Reviews

Apr 2, 2016
The human brain is possibly the most complex biological entity on planet Earth. It evolved over millions of years into something capable of not only surviving despite having no physical advantage over our predators but also into something capable of deciphering the numerous secrets of the universe.

When an anime tries to tackle something as complex as the human psyche you would think it’s an anime with a serious tone and serious characters. Well, not necessarily, today I am taking a look at the Winter 2016 anime which revolves around the human brain: Musaigen no Phantom World or Myriad Colours Phantom World in English.

Plot and characters

The plot of Musaigen no Phantom World revolves around a group of students living in a world in which all sorts of monsters and fairy tale characters run wild. The world being in this state is the result of an accident at a research facility which modified the brain of every human around the world.
The main characters of the show, as I’ve mentioned are a group of students who are all members of the Neural Error Corrections Club; a club in which all the members have superpowers which they use to deal with evil monsters or Phantoms as the show calls them.

Our male lead is the smart but clueless and at times useless Ichijo Haruhiko. He has the power to seal away all the evil Phantoms and along with his teammate Kawakami Mai, who utilizes elemental powers, forms the weakest group in the club. There’s not a lot to say about Haruhiko’s personality he is honestly pretty empy personality wise. The more notable things are his ability to create a harem and his issues concerning his parents which become important towards the end of the series. Other than that he is just there so that the audience can project on to him. He is never directly involved in fights, most of the time being relegated to just sucking up the enemies into his book or summoning other Phantoms to fight for him.

I’ve mentioned her earlier but our main female lead is Kawakami Mai. She is also the poster girl for this anime. Mai is an athletic tomboy who has been friends with Haruhiko for a while before the series begins. Now, you’d think that because she is the poster girl for the series she would get a lot of backstory and screentime. Nope, she is instead given the task of providing as much fanservice as possible with some sexy moves for when she uses an ability and even a scene where Haruhiko paints her butt. Once again, her character also fall short because of the lack of development.
Oh, and there’s also that frankly annoying Ruru who is Haruhiko’s childhood friend Phantom and the shows main source of terrible comic relief. She is a special Phantom who doesn’t want to harm humans and is actually really friendly. She is sort of like Na’Vi, tries to be helpful but ends up being more of a nuisance. She suddenly becomes really important at the end of the show which comes out of the blue considering that she’s basically done nothing up until that point except for messing things up a lot.

We also have some characters who join the main cast after a “quest” has been performed for them. These characters are: the cheerful and shy Izumi Reina, the quiet and mysterious Minase Koito, and the “only exists because we need a loli” Kumamakura Kurumi. All of which suffer from the same problems as our original dynamic duo. With them getting 1 or 2 episodes of character development before being assigned a role and an archetype and then being pushed to the side.
The anime is episodic in nature with only the last 2 episodes being connected by a common plot thread. Almost everything is reset to the status-quo at the end of each episode which makes one episode in particular totally pointless and skipable, coincidentaly this episode is also the hot springs episode of the series.

Let’s talk a bit about the ecchi aspect of the series. I generally find that there is nothing wrong with having some fanservice in a show as long as it doesn’t sacrifice plot just to show me some boobs. This show however takes it’s already non-existing plot and puts some ecchi in it; some very painful ecchi scenes which give me flashbacks to Heavy Object. It’s like they are afraid to put the ecchi in so they half-ass it and somehow make it more in-your-face than it would normally be and also painful to watch at times.

The episodic nature of the series combined with the characters being uninteresting and unchanging for the most part is what ruins what could have been a good show. But alas, it is as my history teacher used to say “History is what has happened, not what could have happened.”


Sound and Animation
This is really where the series shines. Kyoto Animation is the studio behind the animation for this work. I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that this is one of the most beautiful shows ever created. The screen is filled with vibrant colours and the animations are fantastic. Almost feels like this anime had a movie budget for each and every episode. The opening animation, especially is one of the best looking openings I have seen in recent memory. I could go on praising the animation of this series for quite a while so I’m just going to stop myself there.

Now, concerning the sound design of the anime I can’t really praise it that much. Sure, both the opening and ending songs are fun to listen to and there is nothing wrong with the tracks that play during the anime. There’s also nothing praiseworthy, nothing that sticks out and no song that I want to listen to even after the anime is over.

Final verdict

Wasted potential is what I would call Phantom world. It brings an interesting concept and good looking animation but messes up in the story department. There’s some enjoyment to be had with this show particularly if you like vibrant colours and/or softcore ecchi scenes. At the end of the day, I wish they would have focused more on the plot of the series rather than the art and fanservice. Sadly, because of the poor decisions of its creators I’m giving this show a failing grade. At first I really hoped this show would pull itself together and give us something good. I wanted it to be good. But by the time episode 8 rolled around (the hot springs episode) it was obvious that the show wouldn’t be saveable anymore. And so, my final score for this anime is a 4/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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