>>1099
>Is the anime anywhere near as good as the VN?

It's not bad, but still very lacking compared to the VN.

Phantom is unique in that the english version of the VN requires a physical DVD player. There isn't a suitable alternative to burning it to a dvd and "playing" it on a TV screen, as the menu button functionality of things such as VLC or other software is a soft-reset, which isn't what you want to do when you are trying to open the menu to select a save slot.

That said, it's not a terrible adaptation, and watching it won't reinforce the common "read the source material for a non-butchered version of this story" mantra as much as you would have otherwise expected. Or so I've heard. I've never gathered the effort to walk to a pawn shop to buy a cheap dvd player to try it out.
also, the first anime OP is great.

The anime is great, the original old dvd vn is not worth playing due to it being a dvd. If you can understand japanese I'd say go and read the remake since its much better and uses the new art from the anime.

In my opinion, the first half of the anime was super good. Second part was a train wreck. I swear, at first I thought everything was just a fever dream. I'd easily recommend just watching the first half and then skipping the rest. Is it like this in the VN too? The ending (one of them, true ending?) has to be the same; what a shitty way to close things off. I'd say this further reinforces my recommendation in that they die anyway, so why not leave it at the viewers' assumption that they die at the end of the first part? The amount of closure is about the same.

>>1793
No, the death ending was not a thing in the original game (PC and DVD) and Phantom Integration.

I heard it was added in the latest PC release with the newer art but I never bother with that.

>>1845
Then what the fuck? What a shame.