🎀Vally🎀

Yuno’s Diary:

As we know, Yuno’s diary focuses solely on Yukki, predicting his actions every 10 minutes. What’s interesting about this is that Yuno is one of the only diary owners to have her entries completely focus on someone else’s actions, besides her own. The only time we get to see this with another diary owner is perhaps the 3rd, as his diary documents his victims’ actions (similarly to how Yuno stalks Yukki), as well as the 7th’s exchange diary. The similarities among the three could be attributed to them having the same diary archetype. 

This is something that is only brought up very briefly in the show (in the last MurMur skit). But there are actually four different diary archetypes. From left to right, they’re called: the Radar, the Searcher, the Organizer and the Supplier. (Note: the Watcher is another archetype, but only Bacchus has it).

The archetype models MurMur brings up are actually the same phones that Yukki, Yuno, Kurusu and Karyuudo have, just in different colors. So from what MurMur says, it would be safe to assume that Yuno’s archetype falls under the Searcher. I don’t feel like it’s necessary to explain what each archetype does, as the names are pretty self-explanatory, though I’m kind of confused with Kurusu’s diary being deemed an Organizer. He investigates stuff from his surroundings (similarly to the Radar), but he doesn’t really organize anything. I think maybe the Organizer stands for a diary that documents stuff for an organization (like 6th), so maybe that’s why Kurusu gets lumped in there, being the head of the police and all. This is how I think the archetypes are distributed among the diary owners:

Radar: Yukki, Reisuke, Minene and Yomotsu.

Searcher: Yuno, Takao and Ai/Marco.

Organizer: Tsubaki and Kurusu.

Supplier: Kamado and Karyuudo.

Watcher: Bacchus.

With that out of the way, let’s get back to Yuno. Despite her diary only focusing on Yukki, it does include a few of her thoughts. We get the occasional “I love you’s” and “Yukki is so cool” in many of her entries, essentially Yuno fangirling over Yukki just existing lol. It is a very cute detail, and realistically how she would describe Yukki if she was writing these entries in real time. However, these little comments are actually a big deal, especially by the end of the show, since they show Yuno’s true feelings. We know for a fact that the diary can’t lie, rather it’s prone to the influence of the owner’s perspective. That’s why as much as Yuno tries to pretend she doesn’t care about 2nd-world Yukki near the ending, her diary entries reflect the opposite.

This especially makes her last diary entry so heartfelt. It happens very quickly, so it’s an easy detail to miss, but her last entry rewrites itself to say: “I finally found a place for me,” in reference to Yukki showing her that her life in the third world isn’t hopeless, and that she can find peace by ending the cycle of violence. And since we’re talking about her DEAD END here, we should also mention her HAPPY END entry.

This type of entry is rather unique, and isn’t seen among any other diary owners. That’s why it begs the question, just what is a HAPPY END? This is something I’ve always wondered, yet never found a real answer for (guess I finally found one of the infamous plot holes everyone complains about). My personal explanation, or rather headcanon for this, is that since DEAD ENDs exist to announce the death of an individual, and hence the end of the Future Diary, the HAPPY END would announce the completion of a goal. If you think about it, all the owners had a goal they were striving towards, besides becoming god. I like to imagine that maybe if the other diary owners had a HAPPY END, it would be about them reaching that goal (for example Minene marrying Nishijima and moving on from her past, Kurusu’s son surviving, Tsubaki making it out of her cell, etc.) It’s just that the diary owners never live past completing that goal. So maybe that’s why we never get to see other HAPPY ENDs… On the upside, they all seem to have better lives in the third world, so I guess they did achieve their happy ending in one way or another.

And speaking of the third world, I also want to mention other iterations of Yuno’s diary. We of course know what first-world Yuno’s diary is like, we see it many times, but we also get a few glimpses of second and third-world Yuno’s diaries:

We know from episode 22, that the one difference between first and second-world Yuno is how they refer to Yukki, and this naturally reflects on each of their diaries. Yuno originally called Yukiteru “Amano-kun,” which is the same nickname his friends call him by. It’s interesting that Yuno decided to change that to “Yukki” once she got to the second world. On one hand, it’s a way to distance herself from the first iteration of Yukiteru, but it’s also a much more intimate nickname, as she’s calling him by his first name (calling someone by their first name in Japanese is very straight-forward and not very polite if you aren’t already familiar with the person, and since second-world Yukki hadn’t really met her yet, it must’ve been quite the shock to him lol). In the third world, Yuno is still seen keeping a diary, but this one focuses on her family rather than Yukki. Of course, this is a reflection of things finally getting better in her family life, which is a very wholesome turn of events.

Lastly for this section, let’s talk about one more thing that’s unique about Yuno’s diary: her profile picture. It seems like the diary application has a slot for a profile picture, as seen from some of the stills in the anime (the picture on the left is from Yukki’s diary). However, Yuno is the only one who actually uses it:

I’ve mentioned this in an old post of mine, but Yuno has her iconic pink rabbit costume as her profile pic. I‘ve always wondered if this is a character she created or something (her fursona lol), but I think it’s pretty cute that she has an animal associated with her image. The one thing we don’t see from her phone that I’ve always been curious about is her wallpaper, though. We actually know what Yukiteru’s looks like, (a picture of the stars of course):

But what would Yuno’s be? Something cutesy maybe? Another picture of her rabbit persona? A picture of her family even? I could speculate forever, but it’s probably a picture of Yukki sleeping or something silly like that.

Diaries in the Visual Novel:

When I was originally sent the request for this post, the first thing that came to my mind were the diary entries from the visual novel, even though I knew I was probably being asked about the anime. But the game came to mind first because it’s the closest we actually get to seeing any of the diaries in this franchise (and that’s saying something, considering this series is literally named after the diaries). Not only do we get to see the diaries up close in the game, but we can read many of the entries as well.

For that reason, I thought it’d be nice to add a new document to the game translation folder, which compiles all of the diary entries found throughout the game. Here’s the link. (It's in the "Extra Content" folder of the game translation file).

And since I’ve already mentioned it, let’s go through some of my favorite entries from the game. Naturally, Yukki has the most variety and quantity when it comes to his diary entries, being the protagonist and all, but some of his observations add a lot more dimension to the characters. For starters, his comments on Yuno:

10:38 [Classroom 2 - C] Yuno brings the chocolates she made in cooking class. They’re heart shaped. The class starts teasing me about it. 12:37 [Inside the Venue] Yuno lays her hand on top of mine. 17:11 [Park] Yuno is approaching me to kiss her.

Even though it’s been a while since I translated the game, I still remember screaming when first I read these lol. Alas, we never see these moments actually happen in the game, but the fact that they were mentioned at all makes them canon in my head. (Also can we talk about how stinking adorable Yuno is? Like ignore all the stalking and killing for a sec, this woman makes her boyfriend little heart-shaped chocolates at school. She’s so silly ughhhh). Also:

16:12 [Game Arcade] There’s a whack-a-mole game. Yuno beats every mole that comes out and gets a high score.

That is in fact a very Yuno thing to do. Go get ‘em girly.

Next up are the entries about Yukki’s friends, which I absolutely adore:

12:50 [Classroom 2-C] Hinata and Kousaka are doing a milk drinking competition. It was very close between the two, but Hinata won. 14:15 [Art Room] Kousaka knocks over a bucket of paint. The floor is now covered in paint. 14:34 [Classroom 2-C] A wasp entered from the window. Hinata kills it instantly with a broom. 9:43 [Classroom 2-C] It’s recess time. Hinata trips while running through the hallway. Mao-chan puts a band-aid on Hinata’s knee.  14:12 [Classroom 2-C] Mao-chan looks happy because she took a picture of Hinata’s sleeping face. It seems like Hinata hasn’t noticed. 17:03 [Inside the Store] Kousaka is about to cry because he dropped a single fry.

Again, these guys are so silly. Kousaka crying over french fries is very real to me. And speaking of Hinata and Mao, we also have this little gem:

16:14 [Front of the Store] Hinata and Mao held hands while walking home.

These two are not beating the roommate allegations.

It’s also canon that Akise is the typical shoujo manga protagonist:

13:54 [Art Room] Akise-kun catches a stone statue that fell from a shelf. I hear a girl saying: “he’s so cool.” 9:32 [Classroom 2 - C] A lot of love letters come out of Akise - kun’s desk.

And that Takao is kind of a mediocre teacher:

10:36 [Classroom 2-C] Mr. Hiyama makes a mistake while writing on the chalkboard. He lies saying that he “wanted to see who would notice first.” 14:02 [Classroom 2 - C] Mr. Hiyama breaks a piece of chalk while writing on the board. This is the fifth one.

Side note, there’s a fun little detail in the Re:Write version of the game when it comes to Takao. Since Re:Write is dubbed, when you open the game, you’re greeted by one of the diary owners reading the title of the game out loud. All the diary owners pronounce Re:Write with a Japanese accent… except for Takao. Since he’s an English teacher, he pronounces “Re:Write” in an American accent. Not only that, but some of his diary entries in the game include little English phrases like “excellent” whenever they predict his attacks to be successful. I just think it’s very cute that, despite being a serial killer and all, being good at English isn’t just a part of his innocent teacher persona, it’s something he seems to genuinely enjoy. 

Lastly, I want to end this with a personal headcanon of mine: Yukki is a cat person, specifically a calico cat kinda guy. Source:

9:52 [My House’s Garden] I groom a large calico cat with my hand.

Add this to that one scene in episode 23, where MurMur told Yuno to dress up as a calico cat to attract Yukki. This cannot be a coincidence, Yukki is cat boy confirmed.

The Phones:

I also wanted to talk about the phones themselves, since there’s some fun facts about them I don’t normally see people mention. First up, we have the ringtones. Interestingly enough, in the official OST, there are six phone ringtones listed. These are actual ringtones used in the show, and they each belong to a specific character:

Ringtone #2: Minene (this is the one that appears the most throughout the show).

Ringtone #4: Akise

Ringtone #5: Kousaka

Ringtone #6: Mao

The only ones I wasn’t able to find are ringtones #1 and #3. Considering I’ve only skimmed through some scenes, it’s possible I missed when they appeared, but I’m very curious about who they actually belong to (and they most likely belong to a character given that all the others do as well). I would especially like to know who #1 belongs to, because I've had that as my ringtone for ages and it’s been driving me crazy not knowing which character has it lol. If anyone knows, please let me know. I will say the characters that for sure don’t have those as their ringtones are:

Yukiteru: he always has his phone on vibrate (boring)

Rea: she has a cute ringtone, but it’s not in the OST

Ai: at least in her flashback, her phone has generic beeping

Kurusu: generic beeping

Hinata: she has a cute ringtone, but it’s not in the OST

There’s also other characters like Reisuke, Tsubaki and Yomotsu who don’t have phones, so those are out of the question as well. My best guess is that #1 belongs to Yuno and #3 to Nishijima or Bacchus, based on vibes alone. But then again, I’m not sure.

Now to end the post, let’s talk about the phone models. While I can’t find any sources that talk about what specific models the diaries were based on, it’s always fun to speculate. So here’s what I found for each owner (excluding Tsubaki and the 8th, since they don’t have phones):

Yukki: I have no sources for this, but I’m 99.99% sure that his phone was based on the Vodafone V301Sh, which besides some differences on the front, it’s nearly identical to his. It even has a small dot on the lower part of the screen, where the Vodafone logo would be. Some other close matches are the Docomo F-10A and the Sharp SH903i.

Yuno: the closest match I’ve found is the Docomo Sharp Aquos Keitai SH‑06G. While it is pretty darn close, it most certainly wasn’t based on this model as it came out much later than the anime (it’s actually an android phone). However, there are other similar models that date back to the early 2000s, such as: the Sharp SH902iS and the Sharp SH-06A, while the front of it isn’t exactly the same, the back is very similar to Yuno’s, with the big round camera; there’s also the Fujitsu F-01A, which is similar in shape and color. I haven’t been able to find any phone that has the white stripe on the front like hers, so I think it is likely a stylistic choice rather than something based on a real model.

Takao: I had a hard time finding something that matched the frontal clock on the screen, but I think the LG Dlite GD570 is a pretty close match.

Kurusu: just like Yuno, his phone has a lot of similarities with some Docomo models, especially the Sharp Aquos Shot SH010, for the camera position, rotating screen and hour indicator. The Sharp SH902iS could be another inspiration.

Reisuke: he doesn’t have a phone, but his picture book is very much based on a real-life model, which are the Showa Note Japonica books. I actually talked about this before (in my first post ever), which also included a printable version of his diary.

Ai and Marco: another one I’m 99.99% sure of, it’s the Docomo F-07B, aside from the shape of the buttons, it is nearly identical.

Minene: again, very sure of this one, it’s the Samsung e250. It is nearly identical to hers, the only difference being the camera position, though a lot of Samsung’s slider phones look similar to hers.

Karyuudo: this one has such a strange design, I struggled to find anything that looked like it, specifically because of the slanted hinge. The closest I found was the Toshiba TS003, but I’m not really convinced by it.

Bacchus: I’m honestly torn on this one, because on one hand, I would love to say his phone is inspired by Apple and pretend that Bacchus is some evil version of Steve Jobs, but his phone is actually very clearly inspired by the Docomo F-12C. Compared to the other phones on here, this is the one I have the most certainty of, because it is a straight up copy of the design, down to the logo.

Yomotsu: there are a lot of different models that could’ve inspired this one, but because of the unique button position, I’m gonna go with the Sharp PA-VR10E.

For funsies, here’s a visual comparison of each: