Musaigen no Phantom World

Are you fed up with the ecchi anime series set in magical schools? Then you are out of luck because the magic school where those who hunt "phantoms" is here! Still, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at first. Sure, the setting is the most cliched of all, revolving around a team who are the worst once again. However, the beginning was very promising, and I saw a few hints of originality. I was pleasantly surprised by some indication of some deeper meaning in the final fight with the dancing columns in the first episode. They quite decently portrayed that even the phantoms have some motives, that they are not just something the main protagonists have to blindly destroy, but also consider that they might be on to something. I believed it could have carried on in a similar vein. After the next two episodes, however, I started to lose hope, and it gradually became clear that some phantoms do care about something, even though it is rarely interesting. I also thought it would be quite funny and original, for example, the way the main male protagonist in the first episode avoids the cheesiest ecchi fun - the "boobie grab." He recognizes that this is just a silly trope, only to end up in a similarly hideous clichéd moment later - that really amused and delighted me. I expected that it could make a good joke out of similar clichés. Unfortunately, this does not happen too often as the episodes go on. Some of the tropes and their execution, combined with the fan service that is increasingly too strong here, throw off the last remnants of any positive impression I had initially. Furthermore, the moment I watched the eighth episode, which has an admittedly quite unusual variation on the usual "onsen" theme with a very perverse monkey, I quickly started to lose any positive impressions of this show. I thought this episode was terrible. It was not funny; it was incredibly awkward, stuffed with absolutely moronic fan service and a punchline that annoyed me more than it amused me. Whoever came up with it deserves to have the same thing happen to them as happened to the main male protagonist during the wedding night with the monkey. Still, I persevered until the "sweet" ending. I was promised in a discussion on a forum that the conclusion of this anime series would be brilliant. I expected things to take a turn for the better and for the conclusion to be truly epic and watched on the edge of my seat. Well, no way; the studio obviously decided not to go ahead with a second season and ended it their way again. It was not completely tragic; however, since I was expecting some big twists, I was disappointed that there were none in the end. When I contacted the person in question who promised me big things, he sent me a link to the contents of the second LN episode. You can see that things took a very interesting turn in this narrative and that the prequel has much (and I mean so much) more to offer than what they showed us in the anime series, so I am all the more disappointed. So the final impression I have cannot be a good one, although then again, I cannot say that it is completely bad, except for the pink monkey part, just slightly below average. 4/10. (2016.01.06) (kevesebbet) (több)