaries have become the diary holder's future, so if the diary itself is destroyed or broken, so too is the holder's future.

Main Characters
Yukiteru Amano (天野 雪輝 Amano Yukiteru)
 * Sees his own life as if he were a bystander. His "Random" (No Difference) diary reflects that attitude.  In a detached, neutral tone, the diary records the future changes in his surroundings every couple of minutes. This gives Yukiteru timely, detailed entries of the future around him and is perhaps the one of the most accurate diaries revealed so far.  It is extremely versatile and useful in just about any given situation.  Its only flaw is that nothing short of a Dead End will make the diary record anything about Yukiteru himself.

Yuno Gasai (我妻 由乃 Gasai Yuno)
 * Is hyper-obsessively in love with Yuki, as one can safely guess from just the simple name of her future diary. His condition and actions are recorded every ten minutes in her "Yukiteru" diary while also providing small commentary made by Yuno in some of the entries.  Its most obvious weakness is that it does not show Yuno's future at all &mdash; her condition, situation, or surroundings &mdash; unless it somehow involves Yuki or her own Dead End.  Working with the First's "No Difference" diary, however, covers both of their diaries' individual flaws; as it has been said, the two make for a perfect combo, both in theory and in practice.

Manga volumes

 * 1) ISBN 978-4-04-713839-1 published on July 21, 2006
 * 2) ISBN 978-4-04-713872-8 published on October 24, 2006
 * 3) ISBN 978-4-04-713912-1 published on March 26, 2007
 * 4) ISBN 978-4-04-713954-1 published on October 26, 2007
 * 5) ISBN 978-4-04-715026-3 published in February 2008
 * 6) ISBN 978-4-04-715072-0 published on June 26, 2008


 * In English
 * 1) ISBN 978-1-4278-1557-6

Reception
During mid-November 2008, the seventh volume of the Future Diary manga ranked as the twenty-first best selling manga in Japan. The volume remained in the top 30 during the following week, though it dropped to twenty-fifth place.