This week I have another anime review for you, with Madhouse’s horror-comedy 4-episode OVA, Phantom Quest Corp.
General Information
Rica Matsumoto as Ayaka Kisaragi
Kazue Ikura as Mamoru Shimesu
Kotono Mitsuishi as Nanami Rokugou
Kouichi Yamadera as Kouzou Karino
Naoko Watanabe as Suimei
Yuusaku Yara as Rokkon
Directed by Jun’ichi Sakata, Koichi Chigira, Morio Asaka, Takuji Endo
Written by Mami Watanabe, Tatsuhiko Urahata, Tetsu Kimura
Animated by Madhouse
Available on DVD from Amazon.com and RightStuf.com
The Premise
Ayaka Kisaragi is a fun loving, hard drinking party animal by night, and professional exorcist by day. With her LLC, “Phantom Quest Corp”, she takes out vampires, clears hauntings, and helps keep Tokyo’s spiritual population under control.
High Points
The series has some extremely funny moments, particularly related to the attempts of Ayaka’s secretary, Mamoru, to wake her up in the morning from her hangover.
Also, the series animation is very well done, and is a great example of some of the excellent quality animation to come out of shows in the 90s OVA boom.
Low Points
The show is short and extremely episodic. Those expecting a plot arc of some kind will be disappointed.
Content Notes
Minimal blood and no gore here. However, there are several brief topless shots, a great deal of suggestive dialog, and some extremely overt sexual harassment.
Scores
Originality: The series has some things in common with Ghostbusters, but with more supernatural powers instead of super-science versus the supernatural. It still works incredibly well though. 4 out of 6.
Animation: This is an OVA from the 90s, with all that it means, in terms of solid animation quality. 5 out of 6.
Acting: The shows performances are pretty good, with the comedy supplemented well by the performances. 4 out of 6.
Story: The individual episodes are very well written, but they don’t do a good job at building to a cohesive whole. 3 out of 6.
Emotional Response: The comedy in the show is well written, though the dramatic beats are rather poor – which isn’t helped by the show’s episodic bent. 4 out of 6.
Production: The sound design is very good and the score is also very well done. On the minus side for the DVD release, the opening credits and closing credits are not subtitled. 3 out of 6.
Overall: This is a good, short, fun animated series. 4 out of 6.
In total, Phantom Quest Corp gets 27 out of 42.
The VHS came with some swell extras, like copies of Kisaragi’s business cards. There was also a short feature that included several things, but I only remember the commentary on stuff in someones’ shopping cart that I found very interesting.
Copies of the business cards would be pretty cool. That’s something you don’t quite get anymore. Most of the time if you get an extra with a release, you get a soundtrack CD, or an artbox, or a pencil board. Nothing quite so unique.