Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom

Just recently I declared my undying and tolerant love for a DVD-based game that is to meaningful story progression and realistic characters what Uwe Boll is to accepting disappointment like a reasonable human being.  But regardless, that game has a special place in my heart, as does the short mini-series that came out in Japan years ago also called Phantom of Inferno.

Now, because I enjoy it when things I like get recognized and get to grow in popularity and scope (but only to a limit) I was excited when I learned that they were making a full-length series based on the game called Phantom: Requiem For The Phantom.

Nobody ever accused Japan of reasonable naming practices.

However, I got caught up in a lot of other things, and didn't really have a chance to sit down and watch it until just recently.  Did I have an opinion about it?  Have you ever read this blog before?

Phantom of Inferno

Years ago, I was in a Suncoast Motion Picture Company store (remember those?) and I stumbled upon a DVD.  I was neck deep in my fixation with animation from Japan, and I saw mention of a game company that made, essentially, "visual novels" where you could make decisions in a game, and then see where the story went.

I knew that such games existed, and for the most part, they were all pretty terrible.  There were a few great ones, though.  But considering I knew that Japan was pretty crazy for interactive stories (even if most of them were little more than "choose your own porn adventure") but this looked different.  For one thing, it had people holding guns on the cover.

Plus, it was in the clearance bin.  I pretty much threw some money at the register and took this new prize home.