Kaitō Reinya/Phantom Thief REINYA: The Cat-Girl thief you didn't know was famous

Reruns of Kaitō Reinya/Phantom Thief Reinya currently air on Crunchyroll. Each episode runs three and a half minutes.

Reinya leads a dual life. By day, she works at a convenience store with her pet mouse Chutaro. By night, she's a well known thief, who seeks out rare and expensive artifacts.

Chutaro is meant to parody Magical Girl guardians, such as Keroberos in Cardcaptor Sakura and Luna in Sailor Moon. He's the sole voice of reason in every episode, but keeps getting dismembered as payment for his hard work.

Along the way, Reinya finds herself constantly foiling a fumbling police department, bent on taking her down.... eventually.... maybe...

But standing out among the cops is Keiji, a handsome, blonde detective, who does not want to throw Reinya in jail as much as he wants to make her his girlfriend.

The animation looks like rubbery paper dolls. Instead of turning, characters will just flip-flop backwards in case they need to turn. If you've ever played a Paper Mario game, you can imagine what this all looks like.

The lead character Reinya, is selfish, childish, and yet has no problem skirting around the police. But behind this bratty exterior is none other than Reina Tanaka, former singer for the Idol group Morning Musume (Morning Daughter) and current pop-rock frontwoman for the band LoVendoЯ. The series is based on a short manga that ran in Newtype and Comptiq magazines. Reina voices Reinya, and served as a model for her design.

Aside from the dismemberment of Chutaro, most of the 3 minute episodes are tame. Lewd jokes slip by, but don't have anything graphic to accompany them. The one episode of concern is the final episode, where Reinya must fight and then fuse with her "other" self, Black Reinya, an African American copy of herself, who is calmer and a little smarter. Fusing with her causes Reinya to turn to gold, while Chutaro and Black Chutaro's fusion just turns the mouse splotchy. Some fans have complained this was a racist joke, but I'll let you decide.

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It isn't explained why, but Chutaro hates Black Chutaro.

Phantom Thief Reinya is wildly written, very silly, and only has a strand of coherency to it. It's meant to be a comedy, but you may miss some of the jokes the first or second time you watch. The character designs are imaginative, but the main character is snarky. The whole series lasts roughly 40 minutes including load time, which is less than a standard movie. If you're in the mood for flash anime action, this isn't a bad first start.