Did you ever have a birthday that totally sucked? You have nothing on 12-year-old Kurau. First, Dad forgets her birthday. But he then promises to make it up to her by spending the entire day together. They will go out for lunch, do some shopping, but first he has to stop by work where he is overseeing an experiment in Rynax energy. Two Rynax enter Karau’s body, one staying dormant and the other sharing her consciousness and giving her superpowers making Karau a lab rat.
So ten years later, Karau is hiding in plain sight working as an agent for some sort of private detective service or something. The dormant Rynax comes alive and leaves Karau’s body becoming a younger form of Karau, whom she names Christmas. End of episode one of Phantom Memory Karau.
Then for the next 11 episodes we get redundant. The secret police, the GPO, track down and trap Karau and Christmas. Then they escape. Then they get trapped. Then they escape. Guess what happens next! Right. They get trapped and then escape.
Oh this does all change at the halfway point, for those who get that far. Enemies become allies, and the behind the scenes conspiracy comes to the forefront. We actually get a plot! And the series actually becomes interesting.
The artwork and animation are nothing to brag about. The series is from 2004, and some of the animation looks like it was done about a decade earlier. The voice acting is acceptable, but there is one terrible bit of casting in the English dub. Tiffany Grant, known from Neo-Genesis Evangeleon, provides the voice of tough as nails GPO detective Ayaka Steiger, only she sounds like a little teen. The voice just does not fit, and really sticks out poorly.
I won’t tell you how it ends, other than the ending does seem forced. It is like the writers wanted to end on an upbeat, so they throw some saccharine on the wall to see if it will stick.
There is no profanity. There is some non-sexual nudity. So it is OK for teens and up. Although somehow I did sense a sexual vibe between Christmas and Karau. Naw. Couldn’t be.
I rate this series as average, but only if you can get through the first 12 episodes.
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