Review of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Short Review: (Spoiler-free) Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom has style in spades but substance in small doses. Had it been a shorter and tighter show with only 13-16 episodes with the focus solely on the survival and budding relationship between the leads, it could have been a much better show. Alas, it has to be filled with goofy mobster drama, hammy villains and other excesses. Imagine starting this anime with positive expectations for a solid late-night mature show about brain-washed assassins seeking redemption, but instead getting a goofy and bloated Bourne/Nikita/Leon the Professional/Mission Impossible 2/Godfather 3/Black Lagoon wannabe/ripoff/mashup. And that sums up my experience watching thisanime. Another way to describe the experience of this anime is rounds after rounds of buildup and teasing but never reaching the intended climax. Yeah, it's that frustrating.

Baseline quality 6.3/10. Further weighed down to 4/10 due to that typical Urobuchi ending (At this point, I was not even surprised by this crap he pulled in almost all his works, just frustrated).

Recommended to: those who barely watched any noir/gunslinger/hitman/Bourne genre but want to give this genre a try for the first time (I wonder if such a person exists, but this show has the rating of 7.97/10 which is higher than some of my all-time favorites, so there you go).

Pros: (spoiler-free)

+ Slick character designs for Ein and Zwei.
+ All the opening and ending songs are quite good.
+ Adequate animation and "cool" visual flair from the early 2000s.
+ Some decent action sequences.
+ Certain character arcs have decent quality. Claudia's arc of trying to climb the mobster ladder at all cost is at least thematically complete. Cal's ending is also mostly well-done and emotional.

Cons: (moderate spoilers)

- With only 26 episodes, it still feels way too bloated with pacing issues. The core plot is almost exactly the same as the famous 50-minute adult OVA "A Kite", except Phantom took 10 hours to tell the same story.

- Right when the main duo's story and relationship starts to get intriguing, the show shifted its focus to goofy mobster drama. The main duo's interaction and further bonding, as rare as they occur, were either very stiff or left offscreen. For a storyline riveted by their unbroken dedication/love for each other, that is very weird.

- Characters often hesitating or making illogical decisions during pivotal moments. (e.g. the MC making the most over-the-top gesture before shooting the main villain; the MCs had no escape plans and papers prepared during their hidden life in Japan, etc.)

- Wasted potential for the bold setup (e.g. Inferno's goal is to use its ultimate weapon "phantoms" to unify the underworld and conquer the whole world. Quite the exaggerated Illuminati, right? But the more its leadership/infrastructures/rituals/actual operating process are revealed, the goofier and sillier it become).

- Identity crisis with the actual pitch and core theme of the show. Does it want to be a gangster drama from top operatives' perspective? Does it want to be a spy thriller with mobster conspiracy as its backdrop? Does it want to be a tragedy with sitcom elements? Does it want to be a late-night ecchi noir with certain anime sentiments? Whichever tone or theme the show tackles never quite hit the mark for me. For example, Cal's storyline after she grew up is supposed to be the most tragic arc, but she always wears the most exposing outfit showing 80% of her oversized breasts (okay, so the ecchii elements are there, but they are mostly like click-baits). And BGMs during her screen time are usually as campy as possible. She went through a bunch of outrageous and unnecessary behaviors (e.g. threatening a high-school girl she never knew) before finally confronting Reiji.

- Hammy villains and dialogues. The main villain probably has an "over-the-top villain playbook" that he constantly refers to. He started as a typical shady schemer but ended up one of the most cartoonishly depraved villain I've seen.

- The typical middle-finger-in-your-face ending from a notorious writer.

- Edgy in all the wrong ways (e.g. adding intense female moans to the BGM in unrelated sequences; having Cal growing from a pre-puberty girl to Dennis Richards in Starship Troopers in 2 years, and then giving her the most titillating costume)

The show has an attractive premise and decent start. As a fan of John Woo movies, the Bourne franchise, Black Lagoon and Gunslinger Girl, I expected slick and weighty gunfights, survival thriller and drama (as in Bourne), mature character development and hard-hitting emotional moments from this anime. The show has some of those elements but they are stretched very thin across its bloated 26 episodes. In between those quality moments are long interruptions heavily borrowing from famous works like the Godfather, Leon the Professional, etc.. Yet those borrowed elements and sequences did not fit well together or help boosting the overall quality of the anime. For example, the "Leon the Professional" arc only delayed the most important reunion in the storyline for another 6 episodes, and we were forced to watch some uncomfortable romantic sitcom between a hitman in his 20s and a pre-teen girl. One scene even had the girl naked in the shower opening her heart to the adult main character and the latter walking into the shower. Then the screen faded into white light before focusing on the loving face of the main character looking straight at the girl. What did the editing suggest for that sequence? They consummated their love? Yikes. (I didn't realize the implication until thinking back on Cal's intense resentment for Reiji. I mean if the dude was just her surrogate brother/guardian for a few days, should a street kid like Cal really be so bitter about it? But if actual act of sex was involved, well...)

On the other hand, it's somewhat understandable if Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom happens to be someone's first exposure to this genre, and this show somehow became their gold standard. I mean, that can happen to anyone (for the record, when I was 5 I watched the 1984 version of Supergirl and thought it's the best thing in the world), so no hard feelings if you ever thought this anime was the best thing in the world. Also, the edgy aesthetics may have helped leaving a strong impression. I admit the show did deliver some quality sequences. Still, there are far better movies/anime/shows in this genre. And the show left some really bad aftertaste in my mouth.