Where to begin?
Phantom of Inferno is the first release by the visual novel developer
Nitroplus. First to describe Nitroplus: over 80% of their games are dark, scary, and full of murder. Nitroplus can be considered a blender of ideas, but
Phantom in fact has a simple story in comparison to their other games.
The story follows the life of a young man who
sees something he shouldn't have seen is captured and
brainwashed by a
shadowy organization and then is given the choice "join or die". So oddly enough he chooses to join and is then instructed by
soft spoken girl (define as a
Femme Fatale if you wish) in how to kill and such, her name is Ein. Ein is Inferno's top assassin, code-named "Phantom" and controlled by the sinister Scythe Master, who also brainwashed the man. The man is given the name Zwei and begins his work at Inferno (the name of the organization).
The game was first given a
bad adaptation which tried to sum up the game in 3 episodes. Now in 2009 a new anime entitled "Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~" by
Bee Train is scheduled. Of interesting note, previews for the original game's second released aired around the same time
Noir, which led to viewers connecting the two (as they have
similar themes).
This work provides examples of:
- Accidental Athlete - Drei (game only).
- Adaptation Decay - The anime removes or alters several important plot points such as Zwei's first kill and removes Elen and Reiji's marriage, the church shootout and the school shootout and then kills Reiji off at the last minute. So Yeah...
- Anyone Can Die - Played straight, played with, subverted, averted, inverted, whatever. Drei, Scythe Master, Ein, Zwei, Claudia, Lizzie, a LOT of people. Just take your pick.
- Badass Normal - Episode 1 first demonstrates Zwei's fighting prowess before he received training. Later Episode 7 elaborates.
- Bodyguard Crush - Zwei and Cal, Mio and Shiga.
- Brainwashed - Reiji (who would soon become Zwei) undergoes this and as mentioned above is given a choice to join the organization or to die. By joining he then arguably falls into the next trope.
- Brainwashed And Crazy - Zwei after having joined the organization.
- Break The Cutie - Arguably the entire premise of the series.
- Character Derailment - In episode 5 Zwei cold-bloodedly murders a mother and child, a Moral Event Horizon he never even approached in the original game.
- Might just be a case of Darker And Edgier. We are talking about the same guy who knocked-up some random underage orphan girl he met on the street, or the same guy who took advantage of a crying schoolgirl when she was most vulnerable, right? Sure, he ended up caring for Cal and Mio, but still.
- Cool Guns - And how!
- Dark Action Girl - Drei.
- Emotionless Girl - Ein.
- Falling Chandelier Of Doom - One of the Zahlen Schwestern gets this treatment.
- Fanservice - Ein, Claudia, Drei, Mio, and the Zahlen Schwestern.
- The Gunslinger - Ein and Drei.
- Genre Shift - Joked around with, The anime's second opening will leave you surprised.
- Girls With Guns
- Hey Its That Voice - Anime. If you listen carefully, you'll hear Feldt and Saji from Ein and Zwei.
- Hot Shonen Mom - Mio's mother
- I Know What We Can Do Cut - Scythe's plan in episode 6.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl - Ein doesn't care about walking around naked in front of Zwei after having a shower.
- Kill Em All - In the anime, almost all main characters including Ein and Zwei at the very end but except Shiga and Mcguire dies.
- Mad Scientist - Scythe Master.
- The Ojou - Mio.
- Recap Episode - Episode 11. Parts of episode 19 as well, but not as bad as episode 11.
- Sexy Back - Ein's party costume in episode 6.
- And the dresses of the Zahlen Schwestern, both in the recent anime and in the visual novel.
- Shown Their Work - The original game went in ridiculous levels of detail when it came to the guns. You got lectures.
- Stripperiffic - Drei's costume.
- Squick / Fan Disservice - Scythe Master's interactions with Ein, arguably Drei's scene with Mio.
- The Syndicate - Inferno.
- You Are Number Six - Ein, Zwei, Drei.
