Mirai Nikki 05: “I choose you, Yuno.”

One small step for Yukiteru, one giant spacetime-distorting leap for yandere girlfriends everywhere~

A moment of silence for the dearly departed Twelfth Rangers.

Alas Twelfth, this world was not meant for one as beautiful as you. Or as awesome.

Oh Twelfth, you should never have gone up against Yuno.

Yuno is the essence of the immovable object. The unstoppable force. The powers of chaos made manifest in the body of an unassumingly cute 15-year old schoolgirl. In anime terms, if it came down to Yuno versus the combined cast of Gurren Lagann, the smart money is on Yuno to win.

Still, those matching outfits. And those marvellous poses. You could have been battling the forces of evil across the country, as a true righteous hero! And yet you met your end so soon.

Which brings us to Tsubaki, the grand architect behind this particular sorry mess. She is one manipulative, deceptive vixen. I still can’t believe that I was taken in so easily.

Although she did end up underestimating Yuno as well. A common weakness, there.

A cross miscalculation. Oh dear, you didn’t just do that. You just had to taunt Gasai Yuno.

In light of the rest of the episode, considering that Yuno wasn’t the one who deals the fatal blow, this little provocation may seem overrated. But not so! Follow along, and you’ll find rich rewards.

Despite my devotion to Yuno, I find myself envying Yukiteru. Because as much of a deceitful backstabber Tsubaki is, that is one luscious, incendiary tongue.

Now, I hate to have to say it, especially to a girl as cute and charming as Tsubaki, but…

… I told you so.

Still, considering that you stole Yukiteru’s first french kiss, I think Yuno let you off relatively lightly.

Did I mention that Tsubaki was manipulative? Let’s add ‘vindictive’ to that list.

Okay, so she cut off your hand, but given that you were about to kill her, I think her actions were justified.

Now, I’m not sure how Tsubaki managed to gain control of the Sacred Eye cult, but I’m guessing it involved sex, death, and significantly less sex at much less frequent intervals – in that order. Which is why I was surprised by her decision to throw Yuno to the wolves.

Because when I stumble across the accounts of rape victims in the news, I find that their rage is wholly directed at the perpetrators and sometimes the failings of the social system that allow such things to happen. They all share the same sentiment that they wouldn’t want a fellow woman to have to suffer in the same way.

Although I guess the mass media isn’t going to publish/disseminate interviews with the victims who have grown to resent women who have not been raped.

It is somewhat comforting that Tsubaki has managed to regain control of her life. That she has probably gotten her revenge on the original leaders who raped her in the first place.

Less comforting is the implication that she intends to break Yuno and make her the new offering/recruitment tool for the cult. And Minene as well – why else is she still alive, in a cage, stripped of almost all her clothing?

And if I weren’t still terribly disgusted with the Sacred Eye cult (and perhaps insanely intoxicated, and with a complete failure of my limbic system), I might be tempted to sign up, if it meant getting to enjoy the company of Yuno and Minene.

Although, you can’t break something that’s already broken, can you?

Thankfully, we’re spared the thought of a post-rape Yuno thanks to Yukiteru’s intervention.

He’s really come quite a long way. At the start of this episode, he was a wreck, thinking that he couldn’t do anything on his own. Then he smashes into the prayer hall and starts swinging an ax at people.

One of the most interesting directorial decisions of Mirai Nikki is to mix tense, sometimes downright repulsive situations with fanservice.

Here we are, wondering how Yukiteru’s going to kill Tsubaki, and we’re suddenly presented with a shot of Yuno’s pantsu. Not to mention all those flashback scenes of Tsubaki being raped – there was there one scene in particular where Tsubaki’s body was been emaciated due to the rape and the drug abuse, and yet her breasts were still as perky as any ecchi anime heroine.

This is seriously meta. It’s Pavlovian conditioning mixed with subliminal impressions accelerated by the seduction of the not-too unwilling. I don’t even know if that statement makes any sense to a psychiatrist.

But my worries about how Mirai Nikki is subverting my erotic stimuli, that I mentioned in my first review? I think they’re not unwarranted. And the best part? Now that I’ve acknowledged it, the mindscrew is going to be all the more effective.

Tsubaki is really quite the tragic figure.

I really liked her choice of terms for the Seen World and the Unseen World. To her, it’s literal because she physically cannot see anything beyond a few feet. To us with relatively intact eyesight, it’s a metaphor for the things that we do not know of. Tsubaki speaks of the evil that come from the Unseen World, the physical monsters who entered her room to rape her, then disappeared out of her sight. To us, these evils of the Unseen World are the dangers that we cannot predict, the metaphysical threats to our lives – be it the fear of office politics or of being struck with a debilitating illness. I think it’s just me, but the literal/metaphor play appeals to me greatly.

Some part of me hates her because she’s overcome her horrifying background and yet she still wants to put an end to the world, which would include a large amount of decent human beings. The other part of me wants to protect and comfort her, because the things that she’d gone through would definitely have warped her mind and she is no longer capable of living life normally.

Oh yes, the hand. I think it’s not so much the physical injury that mattered but the psychological toll. Yuno could have cut Tsubaki anywhere else, even superficially, and the results would have been the same. I think Tsubaki desires death, but isn’t quite strong enough to end her own life. Or perhaps just doesn’t want to admit it. Perhaps even with 2 hands, some part of her – the part that is tired of living, of the pain and the memories – would have accepted the final outcome and cause her to hesitate, indirectly allowing Yukiteru to end her life.

Tsubaki: complicated, tragic, and great big wake-up call to me and my dormant paranoid tendencies.

To quickly recap the epilogue to this arc:

Minene is now free once again, with a greater understanding of how dangerous Yuno is. Oh, and she has a means to contact Keigo.

While Keigo has aided and abetted Minene’s escape. All he did throughout this arc was to fix some sprinklers (which was a bad move, in hindsight) and gained Minene’s contact information. What a player. All that killing and all he wanted was Minene’s digits for dinner and a date.

I knew he was a schemer.

And Yukiteru has found that the advantages of a yandere girlfriend drastically outweigh the disadvantages, decaying bodies and all.

Silly kid, we could have told you that right from the start.

Don’t you just love happy endings?