Review of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Do you know about those shows? You know what I mean, the ones where two sides of a conflict are facing each other, guns pointing at each other, yet one of the sides still has the time to deliver a long as fuck speech without getting shot? Well, Phantom is one of those shows. For you see, Phantom is a thriller show, but it isn’t a thriller for reasons that you might expect. Instead of fast paced and juicy action, Phantom actually delivers its thriller qualities through suspense, dramatic dialogue, and assumed events. See, there are fast paced and violent thrillers out there, such as Anotherand the beginning of Attack on Titan, who draw you in with their highly detailed and disturbing death scenes. Phantom has no disturbing scenes, or at least, it doesn’t show any of it. Yes, Phantom can get quite brutal, but it leaves it all up to your imagination. Whenever an important character gets shot, he/she doesn’t go out in a blaze of glory. Instead, the music stops or intensifies, the pace becomes turtle slow, the screen fades to black or white, and then you hear a shot in the background.

Oh, and then you get that cliche moment where a character just stands still for a few seconds with a look of confusion, and then falls down in slow motion, with the sound effects echoing in the background.

That is how Phantom delivers its thriller quality. And what would you expect? It’s based off of a visual novel.

However, Phantom is by no means a bad show as a result, in fact, I think it’s an amazing one! For one thing, its style of delivering drama and thriller really highlights the importance of a major character. Phantom also excels at making the villain extremely detestable. I swear to god, I haven’t been this triggered by an anime villain for a long ass time. And finally, Phantom is a master of setting the mood for its scenes, whether it be through its god tier OST or through its drama delivery style. While it might have been gripping in ways that I didn’t expect, it was still gripping nonetheless, and it still hit you right in the kokoro.

Pros:
- Very emotional and beautifully executed scenes.
- Great characters who demand a lot of respect.
- God tier OST!
- Actually explores human morals fairly deeply, probably deserves a Psychological tag.

Cons:
- Lazy lazy lazy animation.
- Fair amount of plot holes and cliche moments.
- Why is there moaning in the OST?
- Way too many flashbacks, leads to slow pacing.

Story:
Phantom sports a story completely packed full of drama, tragedy, and heartbreak. Really though, Phantom is overwhelmingly sad, with only a select few happy moments that you know won’t last. As a result, Phantom will tug at heart strings, without a doubt. It’s a very emotional story that despite being not very thought out, it still leaves a powerful impact. It touches a lot on human morals, and I mean A LOT. It’s very heavy on the idea of life.

Is everything that you do in order to survive considered righteous? Why does one live in the first place? Why does one fight to survive? Is it ok to kill in order to live?

The story also focuses a lot on betrayal, mistrust, and manipulation. It’s one of those stories were the characters are manipulated by another character, who is in turn manipulated by another character, who is also manipulated by some other character, etc etc etc. You really can’t tell who the good guys or bad guys are, for everyone is just doing what they think is most efficient in order to survive.

However, a promising story like Phantom’s is still prone to plotholes, and Phantom is riddled with those as much as the characters are riddled with bullet holes. As stated before, the characters in this show act very unrealistically at times, such as talking casually with guns at each other’s faces. Characters make stupid decisions that, when you think about it, are incredibly easy to avoid. In the end, Phantom is a powerful and emotionally story that just begs you to point and yell “THAT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN!”

Art:
Now, for the worst part of this series. Phantom’s art and animation were all around disappointments. First, I’ll just get the good parts out of the way.
I like the character designs, they look either badass, beautiful, adorable, ugly, whatever whatever, you know. Also, the guns and some of the background scenes were incredibly well detailed and animated. Some.

And now on to the rest. The action scenes in this series were very mediocre. While there were some very entertaining scenes, such as well choreographed hand to hand combat scenes, this show is mainly about guns, and I gotta admit, these shootout scenes were pretty lackluster.
First of all, during the actual action scenes, there is almost no gore. When a character gets shot, they just randomly fall to the ground. No bullet holes, no impact, no blood, nothing. They just die.
Second, when a non important side character is firing a gun, it’s basically just a still image with light particle effects.
And lastly, as stated before, there are those incredibly cliche moments where when a character gets shot, they just stand there, motionless, for a few seconds, as if time had stopped. Sometimes the character looks completely fine, there are no bullet holes, and their facial expressions have just a little panic. And then, all of sudden, que the grunt noise, and *thud*, they fall to the ground. What?

So yeah, the animation didn’t quite live up to expectations. I cry everytime.

Sound:
Arguably the best aspect of this series is the music. The music is either incredibly beautiful and emotional, or very thrilling and hype generating. In fact, the action scenes were absolutely carried by the soundtrack. Without the soundtrack, the action scenes would be a complete chore to sit through. Also, shoutout to the first OP. That song is just pure awesomeness!
The sound effects were also very good! Things such as gunshots, silenced shots, glass breaking, and even car noises were very accurate and well executed. The seiyuus also did a great job in conveying the characteristics of their characters and the mood of the situation. Yes, even though Ein is an emotionless character. Ein is an actress herself, after all!

Character:
These were some tragic characters. The characters of Phantom go through a lot of great development, but were somewhat lacking in the backstory department. Yes, they had backstories, but none were really special. Both Ein and Zwei were great lead characters, who really just kept up with their dangerous lifestyle in order to survive. Down the road, they develop into more emotional beings with more human morals. Most can agree that they were very respectable characters, so really, the make or break character would be good ol Cal.
I was one of the ones who really liked Cal. Not only is she absolutely moe, but she was also a very tragic character as well. She represents the ones who throw away their morals on purpose in order to see justice done, in comparison to Ein and Zwei who were brainwashed into becoming assassins. As a result, Cal was shown to be the most determined character in the show, as she was willing to throw away everything in order to get what she wanted.

Enjoyment:
Sure, the lackluster action left much to be desired, but overall, the gripping tale and absolutely heartbreaking tragedies in Phantom more than made up for it. Although, that ending needs to like, not happen…

Overall:
Overall, Phantom is a decent show, but it is definitely one that may go against the expectations of those who watch. Its drama outweighs its action, so for those who haven’t watched it yet, keep that in mind!

TL;DR: Musaigen no Phantom World would have been completely different if this show came into play...