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

Apr 25, 2007

NaughtyCalibur

Recommended

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

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 8, 2009

Maur

Mixed Feelings

Gantz is gritty. Gantz is gruesome. Gantz is a show where a bunch of people who have died essentially become the Japanese MIB, only with a Battle Royale twist.

Now that may sound like an intriguing premise, but let me continue. I'm a pretty easy going guy and I can tolerate more nonsense than most people. For instance, I've actually watched (and in some cases enjoyed) Ikkitousen, Elfen Lied, Mezzo Forte and even some hentai, so I know tasteless when I see it. Gantz is many things, but someone would have a hard time trying to defend it as tasteful. Everyone, including old folks, kids, ... and women, get treated like utter crap. They are either getting humiliated and/or abused (physically or sexually). What I'm trying to say is: Gantz is pretty F'd up.

The funny thing is I don't even really dislike Gantz, but I'd be lying if I said Gantz had any kind of depth. They do a lot of talking, but they don't really ever say much. The plot could be described in a paragraph but is stretched out over 13 episodes where you only get two encounters with Gantz/aliens and lots of discussions about whether to shoot or not.

Let's start with the easy part, the pros:

1) So where does Gantz go right?

Well... I suppose the idea behind the show is interesting? Guys with special suits and secret missions caught up in some bizarre intergalactic excursion. The opening theme isn't bad, at least at first, it starts to get old pretty fast though. The sectioned layer teleportation was kind of cool. There's quite a bit of funny "engrish" like "You can be RIDER powful" and "hear are your skores" that amused me. I also enjoyed the Dragonball Z, Fist of the Northstar and possibly Akira references. If you like violence with a lot of nudity mixed in, Gantz has you covered. I guess there is a certain level of... honesty(?) in Gantz's sadistic depiction of humanity. Kato is the only real trace of decency and dignity in the whole show. Gantz is probably the funniest/best part of the show, you bastards.

At best Gantz is a cutting criticism of the dark side of human beings and a hard look at the many flaws that can make people detestable. As such, people are mostly portrayed as weak, cruel, manipulative, inconsiderate and degenerate. Now to some extent I suppose one could consider this seemingly realistic, but more likely, Gantz is the cynical machinations of a misanthrope with deep seated resentment towards the world and some deviant wish fulfillment. Now I'm not passing judgement here, if that's what you are into, then... ok... but let's call it what it is.


2) So what does Gantz do wrong?

First, the main character (Kei) is, to be blunt, an insufferable, lecherous prick who doesn't know that he's an unlikeable, pathetic prick. Almost every other character is as well, or they are gullible and naive. As if that's not bad enough, the show seems to actually attempt to glorify or sympathize with Kei's adventures in douchebaggery. Now, I'm not allergic to douchey characters, I've liked both Light from Death Note and Lelouche from Code Geass. I liked Light's perseverance and determination, and Lelouche's cunning and bravado, but Kei... he's cowardly, perpetually perverted, selfish, and kind of stupid. I'm not just "hating" or saying this out of some kind of predetermined bias, in all honesty, he really just doesn't have a single redeeming quality to speak of. I didn't think this character could get any worse, but, the dub somehow manages to make him sound like even more of a shameless creep.

Then there's the animation. I'm not like some people who gripe and complain about the use of CGI in anime, and I don't even mind it here either, but some of the actual animation is so lazy and terrible...
There are scenes with random pixelation and (intentional?) ghosting and plenty of still/pan scenes where it looks like they were cutting corners in order to afford preserving the CGI to animation ratio that makes up half the show.

Lastly there's the female main character. Her method of death was apparently suicide (bathtub cutting). So we are introduced to one of Gantz dubious and faulty premises. Let's be serious for a second. Does this girl even seem like the suicide type? The reasons they give for her "motive" aren't very convincing. She's not ugly, she's well endowed (i.e. HUGE breasts) and she shows none of the trademark signs of mental scarring. It's not like she would have trouble finding someone willing to employ her or a boyfriend. I think we can all admit someone like that is not in living hell just because of some bad grades. So we are forced to conclude that the whole bathtub scenario is merely a contrived device just to have an excuse to throw in a big boobed girl completely naked.

Here is where Gantz shows its true colors. As if it's not bad enough that 99% of the show seems to be populated by complete jackasses, within seconds of Kishimoto's introduction we are treated to a scene where the girl is very nearly raped, by MULTIPLE people AND a dog. The rest of the show either flashbacks to this or comes up with new ways to have her naked and/or molested.

Classy, and this is just season one. This is pretty much all you need to know to make a decision on if Gantz is the kind of show you'd be interested in watching. Did I mention this show is also kind of gay? Like, literally.

All that aside, the character motivations and plot development are erratic. Characters ask stupid questions and have to repeat the same answers continuously over multiple episodes. They also do very stupid things. Such as, doing nothing and just gawking like dumbfounded idiots. The best was the genius plan of inviting yourself into someone's home, offering yourself as a pet, getting in their bed, and then expecting it to NOT lead to sex... yeah, that makes a lot of sense... wait, no, IT DOESN'T.

It's kind of hard to like Gantz because it's a very dark and absurd show. There really aren't any likable characters other than Kato and maybe Kishimoto. The worst is how deliberate everything is. Characters take FOREVER to make a decision about ANYTHING. It's really kind of deceptive that way. They look like a bad-ass action squad, but in actuality they're a way-too-chatty and indecisive INACTION squad. For example, in this one episode they spend the whole time arguing over whether or not to put on their super powered suits. Sheesh. The only things one can really take away from watching Gantz is maybe appreciating it for its harsh depictions of reality or basking in its scattered brutality and rampant depravity.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 1, 2007

nervous_system

Not Recommended

Skip the anime, read the manga. The pacing is awkward and the artwork pales in comparison to that in the manga. The artwork of the manga is drawn over 3d models whereas the animation is completely flat. Also the exquisitely drawn blood and gore of the manga is translated into a few seconds of short unskillfully animated blood squirting. I suppose they could not invest any money into animating most of it since they knew it would be edited out for several releases.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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