When I started an account at Netflix so that my girlfriend and I could watch Heroes1 via streaming to our TV2, I figured I could use Netflix to also watch older anime series that I had passed over when they were available on fansubs. As such, this has been a pretty successful venture, as there were quite a few series that I could watch (Such as Girl's High3 or Gankutsuou4) legally without having to worry about purchasing the entire series or even leave my house. Even more, I didn't mind that most of the anime available on Netflix stream were only available with English dub, which meant that I could play stuff in the background without having to pay much attention to it if I wanted.

I figured I'd eventually find the occasional gem this way, and though I'm not sure I'd consider it a diamond in the rough, Kurau: Phantom Memory did manage to keep me hooked and had me caring for the main protagonists throughout the run of the series. I had never heard of this 20045 series before, and I wasn't expecting much from Kurau when I added it to my Netflix Instant queue, which Netflix estimated my rating for it to be 2.6 of 5 stars, while the general populace rated it an average of 3.9. Turns out that the general populace is more accurate than what Netflix thought it would be for me. My own impressions might have been exaggerated due to my lower initial expectations, but I ended up quite enjoying this BONES series.

The story largely centers around Kurau and set in the future year of 2100. When she was a young girl, her father was trying to discover a new form of energy, called Rynax energy, that had more potential than the common energy source of the time, Blue energy. On her twelfth birthday, her father takes her to the lab6 for a breakthrough experiment, which, predictably, goes wrong. Turns out that the Rynax energy her father was looking for wasn't just generated, but were actually living beings made of energy pulled from another dimension. One such being merges with Kurau, giving her amazing abilities including super strength, super jumping, flying, passing through walls, and generate intense radiation that can disintegrate objects.

After this event, the series jumps ahead ten years, and Kurau is now a young adult who works as an agent; basically someone who takes jobs (sometimes dangerous ones) for clients. Kurau basically uses her powers as discreetly as possible to accomplish the tasks without exposing her abilities. I was worried that making such a powerful main protagonist might end up in some silly inflation of power (where she would have to constantly face more and more powerful enemies), but the series actually avoids this by having the majority of the series be about Kurau (and other "Rynaxsapiens") trying to keep out of the attention of the GPO, the policing agency of the planet and moon.

Another interesting element was the Rynax's binary relationship; all Rynax exist as pairs. Kurau's pair7 was weakened in that original experiment. Kurau managed to absorb her pair into herself, letting it "sleep" in her, which it does so for the next 10 years. As each Rynax pair longs for the other, Kurau suffers from extreme loneliness though this time, in addition to her isolating herself from humans in general to keep her Rynax powers from being discovered. Kurau's pair awakes by "splitting"8 off from Kurau and looks like a near copy of herself at 12 year old. She gives her pair the curious name of "Christmas", and they spend much of the rest of the series trying to avoid the GPO. Now, as she's reunited with her pair, Kurau manages to open up more.

Their relationship seems to have be of a very close older/younger sisters dynamic; Kurau tends to be the more protective one and Christmas has a tendency to seem passive, though really, it seems both actually have the same Rynax powers. Though Kurau: Phantom Memory seemed to be an action series at first glance (and it does have action that can get heavy at times), it seems to have a feel that's closer in line of a slice-of-life drama.

The ending was rather mixed for me. Had the impression from a few other reviewers that it was bittersweet, but it didn't seem that way at all to me. The series did largely end the way I was expecting it to, but the execution of this ending from felt underwhelming9.

Still, I enjoyed Kurau: Phantom Memory as a whole. I don't know who in particular I would recommend the series, though, but it did manage to grab my attention till the end. I do have some irks with the English voice acting for few of the secondary characters; I'd imagine the Japanese dub would probably be better. Still, I do have an interest in picking this up on DVD, but for now, that's low on my priority list.

1. 1. BTW, the first season was definitely the best. We lost interest in the series in the middle of the third
2. 2. At first, via the XBox 360 we were borrowing from a friend. Now we use the Samsung BD-P2550 Blu-ray player to stream Netflix to the TV.
3. 3. Dropped this series after the first episode
4. 4. Watched to the end, but I am unsure how I feel about it. I the series was good, but not good enough to buy
5. 5. A year that was rather good for anime
6. 6. After she guilt-trips him, if I remember
7. 7. For the purposes of this entry, Kurau refers to both the girl and the Rynax that merges with her, as they essentially work as one entity from since they merged. There's no dual personality, but one that contains the memories of both.
8. 8. As best as I could remember of the process
9. 9. Though some of the visuals got absolutely spectacular at the end.