I love visiting Tumblr and seeing how amazing people keep the Mirai Nikki fandom alive. It makes me smile and wonder why I didn't stumble upon this community sooner. To all you wonderful people out there, thank you for existing. You've restored my faith in the fandom after ten years of aimlessly wandering alone.
But anyway, that's not the point. Seeing how my feed is overflowing with posts has inspired me to write something of my own. I decided to gather a few fun facts and details that I find intriguing but perhaps not widely known. You might already know some of these, but I'm going to share them anyway. Cause I love to geek out… Sorry in advance!
Fact 1: Filament isn't about Yuno
The single "filament" was released on February 8, 2012. In the lead-up to this, Yui-sama - the vocalist and lyricist of Yousei Teikoku -appeared as a guest on the online show "Lantis no! Anison Tuesday!!" to promote the upcoming release. The show is your typical Japanese variety program: lively, full of laughs, and Yui-sama constantly making witty remarks with her signature stone-cold expression. The most interesting part comes toward the end.
At one point, Shiraishi Minoru (Kosaka Ouji CV ❤) asks Yui-sama what thoughts she had while writing the song. Her response:
This song is dedicated to one of the key characters of Mirai Nikki, Akise. The lyrics are about him. I can't go into too much detail, but I tried to capture his unspoken feelings and hidden thoughts in my own way.
But it seems Asread either didn't notice this or chose to focus on the main fan-favorite Yuno, so the video highlights her. The fact that no one noticed this divergence between the creator's intent and the final product says a lot about the similarities between Yuno and Akise. Or perhaps it speaks to the limitless freedom of artistic interpretation.
Fact 2: Favorite Characters
This is fairly well-known, but it made me think deeply when I first learned about it, and I realized it's pretty obvious even without direct confirmation.
Esuno Sakae's favorite character is Uryuu Minene, which he mentioned in the guidebook and at the Lucca Comics 2012 conference (very cautiously and vaguely, unlike in the guidebook). Sorry, Esuno, but you didn't exactly hide it, constantly making things easier for your favorite…
Another one of his favorites is Houjou Reisuke. But I'll stop here so you can wait for the guidebook translation from other wonderful people and read all about it yourself~.
Murata Tomosa's favorite character is Kurusu Keigo, as she mentioned in a promotional review of pachinko machines. For some reason, her choice made me really happy (maybe because Kurusu is one of my favorites too).
As you may know, a certain percentage of the Murmur's Section is an adaptation of omake from the manga. And the one I'm talking about here is no exception.
In the Murmur's Section 12, Kurusu tells us about an incident from his childhood involving a figure of a mecha from the anime Gundam, which indirectly inspired him to become a detective. In the manga, he starts his story with:
When I was a kid, I wanted a plastic model of Zaku Recon Type.
The conversation then proceeds exactly as shown in the anime. You might think, what's the big deal? Well, here's the thing.
Let's revisit the same moment in the anime:
When I was a kid, I wanted a plastic model kit badly. It was a Gyan.
Interesting. Why did Zaku from the original become Gyan? It's understandable when a studio changes some details during adaptation to fit the runtime, but here Kurusu goes out of his way to express his love for Gyan, even at the cost of extra screen time. Why did the poor Zaku get swapped out by Asread?
The issue isn't with Zaku but with Gyan. To uncover the reason, we need to check the role list of Tanaka Masahiko (Kurusu's CV), where we quickly notice…
That's right, Tanaka voiced a character in one of the Gundam movies, M'Quve. If you're familiar with the Gundam universe, you should have already figured it out. But all I know about Gundam is that it has big robots. Beep.
Looking up the character, we finally find what we're searching for.
It turns out that Kurusu's CV, Tanaka Masahiko, once voiced a character in Gundam who, in turn, piloted a Gyan. So how could Kurusu love Zaku when he has his own beloved robot?
Fact 4: The Kansai Dialect in Hinata's Family
One of Hinata's traits is her Kansai dialect. I won't delve into the details since most of you probably know what that is.
What's interesting is that in the park flashback, Hinata's mother and Tsukishima Karyudo also speak in Kansai dialect, emphasizing their closeness and familial ties. However, during the game, in the few moments where Tsukishima Karyudo appears, he speaks in Tokyo dialect. Right up until his last conversation with Hinata. Tsukishima teases his daughter and mocks her entirely in standard Japanese. But then, at the very end, when he asks Hinata not to become as bad an adult as he is, he suddenly switches to a warm, gentle Kansai dialect. And it's just…
I don't know if this nuance was conveyed in the English translations, but I wanted to mention it because it really hit me hard when I first noticed it.
Fact 5: The Suggestive Billboard
At the end of episode 12 of the anime, Yukiteru tries to call his father to pick up a telescope… with a pawn shop ad in the background. Someone on the background art team clearly has a sense of humor.
Fact 6: Tired Artists and Their Deadlines
In the episode 6 of the anime, Yukiteru meets his mother at Sakuraimi Station. The station itself is modeled after the real-life Sagamihara Station (相模原駅) in Kanagawa Prefecture, where most of the anime's action takes place, based on other clues. In the TV version, it seems the poor artists were in such a rush that they forgot to change the name on one of the stands. This was fixed in the Blu-ray release, but I imagine for seichi junrei fans, this mistake was a treat.
Choroi (ちょろい) is the line Yuno says as she brings an ax down on one of Omekata's followers in chapter 7 of the manga. It translates to "a piece of cake," but there's something memorable about this "a piece of cake." To simplify, it became a meme among Japanese fans that was cut from the anime, causing a flood of "choroi" on forums. Eventually, we got our "choroi" in the Blu-ray. Choroi?
As I mentioned earlier, it's generally accepted that the anime takes place in Kanagawa Prefecture. At least because that's what it says on the police cars. However, there's one exception. On the postal delivery that Reisuke receives in episode 7, it says とうきょうと, meaning Tokyo Metropolis.
I've seen posts about this even in English, but yes: many people recognized Miura Azusa from THE IDOLM@STER on the Bridal Fair poster in episode 10.
Fact (?) 10: I still want this art in high resolution
I found this piece of art when I was young, naive, and just beginning to learn Japanese, driven by a desire to read fan-made manga and fanfics about NishiMine on Pixiv (yes, that was my motivation to learn the language), so I have no idea what it was originally attached to. Japanese NishiMine fans were raving about this art, so you've probably seen Minene in that red dress. I don't know much more about it, but I still love it dearly.
I'm sure there were plenty of other amusing facts that I've come across over the years, but as soon as I decided to gather them all, most of them scattered to the corners of my memory. So I probably forgot a few more interesting tidbits… But oh well. At least I've managed to collect these ones in one place now. And as everyone knows…!
