Review of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ showed great promise and for the most part delivered on that. The best yet of the spring roster but it was also at many times the weakest. Coming from Studio BEE TRAIN and director Koichi Mashimo on the coat tails of the mess that was Blade of the Immortal but the lesser known diamond in the rough episode "Field Test" on the joint US/Japan production of Batman Gotham Knight Phantom delivers action with some emotion sporadically at best, but still lives up to expectations in the end. Director Mashimo who created the famous Girls With Gun trilogy of Noir,MADLAX, and El Cazador de la Bruja has gone back to his niche genre of amnesiacs and guns and sexy girls but throwing a boy into the mix. Also basing this off a game he has plenty of source material to work with and his writer Yosuke Kuroda. Having not read/play the visual novel/game there's not much I can say about how well or not well this has been adapted. Whether it's very loyal or partly loyal or too spiritual I don't know. The writing though is mixed from good to mediocre to subpar. A few characters get little development while others get all; there's not much balance. Still there a few stand out lines and scenes and moments that capture me and my attention. The series though suffers from over writing. With a few pointless slice of life episodes, flashback episodes the series could have stood to be shorter. The addition of these minor school characters and the small romantic subplot between Zwei and Mio were unneeded. It's almost like many times they wanted to make a different series. Still I'll probably be one of the few that finds the introduction of Cal needed. Cal's entrance into the series provides a bit needed comic relief in the middle of the series and gives a needed break to the audience. Still the series doesn't pick up from there as the writing doesn't really improve until the last couple episode.

The art and character designs were probably the best I've seen from BEE TRAIN yet. Working with his veteran designers Mashimo and co. have made an amazing assortment of characters that look and feel natural. Makiko Kojima's color pallet gives a dark and gritty film noir look. The animation also the best I've ever seen. You can tell they had a serious budget to work with compared to some of their earlier works. Fewer stills but still not short of his trade mark camera pans nor cut aways. Fluid and amazing animation and easy on the eyes CGI are the frosting on top and probably make this THE best animation of the year.

Equally impressive the music. Mashimo never being the shy one when it comes to using music brought in Hikaru Nanase this year who would compose her finest soundtrack yet. Working with Mashimo I'm sure brought the best in her composing since Chrono Crusade and has delivered an assortment of tracks that dare I say it, even probably out scored longtime Mashimo collaborator Yuki Kajiura.

I don't have a heavy amount more to say on Phantom. The series has many good points and sadly many bad points that kept me from giving it a 8-10. Pointless recaps show a sign of laziness and over production if you ask me. It's a worthy check out for fans of this style but for some it won't be.