Review of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Phantom of Inferno, or the title that the anime chooses to adoptーPhantom: Requiem for the Phantom is based off of an eroge visual novel by Nitro+. All pretenses dropped here, I am biased toward the anime production of Phantom of Inferno, because I played the DVD-ROM American censored version of the visual novel when I was a teenager and then later watched the anime. So, my opinions about my like of this series is primarily based on that. • Gen Urobuchi pretty much makes it so that you have to have Ein as your best girl in the original visual novel. You spend hours andhours and hours with her before you meet any of the other characters, and you are forced to either have somewhat of a romantic route with Ein or GAME OVER with Claudia. And by GAME OVER, I mean you sleep with Claudia and then it’s literally GAME OVER.

• Many people that I know who only watched the anime like Cal/Drei more. Whereas, those who have played the visual novel first always have Ein as their best girl. I was horrified that Bee Train was producing the Phantom of Inferno anime when it first came out. I was baffled that a company that I despise because all of their awful series like .hack//Roots, Noir, Madlax, the list goes on… many of them all look like the same show, with similar effects and directing!

• Tell me how many times you can count: hands reaching for each other, opening eyes, silhouettes, and a kaleidoscope of cascading colors and silhouettes bleeding into each other in a Bee Train opening and you’ll know what I am getting at. Sadly, I feel this way about them, although I really liked .hack//SIGN a lot as a child and obsessively watched it on Adult Swim… some tricks just get old. It seems that Bee Train does better when they’re doing an adaptation, rather than an original story though.

• I thought that the adaptation was done well. It was very faithful to the source material. It seems that the voice actors, OST, and script writing were even the same. That being said, on it’s own merit as a story, Urobuchi should be known as the Uro-borrower rather than Uro-butcher, because in every single thing that I’ve watched of his, he borrows immensely from other things, to the point to where it’s noticeable.

• I even consider Gen Urobuchi to be more of a main stream broadcasting agent, rather than an otaku panderer. Any person who’s been a fan of anime all of their life, like me, will notice the similarities with me. For example, I played Saya no Uta a few years back and was mortified that Urobuchi almost scene-for-scene copy and pasted the same story from Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix Volume 5, except it’s flesh monsters rather than aliens.

• Madoka Magica is pretty much Bokurano mixed with whatever other tropes were popular at the time, and Psycho Pass is obviously thriving from Ghost in the Shell’s fame. He’s a brilliant marketer. That being said, Phantom of Inferno takes a lot from other things as well.

• Much of it is like if Neon Genesis Evangelion met a Hollywood gangster flick. Ein, I’m saying this even though she pretty much laid eggs in my heart when I was young and impressionable, is pretty much an exported Rei Ayanami. Let’s not even joke here, her role in the story is nearly identical and her hairstyle isn’t even that different.

• Many complain about the exposition in the story, but you have to keep in mind that this an adaptation of a visual novel. Visual novels often time have nothing, but chuuni explanations of powers and the story, the bread and butter being the illustrious bishoujo and romantic aspects. I’m not defending this style of writing by any means, but that IS what the anime adaptation was trying to get across.

• The harem aspect of the show, seeing as pretty much any female in this series wants to bang Zwei, isn’t that unprecedented … seeing as he’s the best assassin in the country, being brainwashed and trained in seclusion, and his role in the routes of the viable female options are: saving, kills alongside, adopts as a child (gross), and bolsters the career of certain female leaders of Phantom. So, it seems more understandable than a typical high school protag who’s average in everything and has nothing particularly great about him.

• The anime does a very good at portraying the sense of loss and emptiness Zwei feels upon Ein’s absence, and that seems like it would be difficult to do, seeing as hours of written material convey this loss in the game. I think the anime stands well on its own, without solely being promotional material for the visual novel.

• The ending is rushed admittedly, but it’s an open-end to new viewers, leaving enough to have a interpretation, while fans of the game will get it and applaud the symbolism. Overall, Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom is worth a mention. Though, I would suggest playing the visual novel first to anyone who will listen.

• There was a re-release of the game with improved visuals, which may help, seeing as the gameplay and the visual would be tedious for any modern gamer. I give Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom a 7/10. The older OVA for Phantom is not even worth mentioning, unless you are a crazy completionist like me.