Musaigen no Phantom World

Phantoms: supernatural entities such as ghosts or youkai that, until recently, were thought to be superstition. However, when a virus that infects the brain spreads throughout society, people's perception of the world changes as the mythical beings are revealed to have been living alongside humanity the entire time. This virus has also affected those of the next generation significantly, allowing them to develop special abilities that they can use to fight against dangerous phantoms.

Haruhiko Ichijou and Mai Kawakami are two of those that were granted such power—Haruhiko wields the ability to summon and seal phantoms through drawings, while Mai imbues the power of the elements into martial arts. Together, along with the friendly phantom Ruru, they form Team E of Hosea Academy, which is dedicated to dealing with these often mischievous beings. In a world where the real and surreal intertwine, they handle the everyday troubles caused by phantoms.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kawakami, Mai Main

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Izumi, Reina Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Minase, Koito Main

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Ichijou, Haruhiko Main

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Kumamakura, Kurumi Main

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Ruru Main

Tadokoro, Azusa Japanese

Enigma Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Albrecht Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Witch Supporting

Nagatsuma, Juri Japanese

Himeno, Arisu Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Nakamura, Shinichi Producer

Saitou, Shigeru Producer

Nishide, Masayuki Producer

Reviews

Aug 10, 2025

Happyplague

Recommended

This anime gets a lot of undeserved hate thrown at it. In terms of quality it's like a 8/10 overall, but in terms of enjoynment it's a 10/10 in my opinion (which is very individual so yeah). After recently rewatching it again, it hits even better than I remembered. You either love or hate this anime, it's probably very rare for someone to feel mixed about it.

The plot - this is probably the show's weakest point, but it still isn't bad, it's like a 5/10 because it's very generic. Both the plot and the character development progress very slowly, and with the anime covering only ... 1 of the 3 light novel volumes (allegedly), it is very obvious as to why it feels this way. One light novel volume in 13 episodes is very, VERY slow pacing, but it somehow works out fine.

The characters - probably like a 8/10 , they're very stereotypical and everyone in the main cast except the MC is a woman (except for one phantom, but the phantom looks and acts like a woman so my point still stands), but they aren't exactly poorly written. They're likeable, even. If you think they are poorly written then you haven't seen poor character writing.

Art style - 10/10. The show has very nice surroundings design/colours, and the visual design of the characters is legit perfect. That was to be expected, though, since the character design for the LN and for the anime was done by Shirabii - the same person that did illustrations for the LN and character design for the anime 86: Eighty Six.

Animation quality - It never felt like it was lacking for what it needed, and most of the time it even went above what you would expect, so I feel like saying 10/10 is fair.

Music - This is a VERY individual category, but overall the music really sits right with me. The opening and a lot of the soundtrack overlaid over scenes has an 8-bit-ish feel, and it really fits the vibe. I give a 9/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 1, 2025

YamiLoon

Mixed Feelings

This show is like that flashy dessert you see on Instagram; colorful, good-looking, fun to look at, but once you take a bite... eh, not that satisfying.

The premise starts off promising: a world where people can suddenly see phantoms and supernatural beings, and a group of high school students with powers is tasked with handling them. Sounds cool, right? But what we get instead is a series of loosely connected episodic adventures that feel more like filler than actual plot progression.

Haruhiko, our protagonist, spends more time talking about pseudo-science and spouting random info dumps than actually doing anything useful. Mai, the main fighter, defeats phantoms ... by... slapping different parts of her own body to "channel energy" (not even joking). Reina eats phantoms like noodles, and Koito is the classic edgy loner who’s too cool for the group.

And don’t get me started on Ruru, the tiny flying fairy mascot who mostly exists to say “kyaa~” and add a bit of chaos to every scene. She’s cute, I’ll give her that, but incredibly pointless.

Now to be fair, the animation is gorgeous. Kyoto Animation never misses in that department. The colors pop, the action scenes are smooth, and even the fanservice-heavy episodes (yes, I’m looking at the jelly one) are visually impressive. But the visuals can’t carry the whole show when the story feels like it’s going in circles.

So why the 6/10? Because even though it’s all over the place, I still had some fun. It’s the kind of anime you put on when your brain wants to go on vacation. No deep thinking required, just vibes, cute girls, pretty fights, and a sprinkle of nonsense.

Would I recommend it? Maybe... if you’re in the mood for something light, silly, and pretty. But if you're looking for emotional depth or a strong storyline, you might wanna look elsewhere.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 2, 2025

onespankman

Not Recommended

Funny

In episode one of Musaigen no Phantom World, a truly remarkable sequence occurs. The protagonist, a girl, and a fairy are talking on a set of stairs. The girl runs off and trips, so the protagonist dives to the bottom of the stairs, gets near where she’ll land, and turns his body around one eighty degrees midair so that she’ll land on his back. The fairy then lifts the girl slightly midair, causing her to front flip and land just in front of the protagonist, who then sees up her skirt. This really only comes across when you see it animated, it is shockingly difficult ... to describe in text. There are about three physically impossible things that happen in this sequence, coordinated perfectly to deliver a baffling, obnoxiously self-aware fanservice scene. If this were animated differently — by a studio that uses less realistically proportioned characters, and stretches realism more in action scenes — it could look good. I imagine Trigger could make this scene come off as natural. Kyoto Animation is the worst possible choice to animate this. It comes off as impossible, and only makes less sense the more you think about it. The result is glorious — a shameless celebration of fanservice bullshit, in an entirely original form. This is the most interesting thing that happens in Musaigen no Phantom World. The show this scene suggests is incredible, a truly original ecchi anime that leans into the unreality of the genre to deliver hilarious fanservice scenes. This anime is not that show. Anything like this scene only happens once again throughout the rest of the runtime — later in that same episode. After that, it turns into a standard ghost hunting/school club anime. That could have been good too, especially with animation of this caliber. Unfortunately, the writing is such a tangled mess that it can’t even accomplish that.

The premise is simple: a few years ago, a virus was released that caused the entire human population to begin perceiving “phantoms”, basically ghosts. At the same time, babies began being born with superpowers. We follow a school club comprised of these superpowered people, tasked with hunting trouble causing phantoms. That much is fine, but the show insists on placing this basic premise within walls of tortured flavortext. Like, the phantoms aren’t just ghosts, they’re manifestations conjured up by the brain, and may only exist in human perception. I’m here for some overcomplicated window dressing, but this show takes it too far, opening every episode by repeating this exposition, and having the main character spout off random Wikipedia-level anecdotes. These explanations are entirely detached from the narrative. One episode opens on an explanation of Jungian archetypes, suggesting phantoms may be manifestations of them. It then adds the fact that they actually can be literally anything. So why the fuck did we bring up Jung? To be fair, the author doesn’t seem to misunderstand these concepts. This is the one anime I’ve seen get Schrödinger's Cat right. But if they don’t mean anything for the plot and themes, why are they here to begin with? If this was just a quirk of the main character I could forgive it, but the entire show is drenched in this kind of nonsense.

This is, at its core, a slice of life club anime. When the narrative leans into that, and fully leverages Kyoani’s great character animation, it’s pretty good. The mid-section is episodic, with each episode focusing on the main characters hunting a different phantom. During this, there are some good episode plots that dive into the characters' pasts and psychologies. Episode ten — in which that fairy I mentioned earlier becomes human for a day — is a particular standout. There are stretches where the show really works, but not all of these episode plots are built equal. In episode eight, a hot spring populated by horny monkeys appears in the middle of the school, so our main characters spend half of the episode trying to sexually appeal to the monkeys in order to lure them out… and eventually realize they need to paint their asses red to do that… then they find out the leader monkey is recently divorced. It's not all that funny, and it’s too niche and uncomfortable to even work as fanservice… this whole episode shouldn’t have happened.

All of the main characters’ superpowers seem designed to be as lame and confusing as possible. The MC can trap phantoms in his sketchbook by drawing them, and also summon phantoms he’s trapped in the book, but then later he can also summon phantoms without the book for some reason. At first he can only use the trapping ability, but in episode one they introduce a character with an ability that does the same thing but better, rendering his ability completely useless. It doesn’t seem the author wrote these abilities to be complimentary, but rather just made up stuff as they went along. One character is said to be really strong. Her ability involves singing to summon beams of energy, kind of like a less cool version of Inumaki’s cursed speech. In practice, she can fire weak ass beams by doing a goofy ass hum, which is sometimes accompanied by a lame ass incantation. How this ability is strong, or how exactly it works remains murky for the entire season. The child character (who has weird bug antenna looking-ass front twin tails) can make her teddy bear blow up to monster-size and fight, but can also just make it do whatever the plot demands at any given moment. These abilities are overcomplicated, not complimentary, and what they can and cannot do changes constantly. And they don’t even look cool. They suck.

The worst writing occurs in the shoehorned-in two-episode arc that ends the show, but I’ve done enough tedious listing in this review (and don’t want to add a spoiler tag), so I’ll leave it at that.

The visuals don’t quite make up for all this. As anyone can tell from one glance at the abysmal poster and title card, this series is aesthetically confused. Kyoani’s style overrides this design sense in most scenes, but when it does poke through, it looks awful. When it comes to character animation, this show is a treat (like every Kyoani show). If you’re a Kyoani fan, that might make it worth watching, but be warned, this has a bad reputation for a reason. It is not a hidden gem, it does not deserve critical reevaluation. If there was a positive angle on this show I thought was reasonable, I would take it — there’s no studio I’m more deferential to than Kyoto Animation. I hate to say it, but this is just a bad show. The writing is a mess, the episode plots are iffy, the aesthetics are confused, and the animation isn’t good enough to compensate. Only watch this if you’re trying to one hundred percent Kyoani’s catalog. Otherwise, avoid it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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