If you just want to have a good action-thriller or something like that, watch something else. Normaly I put my recommendations at the end but because the following is a deconstruction of how incredibly shitty this show was, I'll be so kind and tell you right now some shows that actually make sense:
Zankyou no Terror
Baccano
Durarara
Black Bullet (kinda at least)
Darker than black
Btooom
Shinsekei Yori
Higashi no Eden
The plot:
The story of "Phantom: Requiem for the phantom" takes place somewhere inbetween 2000 and 2010. It tells the story of "Zwei" (german for two), a japanese student that was caught in the middle of a fight of an organisation called Inferno. He was however spared, as our classic villain with the desire to create the perfect assasin found him and saw "raw potential" in him and his instinctive strength to kill and survive. We also get to know "Ein" (german for one, although it would be eins if the writer had known any german and not used google-translate). She is - unlike Zwei, a lot less talented. However she is the perfect doll as she seemingly has completely lost her will to resist the orders of "master scythe". The story follows the "tragic" life of our cast as they have to face death, crime, injustice and so on.
Story:
At first, Phantom delivers a solid action-thriller. A very, very strong first episode that makes us ask "why, who and what happend". Sadly, the writer basicaly solves the entire mystery after 2 respectively 5 episodes. Wow. After that we have to witness a slow decline in credibility and logic until in episode 10 and 11 we look at the screen and ask ourselves: "What the fuck even?"
Examples of this absolute nonsense are the following: meaningless, unrealistic plottwists like the sacrifice of ein to protect her master are just dumb. You see her standing in a waiting-position BEHIND Zwei as he faces the master, he screams (ofc he followed him like 2 minutes in steady 10 meter distance to face him off in an epic, mysterious deadend aka the end of the port). And no, he does not wait, he shots at the master. But "HEY LETS FORGET ABOUT FUCKING LOGIC FOR A SECOND" aka ein magicaly teleports infront of Zwei, jumps infront of the master and saves him from the bullet. (btw we see that the shot went through her body in later episodes but okay, it then must have stoped in midair inbetween her and the master and droped to the ground). Zwei loses his shit and instead of killing the master he has a mental breakdown. The master then shoots him three times in the chest from basically 1 meter or less with a high-caliber gun. We also see that he has shot him in the middle of the chest. Zwei gives no fucks about that, falls into the sea, gets transported to the beach (btw the water would've filled his lungs and he would0ve just drowned as he was still alive when he fell into the water) where the waves cover him entirely (so that he sure as hell must be dead because he also couldn't breath).
Oh wait, what did you say? He survived it? AND EIN TWO? Oh boy how could I forget about that they have mastered ultra instinct (yes, they avoid bullets from machine guns mid-air in earlier episodes) AND survive direct hits to the heart AND don't need air to survive AND return to the places they hate the most. Yeah. We all do that to from time to time, don't we?
Even if you forget about these "smaller" things or the wtf moments like when the characters somehow manage to overcome all problems and do some absolutely impossible things like jumping 3 meters high; its very clear, that the show has major flaws in writing and it looks as if they had a solid foundation and then a very, very untalented writer.
Art:
Not much to say. The animation was very nice, especialy in the beginning. It felt fluent for the most part, featured lovely backgrounds and solid character design. Tho at times the CGI was a bit odd (can be forgiven for a show from 2009 tho).
Sound:
Its an absolute shame this show is such garbage beceause the soundtracks sure as hell weren't. An absolutely stunning OP, a very strong ED and to top it all: a fitting, atmospheric OST. I wish more shows had such an amazing sound. The voiceacting was good, nothing very remarkable tho. The english dub is also pretty good.
Character:
Oh boy. Just no. Let me introduce you to the cast once more:
"Ein" aka kudere-girl that has somehow NO will to get back her memories and merely exists to give us a reason for Zwei to betray everyone.
"Zwei" aka our classic protagonist with no deeper meaning, a very strange character development from super scared to super scary to super badass to super bad fucked in the ass. After he loses "Ein" he adopts a little girl and helps her seek revenge for her dead sister (except they probably didn't even kill the right murderer.)
"Drei" (german for three, I guess you see the pattern here by now), the adopted girl that loved Zwei over everything but then decided that she would follow our villain and kill zwei because he "let her back dead" when really she was in dispair and hopelessness because she lost her only family like 10 minutes earlier in the show.
"Scythe Master", a classic villain with no real reason besides to be the villain.
"Claude" aka super weird lady with the will to kill everyone in her gang because she wants to climb the ladder of power (something that her dead brother never could) and merely exists to give zwei a reason to kill and to present some fanservice. You know they knew the show must be bad if they depend on fanservice in mid-show after they realized their show has nothing more to present besides boobies)
The "gang" aka a big group of random evil mafia-gangsters, yakuzas and triade-members that build the foundation of the ultimative, evil group of "inferno"
Yeah, you get it. The characters are shit. At first however they seem very interessting (including ein - zwei - drei) but they soon lose all credibility and become very unlikable. Oh did I already mention that Drei went from "super loli that can't possibly be older than 13" to "women that looks like 25 - 30 with the will to kill everyone without reason" in 2 years? Great, isn't it. Its like as if after they killed boobie-sponsor 1 they needed someone else so they decided to make drei into the boobie-sponsor of the last arc.
Enjoyment:
Man, I wish this show was better. I wanted to drop it after ep 11 but kept watching. I just had that hope, that it would take a 180 degree turn and deliver a solid second half. And it did - for around 4 episodes, then it went downhill even more than before.
Its somehow sad to say but I'd rather watch Kiss x Sis than this because there at least I know what I can and should expect.
Overall:
Decent at best. Not recommended. If you like action-thrillers, watch something else.
