Musaigen no Phantom World

Phantoms: supernatural entities such as ghosts or youkai that, until recently, were thought to be superstition. However, when a virus that infects the brain spreads throughout society, people's perception of the world changes as the mythical beings are revealed to have been living alongside humanity the entire time. This virus has also affected those of the next generation significantly, allowing them to develop special abilities that they can use to fight against dangerous phantoms.

Haruhiko Ichijou and Mai Kawakami are two of those that were granted such power—Haruhiko wields the ability to summon and seal phantoms through drawings, while Mai imbues the power of the elements into martial arts. Together, along with the friendly phantom Ruru, they form Team E of Hosea Academy, which is dedicated to dealing with these often mischievous beings. In a world where the real and surreal intertwine, they handle the everyday troubles caused by phantoms.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kawakami, Mai Main

Uesaka, Sumire Japanese

Izumi, Reina Main

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Minase, Koito Main

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Ichijou, Haruhiko Main

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Kumamakura, Kurumi Main

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Ruru Main

Tadokoro, Azusa Japanese

Enigma Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Albrecht Supporting

Okiayu, Ryoutarou Japanese

Witch Supporting

Nagatsuma, Juri Japanese

Morohashi, Shousuke Supporting

Sakaguchi, Daisuke Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Nakamura, Shinichi Producer

Saitou, Shigeru Producer

Nishide, Masayuki Producer

Reviews

Jun 25, 2023

Creosi

Recommended

To me, this was a really good anime. For starters, it could be classified as a slice-of-life harem, which is my favorite kind of series. Whilst I know that most harems often depict more sexual interactions between the male protagonist and the female deuteragonists, I would say that this more passive approach to harem is (a) more applicable to a younger audience though who still search for the thrills harem offers and (b) easier to apply to a story with a feel-good theme, such as this one.

The structure of the plot and its writing is something I must compliment. The ground concept of high school ... students combatting dangerous mystical creatures is something that has been used in anime before – the most notable interpretation of this would, for me, be Darling in the FranXX – and I do believe it is rather lame. However, what makes up for this rather bland foundation is the amazing characters that you get to encounter. Characters who essentially start as empty shells get, throughout the entire season, filled with more and more depth as you get to know them better; that is something I love about this series – the fact that you start developing bonds, one-sided yes, with the characters as you get to know them. Take Reina for example in episode 4: you learn that her dream is to have a caring and kind family. Then look at Reina throughout the rest of the season, with that in mind; her family starts listening to and caring about her more. Another example, one that made me shed a tear, would be Haruhiko in episode 11. I am not going to spoil that episode, if anyone reads this, as I believe it to be the truly golden episode of the entire series and that everyone should watch it without spoilers.

I know that this anime has gotten a large amount of criticism for its bland and boring nature, but I disagree. Bonafide weebs reading this review might realize what an inexperienced anime watcher I am, and I do not deny that. Though I have not watched any animes that make this concept that bland yet. I do understand that people might look down on this anime if the concept is overused within the genre, though the characters and the stories revolving around them are very touching and deserve credit, in my opinion.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 29, 2020

zhewww

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr From an avid KyoAni fan, skip this one lol.

Look, I watch anime for animation. If I wanted a good story, I'd read a book, or watch a film. And that's why I've often said I'd watch anything if it was done by Kyoto Animation.

That being said, this anime definitely tested that resolve. While it's inoffensive, and actually a pretty good adaptation considering that they only had half of a volume of source material, I just wonder, "Why did this have to be made?"

And more importantly, "Why did KyoAni have to take this? Wouldn't this have been better left to A-1 or something?"

Musaigen isn't ... funny enough to be a comedy, isn't deep enough to be a supernatural thriller, and isn't even fanservice-y enough to be a good ecchi. Imo, the mediocrity of this anime has a lot more to do with source material and business decisions than the actual studio, which is a shame considering that it tarnished KyoAni's reputation pretty roughly.

There are some nice visuals, most notably some rare action/fight scenes that got me wishing for a proper combat-oriented title from KyoAni sometime (similar to Chuunibyou). And I'm a big fan of the character designs too, especially how KyoAni took special care to give them each varying heights and body shapes.

Overall though, I'm giving this a 6 for being a 4-5 show with (+1) KyoAni art. Luckily, this show seems to have been a temporary dip for the studio, with great stuff coming out after it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 28, 2024

onespankman

Not Recommended

In episode one of Musaigen no Phantom World, a truly remarkable sequence occurs.

The protagonist, a girl, and a fairy are talking on a set of stairs. The girl runs off and trips, so the protagonist dives to the bottom of the stairs, gets near where she’ll land, and turns his body around one eighty degrees midair so that she’ll land on his back. The fairy then lifts the girl slightly midair, causing her to front flip and land just in front of the protagonist, who then sees up her skirt.

This really only comes across when you see it animated, it is shockingly difficult to describe ... in text. There are about three physically impossible things that happen in this sequence, coordinated perfectly to deliver a baffling, obnoxiously self-aware fanservice scene.

If this were animated differently — by a studio that uses less realistically proportioned characters, and stretches realism more in action scenes — it could look good. I imagine Trigger could make this scene come off as natural. Kyoto Animation is the worst possible choice to animate this. It comes off as impossible, and only makes less sense the more you think about it. The result is glorious — a shameless celebration of fanservice bullshit, in an entirely original form.

This is the most interesting thing that happens in Musaigen no Phantom World.

The show this scene suggests is incredible, a truly original ecchi anime that leans into the unreality of the genre to deliver hilarious fanservice scenes. This anime is not that show.

Anything like this scene only happens once again throughout the rest of the runtime — later in that same episode. After that, it turns into a standard ghost hunting/school club anime.

That could have been good too, especially with animation of this caliber. Unfortunately, the writing is such a tangled mess that it can’t even accomplish that.

The premise is simple: a few years ago, a virus was released that caused the entire human population to begin perceiving “phantoms”, basically ghosts. At the same time, babies began to be born with superpowers. We follow a school club, comprised of these superpowered people, that is tasked with hunting trouble causing phantoms.

That much is fine, but the show insists on framing this basic premise with walls of tortured flavortext. Like, the phantoms aren’t just ghosts, they’re manifestations conjured up by the brain, and may only exist in human perception. I’m here for some overcomplicated flavortext, but this show takes it too far, opening every episode by repeating this exposition, and having the main character spout off random Wikipedia level anecdotes.

These explanations are entirely detached from the narrative. One episode opens on an explanation of Jungian archetypes, suggesting phantoms may be manifestations of these. It then addends the fact that they can actually be literally anything. So why the fuck did we bring up Jung if it doesn’t relate to anything?

To be fair, the author doesn’t seem to misunderstand these concepts. This is the one anime I’ve seen get Schrödinger's Cat right. But if they don’t mean anything for the plot and themes, why are they here to begin with? If this was just a quirk of the main character I could forgive it, but the entire show is drenched in this kind of nonsense.

This is, at its core, a slice of life club anime. When the narrative leans into that, and fully leverages Kyoani’s great character animation, it’s pretty good.

The mid section of this show is episodic, with each episode focusing on the main characters hunting a different phantom. During this, there are some good episode plots that dive into the characters' pasts and psychologies. Episode ten — in which that fairy I mentioned earlier becomes human for a day — is a particular standout.

There are stretches where the show really works, but not all of these episode plots are built equal.

In episode eight, a hot spring populated by horny monkeys appears in the middle of the school, so our main characters spend half of the episode trying to sexually appeal to the monkeys in order to lure them out… and eventually they realize they need to paint their asses red to do that… then they find out the leader monkey is recently divorced. It's not all that funny, and it’s too niche and uncomfortable to even work as fanservice… this whole episode shouldn’t have happened.

All of the main characters’ superpowers seem designed to be as lame and confusing as possible. The MC can trap phantoms in his sketchbook by drawing them, but he can also summon phantoms he’s trapped in the book, but then later he can also summon phantoms without the book for some reason.

At first he can only use the trapping ability, but in episode one they introduce a character with an ability that does the same thing but better, rendering his ability completely useless. It doesn’t seem the author wrote their abilities to be complimentary, but rather just made up stuff as they went along.

One character is said to be really strong. Her ability involves singing to summon beams of energy, kind of like a less cool version of Inumaki’s cursed speech. In practice, she can fire weak ass beams by doing a goofy ass hum, which is sometimes accompanied by a lame ass incantation. How this ability is strong, or how exactly it works remains murky for the entire season.

The child character (who has weird bug antenna looking-ass front twin tails) can make her teddy bear blow up to monster-size and fight, but can also just make it do whatever the plot demands at any given moment.

These abilities are overcomplicated, not complimentary, and what they can and cannot do changes constantly. And they don’t even look cool. They suck.

The worst writing occurs in the shoehorned in two episode arc that ends the show, but I’ve done enough tedious listing off of things in this review (and don’t want to add a spoiler tag), so I’ll leave it at that.

The visuals don’t quite make up for all of this. As anyone could tell from one glance at the abysmal poster and title card, this series is aesthetically confused. Kyoani’s style overrides this design sense in most scenes, but when it does poke through, it looks awful.

When it comes to character animation, this show is a treat (like every Kyoani show). If you’re a Kyoani fan, that might make it worth watching, but be warned, this has its reputation for a reason. It is not a hidden gem, and it does not deserve critical reevaluation. If there was a positive angle on this show I thought was reasonable, I would take it — there’s no studio I’m more deferential to than Kyoto Animation.

I hate to say it, but this is just a bad show. The writing is a mess, the episode plots are iffy, the aesthetics are confused, and the animation isn’t good enough to compensate.

Only watch this if you’re trying to one hundred percent Kyoani’s catalog. Otherwise, avoid it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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