#sakae esuno

[sunniedesi]

Future Diary Light Novel (thoughts/ short TL)

It’s common for light novels to receive manga or anime adaptations in order to introduce the series to a wider public. What’s not so common is for the reverse to happen, though with a series as popular as Future Diary was back in the early 2010’s, it’s only natural that a light novel was among the many adaptations it received. Said adaptation was released in 2012 and written by the author Itou Nobuki (who, according to his MAL profile, hasn’t worked on any other piece). The light novel was divided into two books, and each chapter contains unique artwork done by Masahiko Yoshihara. The art is also the only different/new thing the light novel adds to this series. 

The general consensus on the light novel is that it’s a retelling of the manga, which other than giving you a little more insight on the characters’ thoughts, doesn’t add anything new. I decided to give it a read to confirm this myself, and… I have things to say (spoilers for the LN ahead… and Future Diary too, duh).

First and foremost, the notion that the light novel adds nothing new is mostly correct, save for the prologue and epilogue. The prologue introduces the reader to ““Deus,”” who is experiencing some form of memory loss and is now being guided by MurMur through the Akashic Records to remember the events of the Survival Game. The novel then goes over the events we already know from the series all the way up to 9th’s death… where it suddenly ends. Yes, the novel ends with 9th’s death and jumps straight to the epilogue, where ““Deus”” informs the reader that he cannot recall the events after that, because it physically hurts him to remember.

That’s when we get the revelation that this isn’t Deus we’re dealing with, but Yukiteru, who has taken on Deus’ role after winning the Survival Game. Apparently, he’s experiencing problems with his memory similar to Yuno’s due to the trauma of losing her, so to further help Yukiteru remember the ending of the Survival Game, MurMur gives him Yuno’s diary, from which he gathers the final details. From there on, the events carry out similar to Redial, where the last entry in Yukiteru’s diary gets rewritten to “Yuno’s coming to see me.” Yuno then magically appears and it’s happily ever after and blah blah blah…

While I found the prologue and epilogue to be insightful in terms of giving us more details about the ending, I was pretty confused that the novel left out the most crucial aspects of the story. Everything from episode 22 and on from the anime (or the last two volumes of the manga), which includes: Yukiteru killing his friends, Yukiteru finding out that the dead cannot be revived, Happy End, time loop plot twist (which is the pillar the story is built upon btw), the final battle between Yukiteru, Yuno and the 9th… and the list goes on. If someone who hasn’t read the manga or watched the anime read this as a stand-alone piece, they’d be left scratching their heads at the epilogue. 

The novel makes you raise all the questions that would lead to the eventual plot twist, simply to end with said questions unanswered. And if you think this is weird, it’s because it is. The author himself acknowledges this on the author’s notes at the end of the novel. He explains that the light novel was set out to be a two-parter from the very beginning, meaning he couldn’t extend it to fit all aspects from the manga. Which is understandable; however, he deliberately chose to end it with 9th’s death because he "wanted to leave the story at its climax for the epilogue."

Look, I understand this man was working with what he was given, but if he really wanted to blue-ball the audience, he could’ve at least tried to fit the revelation of the time loop before cutting to the epilogue. You know, so the story actually makes some sense? The epilogue casually mentions the second and third world as if it's something that's been brought up before, when this is the first and only time it's mentioned. Anyway, I’m going off on a rant here. I’m very particular about pacing and structure in writing, so seeing something like this really grinds my gears (especially since I wanted to see the events from the final episodes novelized).

With that out of the way, I did translate a little bit of the light novel since there’s no official translation out there, namely the prologue, chapter 1 and the epilogue. I’m not planning on translating the rest of the novel since it’s basically a retelling, but I did find those parts to be interesting enough to translate, given that the prologue and epilogue delve into Yukiteru’s ten thousand years of solitude. 

Now that I have my little rant/ translation projects of the week out of the way, I’ll go back my cave ~

#future diary #mirai nikki #anime #the future diary #yuno gasai #yandere #sakae esuno #manga #light novel #translation #light novel translation

[haveyoureadthismanga-poll]

#mirai nikki #sakae esuno #2006 #2000s #complete #shonen #shonen ace

[yunoteru4ever]

Sakae Esuno's "Railway Angel" ( 鉄道天使 )

As previously promised, I've finally scanned in all of Sakae Esuno's "Railway Angel" — his first-ever published manga. Esuno submitted this one-shot story to Kadokawa in 2001 as part of an annual contest. He was awarded the "Ace Next Rookie Mangaka Encouragement Award," and the story was subsequently published in the September 2001 issue of Monthly Ace Next (月刊少年エース).

The story herein is both written and drawn by Esuno, who would of course go on to create Mirai Nikki/"Future Diary," Big Order, and more. And as far as I'm aware, this is the first time this story has ever been made available online. (It's only the Japanese original for now; y'all will have to wait for a scanlation somewhere down the line. Apologies.)

LINK TIME:

#sakae esuno #manga scan #raw scans #manga #monthly ace next #kadokawa #future diary #mirai nikki #big order #hanako and the terror of allegory #the detective akechi is berserk! #えすのサカエ #鉄道天使 #Tetsudo Tenshi #エース&ネクスト新人漫画賞奨励賞を #月刊少年エース #esuno sakae

[the-chosen-blood-teller]

_____________________________________________________________

Hello, everyone!

As of recent, me and my girlfriend have been working on a massive project: 

We are creating Esuno Collective, a Discord group dedicated to discussion of all of Sakae Esuno’s works. In this group, as we have it so far, you can discuss... (If you don’t care to read this, scroll down for a TLDR)

All of Esuno’s works: Hanako and the Terror of Allegory, Mirai Nikki / The Future Diary, Big Order, Detective Akechi Is Berzerk. This server revolves around discussion of all of these!

Collection! This will be a group where old and new Esuno collectors can come together and talk about this niche but fun collection topic.

Nostalgia! Actually, our main goal with this server is to allow others to look back at these works with a positive feeling of nostalgia, especially since they’re so memorable.

Much more is in the work to make this a place where fans of any of these works can speak and make friends with others who love the content just as much.

Other things-- of course there’s off topic channels, so that’s a thing too!

TLDR: We’re making a community for fans of not just Mirai Nikki but ALL Esuno works! 

______________________________________________________________

But, we really need some help. So far, we have over 100 emotes planned and made-- including some animated ones. We have graphics and other things, but we’d love to have more help from other fans who are interested. If you’d like to help / contribute to this newfound community, you can add me on Discord. 

My username is.. pizzahead. (Don’t forget the period at the end!)

The more different minds the better, since an even wider variety of ideas can be brought up! 

If you read this all, thank you! Esuno Collective should be open soon-- we just want to make sure that it’s set up completely with everything possible before we open the gates.

_____________________________________________________________

#mirai nikki #the future diary #future diary #sakae esuno #big order #detective akechi #hanako and the terror of allegory #esuno sakae

[hatsumishinogu]

Reign of the Seven Spellblades Vol.8

#reign of the seven spellblades #nanatsu no maken ga shihai suru #bokuto uno #sakae esuno #ruria miyuki #manga

[ultraericthered]

So I felt like making a hot take post about this audacious bitch:

Minene Uryuu, Ninth Future Diary Holder from The Future Diary. (Yes, she and Black Lagoon's Revy Two-Hands are almost the same character, I know.)

Losing her parents as collateral damage in religious extremist militia warfare when she was 8 years old, Minene was forced to live a brutal life as an orphaned, homeless street rat in a Middle Eastern nation overrun with the religious extremists' ceaseless conflict, possessing little of her own and having to resort to theft in order to survive. The result of this was Minene developing a burning hatred towards the idea of God and of all religion as a whole, organized or otherwise.

Carrying this disdain for everything related to religion and letting the wrath and hatred fester inside her heart as he got older, Minene was eventually able to make her living as a terrorist bomber, specifically targeting religious structures, religious organizations, and prominent, influential religious individuals, in order to destroy them in the name of atheism and shit. Before it was turned into her Future Diary by Deus, Minene's Escape Diary was a regular journal that she used to chart out all the possible escape routes in whichever area she was planning to attack. She is very tactical and intelligent, able to easily gather information and make deductions based on it. Having spent her adolescent years alone with no love or guidance, she believes she is fated to be all alone in the world, does not need anyone else in her life to help her, and must survive and endure at all costs so she may one day see the stated end goal for all her evildoing realized: the erasure of the very idea of gods and all religious faith built from the world. Throughout her life, Minene appears to be haunted by her eight-year old self and the memory of crying over her dead parents, symbolizing her desire to escape her own past and be saved.

So where I am going with this? Well, here's my hot take:

Minene Was Right.

...Except for all the ways in which she was not.

While wanting to erase the concept of deities and higher powers from the collective of humanity is childish extremism in her thinking (people have believed in such things for ages and I really don't think there is anything that could stop them), Minene's want to see the total abolishment of all religious institutions, depowering of religious leader figures, and cessation of both all damaging religious practices and of the relevance thereof, is honestly completely understandable. Sure, she cannot and should not force atheism onto all peoples of the world, and I'm sure once she was gifted god-like powers by an actual deity she'd find herself beginning to understand that, but when she looks at religion and its place in the world, Minene sees flawed, fallible, needy, selfish, hideously ignorant and deluded human beings taking the fact that conceptualized notions of divinity, spirituality, and higher power over all physical reality that is sacred and holy exist in life, and using it as an excuse to interpret spiritual faith in very human ways and apply them to human work for the fulfillment of human desires. Thus can religion become the driving force behind wars, behind crimes, behind abuse, behind oppression, behind classist, racist, sexist and homophobic practices, etc. If defined very broadly and stretched to meet the requirements that humans want it to meet, religion can be a vehicle for sin, all while the sinners hypocritcally preach that they're doing the righteous and holy work of their god(s) and stand against evil, vice, and sin that corrupt this world.

I feel I don't need to ellaborate on how much suffering is wrought upon too many innocent human lives due to violent conflict driven by extremists who use their religion to justify their acts of inhumane atrocity, who cling to the sacred dogma of their faith and the way in which they've chosen to interpret the words and will of their priests, prophets, messiahs and deities as being permission, or a mandate to satisfy their hatred, bloodlust, and hunger for power and dominance. Or on which currently going conflicts in particular I've in mind when I say all this. I've seen or heard the rhetoric of "our religion tells us..." or "our faith dictates that...", or even "our God commands us to..." applied to blatantly worldly matters and very human-centric, material-based disputes. And it strikes me as fucking ludicrous. So I just have to think that Minene had it right the whole time: if human religion and all the harmful ways religious faith gets utilized ceased to be, the world would be a far better place to live in. To me, this ideal is just.

So how did Minene then end up going oh so very wrong in her life?

I could easily point to the fact that she's a bloody terrorist, that she has gleefully bombed, gunned down, slashed up, and decimated populated areas with much human cost that she didn't seem to give a damn about, and clearly that's wrong....but that's a bit too obvious. Anyone with a functional moral compass can tell that the clear cut bad guy doing clear bad things is in fact bad and their actions cannot be considered right. I could go deeper and point to her hypocrisy, how she became what she'd hated most - someone who persecutes and victimizes other human lives due to her own belief that evil, sinful acts committed in the name of her own brand of faith (atheism) are justified or "necessary evil" - and that she's been every bit the demon that she'd come to see Murmur #1, 1st World Yuno Gasai, and John Balks as being....but nah, her worst error of all isn't even that.

Where Minene went wrong most of all is that her anti-religion ideals aren't and were never the true reason behind her turn to crime and terrorism, but merely the rationale she told herself. Meaning she was out committing impersonal, indiscriminate acts of mass harm and murder for the sake of no vision of a greater good, but over small, deeply personal psychological burdens that are really no good reason to do any of this awful, heinous shit. See, when I mentioned in my summary of her character that "Minene appears to be haunted by her eight-year old self and the memory of crying over her dead parents, symbolizing her desire to escape her own past and be saved"? That's what it's really all about. She chose to become a destructive, mass murdering terrorist and a public menace as a cry for help. Terror was her language for saying "someone help me, love and accept me, save me the way I was yearning to be saved, tell me it's okay for me to be human, to move beyond my painful past, live in the here and now for a better future, and not throw my life away doing horrible things....or if not, then please kill me! Just put me out of my misery now!" Anyone of sound mind and clear consicence truly motivated by a desire to make the world a better place for others to live in would never think terrorism to be an effecive recourse. Ever. That's how you can tell that Minene was never acting for the sake of that cause. It was always about her internal cycle of self destruction and the crying of her buried inner child for the healing and salvation of her soul, for the help she'd never recieved when she was orphaned years ago, never about the erasure of religion and how that might help the world at large. Minene's war was truly with herself.

With such a well thought out, disturbingly mentally and emotionally malnourished character to work with, it sucks that Sakae Esuno didn't always know how to work with her in the most effective ways. When you have a very realistically human set-up for someone who represents realistic human evil but then use it to depict instead a cartoonish, costume-wearing comic book supervillain and then still go for nuance, redemption and heroism with that character, it's gonna feel more than a bit awkward. But while I wish she'd have gotten more interplay with Yuno and Kurusu (and none at all with Nishijima), I do really appreciate that the core of her character arc was kept focused on her association with Yukiteru. What Minene truly needed was someone who'd be steadily open and understanding with her, which prompts her to be open and understanding with them, which itself taps at Minene's concealed humanity and draws out her better qualities, and Yuki was this person to her. What compounded this with the healing of Minene's heart and soul is that Yuki himself was, in his current state, reminiscent to Minene of what she'd been like as a kid: a naive, hopeful, and good-natured yet troubled youth walking towards a dark abyss as their innocence dies and their heart cries out for anyone or anything to pull them back away from the edge. While Minene realized the truth about what she'd yearned for and re-embraced her humanity too late to save Yuki from taking the plunge, it was just in time to save her own soul and make some difference, as ensured by, ironically enough, an Act Of God - literal Deus Ex Machina (but I remain torn on how this was implemented by the writing within canon, it sort of diminished Minene's arc tbh.)

And what she did not need was someone telling her "I love you as you are, warts and all, but only really because I love the idea of the person you could be and who I can see you becoming, because if you did become like that, then I'd want to marry you and get laid with you!" Goddamn, I hate the writing for that fucking character so much.

Hey, I now just realized - Minene and Cyrus from Pokemon could be considered like inversions of each other. Both characters suffered hardships in their young lives that brought them to some very valid points about worldly issues in need of being addressed yet their untreated personal pain and all the defects born from it in both mentality and personality steered them in the wrong direction, towards extremism and terrorism in their pursuit of a solution. But Minene seeks to eliminate the very idea of the divine while utilizing mundane human means, while Cyrus wants to eliminate human spirit while utilizing the exploitation of higher power in hopes of ultimately becoming a deity himself. And this is actually the second time one of the Diary Holders in The Future Diary has been likened to Cyrus!

#Future Diary #manga #anime #Minene Uryuu #uryuu minene #analysis #opinion #criticism #religion #terrorist #terrorism #tragic villain #poor girl #my feels #anti religion #anti terrorism #anti masumi nishijima #anti minene/masumi #anti sakae esuno #sort of

[worlds-4th-best-dad]

Happy Belated Death Day, Tsubaki and Yomotsu!

It's such a shame that the PWD reps died early. Hope you both enjoy the cake as a consolation! 💖💖💖

#sakae esuno ableist confirmed???/j #mirai nikki #future diary #yomotsu hirasaka #tsubaki kasugano #my art owo

[ihrtyunogasai]

i need sakae esuno to randomly come back and be like hi!! heres some mirai nikki art of every character you forgot about!! (and hinamao content!!)

#future diary #mirai nikki

[hopeymchope]

I'm aware that Yuno is a pretty terrible person herself, but I honestly still dislike Tsubaki for what she did to Yuno. Yuno absolutely did not deserve that

Feels weird and strangely wonderful to see a Mirai Nikki/Future Diary-related Ask on my main instead of my side blog where I exclusively overthink about this series (and sometimes other Sakae Esuno works). So thank you for chiming in. :)

A response in two parts:

Response Part 1: Yeah, I absolutely agree with your primary point. I mean, of course! I think any reasonable person would. Tsubaki's perspective on the world is best summarized as "Reality is a primarily horrific experience full of suffering and cruelty, so the best course of action is to end all existence." And while that's... a very extreme stance, and certainly one that would traditionally be seen as villainous by most observers.... I confess I'm a pessimistic enough person about this fucking world of ours that I couldn't argue against her much. :( But here's the rub: Even if you take her pessimistic perspective as the gospel truth, that would still absolutely NOT excuse her to force the same horrors and violations she's endured upon other people. That would still be TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. It doesn't matter what she's endured, and it doesn't matter if she expects the world to end soon and wipe out all traumas. Even if she legit expects to win and end existence as she plans, still: HOW and WHY in the fuck would that make it okay to INCREASE that cruelty and darkness you hate so much?! You'd think the victim of such trauma — y'know, someone who has been so blackened by that trauma that they wish to END EXISTENCE because of it, FFS — would know that visiting that same trauma upon other people is fucking beyond the pale. But she's too far gone by the time we meet her, it seems, to realize that she's now become everything she hates. And that's not even getting into the fact that she shouldn't just ASSUME she's 100% going to win. Because, listen here Tsubs: If you don't win and existence doesn't end, your sins are gonna carry a grim weight for a looooong-ass time after you're gone. And yet, despite her blatant hypocrisy and evil intentions... I still find it hard to not see Tsubaki at least somewhat sympathetically. Moreso than like half of the other diary holders, even. Because she's just been through so fucking much, you know? Life really HAS been unfairly cruel to her.

Response Part 2: On the flip side, I'm a confessed Yuki/Yuno defender. So I'm compelled to state: Yes, Yuno is a terrible person by real-world measures. HOWEVER! I often argue that by the very extreme circumstances of her reality, she becomes a lot more sympathetic and arguably understandable... maybe even, on occasion, heroic. All despite it being something of an accidental outcome. I'm talking about situational morality at its most extreme: She's forced into a mutual killing game, and the entire world is rocketing towards its end if a successor to the God-of-Space-and-Time throne isn't chosen promptly. (In fact, we eventually learn that the longer the game drags on, the more singularities appear in the form of mini-black holes that start to eat away at reality, endangering everyone around them.) When you take all that into account, suddenly her murderous impulses + stalking-level protective instincts become problematic but also beneficial. Not only does she HAVE to "kill or be killed" because of the game, but you can also see the other people she hurts/kills as being an expeditious way of dealing with obstacles in the way of her ultimate goal: Making Yuki the new God of Space and Time. (Immediately AFTER she achieves her dream of having one day of unimpeded happiness with him, that is. .... Which is a totally unattainable goal, but that's another story.)

#yuno gasai #yukiteru amano #tsubaki kasugano #mirai nikki #future diary #the future diary #asks #anon

[jumpscaregoose]

@yomotsu-hirasaka I did the thing

#I'm not tagging either of these guys' works we all know them #at least I hope so. you can't follow me and not know about takei #I'm familiar with both of their most famous works and yeah it's a tough competition #I consider takei's writing of higher quality overall but my beef with it is PERSONAL

[sunniedesi]

Future Diary Radio TL

Here’s the (long time coming) update on the Future Diary Radio CDs! I’m sorry it took so long to finish this project, as always, school has me on a chokehold, but I’m glad to say the translations are finally done! In case you missed the original post, the Future Diary Radio CDs are an obscure piece of media from Future Diary that include commentary from some of the show’s voice actors, regarding their experiences voicing the characters and opinions about the series. You can now find the three tracks with the translated subtitles on my Youtube channel (daisynilla) or on the links down below. Special thanks to @iwanpepsu, @syrpai and @the-chosen-blood-teller for helping me gather the tracks from the radio CDs.

And on a semi-related note, I also wanted to use this post to comment on a couple of things that came up while doing research for this project.

1. In all of the three Radio CDs, the voice actors mention something about a live concert that happened at Shibuya AX on July 29th. I'm not sure how well-known this concert and the music featured in it are among the fandom, but given how much it is talked about in the radio CDs (and how much information I gathered on it incidentally), I figure I should make a separate post dedicated to that. Especially because of… this: 

2. On one of the Radio CDs, there was a mention of the DVD cast commentaries done by the Japanese voice actors. I don't own the DVD, but I was accidentally sent the audio for these Japanese cast commentaries in response to my last post about the Radio CDs. For my sanity’s sake, I’m not translating this, (I feel like the radio CDs are a good enough stand-in for the cast commentaries) but given its mention, I wanted to provide some of the context surrounding it. Like your regular cast commentaries on any DVD’s bonus features, the voice actors share their comments of the show as they watch the episodes. The order of the voice actors featured in each episode goes as follows:

Episodes 1-2: feature commentary from Misuzu Togashi (Yukki’s VA) and Tomosa Murata (Yuno’s VA).

Episodes 3-5: Aizawa Mai (Minene’s VA, ps her voice is so high it caught me off guard), Kawahara Yoshihisa (12th’s VA) and Sendai Eri (Tsubaki’s VA).

Episodes 6-8: Sanada Asami (Reisuke’s VA) and Mizuhara Kaoru (Rea’s VA).

Episodes 9-11: Ishida Akira (Akise’s VA), Matsuoka Yuki (Hinata’s VA) and Hiramatsu Hirokazu (10th’s VA).

Episodes 12-14: Ishii Makoto (Nishijima’s VA) and Tanaka Masahiko (Kurusu’s VA).

Episodes 15-17: Seki Tomokazu (Marco’s VA) and Kuwatani Natsuko (Ai’s VA).

Episodes 18-20: Yukana (Mao’s VA) and Shiraishi Minoru (Kousaka’s VA).

Episodes 21-23: Inada Tetsu (Ryuji’s VA, aka 11th’s secretary) and Konno Hiromi (8th’s VA).

Episodes 24-26: Domon Jin (3rd’s VA) and Honda Manami (MurMur’s VA).

(Also, I'm pretty sure the English version of the DVD includes cast commentaries too, but I don't know if those are the Japanese cast commentaries with translated subtitles or if it's commentary from the American cast… probably the latter, but I guess I’ll have to look a little deeper into that.)

#future diary #mirai nikki #sakae esuno #the future diary #yuno gasai #anime #yandere #radio CD #cast commentaries #voice acting #anime voice acting

[masked-and-doomed]

Sakae Esuno dealt psychic damage in ways he did not intend to

#ah rambling

[yunoteru4ever]

A big review of Sakae Esuno's 'Big Order,' Part 1: The Actual "Review" Part

It begins.

This all began with a simple ask from @bluescxrs, but I've definitely made it grow in my mind since I received that request. What began as "Can you outline the story differences, particularly in relation to Eiji/Rin" became me thinking "I should make that just one part of a much larger, thorough review."

So for a while now, I've been sporadically writing parts of this post while simultaneously asking myself "How do I even do this?" More specifically: How do I review a manga AND an anime that are so different from one another? How do I explain the differences between the mediums without proliferating tons of spoilers? And is that even really part of a standard "review," or does this need to be multiple posts?

My ultimate conclusions are that I need to treat this like any other anime review I've put together on my main Tumblr. I think going deeper on what separates the two versions of "Big Order" is going to require its own post with more spoilers, though.

I'll just be upfront about this,, and state what any regular readers of this Tumblr probably already know: I've come here to praise "Big Order" as a manga, and to be less kind to its anime incarnation.

Background/Behind-the-Scenes

In case you didn't know, Big Order was Sakae Esuno's follow-up manga after he struck gold with Mirai Nikki/Future Diary. I'm sure he was feeling the pressure to produce a worthwhile follow-up after he hit it big with that one. But thankfully, Big Order was a successful series for Monthly Shōnen Ace. At least it was successful enough to run for almost as long as Future Diary did and get collected into 10 volumes. Kadokawa has never shied away from ending a series early if it fails to catch on, so that speaks well to Big Order's reception. Admittedly, it never generated the same numbers or level of passion among its readership. But as Esuno himself has said, a mangaka is lucky to create even one series as beloved as Mirai Nikki. And it's not like Big Order didn't have devoted readers of its own — especially in Japan, but to some degree also in China and parts of Europe.

It never made much of an impact on the Western hemisphere, though. Mirai Nikki's success in America and much of the Western hemisphere came largely in the wake of its popular anime adaption. I can't speak to how well Big Order did as a scanlation. But unfortunately, the manga wasn't officially published in North America until AFTER its anime adaption had finished airing... to pretty much the opposite of acclaim.

The anime was produced by the same studio that adapted Future Diary a few years earlier: Asread. Although Esuno has stated his overall satisfaction with the anime adaption of Future Diary and said that he sat in on some story meetings to see how they were adapting the manga and provide some feedback, I've never seen him comment whatsoever on the anime adaption of Big Order. In fact, I don't think I've ever read or seen any interviews that were conducted with him since post-2015! The closest I've ever seen him come is confirming that they were developing an OVA prior to its eventual release in late 2015. That's it. As such, we have no idea how involved he was or wasn't with the development of Big Order's anime, nor do we know what he thinks about the end result. I don't want to assume his feelings... but I have to imagine that they're less positive than his opinion of Future Diary's anime.

We'll circle back to why I think that at the end of this post, though. For now, let's dig into what this series is actually about.

The First Chapter/Episode's Plot Setup

Ten years prior to this story, everything changed. A massive cataclysm struck the globe that killed approximately 3.5 billion people... about half of the world's population. At the same time, the world saw the appearance of the first "Orders" — people with supernatural abilities that can be activated verbally, or sometimes just mentally. People become Orders when when a floating, intangible fairy-like girl named "Daisy" appears to them and grants them a single wish. The Order's ability is based upon how Daisy interprets their wish... but no one who isn't an Order or potential Order can even see Daisy, so how or why these superpowered individuals come into exist remains unknown to the general public.

Daisy's first appearance before Eiji.

In the aftermath of that disaster now known as "the Great Destruction," the majority of the world's governments collapsed. It fell to the United Nations to create and establish interim governments and oversight councils as a way to maintain a semblance of order. Most of these governments are led by Orders who are put under the U.N.'s well-paid employ, with their supernatural abilities serving as a means to both maintain local control and enforce the law among normal civilians.

Eiji Hoshimiya is our focal protagonist. He's an 18-year-old high school student who lost his parents in the cataclysm 10 years ago. To make matters worse, he's the very person who accidentally caused the Great Destruction — an unintended side effect of his wish to "dominate the world" running amuck. Yup, Eiji is an Order, although he's sworn off ever powers after what happened back then and kept the secret of his guilt to himself. After both his parents died in the Great Destruction, Eiji's main focus has been to simply give his terminally ill stepsister, Sena, whatever joy and attention he can manage to provide during the limited time she has left. When our story starts, she supposedly has just six months left before a rare form of leukemia takes her life. And once Sena passes away, Eiji's fine with accepting whatever punishment come his way for his actions 10 years ago. He only wishes to hide his guilt for as long as it takes to keep Sena smiling.

A symbol appears on the user's palm whenever they invoke their Order ability, which also calls forth a "stand" or "avatar" figure that embodies and ultimately enacts the user's Orders. Just like Daisy, these avatars are only visible to other Orders.

(This is a VERY LONG post, so I'll put the rest under a cut for everyone's benefit.)

Rin Kurenai is our secondary protagonist despite the fact that she's also something of an antagonist — a dichotomy that's certainly famillar to anyone who's experienced Future Diary. When Rin shows up at Eiji's school one day, Eiji immediately crushes on her. Unfortunately for Eiji, Rin isn't the sweet new transfer student she initially appears to be. In reality, she's an Order that's come to this school to fulfill a personal vendetta. After spending 10 years working training herself up while trying to locate and identify the person who caused her parents to die in the Great Destruction, she's finally arrived at her chance for vengeance. Her sole dream stands before her: A chance to kill Eiji Hoshimiya.

Some facts to consider about how Eiji and Rin's Order powers work:

Eiji's power of "domination" lets him control absolutely anything within his "domain," which is defined as anywhere he's been + a surrounding radius of roughly 2 meters. This domain ALSO includes anything vertically aligned with that same space/radius. (In other words, if he walks the entireity the first floor of a three-story building, he now can control anything that happens on not only the first floor, but ALSO all the same spaces above him on the other two floors. Or if he flies above the ground, he can now control the ground directly below that airspace. Get it?) Oh, and his control/domination isn't limited to just giving orders to people and/or creatures within that space — he can literally control the laws of physics if he so wishes. He basically controls reality itself within his domain. But importantly, the moment that something he's controlling leaves his domain? He loses all power over it. And he can do nothing to anyone or anything that never enters his domain.

Rin's also an Order, and her power is regeneration. Whenever she so wishes, she can heal herself as well as anyone and anything within arm's reach. This allows her to repair broken weapons or heal wounded allies, of course, but it also auto-triggers any time she dies, reviving her in seconds. This renders her effectively immortal.

Given the above facts, when Eiji is faced with a relentless immortal assassin whose only wish is to kill him by any possible means, he makes the decision to use his powers on Rin by giving her two consecutive orders:

Order #1: Rin can never harm him or his sister.

Order #2: Rin can never leave his domain. (Because if she did, she'd break free of Order #1.)

Just like that, our lead characters are thrust into an unlikely, antagonistic "partnership."

But wait; there's more!

If you're wondering how Rin knew that Eiji caused the cataclysm? That's because she's an agent of the Ten Hands — a group of ten powerful Orders who made up the interim U.N. government of Kyushu... until now. Because when Eiji and Rin wind up at their headquarters in Dazaifu, it turns out that the Ten Hands have just declared they are the next evolution of humanity and intend to rule the world. (If you're familiar with the X-Men? Just picture Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants :P). Rin's went rogue even from THAT rogue organization, though, because Ten Hands wanted her to capture Eiji alive! They're after Eiji because his powers are useful to them AND he makes the ideal figurehead/decoy to front their organization. Once they declare war on the United Nations in Eiji's name (going so far as to include the public announcement that Eiji is the one to blame for the disaster of 10 years prior), Eiji find himself forced to cooperate and act as the figurehead/puppet ruler of the Ten Hands. Where else can he go when he's now the most wanted and hated person on the planet?

A spread giving an overview of the Ten Hands, aka "the Group of Ten."

But as an extra carrot-on-a-stick, the leader of the Ten Hands — Colonel Hiiragi — reveals to Eiji that they've kidnapped Sena. And he then suggests that if Eiji expands his influence over the world, he should logically eventually locate an Order that could cure Sena of her terminal illness.

So wait, what kind of story is this?

For me, the primary joy of Big Order's main plot comes from the characters constantly working to out-manuever and out-manipulate one another. This is often done in the form of Order "battles," sure — but rather than being about who can hit one another hardest with a superpower, those battles are still fundamentally about pulling tricks, feints, and ultimately out-manuevering someone.

Eiji thinking what EVERYBODY in this story is thinking, essentially.

You can see it built into where the setup I described above leaves off. See, it's like this:

Because the Ten Hands has already announced Eiji as their leader and the cause of the great destruction PLUS they've got his sister, he is blackmailed into becoming their figurehead leader.

To try and counter this, Eiji swiftly places his domination order on every member of the Ten Hands, giving him the ability to control them individually while they're inside the base — providing him with leverage. IN THEORY.

But what he (and we) don't initially know is that Colonel Hiiragi had already put his own unique Order in place that covers the same base, and Hiiragi's power completely counteracts Eiji's control of the Ten Hands' people. (Hiiragi's power does NOT, however, counteract Eiji's control of the objects, air, physics, etc. within the base's property.)

But there's another complication to consider: One of the members of the Ten Hands is using his ability to stop time to freeze Sena, preventing her disease from progressing. As such, anything Eiji does to attack within the base or undermine the Ten Hands' plans will obviously cause that person to unfreeze Sena, returning her lifespan to a ticking clock.

With all that going on, Can Eiji really do anything to push his own agenda and exercise his free will? That's just ONE example of the complicated tit-for-tat thinking that makes up so many of Big Order's character interactions and confrontations.

Eiji and Rin's relationship is a microcosm of this stuff. Eiji knows Rin can't kill him thanks to his Order ability, but he also knows that she's foolishly obsessed with killing him personally to the point that she refuses to let anyone else have that pleasure. As a result, the person who hates him the most also becomes the person he's most able to trust. But that doesn't mean Rin's ready to give up on trying to trick him into a not-quite-accidental death, either. There's a push and pull to their mutual trust-laced-with-distrust.

Even within the Ten Hands themselves, there are a couple members who turn out to have more faith/trust in Eiji than they do in Colonel Hiiragi. Hiiragi's mission is ultimately somewhat compromised by his need for personal vengeance, whereas Eiji manages to gain faith and trust from some of the members based on how he indepently handles some things. All these personal motivations, unique powers, and relative/comparative intelligence mix to make a stew of actions and counteractions that I greatly enjoy reading. And by the time the story starts to move away from focusing on these complicated showdowns, you're far enough in that you should (hopefully) be attached to some of its characters already.

The Narrative and its Characters

From a writing POV, it's worth noting that Sakae Esuno took a different approach to writing Big Order as compared to how he wrote Mirai Nikki/Future Diary. See, Esuno had a pretty strong outline for the story when he started making Mirai Nikki. (Actually, he says he created two outlines for Mirai Nikki: One for "I get to write the full-length story" and one for "I have to wrap things up quickly because the series gets cancelled early.") However, on Big Order, Esuno opted to only plan where the story would go in a much looser, vaguer way. He said he wanted to leave himself more leeway to explore whatever new ideas he thought of as the story developed, not constrain himself so much to a tightly pre-planned narrative. I'm not telling you this as a form of judging his choice negatively, though; I can see the appeal to both approaches. I'm just telling y'all this because I think those differences in approach are sometimes noticeable.

There are occasionally pieces of info or hints within the manga that don't seem to go anywhere, and you might even notice some of these are dropped entirely in the anime. A prime example: The early chapters of the manga have Sena referencing that the doctor working caring for her at the hospital is her and Eiji's uncle. Whether she's speaking literally or somehow metaphorically, this never goes anywhere. Heck, we never even see or meet that character! So it's understandable that those references are left out of the anime. It doesn't feel like it's some lost subplot that was left hanging, but it's just the kind of detail that feels like it might hold meaning down the line... yet never does. Those sorts of "dead-end details" get increasingly rare the longer the manga goes on, however. The story grows leaner and tighter as it nears its end.

Beyond that, this story has all the hallmarks I've come to love about Sakae Esuno's works: Tons of plot twists (much more in the manga), the ability to vascillate wildly between darkness and comedy, engaging psychological underpinnings to the characters (mostly in the manga), a twisted focal relationship... it's all here. What's not to love? Well, I suppose Big Order and Future Diary share one weakness: Despite both stories supposedly having a global impact, the entire story stays isolated to Japan. Future Diary justified this with some passing text explaining that Deus has intentionally developed or lured his future god prospects into one area. Big Order's justification is that the entire "Great Destruction" was caused within Japan due to research taking place in Japan. Perhaps not as strong of an overall driver for the localized focus, but it works decently enough.

So let's dig a little into that "twisted focal relationship." Despite what I said previously about Rin and Eiji's "dual protagonists where one is also kind of an antagonist" dynamic being similar to Future Diary's Yuki and Yuno, these characters almost feel like counterpoints to the leads of Mirai Nikki. Although Eiji visually looks a lot like Yuki and Rin might initially give off Yuno vibes thanks to her aggressive nature and twin hanging hair-tails, they're each more unlike their Esuno-created predecessors than they are similar to them. And so — as I said in that old post I just linked to — Eiji and Rin almost feel like a reaction/response to Yuki and Yuno, intentionally designed to flip or trade off a lot of their individual traits while still maintaining a select few similarities.

Rin's blind rage at Eiji can make her kind of a moron at times. Delightfully so.

Both of them get to grow and change a lot over the course of the manga's story, though they don't get anywhere NEAR as much growth in the anime. The ten or so manga chapters following the end of the anime are particularly good for Eiji, who goes through a period of trauma-response depression that's very well-portrayed IMO. I think him already being in his mindset helps him cope with the wild perception-warping crap he sees and experiences shortly before the final stretch of the story kicks in. Rin's growth is more gradual; at first, she's just forced to gain some empathy for the person she's spent a decade hating. That helps her to eventually shift her desire for revenge onto other parties. But in the end, she gets smarter AND kinder, learning to let go of her desire for revenge and legitimately finding a way to forgive something that once seemed unforgivable. It's actually touching, IMO.

But you know, Yuki/Yuno's relationship never got a strong outside competitor. Let's face it: Yuki never showed any interest in or attraction towards Akise, regardless of Akise's own feelings. On the flip side, the Eiji/Rin relationship actually gets a pretty strong third party thrown into the mix: Iyo.

Iyo! No surname needed, evidently?

If there's a tritagonist in Big Order, it's Iyo — a member of the Ten Hands' leadership who demonstrates fr more compassion thant he rest. Iyo's a shrine maiden/miko whose Order granted her the power to predict the future with 99% accuracy by asking any question to the heavens, summoning a slip of paper that provides the answer. The downside to this is that whenever someone acts upon her predictions they are inherently changing the course of fate, so their actions will affect whether the prediction remains true. And for Iyo, that's a personal matter: Her very first question to the heavens (and thus the first prediction handed down to her) was to find out who her future husband would be... which is when she learned that she was destined to marry Eiji Hoshimiya and bear his child. This prediction + Eiji's natural kindness towards her are two reasons why she finds herself swiftly infatuated with Eiji as soon as he aligns himself with the Ten Hands. And thus, Iyo winds up being the third spoke in a love triangle that also includes Eiji and Rin. But she's not hanging around just to undermine or irritate Rin, because she proves to be an invaluable partner to Eiji's goals in her own right.

I adore both Iyo AND her twitchy bunny-ear head-ribbon. Part of me can't help but want her to win Eiji's heart, because she deserves the world. However, because her infatuation with Eiji is driven by her prediction, her attraction to him is kind of questionable IMO; does she only fall for Eiji because she was told that she would by her powers? Regardless of the reason, her feelings drive her to try and spend more time with him/get closer to him. The knock-on effect, however, is that because she's acting upon her own prediction, that means her actions have every possbility of destroying/altering the very future she's pining for.

The writing here definitely favors Eiji and Rin as the core couple, but unlike Future Diary, Big Order isn't going to give you a clear-cut answer as to who the characters wind up with. Future Diary wound up cementing Yuno and Yuki's relationship canonically because, well, that was the whole point of the thing. The central Yuki/Yuno relationship was the absolute core of Future Diary's narrative, but conversely, the Eiji/Rin relationship isn't the most important relationship in Big Order. It's a major focus, sure, but it's not propping up the entire narrative — which I think is why Esuno feels no need to canonize it. Although the story definitely seems to favor Eiji/Rin, neither the manga nor the anime explicitly state who Eiji winds up with (if anyone).

Instead, the core relationship that's propping up Big Order's story is a familial one: The one between Eiji and Sena. Sena is the stepsister he didn't think he wanted and who he was initially hesitant to get to know. Ultimately, however, she won him over with her warmth and sweetness. When their parents were killed in the Great Destruction, Eiji wound up isolating himself from everyone BUT Sena. Which is a big reason why Eiji's ultimate goal is merely to protect her and give her happiness for as long as she lives (which, as previously stated, is currently expected to be only six more months). It definitely calls to mind Yuno's own simplistic goal of "one day of perfect happiness," etc. But while Yuno's goal is inherently flawed, Eiji's is theoretically possible... right up until the Ten Hands ruin it. Because just a few chapters into the story, they start telling her all kinds of shit that Eiji had been trying to hide from her.

Sena starts out as little more than a background MacGuffin, but she isn't content to stay on those sidelines. Once she has agency to do so, she starts participating in her brother's struggle despite this being against pretty much everybody else's wishes. Her unwanted intervention makes for a pretty fun spanner in the works of the story... but I'm not going to get too specific about it. I think it's really fun to watch her fight back against her own "MacGuffin" status — too much fun for me to spoil how it all happens.

Anime vs. Manga: The Short Version

The anime adapts the first 32 chapters of the manga over the course of its ten episodes. MOST of the major plot beats are the same, at least. But along the way, there are LOADS of scenes altered in small ways, as well as some added and some entirely deleted. And of course, once it reaches the final episode? There's a new ending and denouement so that everything stops there. They do not leave anything open for a possible future season that would adapt the remaining 22 chapters of the story — those are simply ignored.

Now yes, the anime aired while the manga was still ongoing. But... the manga was also MUCH farther along than the anime would lead you to believe — 50 chapters had already been published when the very first episode aired! So the decision to cut the manga's story off at Chapter 32 is definitely a weird one.

To briefly summarize the most common changes made to the first 32 chapters in the process of turning them into 10 anime episodes, it's like this:

The anime turns the nudity / sexual content / fanservice WAAAAAY the fuck up. Like, a simple hug in the manga becomes grinding/dry-humping in the anime. A girl in full clothing in the manga will become a girl in a very loose-hanging dress with most of her body exposed in the anime. And, look — for better or worse, Esuno is no stranger to tossing female nudity into his manga, either for some pointless fanservice or sometimes to further accentuate the horror on display. But even the most fanservice-y manga scenes are extended and expanded upon a lot in the anime.

Ton of background information that provides foundations for how things work in this world is removed. The manga often ends a chapter with an info page providing details on a supporting character's backstory or how one specific powerset works. These are the kinds of lore-dumps that are often used as screens that frame commercial breaks in a lot of major anime (Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia both have done this). In Big Order, however, the framing cards for ad breaks are just pieces of art, and no attempt is made at providing any of these additional details in any format. They're just left on the cutting-room floor, which I think definitely makes a lot of things both more shallow AND more confusing.

An example of one of these "data pages" within the manga.

THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE OF ALL: This one bullet could be an entire essay of me complaining ALL BY ITSELF, but I'll try to keep this brief: In the manga, a number of characters point out that Eiji and Sena aren't actually related by blood, so they theorize that maybe their relationship is somehow romantic/sexual etc.? This suggestion is always shot down by a disgusted Eiji, who will usually insult the theory/theorizer while explaining that being "family" isn't just about your blood ties — but regardless, Sena is absolutely his family, and so on, because she's always had his back. And it's sweet. They are willing to do anything to support one another, even when they see the other one headed in the wrong direction, but it's always very pure and warm-hearted and UMMMMMMMMM, the anime goes in the exact opposite fucking direction. These stepsiblings are absolutely fucking one another in the anime. I cannot and will not ever understand what drove them to do this. Whatever the reason, this is SO antithetical to the manga's point and the central relationship of the story that it does a good job ruining the anime all on its own, even without the other changes... and that's without me touching upon the ethical question of 18-year-old Eiji fucking the 13-year-old Sena. One of the weirder aspects of this ill-advised change is how this whole new subplot has NO impact on the rest of the story! The scenes of them being sexually/romantically involved contain no voice work, for one thing. But also, some of the scenes from the manga where he angrily denies his relationship with Sena being like that are still present in the anime. But I guess now they're just really aggressive lies? He literally beats up one character for suggesting he might be attracted to Sena. Which works great in the manga, but now it's like.... wtf? Also, Eiji having feelings for/involvement with Sena *never* comes up when he's dealing with his relationship with Rin or Iyo — he's still flustered by the idea of sex with anyone or being close to a cute girl, etc. It really comes across as though Asread just kinda inserted this gross shit without telling anyone outside of the animation team directly involved with the new scenes.

WHY, FUCKING WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS

Suffice it to say that for as much as I love the suspense and twists of the manga, I can't recommend its anime incarnation unless you just want to see the characters (1) in full color and (2) in motion. It makes a somewhat amusing side dish to the manga, but it's a very poor substitute.

But I'm going to get somewhat more in-depth about all the differences between the two in my next post on the subject, which will include sharing some spoilers about what happens AFTER Chapter 32 in the manga. It's a big enough task that I think it deserves its own separate writeup. And lord knows that this one is already long enough. :P

#big order #sakae esuno #manga #review #rin kurenai #eiji hoshimiya #sena hoshimiya #mirai nikki #future diary

[butterflypistolking]

Hello hi upset about some new information I found, apparently TAKAO ALWAYS DIES FIRST NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS??

The game is rigged against him, and he has the biggest skill issues... oh my god..

Sorry I am so sad about this guy rn been binging through the manga and my brain is so fizzled I can't believe Sakae Esuno did this to him

LMAOOOOOOOOOO

#smoke.txt #RIP BOZO #im sorry that happened to you #this is objectively the funniest thing to me

[hatsumishinogu]

Reign of the Seven Spellblades Vol.7

#reign of the seven spellblades #nanatsu no maken ga shihai suru #bokuto uno #sakae esuno #ruria miyuki #manga

[carlosshutupmygod]

Sakae Esuno homophobic. Agree?

yeah but im also homophobic