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GosoxJ

  • United States
  • Joined Sep 13, 2007
  • 31 / M

Just like its name, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ is a convoluted mess. It’s only by a great feat of skill, or luck, that it avoids being a complete disaster.

The story is quite simply, all over the place. Jumping from mediocre action scenes to the tedium of daily life under the main characters (being enslaved to a criminal syndicate doesn’t really lead to much excitement outside the workplace) to the inner workings and politics behind Inferno. Individually these elements would have a hard time cracking mediocre. Unsurprisingly, when thrown together they’re not any better. To make matters worse, the constant shifting gives birth to pacing about as smooth and consistent as a mountain.

Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~’s sole strength and base of consistency lies in its animation.  The animation manages to remain a fair bit above average for the vast majority of the series, although it does falter in places. Generally, the characters and backgrounds look nice, even if they are a bit uninspired. Top it off with a little C.G.I. and you’ve got some nice visuals.

The audio actually serves a fair complement to the series. The voice acting doesn’t leave much room for complaint and the voices generally fit the characters fairly well. The music also manages to get the job done, but isn’t likely to entice or enchant. Comparatively, the audio could easily be a strength of the series, if not for the fact it’s so easily overshadowed. You’re far more likely to be thinking about how annoying you find the character as opposed to how well his voice fits.

The characters are essentially baseless. Having two main characters with no memories doesn’t create a lot of room for any sort of back-story. The sparse bit that the show does supply comes mainly from minor characters and isn’t particularly informative, insightful, or interesting. Complementing this is an essential lack of anything reminiscent of emotional depth or complexity. Perhaps the most effective way of describing the characters is to juxtapose them to a cloud. It looks as if there’s quite a fair bit of substance, but upon closer inspection it’s just a loose collection of various water droplets. It’s nothing more than a blanket of volume that pretends to have mass, doing nothing but going where the wind will take it.

Despite the readily apparent flaws I still found Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ to be moderately enjoyable. Even though it stumbled the entire length of the race, it still managed to avoid a last-place finish.  

If you can deal with characters who are more like pieces simply moving across the board (as opposed to complex and detailed individuals), a disjointed plot, uneven pacing,  and the general inconsistencies that the show brings, you could quite possibly derive a fair bit of entertainment from Bee Train’s latest.

3.5/10 story
7.8/10 animation
7.3/10 sound
3/10 characters
5.7/10 overall

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DeathBySunlight Jul 9, 2011

This is a very interesting and from what I've watched so far very acurate review...

 

KakiharaFRS Mar 2, 2011

wow the cloud comparison is deep, nice idea, and the chess pieces is perfect too, I'm only in the first few episodes but I can definitely feel what you are saying in this good review

the anime pace is what's bugging me the most