While this anime isn’t exactly going to change the world it was perhaps one of the more fun titles from the Summer Season. If you like a bit of fun and action with vampires, werewolves and other things that go bump in the night and you’ll probably find something to enjoy in Phantom in the Twilight.
Review:
I’ll admit straight out I didn’t think a huge amount of episode 1. It was another girl runs into supernatural hot guys and I kind of predicted that this show could become quite good or just be a mess. I also made a lot of disparaging remarks about the protagonist Ton and it took more than a few episodes before I finally got off her case because I finally started warming up to her. How is that relevant to the review? Well, it is my round about way of saying that this anime takes a little time to grow on you, but fortunately once it gets going the action is pretty solid and the characters are a lot more interesting than they might initially appear.
That said, it isn’t as though this show becomes some kind of sleeper masterpiece. It really is just silly supernatural fun and the final episodes don’t quite nail the landing leaving me at least feeling a tiny bit let down given the mid-season was pretty solid.
So what is this show about? Well, for the most part it is about Ton, our main character, attempting to rescue her friend Shinyao who gets kidnapped at the end of episode 1. And that’s more or less it for plot. Sure there’s a lot of supernatural business with Ton’s grandmother and learning to use powers and recruiting the members of Cafe Forbidden to help out, but the overall objective remains save Shinyao. This is a plot line that becomes almost a joke at points given how many times they get close to rescuing Shinyao before for whatever reason they don’t succeed and end up back at the cafe lamenting that they still haven’t saved Shinyao.
What saves this anime from becoming pretty bad is that it isn’t asking you to do anything other than have fun with the characters and to go along with whatever supernatural silliness they just threw at you. There isn’t really any deeper message or idea going on as Ton storms her way through each situation gaining more and more power. There’s enough chemistry between the cast members that they end up being really enjoyable by the mid-season, and they have enough of a backstory that they are fun to learn more about.
Speaking of fun learning, one of my favourite parts of the show each week was the after credits sequence called Twilight Plus where the characters in Chibi form would discuss one of the characters or what was happening in the story. It was always amusing and was well worth hanging around for each week. My personal favourite was where they introduced Toryu and asked him how he managed to carry his weapons around. It was just such a great way to finish each episode.
Still, there are definitely some down sides to this story. Probably the most legitimate gripe, other than the overall simple nature of the plot, would be the absence of a decent villain or obstacle for the characters to overcome. They kind of try to set up a few of these but mostly they end up being pretty lame and realistically this would have actually helped the climax of the series along enormously. Earlier episodes where they managed to introduce a real sense of danger certainly were highly entertaining so it would have been nice to still believe any of the villains posed an actual threat in the final two episodes.
There’s not a lot more to say about this. Either you like supernatural anime with powers and fight sequences and you are happy just to go along for the ride, or you aren’t. For those who like that sort of thing, there’s a nice rich world of lore to explore here and while this particular season is mostly just scratching the surface, it really does feel like the supernatural elements have been nicely incorporated into the real world. It’s great fun and I’m glad I picked this one up during the summer season.
Previous Reviews:
- Episode 1: This Season’s Hot Guy Cafe Brought To You By Vampires and Werewolves
- Episode 2: Old School Vampire Alert
- Episode 3: Two Wolves Meet Under a Ferris Wheel
- Episode 4: My Friend Was Taken As A Hostage, And I Don’t Seem To Care
- Episode 5: Love or Life?
- Episode 6: Well, That Got Serious
- Episode 7: Interesting Bait and Switch
- Episode 8: Down Time
- Episode 9: Saving Shinyao has Become A Full Series Job
- Episode 10: Shinyao’s Power Is Impressive, Yet We Now Have an Imminent Ton vs Shinyao Situation
- Episode 11: Brainwashed Shinyao Is No Fun
- Episode 12: A Mixed Finish
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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I have really enjoyed watching along with you on this one every week. It’s also a great example of an anime that just takes a bit to get going, and how it’s worth it to sometimes not drop something immediately. Like you, I really enjoyed the Plus segments at the end. For a change they didn’t feel like they were added to it just for the sake of it, as you see in some other shows😊
It was really fun getting to discuss this each week and I’m really looking forward to this season as I know we have a number of shows that we’ll be able to discuss.
Part of me really wants to just cut the Plus Segments together because they were just so cute and funny and I really enjoyed waiting for them to come around, which is not something I can say about most extra material tagged onto episodes.
Definitely looking forward to that too. As you say we are watching a couple of the same shows so the will be cool😊
Haha, well, maybe on the dvd release they are going to stick all those segments together, who knows? 😊😊
I hate to say it but I dropped this series the moment I found they were going to stick with the rescuing Shinyao plot line for the entire series. When those two brothers fought (forgot their names), it should have ended there, and not dragged on longer than it already did.
That’s understandable. It was a little frustrating that they just never got around to saving her until the end. That said, I ended up enjoying what they did do in the series though I fully understand that they definitely stretched that plot far longer than was really credible.
I liked the endings as well. There were fun and this is one that I am actually planning to finish.
Hopefully you enjoy. The final episodes didn’t do a lot for me, but they were good enough. Overall I’m glad I picked this one up during the Summer season.
👍🏻