Gantz

Knowing that he is risking his life, Kei Kurono makes the uncharacteristic decision to jump onto train tracks to save a homeless man from death, only to perish in the process. But when he comes to, Kei finds himself in a room with several other recently deceased people, as well as a large, mysterious black ball. While the people in the room are trying to make sense of their situation, the ball suddenly opens, revealing a cache of weapons and strange black suits. The ball then instructs everyone that they have to hunt down an alien and teleports them to an unknown location.

With very little information to work off of, Kei teams up with his childhood friend Masaru Katou and an unfamiliar woman, and the trio explore their new surroundings. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that they have stumbled into a dark and dangerous world where anything could happen to them.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kurono, Kei Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Katou, Masaru Main

Yamaguchi, Mayumi Japanese

Kishimoto, Kei Main

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Nishi, Jouichirou Supporting

Yabe, Masahito Japanese

Sakuraoka, Sei Supporting

Sonozaki, Mie Japanese

Gantz Supporting

Suzumura, Sadayo Supporting

Kakazu, Yumi Japanese

Nemoto, Tetsu Supporting

Kawanago, Masahito Japanese

Hojo, Masanobu Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Kanda, Mika Supporting

Sasajima, Kaoru Japanese

Itano, Ichirou Director, Storyboard

Hayase, Hiroyuki Sound Director

Mizumoto, Hazuki Episode Director

Ayres, Greg Script

Reviews

Jun 24, 2023

Aragoto

Recommended

I found Gantz to be a very enjoyable watch and I ended up binging it all in 2 days. This review is for the entirety of the show, which is split into two parts on MAL. I suggest watching the English dub if you do get around to Gantz. It had a lot of personality and it was hilarious.

Overall opinion:
I loved watching Gantz. The characters are unlikable at times, punchable even, and I only liked that more as I found myself cheering for different people. The main character is someone who is unlikable but so funny, honest and blunt, and realistic (at times) that I ... liked him more. The whole point of it is that he's a jerk, he's not supposed to be a "good" person. Obviously you wouldn't be friends with someone like that in real life, but having a show about them should not mean the show is "unwatchable", but to each their own. There were some boring, overplayed moments, but some really great ones to compensate for that. Some episodes dragged on, and if there were additional episodes that went more into character backstories, development, and relations, it'd be a much better balance and would make the show a 10/10 for me.

The violence was fine, I don't think it was senseless or tasteless at all. However, there was a lot of fan service that might make someone uncomfortable (I usually despise fan service), but in Gantz I just found it humorous because of how often it was, and also because of the context.
There was definitely too much arguing about what to do in the fight scenes, and that made some moments hard to watch.
Definitely watch Eng dub if you want a good laugh.


Story:
I think the premise of the story is very interesting, and I love a good psychological thriller. I found myself wanting to know more about the world and the characters, and what led them there. However, even at the end of the anime, there were more questions that were left unanswered, unfortunately.
There were huge plot points I wish they had delved into more, but I imagine the manga does a better job at that.

Art:
I liked the art! I thought the character design was nice, and it's always good to find an anime where they don't look straight out of a romance anime (pointy chins, big eyes, etc.) or from your generic, bland anime where all of the characters look the same and have weird baby faces.
There were times where the art suffered, and CGI looked a bit silly, but I can look past that as most of the time it looked fine, if not good.

Characters:
I see most of the reviews talking about how every character is unlikable. I agree with them, but at the same time, I don't have any issues watching the show because of it. I actually find it more intriguing to have a main character that acts like a self-entitled brat 90% of the show, but also has some redeeming moments. We all know someone like Kei Kurono, if you weren't already like him in your rebellious teen years. I found myself feeling sorry for him throughout the show because of his selfishness, but it was comedic at times. He is a likeable-unlikable asshole in my opinion.

I believe some of the characters play on their own cliches- some of them are just so over the top, it's like the writers KNOW this, and play it up on purpose - and I think that many chalk it up to bad writing. I chose to look at it in a satirical sense, and I genuinely like the fact the characters can be summed up to their own cliches in some cases, but specifically for this show. For example, one of the characters, a big-chested woman who can't fight at all and screams every time her crush does something- it's funny! Yet there is depth there, as she is only seen by characters as the sex object, she knows this, but you get glimpses of her thoughts in different scenes. Another example is characters verbally (or mentally) expressing their confusion/concerns with what was happening that were exactly what I was thinking in the scenes. "what the fuck?!"

I don't think they expanded on many characters enough, which is a flaw.
I wish there was more time spent developing the characters. There is one scene between the main character and an antagonist from their past that is played many times throughout the show, and it would've been better to see other things.

Sound:
I really, really liked the OP and ED. The music that plays throughout the show is different and fits into the scenes perfectly.
The English dub was absolutely hilarious and felt realistic. I would say most, if not all, of the characters have great voice actors that play their parts really well. The swearing, screams, snarky attitudes and casual conversations felt so realistic, I just couldn't believe it, and I could NOT stop laughing throughout this show due to characters having such great dialogue and personality when speaking.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 9, 2022

GordonJRamsay

Mixed Feelings

What can be said about Gantz? It was a big deal when it came out, ahead of it's time probably since it had to deal with a lot of censor and bans all over the world. If you were a teenager (like me at the time) you loved the violence and anxiety it gave you, it's was almost as if you were there.

(Since this is the first half of the series I'll keep my harsh critic to the second part)

If you want to get into the world of Gantz it's ok to watch this first half of the anime, but after that go an ... read the manga, the second half does something that should never be done in any adaptation no matter how bad their situation is.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 19, 2023

Douglas_David

Not Recommended

I do not even know where to begin with. So I'll do my analysis the same way the anime showed: with sloppiness and really messy because it's not even worth the time to do a serious analysis. This anime has a very slow pace, very bad scene montage and cutscenes. The firstfruits is good, but the characters and the way they are shown is all bad. Shallow characters, who talk a lot but have little to say. The anime is lost with half of it worrying about showing bullies being bullies with others for free or not (seriously the main plot could be summarized in ... 6 episodes of so much waste made by the script) and some fan services, also free and many of them unnecessary that only delay the main focus of the plot and the narrative. And it does so because it does, without evolving the script, plot and characters. When we have the action scenes, the characters start to make surreal decisions that clearly run away from any human rationality to the point that you hope they die. Speaking of hoping they die, the narrative makes you start to feel disgusted with the protagonist and that disgust only increases more and more until the end because he is despicable. The narrative is told slowly and even slower are the action scenes, making the anime boring to watch. To get an idea, the script is so slow that it arrives at the end of the 13 episodes and they only faced 2 different races of aliens! Anyway. Terrible direction that lost more than half of the anime with creation, presentation and narrative plastering of totally disposable and not at all fluid situations!

Note 4.

And, honestly, this anime having a 7 on MAL must be from old grades because for the time maybe it could be a good thing. But still, even for the time it is a very high note.

Let's see the second season. But I believe that, apparently, with 13 episodes, nothing will last and I already have a view that it is another great first fruit wasted! Damn Kim Kataguiri who referred me to this. It was a total waste of time!

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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