Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom - Reviews

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noel312's avatar
Aug 7, 2012

This anime had a great start with alot of action and fighting. It gives off this intense feeling when watching it and I'm happy with the pair of main character that was given in lead. The animation of this anime is well drawn but i think the plot started to go downhill after Eren the girl phatom disappear after she's been shot but stablize itself when she's been discovered again. I didn't like the idea that they were put into a brother and sister relationship and that he started to date someone else in his school. To be perfectly honest it bothers me that they arn't couples because they look like the perfect pair together. I was reading the reviews for this anime while watching it and i can see many people complaining about the ending which made me look forward to it. I can say I truely agree with the people's complain because it's really confusing and like a WTF?! moment. I also did alot of skipping scenes in this anime because there's alot of conversation going on in between but overall i still agree that's it's a great anime regardless which will be worth your time.

7/10 story
9.5/10 animation
10/10 sound
10/10 characters
7.5/10 overall
Vicktus's avatar
Sep 7, 2014

I’m going to cut to the chase; Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom (Phantom henceforth) is not anything exceptional.  Still, I think Phantom is a solid show.  The thing with Phantom is that it doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses, like Attack on Titan, however it does fall short in a lot of important areas as well.  Let’s break it down:

***Be warned that this review will contain some specific details and spoilers ahead***

Art: 10/10 – I have absolutely no complaints about this show’s art.  The production values are outstanding, and the action sequences are solid.  The coloring and the backgrounds are mostly dark, and I think it suited this show’s atmosphere perfectly.

I liked the character figures quite a bit as well.  They are very well proportioned, and quite realistic looking.  My absolute only complaint here (and it’s a personal one) is that I could not stand Eren’s hairdo in the last arc of the story.  It was just… blegh.

The animation was quite crisp.  The gun battles were coherent, and the combat action, while quick, was well done.  An effect that resonates with me particularly was the champagne bubbles that the heads of the syndicate were drinking.  It was unbelievably cool.

This show’s art and animation are top notch, and work very effectively to aide this show’s dark atmosphere, and so I give this section a full score.

Sound: 9/10 – I have little to complain about regarding this show’s sound as well.

The voice acting was superb.  I watched the whole thing dubbed, and was very pleased with the performances. You absolutely would not be able to create a gritty show focused on crime and murder when half the cast sounds like they’re tripping on helium, and  it seems the writers knew this well.  The characters were mature, and though I’ve seen some complaints about Ein’s flatness, I thought that effect suited her character perfectly.

I actually really liked the show’s first OT.  It was dark, and moody, and subtly creepy – it’s a great first impression for a show that lives up to be bloody and dark.

I mostly liked the background music also.  If I had to make any complaint, it might be that the track seemed to lack versatility.  The same themes, while good, were sort of used over and over again.

I don’t have much to say about the sound effects other than that they were solid.  The gun-shots were good, and when the slides on the semi-auto pistols were cocked, it sounded real.

Story: 6/10 – The story to Phantom has some things that it did really well, and some things that it did really poorly. 

The show starts off very interesting, even though the whole amnesia thing is a bit of a cliché.  The main character is thrown right into (what he thinks to be) a life or death situation, and the show launches from there, in the creation of this killer.  I think my only complaint about this show’s premise might be that they should not have shown you Scythe master, and all the behind-the-scenes crap.  It would have made the initial battle between Zwei and Ein a lot creepier and immersive to the viewer (rather than us knowing it was a test).

I have major issues with this show’s pacing.  To be fair, the show never drags, and I never had to force myself to watch through it, but it still took way too long on some things (Zwei’s training) and not nearly enough time on others (the final arc).  This is made worse by the fact that there were (as I recall) a couple recap episodes, which is just totally unnecessary for a 26 episode show.  Actually, recap episodes are unnecessary, period.  I also was not crazy about the rigidity within the story arcs.  They were hard breaks from the Zwei/Ein duo, to the Reiji/Cal duo, to the Reiji/Eren duo.  Time-skips are ok in some circumstances, but this show over-abused them, and the result seems to be that most of the character development happened off-screen.  Indeed, much changed (including the characters) between the arcs, but it makes the writing feel lazy when it seems to overly happen off-screen.

I think the show actually has a fair amount of complexity.  It combines a gritty mafia-crime theme with a theme of brainwashed assassins, and for the most part, these themes melded fairly well.  The show more or less explained that Scythe Master was educated in psychology and neurology, so that added a deal of credibility to his ability to manipulate and mold people the way he did.  It touches on themes of morality, but it does so maturely, and realistically.  For instance, it is quite clear throughout the show that Zwei/Reiji is a naturally good-natured person, but even still, he goes through great lengths, often against his morality to survive – this theme gave the show a refreshingly realistic feel, and the complications of the circumstances were handled maturely, and not in a black-and-white fashion.

The show lacked plausibility almost entirely in my opinion.  One thing that was a little aggravating was that the show didn’t seem to show any consistency in the power of the major characters.  This was my thought when Reiji and Eren so easily got caught on their first outing, yet apparently lasted a couple years on their second with little resistance.  It also seemed odd that Reiji and Eren, even after (presumably) 2 years of not practicing or regular using their abilities as assassins, so easily defeated the new protégé’s sent after them.  And yet again, they were utterly impotent and flat footed at the end, in Mongolia.  It seemed like their abilities fluctuated as the story required it to, and that was a little frustrating as a viewer.  I was sort of pleased that Ein’s big advantage over all the newer minions was that they were essentially modeled after her.  That made her advantage somewhat plausible, at least.

The show never seemed to explain how Scythe trained his assassins, either.  Being a dual PhD and neuroscience and psychology, I get that he is skilled at brainwashing/manipulation, but he never exhibited any sort of combat prowess or expertise.  That part should have been explained better.

Though I believe more time could have been spent on the conclusion, I was mostly satisfied with it.  Cal’s segment was sort of bizarre and unfounded (I will elaborate with details in the “Characters” section.  All that aside, I was satisfied with the development of the relationship between Reiji and Eren – which dodged a major cliché by never becoming romantic.  I was satisfied with the final battle, even though it felt really rushed, and a bit implausible, but I was mostly satisfied with the very ending, which brought the show together, and gave it the kick-in-the-ass it desperately needed.

Characters: 7/10 – For the most part, I liked this show’s characters, though I am not without my complaints regarding some of the characters in the show.

The main characters were Reiji(Zwei), and Eren(Ein), and I thought they were both very well written.  Reiji was a great lead to follow.  He was likable, and good natured, but he was also practical, and with strong survival instinct.  He was a gray character, and such, made some abhorrent decisions and actions in the interest of self-survival.  He’s not so much an anti-hero,  like Lelouch from Code Geass, say – he would make the “right” decision anytime his direct survival wasn’t at stake – but he still felt a lot more well-rounded than some of the drivel who strut their way into the lead roles of some of these other shows (like Naruto).

Likewise, I liked Ein a lot.  She was a simple character, but not because she was poorly written.  It was well founded within her personality – she was subservient and malleable by nature.  This one of the reasons Scythe Master liked her so much as his primary prototype in the first place.

Speaking of Scythe master, I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the construction of his character.  Early on, I liked how he was written quite a bit.  He clearly had motives of ascending to power, but the means of doing so was his real passion (molding assassins).  Some things that I found odd about him were as follows:

1.      For someone who claims to be adept at understanding and shaping human psyche, it seemed overly obvious that Zwei was never going to shape up to be the sort of drone Ein was.  I wonder why the Scythe did not detect this, or if he did, why he chose to do nothing about it.

2.      Likewise, I don’t understand anything of his rationale in Drei.  He was self-admitting in that didn’t even try to control her.  And clearly, with his side project of other assassins, didn’t have any particular investment in her.  It can be argued he kept her to ultimately torment Zwei, but the risk did not seem to measure up if that was his only reason.  There didn’t seem to be much of a relationship between him and her (only through her and Lizzie)

3.      His over-willingness to put himself in danger at the end did not seem to add up either.  Through the entire show he acted out of self-interest.  Obtaining a position of power meant something to him, and that was made clear early on.  It’s further perpetuated that he had a strong sense of self-interest, and self preservation, as he was quite scared looking when he was running from Zwei at the end of the first arc.  In that episode, he was terrified of his impending doom, yet at the end when held at gun-point from Eren, he seemed content to die.  Sure, it made sense that he wanted to see his former and his newer creations duke it out, so to speak, but it seemed bizarre that he’d put himself in the position of being amidst it all.

I thought Claudia’s character was mostly well written, though I didn’t seem to understand Lizzie one bit.  She seemed to regularly switch from callous and violent, to thoughtful and noble, without any apparent reason.  Later on she talks of things like loyalty, lines that shouldn’t be crossed, etc… etc… yet the facts remain: she’s a killer – and she couldn’t possibly have been so uppity if she was perfectly ok with them essentially enslaving children to turn them into killers.  I just didn’t get it – I hated how uppity she would get about honor when she clearly had hardly any to speak of during much of the show – this inconsistency carries to how she manages to pull the trigger on who (appears to be her best friend), but cannot do the same when confronted with girl who was out of control and on a rampage.  It just didn’t add up.

My last complaint about specific characters is going to be Maguire – who is honestly the real arch-villain of the show (even though the show tried so hard to make it Scythe Master).  He just seemed overly enigmatic in contrast with the rest of the plot.  What struck me as odd, was the fact that he never seemed to be in any apparent danger, even despite the fact that all of his underlings were callous power-hungry killers who were murdering/setting each other up to climb in rank.  Why was he seemingly so detached from those challenges?  Why didn’t the show bother to develop him more?  It’s just a note of disappointment, I suppose.

While the main characters really didn’t have any backdrop, this flaw was largely excused by the plot – especially for Ein.  The only reason I deducted one point, is because Zwei(Reiji) does  regain his memory, but almost nothing seems to come of it.  He fleetingly thinks about returning home – but even then the viewer is shown nothing about who he was, or what he wanted to do.  The writers could have so easily augmented the severity (and tragedy) of Zwei’s story with a little background on him, and what his goals were previously.

For the most part, I thought Zwei and Ein’s developments were strong, and well-founded.  My one issue with this, (which I mentioned before) is that the show overused time-skips.  So while the characters were indeed dynamic and changing, many of the major changes happen off-screen.  To be fair, some of this is well-done, especially during Zwei’s transformation into an assassin.  But his changes to the middle and final arcs are totally off-screen.  My complaint in this area extends to Ein (in the final arc).

I hated Cal’s story progression.  Her hatred towards Reiji never seemed to add up.  No matter how hard the show tried to force it.  It seemed obvious on some level, that Cal was a naturally violent girl, but the fact that she more or less convinced herself to serve Scythe (without brainwashing) seemed unfounded, and out in left field.  Especially given how quickly she made a 180 during one of the final scenes.  Her plot-line just seemed to lack foundation in the final arc.

Without spoiling anything, I will simply state that I think the characters have a very satisfying catharsis.

Overall: 7.5/10 – This show could have easily been much better if it had better pacing, and if the story was less disjointed.  It could have also grounded itself a little better instead of having the main characters regularly fluctuate from helpless to god-mode for no apparent reason.

While I had trashed the pacing of the show several times, make no mistake it doesn’t get completely out of control slow, like, say, most popular shounen series – and the show always did a fair job to hold my interest and keep me watching.  In fact, I think I burned through all 26 episodes in about a week, which, given my busy schedule, is quite a fair pace.

If you're like me, and have already watched a whole huge host of shows, but haven't seen this one, give it a watch.  I'm not sure it's going to knock your socks off, but it's certainly worth a go.


Thanks to Roriconfan for the template for the excused scorings below.

ART SECTION: 10/10
General Artwork 2/2 (solid)
Character Figures 2/2 (realistic)
Backgrounds 2/2 (dark and moody)
Animation 2/2 (solid)
Visual Effects 2/2 (great)

SOUND SECTION: 9/10
Voice Acting 3/3 (mature and well acted)
Music Themes 3/4 (OT is cool, most BGM was solid)
Sound Effects 3/3 (solid)

STORY SECTION: 6/10
Premise 2/2 (interesting)
Pacing 0/2 (slowish, too many recaps, rigid story arcs)
Complexity 2/2 (psychological themes)
Plausibility 0/2 (none)
Conclusion 2/2 (a bit rushed, but well founded, and tragic)

CHARACTER SECTION: 7/10
Presence 1/2 (solid for some, off for others)
Personality 2/2 (well pronounced)
Backdrop 1/2 (mostly absent, but excused by story)
Development 1/2 (strong, but unobserved/unfounded)
Catharsis 2/2 (well founded)

VALUE SECTION: 5/10
Historical Value 1/3 (it doesn’t seem terribly big)
Rewatchability 2/3 (pacing issues, but decent amounts of action)
Memorability 2/4 (tragic, but a bit anti-climatic)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 7/10
Art 1/1 (outstanding)
Sound 2/2 (great)
Story 2/3 (interesting)
Characters 2/4 (unique and interesting)

VERDICT: 7.5/10

?/10 story
?/10 animation
?/10 sound
?/10 characters
7.5/10 overall
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Mewoo's avatar
May 23, 2011

I liked the story line, and all of the characters right from the beggining when you weren't even sure what was going on, it was really interest and different. In the middle of the anime when Zwei becomes the phantom, and Cel is introduced i feel that the storyline degrades a bit and is not so good, I would definately reccomend watching it all the way through and i was really happy with the anime until the "6 months later part" of the last episode. The last minute, I wanted to kill the writers and cry at the same time. I hated the ending. I think it ruined a good anime, the fact that it happened for no reason.

5/10 story
7/10 animation
8/10 sound
9/10 characters
7/10 overall
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Prizzy926's avatar
Nov 25, 2015

Phantom:Requiem for the Phantom was a pretty good anime. It had a lot of nice action scenes. The characters were unique none of them too stereotypical. And there was a pretty good plot development in the beginning at least. Though I feel like they should've ended the show at episode 19 and just made a 2nd season instead they tried to cram a 2nd season worth of plot into only 6 episodes making the ending feel wrong and rushed. I don't want to spoil it for anyone but the last episode left me extremely unsatisfied. 

7/10 story
9/10 animation
9/10 sound
8/10 characters
7/10 overall
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Flint879's avatar
Sep 13, 2013

I always enjoy a good story about assassins. Especially taking a nobody and transforming him into something crazy. That is the basis of this tale called Phantom: Requiem of the Phantom.

THE STORY IS: This guy wakes up in an abandoned warehouse with no memories of who he is or anything. Upon leaving the room, he is attacked by a girl in a mask. After subduing the girl in a fight, the man is knocked out once more. After waking up, he is informed that he will be training to become an assassin under the guidance of Ein, an assassin also called Phantom who works for Inferno. Accepting the training with no other choice, this man is given the name Zwei and thus our story begins.

Just to explain a little, Phantom is the name given to the best assassin. It's a title that when used, people in the underground become weary and prepare to be killed no matter how hard they try to survive. Inferno is the mafia-esque syndicate that is bent on taking over and being number 1 and running the show. I thought Phantom was a mixed bag. The story had a bunch of ups and downs. It started great in the beginning with a cool premise and the promise of cool things to come. Towards the middle though is when things kind of started getting bland and boring. Not so much boring, but more along the lines of predictable. Plot twists didn't shock like they were supposed to and I could guess everything that was going to happen, which makes it no fun. The last few episodes though, started to pick back up with a nice interesting monkey wrench thrown in. The only problem I had with the last few episodes, where it picks up again, is the fact that it's nothing but a die-hard revenge/hatred motif. Regardless of that, it was still more promising than the middle of the anime. I don't know how I felt about the ending though. I mean, it would've been a satisfying-ish ending, but something random happens and kind of throws you off completely and gives you mixed feelings on the matter, then it just...ends. (WTF?!). Other than all that griping, it was a pretty good story all around.

THE ANIMATION was good. It didn't look simple or look like corner were cut. It wasn't bright nor was it too dark, there was a nice balance of both together and it worked well. Overall the animation was good.

THE SOUND was also very good. The voice acting fit the characters and the sound effects were on the ball. The music, mainly in the intro and outro, in my opinion, was questionable. I didn't care for the intro and outro music at all. The guns sounded on par. It sounded even better when they shot a round and the echo from it just sounded great.

THE CHARACTERS were also kind of mixed bag. They all were very well taken care of and were all unique. Ein is very plain and monotonous. She is badass, but very bland for a good majority of the anime. Zwei goes from scared boy to relentless assassin to hating himself for killing so much. Zwei opens up a lot throughout the anime and definitely brings a more real tone to being an assassin. Could these people possibly long for a normal life? All the other characters have their own niche. Lizzie is the badass bodyguard type person. Claudia is a munipulative, scheming backstabber. Cal is very innocent and full of light and potential. Definitely a mixed bag of characters and it was interesting to watch them all interact the way they did.

OVERALL I liked Phantom to a certain extent. I personally have trouble recommending it to others because it is mostly boring throughout the middle of the series and becomes very predictable after the first couple of episodes. Don't get me wrong, Phantom is a very good anime in terms of quality, but you know as well as I do, when something becomes predictable, it's not fun or exciting anymore. That's how I felt during this anime. Very well done tale of assassins and a twisted sense of art from a twisted man (you'll find out what that means if you watch it). All in all, give Phantom a try. It won't blow your mind, but it won't disappoint either.

7/10 story
8/10 animation
7/10 sound
8/10 characters
7.5/10 overall
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