Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom is essentially Gunslinger Girls: The Teenage Years, where the assassins are gun-totin' invincibles that wear tight black body suits and a less cool version of Hei's mask from Darker Than Black.STORY
As in Gunslinger Girls, here, we have main characters, Ein and Zwei, that are forced into becoming ruthless assassins for an organization called Inferno. Inferno's aim, as far as I can tell, is to take over the entire underworld of gangs, mafia, and other criminal organizations. To facilitate this, Inferno has a bunch of fear-inducing assassins, and the top dog is anointed with the title "Phantom."
The story revolves around Inferno's machinations at world domination and the internal scheming and rivalries that set the screen afire with bloodshed. The scheming, etc., is not particularly interesting, and most of it is nonsensical, but then again watching anime always requires a suspension of disbelief for maximum enjoyment.
Slightly more interesting are the character's storylines. The viewer gets to see how Zwei is recruited by Ein, the first Phantom of Inferno, and turned into an assassin worthy of the Phantom title himself. We see how Zwei, in turn, sets in motion a chain of events that leads to another young person getting turned into the third Phantom of Inferno. Those were the more interesting stories to follow, rather than the random plotting and scheming.
I hated when the setting shifted from the criminal underworld to a random high school in Japan toward the last third of the series, but I suppose that can't be helped. Where there are teen anime characters, they must attend a school with a bevy of annoying female characters -- isn't that written in the anime rule book somewhere?
ANIMATION
The animation was quite good. A few cinematic choices annoyed me. First, I was frequently annoyed by the long, drawn-out action sequences (e.g., Cal vs. anyone when she was using that watch) and the even longer, drawn-out death scenes.
Second, many of the random quasi-naked and sexual scenes bothered me. I'm no prude, but I feel strongly that nudity and sex shouldn't be used solely for eye candy or to appease fan lust; I prefer when they are used to further either the story line or the character development.
For example, I found the scenes of Scythe Master's oiling down of Ein's young, mostly naked body and of Mio's clothes being ripped off disturbing. Ditto to the constant shots of Clo's cleavage or the scenes of her feeling up Zwei. And I didn't think they added to the dynamic between the characters in a productive way.
By contrast, I didn't mind the obviously sexual positions that the directors occasionally put Zwei and Ein in -- not because I "want" them to "get together" or anything, but because their physical body language illustrated something about their characters that their words did not. In other words, in that case, the sexual cinematography added something to the story.
Third, I must declare that I hate scenes where characters scream "Nooooooooooo!!" or some character's name at the top of their lungs. So much more might be said with a scene of quiet agony. Not everyone reacts to strong emotions by screaming "Caaaaaaal" or "Errrreeeen!!!" (or, for that matter, "Steeeeellllllaaaaa!!!"). The screaming-when-upset/grieving motif is overused, ineffective, and, quite frankly, irritating.
Other than that, I found the animation to be pretty good overall. Nice, dark colors.
SOUND
The music for this series was below average, in my opinion. The ending theme to Phantom has got to be one of the more annoying songs I have heard in anime. The angel choir musical interludes were a bit too... obvious for me, I think, though I must admit to enjoying the hilarious "badass sexy" musical theme that accompanied Zwei/Reiji's succession to the Phantom title. The song so obviously screamed "I'm now a badass sexy assassin wearing a sexy suit" that I just had to laugh.
As for the voice acting, I wasn't the hugest fan. I found that the English voice acting from our leads, in particular, was kind of wooden -- especially Zwei/Reiji. I can remember only one line where Zwei's delivery really stood out for me in a good way (the scene where he yells at Cal that she'll be "fucked up too"). Ein/Eren's voice was a little too "I am a robot, and so my voice is flat."
And, of course, young Cal's voice annoyed the hell out of me, as young anime girls are wont to do. (To be fair, I enjoyed older Cal's voice a lot -- it had a nice grit to it that reminded me a little of Angie Harmon's work as Barbara Gordon in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.)
CHARACTERS
The characters were a mixed bag.
Phantom attempted to develop some characters, but fell short of building an emotional connection between the characters and the audience. Clo and Lizzy, for example, never resonated with me as characters on any level. Neither did the gaggle of high school girls near the end of the series. The series tried really hard to flesh out Clo beyond her breasts -- they gave her some flashback scenes to her days on the street with her brother, for example, but it felt like a haphazard attachment of emotional baggage rather than something that truly motivated her character. Likewise, Phantom made a half-hearted attempt at carving out a space for Daisuke Godo and his buddy, Shiga, but it was exactly that: half-hearted.
As a villain, Scythe Master was too much of a caricature to make be truly great, but his pale white hair and awful suit and sunglasses made for an easy man to hate (oh, right, and the fact that he turns young people into killers). NOTE: For an example of a deliciously fantastic villain, see Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
As for our main characters...
Reiji/Zwei had the standard pretty boy design -- he looks similar to Light Yagami from Death Note. His transformation from the inexperienced boy (dressed in plain clothes) in the first half of the season into the badass Phantom (complete with gold chain, longer hair, less baby fat, and a sleek, sexy suit with PINK dress shirt) was pretty blatant, but hilarious. His character development did take some nonsensical turns -- why did he rejoin Inferno after being beat up a bit? why did he go ballistic when going after Scythe Master? But overall, Phantom did a good job with fleshing him out as a character. But I would have loved to see Reiji attempt to go home to his family and watch that interaction, rather than just see him make one phone call. A missed opportunity.
Eren/Ein looked a little bit like Rei from Evangelion. She was too frequently unclothed or half-clothed. And she was almost too robotic, too brainwashed to make a compelling character. When you create a character whose primary character traits are 1) lack of memory; 2) lack of free will; and 3) complete obedience, she becomes hard to care about as a lead. Of course, this made her ultimate face-off with Scythe Master meaningful. But it was a long way to wait for a payoff at the series end. I suppose Ein's shell started to crack as Reiji/Zwei ascended in Inferno, but Phantom didn't really let the viewers see any interesting character emotions from Ein's descent. Another missed opportunity.
Lastly, I will just say that young Cal = Annoying Anime Girl Archetype. Older Cal was pretty interesting, though 1) the use of the watch that Reiji gave her was gimicky and overdone and 2) how did she grow so tall (and how did her breasts grow so large) in the span of two years?
OVERALL
It took me a while to warm up to Phantom: Requiem for a Phantom, but I ended up enjoying it. From the guns a'blazin' to Reiji/Zwei's "badass" Phantom song, there was a lot to enjoy. There was a lot to dislike as well, but overall, I found Phantom to be worth the time investment.
