Review for Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom - Part 1 (Review)
Friday, 30th September 2011, 18:24

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Introduction
Is it possible to dislike a series for reasons that have nothing to do with the series itself? There once was a (brief) time that Funimation's video portal streamed anime to the world freely and legally. Then they read the small print on their contracts, and suddenly the portal was geolocked to North America. At that point the UK was just a few episodes into the simulcast stream of Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom, and it was just getting interesting. That geolocking shouldn't be any reason for me to resent this show, after all this happened at the same time as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood was being streamed and was similarly blocked. I certainly had no ill feelings towards that show. Hopefully watching Phantom on DVD now will reveal in stark clarity those subliminal elements that served to alienate me the first time, or prove me completely mistaken.

I like to think of Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom as the unofficial fourth in the Girls With Guns trilogy, comprising Noir, Madlax, and El Cazador de la Bruja. The four series were animated by studio BEE TRAIN, and Koichi Mashimo directed them all. They share common themes, their focus on assassins, with two mutually antagonistic yet sympathetic lead characters, and there's always some mind-warping element to the story, some little dark twist in the human psyche that comes across with vivid clarity when the show reveals its secrets. But Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom, based on a manga and an earlier, 3-part OVA series, as well as spinning off a videogame, commits the cardinal sin of having one of the girls with guns actually being a guy.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, witness to an assassination, and for that he should have died. But there was something in him that was of interest to Inferno, and instead he became the latest test subject for Phantom. His memory erased, his identity erased, he became Zwei, partner to Ein, both of them constructs of the Scythe Master, elegant killing machines able to kill with efficiency and without mercy. The Scythe Master created Phantom as the perfect assassination squad for Inferno, a powerful criminal organisation on a self-appointed mission to unite the criminal underworld under their leadership, and those who don't acquiesce have to be erased.

But Zwei isn't just the perfect killer. There's a part of him that aches for his past life, while he's made aware early on by one of the Inferno leaders, that he isn't just a tool of the organisation, that with ambition he can become the one wielding the power, including the power to find a way out and regain his identity. For Ein, the first creation of the Scythe Master, and the one who helped mould and create Zwei in turn, she never had that possibility, remaining completely loyal to her master. But by creating Zwei, she's created a mirror image of herself, and that has begun to reawaken her long buried humanity.

The first thirteen episodes of Phantom: Requiem For the Phantom are presented on two discs, courtesy of Manga Entertainment.

Disc 1

1. Awakening
2. Training
3. Practice
4. Assassination
5. Moment
6. Conflagration
7. The Past

Disc 2

8. Sudden Change
9. Name
10. Finale
11. Succession
12. Ghost
13. Camouflage

Picture
Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom gets the usual 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these DVDs, which courtesy of Madman Entertainment in Australia, gets a proper PAL conversion, complete with 4% PAL speedup. There are no issues with the image worth mentioning; it comes across clear and sharp, with strong colours. The light aliasing, slight colour banding, and compression noise around the most frenetic of action sequences denote the limitations of the DVD format, rather than any problems with the transfer. Coming from Studio BEE TRAIN, Phantom is an exceptionally good animation, with strong consistent character designs, a high attention to detail with the world and the props, and fluidity and energy in the animation that wouldn't be out of place in a theatrical production. If I do have a nit to pick, it's that the main character designs are a little generic, but once you see them in motion, that's easy to forgive.

Sound
It's the, by now usual litany of soundtracks on an anime release, DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Stereo Japanese, with optional translated English subtitles and a signs only track. I went for the Japanese audio as always and was very happy with its actor performances and stereo action. I gave the English dub a spin, and the voice actor performances are as you would expect from Funimation, a little tempered for the more serious tone of the story, but still a typical anime dub. The 5.1 soundstage does bring out the best in the action and the music however, and if dubs are your preference, then a home cinema system is a must for this show. The music in the show is excellent, a grand and cinematic set of themes that complement the story well and really drive the tempo, set the mood. The credit themes on the other hand… the opening theme by Kokia is quirky and unexpected, but it does grow on you, and comes to symbolise the show. The end theme on the other hand is pure self-indulgence by the increasingly eccentric Ali Project (Rozen Maiden), and demands the pressing of the skip button.

Something a little disappointing that I noticed is that Funimation's dub extends beyond simply changing the voices, and also alters the intent of the creators, albeit slightly. At the start of episode 3, 49 minutes into disc 1, there is a hand-to-hand training sequence between Ein and Zwei. In the original Japanese version, Zwei puts Ein in a headlock, and it seems he has won. The camera focuses on Ein; the sound drops away completely, the background noise, and the characters' breathing, before she turns the tables. In the English dub version, the background noise remains. I get the feeling that an overzealous sound engineer noticed a sound dropout and 'fixed' it.

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