Disclaimer
This review is based on a number of things. Plot, characterization, emotional pull, episode quality, and creativity. This review is to be unbias as possible and will not take original source material or other material about this anime in question into the review. Thank you for reading.
WARNING possible spoilers WARNING
So the plot is... quirky and difficult to get into, but interesting enough to keep you going. The issue is if I spoil too much of the plot the mystery will be gone as to what is going on, so I'll keep it simple. A young boy has an alter ego sharing his body. The young boy has social drama and love issues, while his alter ego is a phantom thief. This young man must make life choices while forces around him are trying to catch him off guard. Who is after him? Why does he have to steal? I'm leaving that up to you. It is a pretty interesting plot with all that is happening and I'd hate to spoil it those who don't know of it.
There is a huge ton of characterization, some of it takes a long time to get through, but it is interesting none the less. The only off putting thing there may be here is most of this is middle school style drama, and the girls liking Dark the phantom is a little odd. Yes it is mostly a romance so characterization goes that direction, but it is interesting to see characters react to situations like the phantom thief and other things going on around them. It is interesting if you like decent characters, but some of the characters can seem like one trick ponies at first until you get to know them a few volumes later. Dark is a good character, Daisuke is a good character. Mio doesn't seem like a good character at first, but she turns out to be a really good character. There are a few characters in the series that aren't great, but there are a large amount of good and well written characters, it is just often times hard to wait for them to show their true colors.
In the sense of drama, there isn't much tension actually. Some funny moments, and a very sad moment, but little tension. The humor is pretty good but a bit cliche, and the sad moment is truly sad. There are a few more heartwarming moments as well during the series, but the rest is eye rolling and the tension is lacking a bit unfortunately.
This is where the series really struggles. It isn't that there are a bunch of bad episodes, but there are a lot of episodes that little actually gets done in the anime itself. There are good episodes here, but there is a lot of episodes that amount to little more then existing and telling a minor cliche story outside of the plot of the series. The final few episodes are good, but this anime ironically could have been wrapped up in around 13 episodes, rather then 26 of them. There are some good episodes, but the number of episodes with little or nothing solid happening in them is just a shame really and brings down the anime as a whole, making the series seem longer then need be.
Dark is the good guy. The lighter in color Krad is the villain. The magic and items in the series are very imaginative and creative, and all in the good way. The anime doesn't explain everything, and in the end it probably works better because of this, and the creative designs and settings are pretty well made in the long run. Dark's design, Krad's design, the items Dark steals, it is all done fairly well.
There is a plot and great characterization, as well as some excellent designs and items as well as a cool setting in this anime. The emotional pull is funny at times and eye rolling at others, though with one very well done sad moment that may tug at you, with other tensions just lost due to being a bit predictable with certain issues, added with an episode length that far outdoes itself in trying to keep the anime going despite everything able to wrap up quicker. There is a lot of groan moments and predictable rivalry conclusions as well as sub plots that aren't as great to make it to the end, but you are left with a very creative story and some interesting characterization that flips the switch after thinking the characters are one dimension.