Anime Review
Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (TV)
Running time: 24 minutes per episode
Number of episodes: 26
Episode titles: We have 26
Vintage: 2009-04-02
Plot Summary:
A spate of mafia assasinations occurs in America, the work of the mysterious organization named Inferno. "Phantom" is their most strongest and capable assassin, however a lone tourist witnesses Phantom's latest act of murder. He unwittingly exposes the top assassin's true identity, a young girl named Ein. Witnesses are usually killed, but the man is captured and taken to be brainwashed into "Zwei", Inferno's newest assassin, with no memory of who he is. From this point on, Zwei is drawn into a world of conspiracy, deceit and violence.
Video game
Phantom of Inferno is a story detailing the life of a 15-year-old Japanese boy who is kidnapped after witnessing the killing of a reporter. After being kidnapped his memories of his past life are erased and is given the choice to join Inferno or die. He makes the only choice he can to join and is given the name Zwei(German for number two) and will study under Ein. Ein is also known as Phantom since this is the title given to the organization's top assassin.
Inferno is said to be the United Nations that exists only for crime syndicates. As Zwei makes his way through training and various missions, deceit and betrayal occur even within Inferno that slowly puts Zwei in increasing danger. Along the way, he meets a girl by the name of Cal Devens and though he tries to protect her, she too is drawn into Inferno to become the assassin, Drei(German for number three).
The game is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with Zwei being turned into a killer and has two main "routes" to follow, the Ein route and the Claudia route. No matter what route you choose, the chapter ends with Scythe escaping and Ein presumably dead, unless you opt to escape back to Japan. The second chapter starts off one year after the events in the first chapter, and deals with Claudia's plan to bring the Godoh group into the organization, Scythe's revenge, and the introduction of a new character, Cal Devens. It contains the Cal route and the final Claudia route.
DVD version
The DVD version of the game was later translated to English and distributed by Hirameki International.
The game can be difficult to play on a PC, as many media players will not display the video and subtitles properly or at all. Two known media players that do work include VLC and PowerDVD. VLC will run with no problems, including allowing you to fast forward through scenes with the slider bar, but the password system will give you a blank screen if you attempt to use it. PowerDVD will run fine as well, but sometimes it will not let you use the slider bar to fast forward through scenes, which can make it more time consuming to replay the game and obtain different endings. PowerDVD also has a working fast-forward option, however it can cause the game to freeze up and stop responding at certain scenes.
In addition to that, the DVD version removed the save/load system from the PC version, replacing it with a password system to jump to selected points in the story. The CG gallery was also removed in porting, and there is no way to go back and re-read the text in previous scenes. The English subtitles also suffer from various quality issues, such as a large amount of typo or grammar mistakes, liberal translations, and they sometimes fail to show up at certain points in the story. One particular instance has the character Cal say "Thanks" in the English subtitles, at a time when Zwei is asking her about her age.
Characters
- Zwei (Reiji Azuma)
- The title character of the story, Zwei was a perfectly ordinary tourist from Japan, before witnessing an Inferno assassination in America and being kidnapped. He was able to elude his pursuers long enough for them to realize he had a natural survival instinct that was perfect for an assassin. He had his memory erased through a combination of drug and hypnotherapy. The name Zwei is simply a code name to show he is the second experimental assassin created by Scythe Master. Through Claudia, one of the three top executives of Inferno, Zwei is able to learn his true identity as Reiji Azuma. When he returns to Japan, he goes back to using this name. When his killing intent shows, in the anime, his eyes turn green with orange in the center.
- Game: Voiced by: Kōsuke Okano
- OVA: Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (Japanese), David Keefir (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Miyu Irino
- Ein (Elen)
- An assassin with such skill she was given the codename "Phantom", a designation given only to the best killer in Inferno. She was found by Scythe Master and was his first test subject to be given his assassin-processing treatment. She has no memories of her past and is incredibly apathetic. When she escapes to Japan, she changes her name to Elen and claims to be Reiji's twin sister. A long and rigorous investigation by Elen and Reiji traces her history back to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and though the trail manages to stop there, Elen is able to find some peace in the area. In the OVA, she is shown to have an older brother, and it is suggested the village where she lived was massacred.
- Game: Voiced by: Omi Minami
- OVA: Voiced by: Omi Minami (Japanese), Mela Lee (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Ayahi Takagaki
- Claudia McCunnen
- A beautiful executive of Inferno who is quick to befriend and manipulate Zwei. Though she seems to have good intentions, she is quietly manipulating Inferno and its actions. This cunning and double sided nature is never shown in the OVA.
- Game: Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue
- OVA: Voiced by: Kikuko Inoue (Japanese), Cindy Robinson (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa
- Lizzie Garland
- Claudia's loyal childhood friend and bodyguard.
- Game: Voiced by: Ai Orikasa
- OVA: Voiced by: Ai Orikasa (Japanese), Megan Hollingshead (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe
- Scythe Master
- A scientist with sadistic delusions of grandeur. He is the creator of Ein, Zwei, Drei, and the members of the Zahlen Schwestern. He is referred to as Master Scythe in the OVA dub.
- Game: Voiced by: Ken Narita
- OVA: Voiced by: Kazuhiro Nakata (Japanese), Dave Mallow (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Isshin Chiba
- Isaac Wisemel
- OVA: Voiced by: Shinpachi Tsuji (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa
- Raymond McGuire
- A quiet and calculating Colombian drug lord who other executives of Inferno are quick to obey. His family name is erroneously spelled "McGwire" in the OVA and the anime.
- OVA: Voiced by: Sho Hayami (Japanese), Steve Staley (English)
- Anime: Voiced by: Susumu Chiba
- Mio Fujioka
- A young girl who is unaware that her father is a boss in the yakuza. Reiji goes to her high school when he and Elen escape back to Japan. Mio soon finds herself developing feelings for him.
- Game: Voiced by: Junko Asami
- Anime: Voiced by: Ami Koshimizu
- Drei (Cal Devens)
- A young girl that tried to hire Zwei, thinking he was a killer for justice, by using money she had unknowingly stolen from Inferno. Zwei tries to hide her from Inferno but is unsuccessful and in a move to save her life asks that she becomes his assistant as he had been to Ein. After an attempt on his life, Zwei took her for dead and was forced to leave America to go into hiding. Cal believed that she had been left behind by Zwei and was manipulated by an exonerated Scythe, who turned her beliefs into full hatred for Zwei and trained her as his third assassin, Drei. Her clothing and situation-teenaged girl trying to hire an assassin to avenge her murdered sibling, beginning to fall in love with said assassin, and learning the art of killing herself-are very similar to those of the character Mathilda from the film León.
- Game: Voiced by: Satomi Kōrogi
- Anime: Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro
- Zahlen Schwestern
- Six girls who all went through Scythe Master's finalized assassin creation process. They are nearly the same quality of killers as the first three, and took nowhere near as much time to train since the process to make them was based on all the original three's data. They all wear white carnival masks (similar to ones Zwei and Ein wear during one of their missions at one point) and are named: Vier, Fünf, Sechs, Sieben, Acht and Neun.
Opening Theme:
#1: "Karma" by KOKIA
#2: "Senritsu no Kodomotachi" by ALI PROJECT
Ending Theme:
#1: "Gates of Hell" by ALI PROJECT
#2: "Transparent" by KOKIA
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