Kurau Phantom Memory

In all the years I've spent watching anime, or movies and TV in general, I've found plenty of genres that I don't particularly gravitate to, with one of them being sci-fi. It's not that I hate sci-fi series, but I often find them hard to understand. A lot of sci-fi stuff seems to rely too much on technobabble to tell their stories, almost like the creators of said stories only want to appeal to hardcore sci-fi fans who would actually understand the overly scientific terminology they use rather than people who just want to watch/read an interesting story and follow a set of characters. A ... lot of this is why I couldn't get into something like Orbital Children, as it relied way too much on just dumping science-y exposition and pretentious philosophical concepts at you without giving you time to, y'know, process any of it, among many other issues. Other sci-fi stories put too much focus on the action and special effects at the expense of everything else. Thankfully, there are exceptions to be found, with one of them being Kurau Phantom Memory, an older BONES anime from 2004 that got a lot of praise when it came out, but nobody seems to talk about anymore. Having just finished it today, I'm seriously glad I decided to sit down and watch it, because in my opinion, this is what sci-fi should be like.

The year is 2100, and on the colonized moon, a special project is underway to explore and study new energy that's been discovered. But that's far from 12-year-old Kurau Amami's mind when her father tells her he has to work on her birthday. To make up for this, he invites Kurau to his research lab, to which Kurau happily accompanies him. This winds up being a bad decision, as a lab accident causes two alien entities called Rynax to take over Kurau's body. There's no way to remove them from her for the time being, and for now, everyone has to adjust to Kurau's change. Ten years later, Kurau works as a freelance mercenary, having adjusted to her new circumstances and the powers she wields...but Rynax come in pairs, and she wonders when her pair will finally appear. One day, her pair appears from her body in the form of a preteen girl similar to how Kurau looked when she was a kid. Kurau names her new pair Christmas, and the two of them try to make a life together. But an organization that hunts Rynax called the GPO finds out about them and are determined to capture the two of them, and probably kill them. With help from Kurau's father and an ex-GPO member named Doug, Kurau and Christmas have to run from the GPO and wind up learning some harsh truths in the process.

Being an earlier BONES anime, it doesn't look as sleek as some of their later works, like My Hero Academia or The Case Study of Vanitas, but honestly, even for its time, I think Kurau Phantom Memory is very well animated. The show's overall art isn't always the most consistent, but what it lacks in consistency and budget, it manages to make up for it with dynamicism and fluidity, especially during the parts that matter. I also appreciate that the character designs are leaning more towards the realistic side rather than going full-on cartoony, with the characters having smaller eyes that are more proportionate to how a regular person's would look. The soundtrack is also just fantastic. It doesn't have a huge amount of tracks even for a 24-episode anime, but nearly every track that’s there is a feast for the ears and does a brilliant job at enhancing the atmosphere. I also love the different variations on the ending theme song.

Of course, the cast of characters are the ones carrying this show, and Kurau Phantom Memory puts character development first and foremost over action and special effects, which works really well here, especially with Kurau. This show absolutely nails its lead character. She's incredibly well-developed and three-dimensional, with her own set of strengths, flaws, and quirks, and even though the show can get pretty dark at times, she's always portrayed with the right amount of warmth. The rest of the cast is well-written as well. They all behave and act naturally. and even the side characters who don't appear for a long time get fleshed out quite a bit even as their airtime ends. The only characters that don't get this treatment are two of the main villains, and they're mainly relegated to the background after a while. It does help that Kurau Phantom Memory does a great job at balancing both its lighthearted, heartwarming moments with the darker parts, with neither one feeling like they clash with the tone the show is going for, nor is something randomly inserted into a scene and destroying its mood or atmosphere. Take note, Orbital Children and The Heike Story.

As much as I want to hail Kurau Phantom Memory as a masterpiece, it's unfortunately not without its flaws. They're pretty minimal, and didn't detract from my personal enjoyment of the anime, but they may make or break it for others. For one, the voice acting can border on pretty cheesy at times, which makes the natural dialogue come across as rather stilted and forced in both languages, oddly enough. Yes, even the Japanese version isn't safe from this. Secondly, some very early parts of the anime haven't aged well, like Doug's initial introduction, but that actually gets addressed early on, so I personally had no problem with it. Others might take issue with the fact that the series puts more focus on character development than on the action, and not a whole lot of technobabble, but I don't think that's a reason to give Kurau Phantom Memory the side-eye. Plus, a lot of scenes are taken up by characters just saying each other's names and not much beyond that.

So if you want to watch a sci-fi anime that has a strong story with real moral dilemmas and situations that aim to bring the best out of its characters but don't want to put up with intrusive technobabble or over-the-top action, definitely give Kurau Phantom Memory a shot.

Forget LoTR... because this here is the ultimate drinking game challenge! You see - the humble game, in spite of its ultimate purport, must not lay the player to ruin (read: on the floor) in the space of a few hours, for that would constitute a plain old piss-up - but neither can it overly entertain, at which point the undertaking is jeopardised through detraction. Kurau Phantom Memory is, as an unsuspecting anime fan might find out, the perfect tool for the job, with enough writing mishaps to fill an abandoned diamond mine and spanning what seems like four times the amount of airtime over ... what one would expect. From the very first episode the key "pint action" moments establish themselves and then continue to amplify in both magnitude and frequency as the episodes roll on. Something important but of trivial impact happens? Sip. A main character's name is uttered? Sip. Said character looks sad, pensive, cries or perhaps ventures to stare into the distance? Sip. Classy music sounds totally misplaced? Sip. Ending credits song starts playing an hour too early? Another sip. You get the point, so read on if you dare. Gulp.

Think Prison Break's arduous non-prison part with a sprinkling of Chrno Crusade devoid of any romance, with the entire affair dialled down to 0.11 (that's 0,11 if you are of European persuasion), and the picture is bleak. Granted, on the face of it Kurau stands as very much the opposite of a run-of-the-mill garbage title, yet at the same time in certain key aspects it manages to exhibit typical traits of said "genre", including long stretches of scenes devoid of any meaning or value, dirt poor animation where the opposite is expected, and general non-writing. Corners were sacrilegiously cut in places and the on-screen circus just won't leave town. Albeit it did bring flying people, I like that.

Main characters - Kurau and Kristmas, while well designed, are begging to be kicked into gear compelling them to, well, actually do something of interest to the viewer, whereas side characters tend to get treated rather atrociously in terms of writing (which on occasion also extends into their attire - gasp!) The in-world "agent" occupation which keeps our protagonists gainfully employed and moves some events along comes off as totally bogus. Similarly, a certain dramatic backstory coined for a supporting character just feels tacked on and unnecessary. On the rare occasion that an event occurs which seems to hint at character development (see page N: main characters assign fake names to each other), take a gulp of your favourite spirit because let me assure you such opportunities are few and far between, and to top it all off the culprit event fails to lead anywhere and dissipates as briefly as it materialised, never to be mentioned again. Like some kind of phantom memory, or something.

Speaking of action scenes, the spoiler here is that there is not much to spoil: said action starts off as mildly entertaining and then (uh-oh) follows the same path already trodden more times than there are episodes up to that point, with no lessons learned by the ensemble whatsoever eventually, and possibly even with some repeating cutscenes tossed in for good measure. A song called "Eternal Cycle Of Delusion", while not at all related to anime, very much encapsulates the events portrayed in this one, circling around the same point despite all the variation going on inside. I won't spoil the plot which is adequate, it admirably zips through an array of varied locations and covers plenty of ground as expected of 24 episodes. However, because the characters don't seem to be moving along with the events portrayed, an opposite effect is achieved and we end up questioning whether we too should be feeling moved in any direction whatsoever. At several points rather tragic happenings occur on a large scale, and had you been caught ogling your mucky pint glass at that precise moment, you'd be left more interested in the gravity of your beverage rather than that of the said event on screen. In order to resolve predicaments, plot armour condenses into thick layers of most handy protective sediment about as efficiently as the next squad of baddies gets deployed: one example being, a laser weapon goes from a long-cooldown cannon to a friggin' blaster in no time at all.

Ideas presented in Kurau are engaging and have plenty of potential still. I leave it to more capable reviewers to cover the symbolism of the series, whereas my personal outtake was that the duality and elusiveness of this mysterious (checks notes) Rynax hints at the principle of quantum entanglement between two particles, and the themes integrated become even more intriguing when one considers how some contemporary theories suggest that consciousness itself may in fact be a quantum process. Now, the good people of the Kurau universe are doing what they were born to do, including exploring the "forbidden" energy source, it's just that they do it in the usual, unregulated manner. Can't blame them for it though, because there really doesn't seem to be much else to chase, courtesy of the world-building no less. Not even a fishy red herring to keep us engaged.

Art is generally solid if a little plain, does the job without much pretence. The technology portrayed is admittedly interesting and well designed, of which certain elements unfortunately get shoved onto our screens time and time again in the same guise, with little tact or regard for the location of the proceedings or viewer engagement in general. On the upside, the show is uncharacteristically devoid of overdone facial expressions contorted with terror and anger, with only one example of such, and a totally random character at that. Which is unlike certain titles such as (points finger) AoT and Demon Slayer where every character looks terrified and terrifying at the same time, in any given frame without exception. The opening and ending songs attempt to establish this mellow, relaxed mood, yet everything that happens in between those two oft-repeated snippets finds itself on the intersection of the conflicted and the played down. There is a tournament scene which should've been action-packed and mighty spectacular, and surprise-surprise - it manages to fall flat. Overall tone is perplexing and fails to settle on anything definitive - which in fact prompted this review, thus I suppose it did what art is intended to do - namely to send the (re)viewer on a trail of ruinous ramblings and ruminations.

Overall I'd summarise Kurau as a diamond in the rough which, before all the cutting and polishing, still needs to be extracted from the surrounding rock - it's certainly there but requires some serious digging. It'd be worth the effort though - not just for the shiny sparkle, but because inside it holds a coveted NV centre that may someday help us to harness the power of that elusive quantum particle. But for now the only object* to see some polishing action will be the pint glass; remember to keep it half-full rather than half-empty, and you might just find some enjoyment in this series.

*Unless you click on that other "anime" bookmark of yours. Editor.

Oh boy, where to start?

Characters: Boring and disappointing for the most part. Which is very sad when in the first few episodes there is much potential in Kurau, the heroine of the series. Literally the first image in the series is of Kurau standing alone on a building structure high above the busy flying cars of a future city, apathetic to what should be dangerous to any normal human. Very Ghost in the shell, Major Kusanagi visually......also there are doves flying in the backround. Which you understand later what that scene represents in the story, but this is the moments of the first episode, ... so I was thinking more along the lines of John Woo and Kurau was about to do a slow motion dive through a skylight. Taking out a room full of bad guys with dual pistols. (End Tangent)

Later on you find out when she was 12 years old, during one of her fathers experiments with a new energy type called Rynax there is an accident, causing two particles to break free from the test area and enter Kurau's body. The "Rynax" is a sentient life form that lives it's life in pairs and when entering our "world" need symbiosis with a human to survive (perceivability). Taking over the host's personality, and gaining memories from that persons past (usually), while giving the human special powers and abilities as well. We are then treated to a "6million Dollar Man" team of scientist testing of her physical abilities, dubbing her super human.

Fast forward back to the current time and Kurau is a bad ass freelance "agent", which are basically Bounty Hunters or Mercenaries that do any job that falls beyond the scope of the GPO(Government Police). Cold, brash and the best in the business, she is even called Krazy Reckless Kurau by her co-agent while on the job. Passing threw solid matter, the ability to break her body down into light and pretty much "scan" her immediate area. She can also obliterate or bend matter and effect electrical systems. You are even treated to a battle where Kuraru takes down a Mech in a mid air battle...... with nothing but a "Riot Sword". All in the first episode!!!

What happens next is Christmas appears, who was the second of the pair of Rynax Kurau took into her body, after 10 years of resting. And in one night, Kurau turns from the number one power babe mercenary to a crying, whiny, punching bag for the rest of the series, about 20 episodes in total. Spending much of the time beaten up, bruised and crying, her spiral down to an emowreck really turned me off to this show. There are some moments where she shows true power, like the first GPO ambush were their most effective weapon against Rynax doesn't put her down. But most of the time she is face down and bleeding after the GPO begins to try and track her down for being a rynax sapien.

"Where's my Christmas!!!!!!"- Get used to hearing that over, and over, and over again.

And other than Kurau, I had zero attachment to anyone else in the series, specially since she is the only character they develop in the series. Nobody else even matters for most of the show besides Christmas, whom follow from her "birth" into the series.


Plot:Keeping it short now. The rich look for greater riches and the powerful look for greater power. And I guess in the case of the Rynax, those who can move threw dimensions, search for new worlds to experience. The ethics of the Rynax exploiting people to stay in this state of being and people exploiting the Rynax for power, is on display in the series. And that the connections that people make are special, because nobody wants to be alone, being the over riding theme. That is the gist of the story.

Also don't mind that Christmas is literally a walking plot hole against the last half of the series and nothing really is completely explained in the show. Like why the Rynax need to be in pairs, because by the end of the series Kurau and Christmas have to spent a pretty large amount of time apart from one another, but neither one is effected negatively. When in contrast, threw out the show you're made to believe that being a part from your partner physically hurts the Rynax and causes a slow and painful death.

Also what happened on the pirate ship??? No spoiler, but it makes no sense and they never talk about it afterwards. Like a married coupe who just avoid bringing up an affair in the relationship. It just goes a way.

Sound: Nothing really to speak of, the intro and closing songs were nothing special. And if I'm am not mistaken they used sound effects from the Proton packs in Ghost Busters when Kurau first comes in contact with the Rynax. So bad....... I really didn't pay too much attention afterwards because of how hackney it was to use the Ghost Busters SFX.

Art: Dull and drab, nothing stands out. The doldrums would best describe the art and personalities on display. Which would work if this was a gritty, life is hard and everybody dies type of show. Instead of being a cry fest trying to make you relate to every characters life and understand the greater value of love and friendship. Much like if Monster was about a brother and a sister beating all the odds to open a cupcake shop, instead being as real as a heart attack, dark and twisted mind f@#$. Drab works when it fits the story.


I think only two recurring characters in the whole series don't cry at some point, the evil scientist and the evil GPO director. My confusion is, is this a compelling story I want to explore or some 14 year old Gothic girls diary I should stop reading or laugh at!!!!! I enjoyed the first episode and I continued to watch this series only because of the first episode. I would not recommend this show to anyone.