Review of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

Phantom (170108) I really wanted to love Tsubasa Chronicle. It had a nifty story idea and I do like CLAMP’s work because it tends to throw a curve ball right at you when you least anticipate it, so I expected great things. However…it’s in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w… I was reading up on Tsubasa Chronicle and found that it was animated by Bee Train. Fast forward a couple of months and I randomly picked up Phantom. As I watched the Op, I noticed that this show was animated by Bee Train. Hmm. Well, it turns out that either Bee Train is exceptionally inexpensive or unusually inept because Phantom is in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w… Coincidence? Idon’t know.

Have you ever watched filler episodes in a long-running show and noticed how all the main characters’ IQs drop several points as they try to figure out the solution to a problem that should by all rights not be a problem for them anymore? That’s how all of the characters in Phantom act, all of the time. You’re sitting there constantly wondering, 'why did she do that?' Why did he do that? Why did they do that? Character motivations make little to no sense. At first, I thought perhaps it was because there was some twist that they were going to pull that would explain why nothing was as it seemed but having just finished the show, I have to sadly inform you that is not the case.

In this show, something happens, time skips, repeat. When I say “something,” it’s invariably something that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. They assassinate people in the middle of large crowds, leaving evidence everywhere, they case locations they don’t do anything in, and other such stupid things. At one point, there’s a manhunt in which some characters can’t find people who are in exactly the same place they’ve been living for weeks, if not months. This location is not just known to everyone, it’s even been visited by all the major characters. ~_~; One of the antagonists wants to hunt down and kill someone because of a misunderstanding. The other character tries to explain at one point but then they suddenly stop because someone at Nitro+ or Bee Train realized that if it was explained to the angry character, there was no way they could possibly continue.

At the start, the two main characters are empty husks: mere assassins who do as they are told. They're supposed to be super-amazing and they're shown as being really effective for one entire mission. Then it's flashback time and you're forced to watch Assassin #2's humble beginnings unfold in an in…cred…ibly s…l…o…w fashion. After that, they're really clumsy and sloppy for the most part, as noted above. It's really surprising how inept these two ultimate killing machines are. They murder loads of people in the course of the show, but there are way, way too many times when some random person walks up behind them and they’re completely surprised. Maybe they’ve gone deaf from firing guns all the time.

The crux of the story is the relationship between the amnesiac girl assassin who has no emotions and the amnesiac boy assassin. Um, if she's always acting and has no emotions of her own, how can they possibly form a relationship? There are no character-building moments between them, so viewers have no emotional investment in them as they have zero emotion between them. Yet somehow this relationship is supposed to be a driving force in the show.

Another large problem with the story is that for about 2/3 of the show, the story is NOT about the main characters. It's about a bunch of other people you glimpse in the background. It would be like if Duck Tales episodes were mostly spent on Launchpad flying from place to place as opposed to Scrooge and company having adventures. After each episode, I wrote summaries of what had just happened. For the most part, it was "nothing."

A weak story doesn’t mean the show has to be bad but the show is almost entirely serious so you don’t even have humor to distract you from these brooding characters doing completely illogical things. There were let's see, about two light-hearted moments in the whole mess.

Moving on to animation, I have to report there really isn’t very much. After a couple of minor fight scenes in the beginning, it becomes sliding pictures for the most part. I was astonished when they animated crowd scenes but I guess they had money saved up from not animating the rest of the show. It’s not as bad as say, Unwatchable Machine-Doll but they certainly seemed to strive for that. The only really animated bits are the CGI cars, which impress no one. If I was after rendered cars, I’d go play a racing game, which now that I think about it, would likely have a stronger plot and better characters. Halfway through the show, they drop the art quality a bit and animate a little more but the show looks really low budget and with how in…cred…ibly s…l…o…wly the horrible story is paced, I think they should've edited the show down to something actually tolerable.

When you read a book, you have a plot and characters. When you watch an animated show, you have plot, characters, music, camera angles, pacing, acting, art, and animation. Here’s the scorecard (out of 5) for Phantom.

Plot - 1 (There are some okay moments but they're only moments.)
Characters - 2 (They could be likable if they were in a different show.)
Music - 3 (Unobtrusive but it’s hard to build emotional impact to dramatic events that make no sense.)
Camera angles - 2 (Mostly functional but they do like being upside-down and artsy. However, since nothing happens in the show, this makes it feel like style over substance.)
Pacing - 0 (It also has inappropriate flashbacks, yay!)
Acting - 3 (I can’t fault the actors trying to work with the shoddy material.)
Art - 2 (It's okay at first but then drops noticeably later, which is when the animation picks up a little.)
Animation - 2 (It's pretty stiff.)

Sorry to hand out another "unwatchable" rating but I'm trying to save you 650 minutes. There are no fun characters, interesting moments, clever ideas, beautiful art, stellar animation, or creative stories. If you still don't believe me, feel free to watch it but at least skip the epilogue. Please.