Characters
Like the game itself, the characters and plots are phenomenal. A really well-written storybook, with lots of exciting twists and a very lovable cast.
The Phantom Thiefs themselfs are very good protagonists. I love how Joker is given a very good personality in here and I enjoyed the other ones just as well as in the game. They all have strong emotions and wonderful characters that allow me to empathize with them and hope for the best for them. There are also iconic moments that the anime adaptation was able to convey successfully.
The antagonists themselves are very successfully portrayed as really bad people, which really encourages the player to really hate them with all their heart. By the way, not only the antagonists, but also the things they stand for (pedophilia, human trafficking, blackmail, etc.) are well presented as disgusting... as it should be.
Animation
The animation is averagely good. Not great, but far from bad. CGI giants are annoying and I think fights appear very poorly because they simply have far too little screen time. But many other scenes are well animated and stand out from the other animation standards for 2016.
Music
The soundtrack is phenomenal and includes a lot of what made the game so popular. Lyn is a wonderful musician and knows how to deliver with wonderful soundtracks. The openings are correspondingly musical masterpieces, while at least the first opening isn't entirely impressive visually. But I can't say that at all about the second and third openings.
Unwarranted criticism from others
But if I have to read again that oversexualization is getting out of hand... The only characters that are sexualized are Ann (whom I really can't stand because of that and I can understand the criticism) and a total of 2 MINUTES WITH THE TEACHER. But all the other characters have nothing to do with sexualization. Sexualization is effectively critisized in the story and people still avoid talking about it, probably because people are not entirely happy that their high expectations were not met. There's no other way I can explain why people want to tell me that Haru, Makoto and Futaba are sexualized. That's just nonsense.
I can't understand at all that the series finale was turned into two "films", which is why I would like to automatically include them in this review.
90/100
7 out of 11 users liked this review