YMMV / Envy Phantom

• Creepy Cute: Friend. Her entire color palette, including her physical features, is black and white, and she appears to lack eyes, instead having an inky black halo floating around the middle of her head where they would be. Despite this, her entire personality is being a kind and sweet girl, and Harumaki Gohan's art style makes her look just as adorable as any of his other characters.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: In addition to Mikage having some kind of DID or OSDD-1 (see Watched It for the Representation below), she is interpreted by many fans to be autistic; she struggles heavily with social interaction and tends to be anxious in social situations, and seems to have some auditory processing issues (as discussed in Gen'ei AP, when the player acquires August Rainy), leading her to wear headphones in class even without music to drown out noise. Another bit of subtle evidence for this theory is that Mikage goes out of her way to meticulously plan and find out what makes Spica happy in a strategized way, instead of asking her directly - this mirrors how many real-life autistic people often rely on 'social templates' when they're unsure how to engage with other people.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite the Third Shadow never appearing and only being explicitly mentioned once, they are often discussed and popular.
• Fan Nickname: Many of the phantoms and others were given these
  • The Third Heart is often referred to as Antikage, a pun and shortening of Anti Mikage, along with sometimes being referred to as Ichi (Japanese for one), though Antikage is more commonly used.
  • The Third Shadow is often called San in fan circles(Japanese for three).
  • The wavy-haired girl has quite a few nicknames, including; Mei, Destiny, Desdemona. Mei is the most common of three.
• LGBT Fanbase: Practically a given with any Harumaki Gohan work at this point, especially after the success of Futari No - made better by the fact that Harumaki Gohan not-so-subtly alluded to Mikage having a crush on Spica on an official relationship chart. Furthermore, the song Fireflies Never Came is about Mikage and Spica's relationship; the lyrics are borderline romantic, with one particular line even being "let me fall in love with you, please". Additionally, while her mother's abusive behavior is never explicitly stated to be homophobic in nature, the dynamic between Mikage and her mother is one that resonates with many queer children from unsupportive families.
• Nightmare Fuel
  • Destiny. Just... Destiny. The eerie lack of animation and colors, Mikage's mental breakdown at the end, the wavy-haired girl's corrupted face when she turns around, every scene involving the giant gore pit... yikes.
  • Depending on how you look at it, the Yuuhi-tears-the-phantom's-arm-off scene in the manga could qualify as this. Yuuhi staring into your soul when it's usually the phantom that does that is pretty creepy, not to mention that we never see or hear from the phantom after her arm is torn off, which could imply that she's... yeah.
  • The secret area in Gen'ei AP - Empty Heart could qualify as this for a few reasons.
    • At first, it seems to be your average developer room in an indie game, with logs on the making of the album. But as you progress further, these logs start to get more and more personal, with Harumaki Gohan talking about how much he's overworking himself and the pressure to make the album. It all culminates in an eerie room with a dark blue static filter, and the Melty Land ambiance. You then enter a pure white room with floating flower petals, and think it's over... only to encounter a giant black hole with none other than the Envy Phantom album itself floating in the middle. Then, the final room is a black void with a random glowing Urara in the middle of it, who has no "voice" clip. Her dialogue isn't so much nightmare fuel as it is thought-provoking, however. The whole thing is just such an extreme tone shift from the rest of Harumaki Gohan's works that it can leave many feeling at least a bit uncomfortable by the end, especially if they are a longtime fan of Harumaki Gohan.
• Switching P.O.V.: The live show does this, as it often switches perspectives between Mikage and the main phantom, to the point of giving them both nearly equal focus. This also happens at the end of the manga, as the final page is implied to be seen from Yuuhi's perspective.
• Watched It for the Representation: The series has gained popularity amongst the plural community, as Mikage and her Phantoms are unambiguously a traumagenic system of some kind, even though no specific diagnoses are explicitly named - they came about as a result of the trauma from her abusive mother, which is common for many people diagnosed with DID or OSDD-1. Furthermore, it has incredibly nuanced representation regarding different alter roles, such as The Third Heart playing the role of a persecutor^note an alter that hurts other alters or self-harms, often due to internalized trauma or a misguided means of protecting the system from further trauma and Friend being an introject^note an alter who manifests as someone who is not in the system; this can include anything from real people to fictional characters from another alter's favorite media of all of Mikage's friends, as well as a caretaker^note an alter who helps other alters take care of themselves or unload emotional burdens of sorts. Finally, the song Mirage is one that often resonates with plural listeners, as the song explores Mikage's mindscape^note another reflection of real-life plurals; it is common for many plurals to have an innerworld or "headspace" where all alters can congregate, and her experiences with dissociation, loss of her identity, and not knowing who her "true self" really is.
• The Woobie: Mikage... just Mikage. Her awful upbringing combined with the amount of grief she goes through within the album, definitely makes her count as this.