Ranked #973

Gantz

NOTE: This review is intended to cover Gantz in its entirety.

Gantz is about as close as you’ll ever get to a love it or hate it anime. It’s littered with so much gore, profanity, nudity, and sex that it’ll either immediately turn you off or immediately glue your eyes to the screen. Being a person from the latter group I have to say I absolutely loved Gantz right from the start. Well, okay, not exactly right from the start. Gantz starts out in the life of Kei Kurono, an angst ridden teenager who has nothing better to do but think negatively to himself and get boners in class. He’s always worrying about something, and doesn’t care about anyone else except for himself. To put it simply, he’s like an emo kid on acid. He complains about everything, but mostly dwells on the fact that he’s never gotten laid. Hmm…wonder why. Ten minutes of listening to this punk whine and cry while so eloquently squeezing in the occasional F-word and I dare anyone to not want to turn this anime off and forget all about it. Thankfully things pick up from there, albeit with all the whining and crying still intact.

After we get acquainted with our main protagonist we get to meet Katou. Katou is an old time friend of Kei’s who used to look up to him. You see, before Kei was a whinny little punk he was actually a really cool and adventurous kid. Lack of character development doesn’t exactly show why Kei went from hero to zero, but Katou tries to emulate the Kei he once knew throughout the series, starting with attempting to save a homeless guy who fell on the subway tracks, with the help of Kei of course. Here is where the feces (and blood, guts, and various other nasty things) really hits the fan. Kei and Katou successfully aid the drunk homeless guy to safety, but soon realize that a subway is coming their way. Their plan of avoiding it? Run up the tracks passed where the subway should stop. Bad plan? You bet. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather try my luck at climbing back onto the platform rather than outrunning a damn subway train. But that’s just me. It turns out that Subway isn’t going to stop at the station after all, and both Kei and Katou are royally screwed. They get hit, and heads go flying.

Welcome to the true start of Gantz. Here is where things go beyond the boundaries of typical anime. Here is where things get fun. Kei and Katou wake up in this room with a number of random people who all seem to have died. They can’t leave the room, and trying to make sense out of it all is only a waste of time. Introduced into the story next is who I like to call the third wheel. Her name is also Kei, but like everyone else in the series I’ll just call her Kishimoto. Kishimoto serves little to no purpose other than for Kei to obsess and angst over, and as fan service, but with her flakey and often times clueless personality I don’t think she’s doing anyone a service. Luckily Gantz isn’t about character depth; it’s all about violence, nudity, and all that juicy stuff. That’s where the true main character of the anime comes in: Gantz. Gantz is probably one of the coolest anime characters to come around in years, and he doesn’t even have to say a word. He’s psychotic, yet fully in control. He’s evil, yet lovable. He’s the gears in the machine.

Gantz is a game of survival that you can’t help but love. Everyone in the room is soon transported to an area of town and can’t leave until they have eliminated the targets selected by Gantz. These targets are as wacky as they are terrifying, and while many of them look harmless or relatively easy to dispatch of that is rarely the case. Part of the excitement of watching Gantz comes from not knowing what everyone will have to go up against next. It’s also worth mentioning that this isn’t your typical “bad guy of the week” series. Each time our reluctant cast is forced into battle it usually lasts for a lot more than just a single episode. This is good, because Gantz is one anime that will probably have you thinking “So many characters, so little time to kill them all.” Gantz sets its characters up like dominos. Very few of them are ever developed, and very few survive long enough to see the last episode. There is a lot of death in Gantz and plenty of gory scenes to cringe at and watch over and over again, trust me.

Gantz does suffer from one major flaw, or at least I thought it was major: the ending. For an anime that is so straight forward and brutal right from the start it sure did have a weak and vague ending. Maybe the writers just didn’t know of a good way to end it. The movie The Cube had a very similar ending and plot, so I must wonder if that is what inspired Gantz in the first place. I would have liked to get a little background info on Gantz before it ended. Like where did he come from, and what was the purpose of these “games”. Either way, there is a lot to love (and hate) in Gantz. It’s lack of character development, almost completely unlikable protagonist, and strict R rating is sure to turn many viewers off, but if you’re a fan of the brutal and nasty stuff I see no reason why you won’t like the fun little rollercoaster that is Gantz.

My Score: 9.0

Version Watched: English Dub read more

I watched Gantz because, like Elfen Lied, this was an anime recommended by a lot of people to me. They said that the cruelty in it was disturbing. And that it was violent. I have to agree with it being very violent. However, this show didn't disturb so much as gross me out. But if you like messy violence with weird monsters who have boogers constantly running out of their noses you might not mind.

Gantz's plot barely moves from the second episode to the thirteenth. All that really happens is that people die. So if all you want is a whole lot of death and characters who are permanently pissed off at one another, this might be your show.

The characters bored me. I didn't like the main character because apparently, all that there is to the guy is that he's a perverted douche bag who gets turned on by the weirdest things. It's creepy to say the least. Then there's Big Tits. No, I'm not kidding, this is her nickname in the show. I think her real name was Kei(the same name as perverted douche bag). She has no personality so the most interesting things about her is the way she died and the fact that she has big boobies. Then there's male Kei's friend. Katou. He's the nice guy in the show because it clearly needs one. Then there's a whole bunch of other characters who are strictly cliched. And annoying.

I guess it's my fault because I was looking for some sort of story development when all I got was gross out killings, arguments, and a lot of references to how big Big Tits' boobs are. Yes, I get it. You couldn't come up with more interesting material. Or maybe Big Tits should just star in her own hentai and make the creators of the anime as well as some perverted fans (and male Kei) very happy.

The character designs are very good and the most realistic looking out of all the anime I've seen yet. I know what you're thinking. How could a show that I hated so much have such great animation? I wish I knew but it seems that some creators of these shows believe all anime fans want is violence and boobs. Even if it doesn't have a story I don't mind but a lot of the fan service completely ruined the experience for me. There is a repulsive scene involving a dog in this anime. There is absolutely no point to it. I'm guessing it's meant to be sexy. Seriously, watch the scene and decide for yourself what the point was.

That's all you need to know about how I felt about Gantz.

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