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A Haunting Requiem For a Phantom

ObscureAnimeMemories

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Hi Everyone. As is tradition, after disappearing for about a month, I have returned with a full series retrospective, this time on Requiem for Phantom, possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever watched on this channel. That's not to say the series has no artistic merit, merely that it may not be for everyone. Indeed it does have nuance and twists and substance all within its at times bleak and always suspenseful shell. And of course...

Requiem for Phantom is a production of Studio Bee Train. All properties belong to their respective owners and...

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

0:00 - 5:52 Intro
5:53 - 6:52 Some Context
6:53 - 15:35 Brief Plot Outline
15:36 - 16:53 Thoughts on the Ending
16:55 - 19:16 An Intentionally Disturbing Piece
19:17 - 23:15 A Masterfully Disjointed Plot
23:16 - 26:20 The Setting
26:21 - 30:27 A Truly Grim Tone
30:28 - 32:25 Visuals
32:26 - 33:35 Two Recap Episodes?
33:36 - 36:09 The OST
36:10 - 38:57 Operatic Motifs
38:58 - 41:50 Dubbing Notes
41:51 - 51:24 The Tragedy of Cal
51:25 - 58:10 The Loss of Innocence
58:11 - 1:09:32 Claudia's Failure
1:09:33 - 1:11:51 Destiny and Agency Here
1:11:52 - 1:19:59 Sick Scythe Master
1:20:00 - 1:25:32 Evil
1:25:33 - 1:27:41 The Gotos
1:27:42 - 1:32:17 McGuire is McPointless (This is Good)
1:32:18 - 1:48:13 Reiji and Fighting to Survive
1:48:14 - 1:50:33 Abuse
1:50:34 -2:02:36 Eren and Healing
2:02:37 - 2:10:28 Lizzie Garland
2:10:29 - 2:13:36 Conclusion

14 Comments

@Joe-i9p 4 weeks ago

I'm happy that a video on this animation exists with length. The music was at times an attack and a setting the mood vs the visuals. What a great anime it was and I still listen to the soundtrack once once year or something to this day

@GoofballDeluxe 6 months ago

This is one of my 3 favorite anime ever, absolute masterpiece

@MrTeofrastus 6 months ago

Thank you for covering this! I watched it when I was younger, loved it, and last year I rewatched it. I have a special place in my heart for this anime.

@wellsshady 6 months ago

Obscure-san uploads, the world is saved

@Dikaplio 2 weeks ago

Great video!

@dagon99 5 months ago

Looks interesting. I'll be glad to check it out, kudos!

@Wind_Falcon 5 months ago (edited)

Watched this as it was airing back in the day. Liked it, but now I only remember the ending. I personally liked the ending, even if I was rooting for a happy conclusion for the characters.
Saying Requiem is more dark than Texhnolyze is wild though. Also Haibane Renmei itself gets pretty dark, that's a weird rec for a palate cleanser.
Also a show doesn't have to overtly or even covertly "denounce evil". The purpose of narrative art is insight and revealing universal truths about the human condition. Often achieving that requires showing the world and humans as they are without bias or an obligatory patronizing "you should think this". People reaching their own concussions is necessary, not optional, for art to work at all.
You should do a review of Daughter of Twenty Faces, another forgotten gem from that era.

@AW-oo8qp 5 months ago

Yeah when I was younger I got Requiem and Darker than Black as Christmas gifts from my family, who just knew I liked anime but didn’t review the content…weird that they were both about assassins.

I remember having the same reaction to the ending and I wholeheartedly agree that it isn’t a “feel-good” anime and truly drove that point home with the needless ending. I REALLY wanted them to be happy by the end of it…

@straydogontheroad 6 months ago

Ah, I haven't finished this one. I'll come back to this.

@kamenriderfan322 3 months ago (edited)

Also a bit of a fun fact: Phantom was based on a visual novel that was actually Gen Urobuchi’s first major writing debut (the Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, Psycho Pass S1, Saya no Uta and Kamen Rider Gaim guy)

I haven’t watched the anime myself but great video!

@1987SerbianGamer 6 months ago

Here's a suggestion. Soultaker 2001.

@wifi-rex442 6 months ago

Argento Soma next pls pls pls pls please

@abelbavdaz6823 6 months ago

This was a great video and I agree with most things you said but not everything, I disagree on moral on evil, I do not think it wants to be moral on it but show evil as a dark plot point for the story, I disagree on the recaps, I love them, they show what happened in the two arcs to transition to the following one, I wish they did an OVA for the third arc, I also think they must be watched for the new scenes in-between the already-existing scenes and at the end of each recaps. Also, I wish you talked about the difference of the three arcs but you wanted to focus on the characters rather than chronology/genres and I understand that, you want to keep your narrative style for your videos, you did not talk about Isaac Wisemel which I found interesting and The Bloodies (his group seen in second arc mostly, it is also alluded that Lizzie and Inferno members killed the remaining members after Isaac and Randy Weber got killed), you partially talked about Tony Stone but talking about Inferno's negotiations with him regarding Melanie Square would have been interesting. Also; your opinion on tone is respectable but I think its tone matches the themes conveyed in the series, same with the ending, the themes match it as well, I also would have liked seeing you talk about symbolic visuals in OPs/EDs and scenes but you nailed it.

@crosswire40 5 months ago

For all its interesting elements, I agree that the ending is absolutely awful. If the show was aiming to be bleak and tragic, then there are much better ways to do that then a cheap rug pull moment at the literal last minute. If you're going to write a deliberately unhappy ending, then you should naturally build up to that and allude to it so it doesn't come out of nowhere. Have the bad ending tie into the themes or general message beyond "everything is awful and will always be that way". Going "and then everyone died, the end" for shock value just cheapens and diminishes everything that came before it.