What’s Wrong with Myriad Colors Phantom World?

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I believe that there is no perfect animation studio out there.

Everyone has their ups and downs, from studios like ARMS and Gainax slowly turning into obscurity, P.A. Works and Bones being inconsistent as all hell, and even giants like Madhouse, Production I.G, and ufotable having their down moments as well (although those are few and far in between).

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And, of course, Kyoto Animation.

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I feel like the “inconsistencies” category have been a section that KyoAni have recently belonged to.  There were periods where they would make some of the most amazing things that animation has to offer, i.e. K-On Season 2, Hyouka, Hibike Euphonium, just to name a select few, as they have done plenty of high-quality shows over the years.

But then there were those days where they don’t really feel like doing anything and just turn back to their old ways of not really doing much other than have cute character designs over a lazy/haphazardly-constructed story (if at all, for that matter), i.e. Amagi Brilliant Park, MOST of Chuunibyou, MOST of Beyond the Boundary, and ALL of Tamako Market (although they did greatly improve Tamako Market with the film).

And yes, the anime that I’m reviewing today fits in that category of lazy, uninspired stories sprinkled to the brim with classic KyoAni tier tropes.

 

And it might be the worst one yet.

 

My name is Ken, and today, I present to you a question on a show about the power of the human mind that’s surprisingly stupid and bleeding with uninspired ideas:  What’s wrong with Myriad Colors Phantom World?

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In Myriad Colors Phantom World, we are introduced to an alternate version of reality where a leak of a virus in a secret laboratory causes the perceptive abilities of humans to change, making us all able to see all manner of phantoms. The idea is that phantoms have always existed in the human world, being responsible for certain phenomena and occurences, and the laboratory leak was able to “awaken” the human brain into being able to perceive previously unknown beings.  Around the time where the need to control these phantoms became neccesary, many children gained abilities that can be used to fight and subdue phantoms, and are recruited at various clubs and organizations to help with the cause.

The story revolves around Haruhiko Ichijo and his friends in the Phantom-hunting club of Hosea Academy, a private school for children with special abilities to seal phantoms, and their everyday life and struggles, dealing with phantoms.

Now, let’s start with something that everyone loves:  useless exposition.

Because this show has quite a bit of that.

And not the good kind.

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All the weird descriptions and explanations of the various concepts at the start of every episode feel very out of place in terms of the narrative style of the show itself, so much so that the logic for the most part didn’t even feel believable at all, but rather it sounds like something a college student would say to bullshit his way out of psychology class.

And that’s one of my major gripes with the show:  it tries to sound smart by throwing out all these terms and lessons about human perception and how our brains are hardwired to process reality, but those themes don’t really tie into anything major and instead is scattered all over the supposed story.  I say “supposed story” because Phantom World, for the most part, is an episodic series, with individual plots for each episode that contribute NOTHING to ANY overarching story.

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And that isn’t to say that episodic shows are horrible in any way, they just have to be done RIGHT.

 And Phantom World does NOT do it right, in my opinion.

 

Episodic series are generally made for the intention of taking an established character in the first or prior episode(s), and then building upon those characters, allowing us to further empathize and relate to them, by placing them in particular scenarios that either challenge or highlight their individual motives.  A major example of this is Hyouka, which excels at using each individual arc to its fullest by unveiling/developing certain characteristics and character dynamics through the scenarios which highlight a specific aspect of their personality.

In Phantom World, you don’t really get a sense of why these characters are the way they are, and even if we do see the reason for why they act the way they do, they’re generally hollow, uninspired explanations, so much so that you don’t really feel that you know a character any better than when you first met them.

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And yet ANOTHER gripe I have with Phantom World:  the characters.  They’re as bland and archetypal as you can get, and they don’t really get much development over the course of the series.  Granted, some of the backstories were interesting and kind of insightful, but that compliment is immediately tossed out the window as you realize that the they don’t really do anything with those backstories aside from just that singular episode with when it was shown.  It makes it so that the backstories seem like a cheap cop-out from making actual relatable characters and more of an excuse to get us to be “emotionally-invested” in them.

In addition, none of their characteristics really match with the various themes that the show goes for, making it very disjointed and, ultimately, pointless, as if the character-focused myriad-colors-phantom-world-limbo-challengeepisodes were all just one big waste of time that you’d think was worth more but they just leave it out in the sun to dry and so you’re left with a shriveled-up husk of what could’ve been a nice little character study.  It doesn’t help that the dynamics between the main cast is synthetically hollow and doesn’t really have much chemistry to make their interactions believable.

Finally , the ending feels thinly veiled and overly contrived, almost as if the writers just realized that they only had a few weeks left to create some sort of coherent climax to the show and just procrastinated over it in about a night.  And that’s essentially what I feel about the story overall, actually:  something done haphazardly that it turns out to be completely void of any substance whatsoever.

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One redeeming factor about this show is its animation, which, in classic KyoAni fair, is pretty amazing.  Character designs were unique for the most part, and the settings were indeed detailed with fantastical set pieces and brilliant lighting.  The exposition scenes at the beginning of each episode even goes for the Hyouka-method of showing various illustrations and representations of whatever was being discussed (although not to the same polish of Hyouka’s experimental style).

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Lots of bright colors are used to accentuate the whimsical nature of the show, and there were indeed some clever and witty cinematography that made certain comedic and emotional moments more impactful (i.e. using narrow depth-of-field shots and cartoonish transitions).

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The action as well, for the most part, was not too bad either and greatly benefited from the amount of fluidity that the animation imparted.  Coupled with some impressive effects, and you’ve got some generally good-looking action sequences.

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Now, I sadly have to kind of dampen that one redeeming factor (this is an article criticizing against the show, after all), because as good as the animation and the cinematography was, a lot of it was wasted on nothing.  Some clever set pieces (such as in the opening sequence of the first episode) were never utilize fully and were never used again, while some (like the alternate childish realities of both Reina and Kurumi in their respective backstory episodes) are re-used with a different coat of paint, as imaginative as they may appear to be.

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And the saddest part is that I do think that they could’ve done more with the right direction in developing certain characters and the setting as a whole, it’s just that, like the story and characters themselves, the animation was also haphazardly added in, putting in all these clever cinematography for no real reason whatsoever.

The soundtrack is nothing to be impressed, to be quite honest, be it the opening, ending, or just the show’s actual OST.  Nothing really stands out, and from a studio that succeeds in being consistent with good OSTs to compliment their series, this was a grave disappointment.

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When all is said and done, there’s no real reason to search out Myriad Colors Phantom World for yourself.

It never quite figured out what kind of series it wanted to be and that confusion kept it from becoming something truly engaging. You can try and argue that it’s some sort of “turn off your brain” entertainment without a real message, but it was clearly trying to tell a story at its end, which felt haphazardly put together, and even then there really isn’t much fun to be had with the show, in my opinion.  The characters for the most part aren’t that interesting (especially the main character), the plot is all over the place, and the comedy can be hit-or-miss.

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You might say that I’m being too harsh on this show just because it’s not up-to-par with KyoAni’s standards, and to be honest, that is a bit of a factor as to my expectations of this show.  But with how it turned out, that’s not even the main issue anymore; it’s mainly the apparent lack of effort and polish in Phantom World that really rustles my jimmies.

For me, the whole anime felt like there was no passion put into making it, and if the creators didn’t seem to care at all for these characters, for the story, or for the highly imaginative setting that they could potentially have built upon but didn’t, then why should you.  All the creators seemed to care about was how pretentious they can make the story seem, how bland and stereotypical they can make their characters, and how much fanservice they can shoehorn across the show to pander to as many waifu preferences as they can.

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I can’t say that I didn’t expect it to be a stellar series when I saw the first episode when it aired, but still I’m disappointed at just how forgettable this series turned out to be by its end.  It’s not necessarily “horrible” in any sense, as it does have its merits.  The animation quality is certainly not lacking in any way, some of the visuals are really clever, the premise is definitely interesting, and some of the characters were in fact fun to watch, despite not having much development.  Sadly, those moments are buried under a huge pile of mediocrity that honestly could’ve been so much better.  If they just took out a lot of the needless melodrama that didn’t really go anywhere, and instead opted to just have fun with the show like what Amagi Brilliant Park did for the most part, I would’ve at least enjoyed this series.  Unfortunately, we got what we got.

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It doesn’t work that well as an episodic series, and it’s “overarching story” isn’t anything to swoon over with how fragile it was.  In the face of such an influential company, Myriad Colors Phantom World is a slight blemish, but thankfully it’s a blemish that will not be remembered anytime soon.

And hey, KyoAni is doing better things in the future, so this is nothing but a slight, forgettable setback.   Nonetheless, Myriad Colors Phantom World is easily one of, if not the weakest series that KyoAni has ever produced.

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As per usual, leave a comment down below pertaining to your thoughts on this editorial, on the anime itself, or if you would like me to review/make an editorial about anything.  And, speaking of liking, give the article a thumbs-up if you enjoyed it and follow me on twitter @tbs_ken for updates and general shitposting if you feel like doing so.

And, with that, I bid you all adieu.  This has been Ken, and I’ll see you guys in the future-
-whenever that may be.

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