Group 6: Mirai Nikki

Group members:

Aining Zhang: analysis of Yuno

Andrew Dalcher: transcription, data, backstories

Alex Gao: analysis of Minene

Zack Zheng: transcription, data

Our team analysed the gender language of two characters from the anime Mirai Nikki by Sakae Esuno. The basic premise of this anime is that twelve people who frequently kept diaries were chosen by the god of space and time, Deus Ex Machina, to be holders of a future diary. These diaries told the future of the user’s day in a similar fashion to their old diaries. This, however, is a battle royale game between the users. The winner is to become the new god of the world. The story follows the first user, Yukiteru Amano, and the second user, Yuno Gasai.

Yuno Gasai

Yuno Gasai, often referred to as Second, is the second user of a future diary. Yuno is a maniacal, psychopathic stalker of Yukiteru. Her diary details everything Yukiteru does within 10 minutes. Yuno loves Yukiteru and is willing to do anything, even killing everyone, for him. Yuno’s personality switches from sweet and feminine with Yukiteru to maniacal and cold blooded toward her enemies.

Yuno is the adopted daughter of the Gasai family. Over the years, her adoptive mother’s mental state increasingly deteriorated. Her mother would punish Yuno by sticking her in a cage for making mistakes such as coming home late. Yuno finally snapped, drugged her parents, and stuck them in the same cage. She claims she just wanted them to feel what she felt, but before she realised it they had died.

Yuno meets Yukiteru in her class. Both students had trouble filling out a class assignment on what they most want in the future. Yukiteru’s parents recently divorced, and so he finally decided to write that he wants his family to see the stars like they planned. Yuno saw this, had a conversation with Yukiteru, and decided that her goal would to be to marry him. This was after she has accidentally killed her parents. This began her obsession with Yukiteru.

Minene Uryuu

Minene is the ninth user and commonly called Ninth. She is an international terrorist wanted by the police. She grew up in the middle east, stranded there without speaking the local language after her parents died in a car accident. She later became a terrorist and came to Japan.

Minene debuts by bombing Yukiteru’s school to kill him. She fails, but does not get killed herself. This starts the strange relationship she has with Yukiteru, wherein she sometimes tries to kill him and sometimes helps him.

Data

We analysed episode 25 and 26 of Mirai Nikki and transcribed the dialogue of Yuno and Minene. We first took every expression in the lines and classified them as being either masculine or feminine. From there, we produced four categories of expressions: imperatives, referring expressions, gendered words, and end of sentence particles. Imperatives are command forms of verbs or expressions. Referring expressions are words or phrases that are used to refer to someone. This includes pronouns, such as omae, but also words like baka. The gendered words category is for words that are not parts of speech but still index a gender. Finally, end of sentence particles are the particles found at the end of sentences usually used to add additional information or emotion.

 

Yuno

２週目世界のユッキとの関係は終わったこと… これは、今の私の気持ちじゃないわ (Ep. 25, 2:25)

でもよかったわね。お前はもう苦しまなくていい。(Ep. 26, ~2:41)

嘘だ、苦しかったでしょう、あなたにつらかったでしょう (Ep. 26, ~2:41)

どうして気付かなかったのかしら。あたしもだよ。この日記は、あたしの気持ち… (Ep. 26, 10:10)

うそ、幸せな夢の世界より、私を選んだこと (Ep. 26, 14:21)

Minene

バカなこと言ってんじゃねぇ！そんなこと、できるわけじゃねぇだろう！(Ep. 25, 3:49)

このアホが。いいか、ゆきてる、一番（まるこ?）さめるのは、セカンドを殺すのだ！(Ep. 25, 3:49)

おい、バカに付き合うのはここまでだ (Ep. 25, 3:49)

ちっ、もう一度言う、ゆきてる。全部救うのは無理だ。目的を絞れ。(Ep. 25, 3:49)

バカヤローが、勝手にしろ！(Ep. 25, 3:49)

いいな？医者にしろ！(Ep. 25, 3:49)

うん、うん、頑張るね、３週目のあたし! (Ep. 26, 17:13)

頑張って、もう一度あたしを捕まえ来てね! (Ep. 26, 17:13)

Analysis

Comparing Chart 1 to Chart 2, it is clear that Yuno by and large uses female language whereas Minene uses male language. The fact that Yuno uses both male, neutral, and female language is due to her manipulative nature. Conversely, Minene’s gendered language is a reflection of her perception of her gender and her view of gendered language.

 

Looking at the referring expressions in Chart 1, Yuno interestingly uses male and female referring expressions, in this case pronouns. She uses the polite and sometimes neutral anata seven times and the casual atashi three times. She also uses omae once and koitsu twice. The switch between anata and omae happens in one conversation with her past self:

ええ　私はあなたの未来がどうなってるか知ってるの。聞いて、我妻由乃。… あなたにますます当たるようになる、苦しくてたまらないママの折檻。… なのに、でもよかったわね。お前はもう苦しまなくていい。

The choice of her words, using anata and wane, index an older woman, almost like a mother. Indeed, this makes her superficially seem compassionate and empathetic towards the situation. This is a purposeful ploy. Juxtaposing this seeming compassion with the dark topic of child abuse creates an eerie, creepy tone. Instead of being motherly, the words actually create a patronising, clinical attitude. The whole tone shifts by switching to omae, which is the shift between her sweet persona to her psychopathic persona. The use of the masculine pronoun omae is to bring draw the conversant closer like grabbing someone’s collar. The effect is the same: at this point, Yuno is being aggressive. Many of Yuno’s uses of pronouns in general follow this pattern of tone setting.

Yuno also uses feminine words to sound feminine, but often around Yukiteru. When speaking to Yukiteru, ends verbs with koto to add indirectness and often uses wa, ne, and no along with their combinations. This is in an effort to appear cute and attractive to Yukiteru so he might accept her feelings. This appears to work, since Yukiteru mentions that Yuno seems cute when they went on a date, a total opposite to the day before where she seemed scary.

Opposite to Yuno, Minene often uses male language, using female language only after she gets married at the end of the story. Minene had a rough life and grew up on her own. As such, she was never taught to be ladylike. This has two effects on Minene’s language: one, she is more direct and coarse with people and two, she doesn’t feel the need to be indirect and effeminate.

The coarseness is observed in Minene’s dialogue with Yukiteru. Yukiteru is by all accounts idealistic, naive, and cowardly. To Minene, a strong character, Yukiteru is weak and annoying. This influences her choice of referring expressions. She calls Yukiteru bakayarou and aho instead of the perhaps less confrontational kimi or omae. Her choice of words is to insult Yukiteru’s character. As such, the usage of the typically masculine words bakayarou and aho index the rough and confrontational manner Yukiteru cannot handle.

On top of coarse speech, Minene will also use the imperative and coalesces /ai/ to /ee/. The point of this is to show that she is not feminine. As stated, Minene was not taught to be a lady, so she clearly shows in her speech that she has no interest in acting like one. There is no point in saying janee over janai or na over ne other than deliberate opposition towards what is expected of her. By using male language, Minene doesn’t show that she identifies as a male, but that she rejects being portrayed as feminine.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have shown that these two strongly gendered characters choose gendered language purposefully. Yuno switches between masculine and feminine language to set the tone of her confrontations and feminine language to woo Yukiteru. Minene sticks to masculine expressions to be purposefully rough, show her wild side, and reject an image of femininity.. She then changes when she gets married, showing how she becomes tame. Thus, these characters show that gendered language is an important dramatic element in how we understand media.