Ranked #189

Gantz (Manga)

A Japanese teenager waits at a train station, reading a trashy magazine featuring an idol enticing the reader with her big boobs. An elderly lady approaches the teenager, asking for directions. The teenager quickly mumbles a non-informative reply while thinking to himself what an annoyance the lady is, why should he give a shit about her? Oh look, a drunken tramp just fell onto the tracks and no one is going to help. Why should they? It’s none of their business, just look away and pretend you didn’t see it happen.

This is Gantz. Hiroya Oku's exploitative, violent and cynical depiction of the Japanese and their behaviour when confronted with moralistic situations. There's also a bunch of ever-increasingly ludicrous battle royales with aliens and vampires that destroy various parts of Tokyo and other cities, but that all comes later.

Back to that train station and that teenager: Kei Kurono. Instantly unlikeable, but oh so real. You either know kids like him, or you recognise your own traits in his character. You'll probably be lying to yourself if you don’t see yourself in some of these characters, its human nature to recoil from awkward situations. Gantz seems to gain great pleasure from thrusting its many random characters into awkward situations, sometimes involving nudity, usually violence, usually spontaneously.

Gantz is about a room somewhere with a black ball and a very infantile presence who gives out childish nicknames to unfortunately-recently-dead and usually unwilling participants in a 'game' that requires them to kill aliens in a kind of real-life recreation of a First Person Shooter. The brilliance is in the mystery and its ridiculousness.

People die and are transported to the room to pick up their suits and weapons, and if they survive the subsequent battle they're free to wander off and return to their lives...until they're transported back to the room for another battle, and so on until either they reach 100 points and are released from the game, or they die for real. Author Oku continually ups the stakes, regularly throwing bigger obstacles in characters' paths, and it becomes a case of “can he top this?” The answer is always: "yes he bloody well can!”

There is a massacre in Shinjuku, Tokyo that beggar’s belief in its astounding ambition to shock the reader with its scope, creativity and viciousness. Once I read this sequence, I knew any anime adaptation would either fail completely at bringing to motion what this manga gets away with, or it would follow it faithfully and probably be banned/censored. Obviously at the time of writing this review, the answer is the former, there aren’t many anime studios in the world that are as crazy as Oku.

This is Gantz's best asset, its secret weapon, the reason for why it's so memorable. It's outrageous. Because it's happening in such a familiar world. Oku's attention to detail, the way people behave and react, either as individuals or as a collective, or even on the internet, is spot on. Whether it's a massacre on a street or in a school, or a small squabble in an apartment or a train, the tension is reminiscent of real life, because the dialogue and body language is grounded in reality, no matter how out there the action and sci-fi ideas are.

The art of the manga is economical and precise; computer aided graphics help keep the locales detailed. The costumes, props and weapons design is a nice deviation from the typical 'dress the characters in black leather' trend that The Matrix seemingly rejuvenated in entertainment media. Kudos to Oku for using his imagination and not dragging the manga down with anything generic. It’s one of his many traits, taking existing ideas that are ripe for generic rip-off but putting his own spin on them. In this case the battle suits are humiliatingly tight, and regularly attract scorn and mockery from bystanders.

The action sequences in this manga are some of the best I've ever read. Oku has a real eye for framing the action from the right angles and positions. His action pay-offs always bring a smile to the face, the audacity and enormity of what occurs on the page, is a sight to behold. The destruction to urban property gets exponentially bigger throughout the manga, no structure or vehicle is left spared. My review is intentionally vague to save the surprises for the reader, but if you like guns, swords, urban environments chopped, sliced and blown up to bits, then you're going to have a blast with Gantz.

The ideas in Gantz are to do with the narcissistic state of 21st century living, the materialism of the masses, human relations in the face of ever disturbing circumstances. There is almost a Hitchcockian vibe in the way ordinary people are pushed into extraordinary situations and thrash around desperately trying to get out of them. The great mystery of Gantz is a sci-fi conspiracy that is always just bubbling under the surface. In the forefront of the story is the cast of lowlifes and nobodies. School kids, street punks, idols, yakuza, tourists, businessmen, random passersbys, random aliens and vampires.

Would you jump onto the tracks and drag the drunken tramp back onto the platform? Oku's humorous retort to that is a train decapitating your head for your troubles. Welcome to Gantz. read more

Review of Phase 1

Gantz is a Seinen, Sci-fi, Psychological, Action, Adventure about an ordinary teenager Kei Kurono and his friend who are unfortunate to have somehow survived an accident. Now he and others are forced into gory, semi-posthumous, battles of survival.

The story of Gantz is split up into two Phases and here I will talk about the 1st Phase, which is split up into missions. The missions are basically about people forced to kill unknown beings, for no given reason except to survive. Sure it doesn’t sound like much but it’s during these missions that the story comes to life, with plenty of action that's easy to visualize. The best thing about the missions is how well some of the main characters develop, through struggles and hardships and how believable they act in such an unbelievable story. The time between the missions is spent mostly developing the current characters and introducing new ones.

Throughout Phase 1, the characters could be considered one of the best aspects of the manga but there are only a few notable ones in the story (most of them appear beyond the anime story). Out of those few the one that truly stands out, has to be the most badass teenage character ever, Kei Kurono. Seeing him develop from a worthless kid to no.1 Gantzer is the best experience from this manga. The real problem is just how easily the characters can be killed off at any given moment and there are missions that are hugely affected by this.

At least it doesn’t completely affect the overall enjoyment of the manga and it is the artwork that contributes a lot to this. Gantz is made up of a combination between hand-drawn art and CG that gives this manga a lavish and unique look, to suit its sci-fi theme. Of course there’s a huge amount of gore, nudity and senseless violence that will make you wonder; what is going on inside this mangaka’s head?

Overall Gantz (Phase 1) achieved its goal of being one of the most violent and gory manga around, on the other hand it somewhat managed to be hugely entertaining. It also managed to develop some of the characters so well but in order to get them into the story it required, an unnecessarily long, string of violence and deaths. One thing that definitely needs to be done, is for all the unexplained to be explained in Gantz (Phase 2).

Some may be turned of by this mangaka’s obsession over gore and boobs however if you’re able to overlook it, then you’ll surely enjoy this manga. ^_^ read more

Seeing as most reviews praise Gantz wholeheartedly i find it worthwhile to express my opinion which is different .My review will contain some minor spoilers as i ll need them to make a point for my opinions .

Gantz up to chapter 280 seems like an entirely different manga when compared with what came next .That will be my main point .
Let's take it from the beginning :
The story is a story of horror,mystery,survival and - above all- character development .
And as every story it is mostly dependent on the charm of the characters to be successful-if the characters are unnatural or boring even the best story cant make up for it , and in contrast if they are believable and enchanting and fresh even a classical and otherwise overused story becomes equally enchanting .

So !

Enter Gantz
At the first chapters we are introduced to the presumes of the story and the characters that will unravel it.Our protagonist is like nothing you ve ever seen before : he is not a total loser and yet he is a misanthropist-he oozes with contempt for humans in general with a way that is more emotional than logical : he doesn't support misanthropy for the sake of an ideology , he feels it and one could say that even himself isn't entirely conscious of the fact .
He is human , he is one of us , he knows how to love but living in a real world he knows better how to hate and how to become disappointed . He is truly a teenager in a rebellious phase with the true meaning - he is disappointed, alone , conflicted and with a rampaging libido that as is natural to real rebellious teenagers , ignores restrains and ethics if given the chance .
He is a real person and a one of a kind protagonist .
He is jealous of many things and his heroic self-titled friend seems to be like an open wound for him : something that reminds him of himself and of the lofty ideals of childhood .He lusts for a girl that clearly is yet another real person-conflicted,good and evil,painful and harmful and still beautiful .

I have just described the protagonist as he is for at least the first arc , let's take a look on the rest of the cast :
We have the aforementioned girl , who is a great character but unfortunately doesn't stay in the story for long as a main character .The two main characters besides our anti-hero protagonist is his heroic friend and yet another anti-hero , a cool expert on Gatnz warfare and above all a survivor that has experienced Gantz from before the protagonist get's thrown into it .

One quickly learns to identify and love almost every character of the cast and by doing that , experiencing a truly humane experience : the love is human and the good and heroic ideals and morals are human but so is rage,despair,sadness,disappointment and lust and evil .Life is humane but Death is too , even if we would like it otherwise .
And as the story progresses their emotions constantly renew themselves - they outgrow themselves sometimes to overcome challenges while other times they retreat to their fears because of them .
They learn to appreciate life and truly despair about death , they learn their limits and they learn the pleasure of breaking through them .

And then the setting slowly changes along with the characters .I may not be an expert but either the character of the author and his ideals changed with time or some marketing advisers had their say .

Enter Arc Two-Allien Invasion

The story loses much of it's mystery as many things are revealed . The horror continues but on a much grander scale , as whole countries get wiped off the map .The secret survival story turns now to open warfare and battle with the invaders .
Much of the original cast besides the main characters has died and new people have filled the gaps time and time again .

But here is when things went sour : the characters are not themselves anymore .
Up until chapter 380 we will see our anti-social hero becoming yet another knight in shining armor , ready to save his newly acquired damsel in distress , always winning heroically after overcoming huge difficulties .Where did the inner conflicts go , where did the contempt and the rejection of the world ended up to ?I have no idea and obviously neither the characters do .
The only thing that happened in our beloved's anti-hero protagonist life that may have changed him was that he acquired a girlfriend .Now,now a first girlfriend may be a major event in every mans life but what we see isnt actually the protagonist we knew effected by his girlfriend : it is someone of the much overused characters from industrial Anime-not even manga- that is overpowered , deeply troubled and saddened by the world yet eager to serve and protect everyone , cool and dressed in black , faithful beyond comparison to his love and unbeatable ( except when it gives a chance for his damsel to save him , thus proving once more her love to him )
And what about the other main characters of the cast you say ?Well as i already told you the most interesting girl that appeared since the beginning , the one that preferred the protagonist friend instead of him , is out long ago .
The cool and expert warrior/survivalist is shown to be completely stupid and week , revealing his characters in his last moments as a truly lame and powerless child - a change of character that really surprised me since he was build as the cold and cautious murderer type for all the past story .And it was a bad surprise .
Finally the only one to remain somewhat faithful to himself is the heroic friend of the protagonist that still appears as a hero - only this time he is more of a sidekick or the hero of a minor plot line if compared to the truly epic feats of the incredible and godly reborn protagonist .

And finally - the author makes some very sad attempts to fill the gap caused by the lack of character consistency with some pseudo-philosophical touches that literally would have maked the original protagonist beat himself ( and probably the author) up if he could .
Plus there was a plot line about the brother of the protagonist being a vampire or something that gets completely forgotten for the time being - he doesn't appear EVER again , something that makes him look like he was from some filler chapter/episode that an assistant came up with because the author was sick in a hospital in the meantime .
The only thing that improved in the second arc of the manga was the background art , with grand scenes of carnage and technological sci-fi environments.But i suspect that could mainly attributed to the money spent on assistants and not on the author or anyone else .



To sum it up i ve got to say that Gantz is a truly unique manga and it is worth reading .It is good and that is a fact .
The reason i am disappointed is because it started out (and continued for quite some time ) as a masterpiece .
There are really few manga that can compete with the first arc of it and even if you take the second arc as a given , it still remains a good manga .Just be prepared for the second arc - who knows depending on what you like you may even like it more than the first .
But that was surely not the case for me . read more

Gantz

- A story about a horny teenager.


Upon reading the first pages of this manga, many people would consider Gantz's story, to be a simple and straightforward one. A tale about Kurono Kei, a horny teenager, that is selfish, self centered and obsessed with sex, and big breasted women.
That is until he dies, gets revived, and forced to partake in a alien killing death match, with futuristic suits and weapons. From that point on the reader starts to understand that Gantz story is nothing but straightforward.


Story: 9

One of the things that i like the most in manga, it's how a story is focused on it's key elements, but still offers something for everyone. And Gantz does just that, while you could read just for the action scenes, which are great, Gantz is much more than mindless fights.
In fact if someone were to ask what exactly is Gantz, a complete answer would be something like : it's a Psychological, survival-horror, action/gore, seinen, etchi, drama, slice of life, Sci-Fi, Supernatural, romance story. And Gantz really is all that
While might be confusing at first, Hiroya Oku does a great job at putting more and more elements to the story, at a comfortable pace, giving you a feeling that it's continually growing, but without breaking immersion.

That growth means that you keep getting more and more hooked into the story and the fate of it's many characters.
In fact if there's a "but" to Gantz story, it's how it normally gives you a question and answers with another question, almost like watching a episode of "Lost".By the end of several volumes, you still won't know what exactly is Gantz, who's that guy inside it, why it can revive people, why does it make people fight aliens, where the hell those aliens came from and why are they in Tokyo.

In the end, Gantz, is about survival. How people behave and react in extreme situations, and their ability to continue to live their lives and build "normal" relationships, despite all the death and destruction they have to endure in every hunt.


Characters: 8

One of the things that set's Gantz apart from other manga, it's how almost every single characters dies, and that no one is safe in the world of Gantz not even the main characters.

This element means that you never know who's going to die, so having good characters that will not easily be forgotten, becomes very important. And in that aspect Oku delivers, while not perfect, every character have completely different personalities, and personal dramas behind them, always giving them a sense of purpose and importance.
While some characters are just despicable, other are simply psychopaths, while some live only to fight, other live only to rape, and so on. Of course there is the good and pure characters, but Oku's specialty really is with extreme deviant behavior.

In general the cast of characters, is complex and diverse, which is great, the main problem is that some secondary characters that get sent to Gantz, always come from the same formula of psychopaths, sadists and rapists. In fact most of the people in the world of Gantz are very negative, cruel and evil. While it does show how many people really are in reality, sometimes it seems Oku does it simply as a gimmick.
Another minor thing that bothered me, it's how some characters almost look the same, similar faces with only slightly different hair, while others look completely different, which can make for confusing scenes.


Art: 9

The art in Gantz is very detailed, with great action scenes, while it might not compete with, berserk or kuroshia ichi, it's still very good.

In fact if there's a problem with Gantz art is that Oku uses CGI, in almost everything, from characters to scenarios, to the weapons, the suits, and the special abilities of the aliens. All of this is made with or with the help of CGI, so Gantz art really is a double edge sword, for the most part i like it, and it doesn't bother me. But for some other elements, i would have preferred a more "classical" approach, since some times it's just to much CGI in just one scene.




Fan Service: 9

Even thou Gantz is mainly more drama, than exactly comedy, it does have comic reliefs, normaly in simple and dry dark comedy, involving either sadistic killings or as in most of the time sex. That's right, Gantz has a lot of fan service, and when i say a lot, i mean that almost every chapter comes with some hot, nude, big breasted young woman, doing sexy poses.
Which normally is fun and serves, to lighten the more chaotic and violent scenes, the problem is that sometimes is just too much and can get silly.

To give you an idea, 9 out of every 10 women in Gantz not also are hot, they all share the huge breasts gene, and sooner or later you will see them naked and having sex with someone.
So you might think that, hot women and sex is great Fan-service . There is, until you see a guy having sex with an alien in a middle of a battlefield while his friends are getting killed.

And finally ,to show you that Oku really takes his Fan-service seriously,as he realized he was upsetting the lolicon's , Oku made a lolita as a main character, and of course she will appear naked and have her very own sex scenes.
XD (lol)

Enjoyment: 9

In a word, "addictive", not many manga kept me , devouring every chapter and volume, until there was no more to read. Having read 31 volumes in 2 days, not also means that a have a lot of free time, it also means that Gantz became one of my favorite maga in just two days.
If there's one thing that made my enjoyment a 9 instead of a 10, was that Oku's along with other seinen,/gore manga authors overuses certain elements, like extreme violence/gore, sex and rape just for shock value, or silly fan-service, which after awhile can becomes almost routine,
Apart from that, Gantz is overall a great experience, that delivers in almost every aspect.

Overall: 9 read more

Gantz is a masterpiece in my opinion. Even though I love this manga, this manga is definite not for everyone. This manga contain sex scenes, blood, blood and more blood, naked girls/monsters with supernatural and technological twist to everything.
However if you can stand all of the above then, this manga is for you. The manga is about killing aliens with incredible suits, weapon, vehicles and with everything you can think of. The alien are not just standing there doing nothing, the monsters are strong and sometimes, they are way to strong, and makes you wonder if they can be killed or not. From human size alien that move an uses crazy fire or thunder power to dinasaurs with thousands of eyes to temple statues.
Gantz is about a ball that save randomly the memory of someone that dies in any particular way and transfer the memory and created a clone and used it to fight the monster. Its like giving you a second chance but with one mission in mind, Kill and Survive.
All the characters that stay long enough all they think is surviving. They all fight to survive not because they are afraid of dying, but because they still have something important to accomplish or they still have someone waiting for them every day or night.

I see Gantz as a test for survival. If you really really cant die now, then you fight, you fight like never before, like there may be no tomorrow for you. You will fight as a team or fight alone, its the same but you should just stay alive for just one more night.

This manga story is very complicated and even though it has +274 chapters, most of the facts around Gantz is still unknown. If you like all of the above, you should give it a try to this masterpiece =P
Oh btw, Gantz starts with a very unliked character but at the same time with a tremendous will to survive. read more

I'm going to make this short and simple. Gantz is quite questionable and confusing, because it doesn't make sense at all until you keep progressing throughout the story. Gantz is basically a black ball who chooses who he wants to fight for him. The series is not completed therefore many questions are yet to be answered. When the characters die in the anime, the chosen people appear in front of a black ball given a task to assassinate a certain type of alien/leader. They use futuristic motorcycles, to swords, to extreme never- before - seen guns. The setting of this manga is like a video game and for every monster you kill the more points you get and the main goal of Gantz is to get 100 points. If they do not complete their task, they lose all their points, or they are all killed. Kurono Kei is the main character and he's selfish and looks down on everybody. Throughout the series he changes and you''ll see him change through drastic experiences. This manga is quite thrilling. The story is intense and makes you want to continue reading on all day. The art is quite interesting and gorey. It has all the elements you could want in a manga. The love stories, action, comedy. The only downfall of this is the way some characters act. If someone were to pop in front of you with a knife with blood covered all over them, you wouldn't just stand there and be like ''Hey why do you look like you want to kill me'' and let them kill you without wanting to avoid the person. Some characters act illogical and seem to have zero common sense. To wrap it up this manga has more to offer then what is written in this review. I suggest you read a volume to figure out whether you would like to continue or not to. I give this manga a 10 read more

Death is NOT an end-Merely a new Beginning! (Unknown)


PLOT: -

The course of this series is full of bitterness and tragedy. Characters that have no control, no power and are inserted in a game that despite how well they play and the alliances they form, once they win, its back to the beginning. Imagine playing a high stake game, kill or be killed, meeting people who become allies, friends and even lovers but knowing that if you choose to collect your 100 points and leave the game, all the knowledge, personal growth and experiences will be blocked from your mind. It’s a tease. It’s harsh. And it’s a metaphor for the oft-times seeming futility of life itself. It’s an extreme case of human nature and the nature of the game, versus the individuals at play and their relations to one another.

Gantz is a complex, multi layered story, told in a stunning visual style, abundant in detail and interspersed with blood and sex. This blood and sex is used as both a tool and a metaphor exemplifying the high and lows of humanity itself as protector and defender, hunter and the hunted, hero and villain. Two sides of a coin, both sides in a game.

The story and the premise itself is interesting and thought provoking. Oku has captured a cross section of humanity within his pages, both in its glory and grotesque. His efforts while not always appreciated deserve to be applauded.

CHARACTERS: -

Gantz takes normal and everyday life characters and takes them to great heights with awesome character development.

Originally some characters such as the lead character Kurono appear as plain, shallow and self-centered personnel, they develop into shining examples of the human condition, baptized in the fire of war.

As the story progresses further characters add more humanity to the story, knowing that they have no place in the game, they still embrace a role placed upon them for the benefit of another or simply chose to overlook a horrifying and baser act of depravity in order to do what they must. Many characters are contradictory to each other. Some individuals play the game at the expense of other players and their own humanity while others develop bonds similar to those of team/family to support each other. Others are burnt beyond recognition, and display violent, extreme anti-social tendencies that place them squarely as villains and the aliens they hunt as victims.

ART: -

Art is a big selling point of this manga. The character art and backgrounds are top notch (some might say that they are close to or even better than Berserk). Everything about art is amazing. The gory and hardcore action, sexy babes at cover pages, the horrifying aliens and monsters, in short everything shows the greatness of Oku's artwork and imagination.

TARGET AUDIENCE: -

People say that Gantz is just for those who enjoy excessive and needless gore and don’t care about the story. However, I would recommend this manga to anyone who wants a visually engaging story, combined with some harsh lessons on human nature.

TIPS: -

* Read it at night, lights off and metal songs on (I enjoyed it more that way).
* Read at least 10 to 15 chapters in one sitting.
* Don't read it if you hate gore read more

One of the greatest mangas I have ever read, I found gantz to be one of the most outstanding mangas out there. I've never been so hooked on a story ever since Berserk.

Story - I gave Gantz a 9 because the story is just magnificent and very different I mean how many mangas start of with the character dying, but it does have some flaws. One being the beginning of the story to go on a bit slow, but once you get through the first mission the story will get clearer.

Art - The art for Gantz is also one of the best I've seen, the characters really look real and the gore is fantastic. Oku has one of the greatest imaginations I've seen from an author, Gantz art is pretty much like Berserk without the medieval theme.

Characters - The characters in Gantz is also one of the best, an example is the mangas protagonist Kurono, in the beginning of the manga Kurono is more like an idiot who cares about nothing but himself, not really the kinda character you'd think to be the main character. Then through out the series we see him develop from a punk into a "hero". One of the bad things about the characters though is Oku tend to kill them off rather quickly though most of em you won't care about some will make you feel rather sad.

I'm not gonna put an enjoyment cause it's pretty much clear I enjoyed this manga and overall Gantz is a great manga that will make you want more. read more

Great story, first manga I've been addict too. Good thing about it, is that you cannot predict anything. Some caracter will die, new will come... I always asked myself what else will happen next page. If you want a gore, bloody, nasty manga, this is the one.

Fight, Monster, Sc-Fi, Sex, Blood... and many dead, many many many !!

I start reading after I saw the anime. If you have seen it, the Anime is just a small part of the story, the plot is going much farter. Anime story stop near #5-6... If I remember correctly.

Story: 10

Human lives holds absolutely no significance. People will die, but in this manga, people's death do hold significance. This work goes against human nature, of the selfishness and greed. People who have died, are given a second chance, in return they kill aliens that are a potential threat to earth. Gantz, is like a Jack-Of-All-Trades. So many things are incorporated into this manga that it is almost a work of a genius. Action, romance, Sci-fi, sex, death, gore, ecchi, horror, drama, and psychological. This kind of story is one of a kind that does not appear many times.

Art: 9

Fan-Service: There is much fan service on this work. Breasts and butts are very well drawn, that it averts almost any males or females eyes towards it.

Realism: The muscles of a typical muscular guy are so well drawn you can make every cut in their muscles and you can tell where the muscles have formed on their bodies. When something is cut in half you can make out the organs that is oozing out. When the players are being transferred you can see every every body part as its own entity.

The art has a big impact on you because the story is horror. A realistic drawing of a gory is what horror manga is meant to be. If a horror manga is not realistic its not horror. Also the realism makes it seem like everything that happens in the manga almost possible in the real world.

Character: 8

The protagonist of the story is a average high school student that is known as a day-time lantern. He can be viewed as us, the readers. We're like every other person, mediocre with no special trait. The so called "average high school student" kills aliens to survive. Everyone fantasies about killing aliens with big fictional weapons. This character is a outlet to the fantasy world that everyone dreams so much of. Everyone is appealed to this manga because they want to be the main character. The author made the main character so close to you that you can literally believe you are him.

Enjoyment: 10

You kill aliens after you died, and when you lose a limb or two, you're good as new when your teammates finishes the job. Girls in the work are beautiful, so beautiful that it is not likely that you will find a girl like that. People die with gore every page you read. I enjoy reading about that kind of stuff. Its a thrill to read something like that when my life has none of those things.
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