Genei Musou/幻影夢想 Volume 5 (finale)
Phantom Dream Manga Volume 5 Review

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***SPOILERS!***

For volume 5 of Phantom Dream, Tamaki finds his Gohou is really Saga, the brother of Hira. As Eiji recovers, Tamaki discovers that Saga isn’t the good guy everyone thought as his only desire is to have his hatred for Hira take form in exorcising the demon. Tamaki finds himself switching to defend Hira from Saga’s hate. This causes Tamaki’s true Gohou to emerge and destroy Saga — Tamaki’s mother Kaname. She explains that this is actually Asahi’s doing as Asahi came to Kaname before “betraying” Tamaki and told Kaname her entire plan. Hira is saved by Tamaki’s actions and in exchange, offers himself to Shahaku in exchange for Asahi. Shahaku agrees and Asahi is returned to Tamaki to live happily ever after.

It really is unfortunate that Phantom Dream is not a good manga. Don’t get me wrong, I know this was Takaya-sensei’s first manga efforts and that shows. She improves a great deal in her later manga titles. However, Phantom Dream is such a rambling, disjointed, shoujo manga of random events that try to be connected but often don’t fit together properly. Adding to the problem is the fact that to the end, I never cared a wit about Tamaki nor Asahi, to say nothing of the large cast of side characters, most of whom are easily forgotten.

Another thing that hurts the manga series as a whole are the plot twists just for the sake of having a plot twist. It started with Asahi switching sides, then going back to the good side before being trapped in the nether world. Oh, but she had actually told Kaname, so that’s why Kaname had to die so she could be her son’s Gohou. Saga, who’d been portrayed as the good ancestor, is actually the evil one and Hira, who acts evil for most of the entire series, is really the good one. Eiji was a male serving the enemy family before becoming a girl and helping Tamaki’s family.

Ugh.

Sorry, but I just don’t like plot twists for the sake of having plot twists. These plot twists also help make the manga feel disjointed and flow badly.

One can see elements of what will become characters in Fruits Basket. I can see that Takaya-sensei basically reuses character designs and character types in each new manga she does. For example, an image Takaya-sensei draws of Tamaki and Asahi a few years later reminds me heavily of Kyo and Tohru.

The main reason to read Phantom Dream is to see how far Takaya-sensei has progressed as a manga-ka. It is a shame that though Phantom Dream has an interesting premise, it never lives up to expectations.