Who are you? Who am I?
Envy Phantom is a pop album created by Japanese Musician Harumaki Gohan, featuring vocals from Hatsune Miku and was released on May 27th 2022.
The series began with the release of "The Third Heart"
, afterwards Harumaki Gohan released two more songs before announcing the album’s release on March 30th with the release of "Mirage", along with a mobile game titled “Gen’ei AP: Empty Heart” and a live concert titled “Gen’ei LV - A Tale of Shadows”.
The album follows the story of a young girl named Mikage, along with her phantoms.
Envy Phantom contains examples of:
- Abandoned Playground: In Fireflies Never Came, after chasing the firefly up the starry slope, Spica and Mikage find one of these, although it's just a single swing. It's less unsettling and more pretty though, due to the fireflies lighting up the area.
- Acid-Trip Dimension: The red dimension in Destiny. It's seemingly constantly shifting and despite the lack of a light source isn't dark within, along with gravity seemingly not applying within it.
- Ambiguously Gay: Mikage and Spica are an example of this. Mikage blushes at and gets nervous around Spica many times, resembling the behavior of someone who has a crush. On Spica's end, she really wanted to get to know Mikage, and later in the manga stops referring to her with honorifics which is a sign of closeness, which is notable because she still refers to both Yuuhi and Urara with honorifics.
- Ambiguous Situation: There are many examples of these throughout Envy Phantom.
- The majority of things pertaining to the Third Shadow. Who were they and why did they run away? How did they run away? Where did they go? Did they die? These are some of the many questions about the Third Shadow and none of them are answered.
- The ending of the Third Heart's music video. What's really happening between Mikage and Friend is entirely ambiguous, and it doesn't help that after it in the manga, nothing seems to have significantly changed between Mikage and Friend.
- The entirety of Destiny. Nothing about what's actually going on is ever explained, and the only truly unambiguous thing about it is that it's one of Mikage's nightmares.
- The main phantom's fate after Yuuhi tears her arm off. Is she just injured? Is she still capable of interacting with Mikage? Has she been banished from the mindscape? Is she dead, and/or turned into a plushie like the dead phantom from the live show? It's never explained.
- Bittersweet Ending: The ending of the manga is one of these, as even though Mikage's main phantom is gone, and she's started talking to Spica, Yuuhi and Urara again, none of her problems have truly been solved.
- Camping Episode: Fireflies Never Came is one of these.
- Chromosome Casting: Almost every character is female, even Mikage's Phantoms and minor characters like Mikage's mother (as her father is never mentioned). It could be argued that The Third Shadow has an Ambiguous Gender, but as they're only relevant for one song and we know next to nothing else about them, it's hard to confirm, either way.
- Darker and Edgier: Destiny's music video is not only this to Envy Phantom, but to essentially Harumaki Gohan's entire portfolio. Rather than the usual cutesy style that has been expected of Harumaki Gohan for over 5 years, viewers are treated to an eerie uncolored panorama with barely any animation for the verses, and a bright red pit of what is probably some kind of gore with a giant wavy spine in the background during the chorus that looks like something straight out of .flow.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: During especially sad moments during the manga, multiple characters tend to sport these. Additionally, within the manga, none of the phantoms ever have eyeshines.
- Luminescent Blush: Multiple characters do this.
- Mirror Character: Yuuhi and the main phantom. They both wish to help Mikage, and have known Mikage for a long time.
- Mood Whiplash: In the manga, there's a page that alternates between the main phantom telling Mikage her destiny is to suffer and she cannot attain happiness, and Yuuhi surrounded by flowers saying that Mikage has looked better recently, and that they and Spica and Urara should go somewhere far to hangout. Needless to say it very much causes whiplash.
- Multiple Endings: Envy Phantom's story has two paths explored in the manga and Gen'ei LV, and consequently has two different endings.
