Gantz

Interesting premise ruined by boring cliches, bland characters and snail pacing. I only made it a few episodes in before dropping this one. I really tried to give it a chance but after a while it was apparent that, yes, while the story was indeed moving in the forward direction, the pacing of the plot and the events on the screen would continue to bore me for the duration of the series.

We start off with the most cliche'd character as the main, 2 childhood best-friends, one sort of dim-witted, the other White Knight type who must always do good blah blah done to death a ... million times. OK. I can get past that. The next round of characters, the shy guy with glasses, hotshot punk, obligatory helpless TnA chick, etc. just more 1-dimensional cardboard cutouts to occupy space on the screen before eventually serving as cannon fodder for the next bloody encounter.

Then on to the "action". Well, if you count half a dozen people standing around staring at something in disbelief as "action". I'm pretty sure they blew a whole 15 minutes of one episode standing there in front of that alien, and spent what seemed like an eternity trying to kill him. Another episode seemed to spend its entire duration with the characters running through the street screaming and being chased. Didn't you people have guns or something? Have you tried pointing them and pushing the button? That usually seems to work. Instead we get stuck with 5-minute long internal monologues (typical boring anime trope) agonizing over personal failures, childhood nonsense and self doubt, all while there is supposed to be something exciting happening on the screen.

I have never seen such a collection of uninteresting, frustratingly stupid people in one place at the same time. I found myself frequently shouting at the screen: "Do something! Do anything!" as most of the characters took turns standing still making that same *gasp* sound while watching each other get bludgeoned to death or eaten or whatever else. The violence and nudity in the show did not entertain me in the slightest. I love me some blood, guts and nudity as much as the next person, but I found most of the violence and sexuality in this show to be gratuitous and juvenile, hardly fitting for a show supposedly targeted to adults.

How can a show about being brought back from the dead to shoot aliens be this incredibly boring?

Jesus fuck.. Where to begin with this 3 day excursion of time waste.
Not even going to justify it with a long review. What you need to know..
Too much stopping and staring. "WHAT IS THAT?.." "IS IT AN ALIEN?" "I DON'T KNOW IT'S NOT MOVING, LETS WAIT UNTIL IT ATTACKS US TO FIND OUT"

Too much fucking talk about being hesitant assholes. "I CAN'T SHOOT IT. THE POINT IS WE HAVE TO SHOOT IT BUT I'M GOING TO WAIT 2 EPISODES FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO"

Too much try hard love story, between characters that don't pay attention to each other until the final episodes their in. ...

Worst fucking part of it all? A few of the characters took a while for me to adjust to. And that's fine. After a while, they were killed off. But it didn't matter, they'd be replaced by someone else right?
NOPE. EVERYBODY FUCKING DIES.
YOU FUCKING WATCH THIS ENTIRE ANIME BASED PRACTICALLY AROUND THESE 3 KIDS. ALL OF THEM FUCKING DIE BUT ONE.
NO FUCK THAT, HE PROBABLY DOES DIE. BECAUSE WHO FUCKING KNOWS. THE ENDING OF THE SHOW DIDN'T REALLY SAY.
What it did say though, was
"THIS SHIT DIDN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, HAHA FUCK YOU, YOU JUST WATCHED 26 EPISODES OF REPETITIVE, NONSENSICAL BULLSHIT BUT GOOD LUCK, I FUCKING FOUND PLATFORM 2"

This wasn't a review, this was me being really fucking pissed off that I forced myself to watch all of this anime.

It had potential but in the end it was absolute garbage.

You'll most likely spend most of your time yelling at the screen for someone to do something. 80% of this anime consists of people with guns in their hands NOT shooting at the threat. Its a cringe fiesta, its like they all want to die.

Character development was shit. Every goddamn one was either bland and stupid, 1-layered evil, or cannon fodder.

The animation was also shit. Lots of frames of close ups of people just standing around, I had to check every now and then if I had accidentally paused.

Soundtrack was not memorable ... at all.
All of this applies to the second season as well, but that one was even dumber.

Conclusion: Waste of time.

I have not seen a show like this in a long while. That's not to say it's good, mind you. I came away from [i]Gantz[/i] with mixed feelings that ultimately ended in dislike. The show follows a perverted, angry-at-the-world teenager who sees an old friend at a train station. They both witness a homeless man fall onto the tracks, and the friend jumps onto the tracks to save him, then yelling for his friend to help. For no good reason that I can figure out (unless it's peer-pressure), the cynic jumps onto the track to help. They save the old man, but are killed by ... a train, and transported to an apartment, where others who have just died seem to be gathered.

I don't want to say more about the plot, but I do like the ideas behind it. The story told in [i]Gantz[/i] is interesting enough that it kept me watching it all the way through. I wanted to know what was going to happen next, especially in the latter four episodes or so. However, the ending left me very unsatisfied, and made no sense at all. I came away from the story ultimately with a sense of pointlessness.

Of course, it doesn't help the show's case that the main character is utterly unlikeable, for me at least. He almost comes off as believable, but is taken too far to really be a believable character.

The same rings true for most of the characters. They're presented as these people in this alternate Earth, but then taken just a little too far in their archetypes to be believable. This isn't necessarily a problem for most of the characters, except the one or two that just become annoying.

This problem is compounded by the art design for [i]Gantz[/i]. Everything is drawn quasi-realistically, but retains enough of the fact that it's an anime that, again, it just becomes a little annoying, rather than giving the impression that I'm sure the people behind this show wanted it to.

Voice acting for the series is, overall, decent. My only real problem with the voices was casting for certain characters, especially a major character, who ended up sounding weird at times. The VA work wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either.

My biggest problem with the show has to be the pacing. For the first few episodes, things go along somewhat slowly, but any time it comes to a scene where the characters disagree about something, they stand around for twenty minutes talking in circles about it. Everything seems like it's taking way too long, to the point where it became a game to guess what would happen episodes in advance, which isn't a fun game, because the answer is always, "They're gonna talk about it for two episodes, and then they'll actually do [spoiler]."

But not only does it move really slowly, but any time stuff does start to happen, the viewer is constantly assaulted by the gory deaths of characters that I guess we're supposed to care about, but I didn't, and by scenes that almost make this show hentai, if not for the rest of the plot.

That's pretty much [i]Gantz[/i] in a nutshell; nothing happens, then gore, then sexual scene, then nothing for a while, then a lot of talking in circles, more gore, and more nothing. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone. [i]Gantz[/i] is not worth spending the ten or so hours to watch the entire series. I give it a one out of five, because the only redeeming quality for the show was the interesting premise.

Are you seeing Gantz posters everywhere? Are you thinking why it has such a low rating and overrated at the same time? Are you hesitating start watching it or not? Then let me guide you!

If you are searching for something different and unlike any other Anime, then you've come to a wrong place it is generic and typical and I have no doubt you've seen some more cooler stuff than this. sure if you do not believe me then you could start watching and I give you an insurance that after the first episode u'll force yourself to watch the show till the end ... of the season hoping that something interesting could happen, so that is why I am here to assist you and to save your precious time! bare with me! Lets go!

First and foremost not to be very rude the anime really had a potential in the start, it's idea could be interesting,what we have all thought about, what would happen after we die? do we continue to live ? is it obscurity ? BUT definitely NOT what this anime shows you is even a LITTLE bit close to our answers , our reality or fantasy, our needs, and our entertainment!!! and if someone tells you that it's a fantasy well then the writer definitely, definitely lacks the vision and imagination of what fantasy really is! The idea literally gets destroyed, butchered, annihilated on the second episode of the show.we see monsters in almost every fantasy anime, some are scary, some are gruesome and brutal, but in Gantz they are funny alien chickens that are voiced very poorly even in Jap Dub and you can't take them serious unless you are 14 of course! and do not ask me why it has such a portrait,main characters were afraid of them and could not shoot a single gun(for straight 3 episodes the show is stuck whether they can shoot them or not) MEANWHILE I just could not sit and watch those scenes with a straight face!!!! it really cringed me and spun my head to 360 degree!

I almost forgot that sometimes we meet mild nudity in shows that really IS necessary for better understanding and beauty, but in this case it was purely perversity and nothing more than an eye candy for pervert people who have a fetish for alien chickens and big breasts.

Not to totally destroy this anime and its pure poor plot I'll make this shorter.The entire show I anticipated that the situation would've gotten more serious and interesting, because then why would it have a second season right? do not give yourself a hope that this anime is worth a coin, if someone recommends you definitely ignore and skip it.

Here a short modern review. ITS HORRIBLE. Had potential with all the relents but it’s so bad. I’m guessing horny kids or nostalgic ppl are the ones who hype this up. There titties in a couple episodes with some rapey vibes. The character development and overall common sense of the characters is 0/10. Everyone acts like a pussy even when their life is on the line. Just bad bro. But hey I had nothing to watch and seen all 13 episodes so maybe give it a go if you’ve got literally nothing else to watch or do.

Characters 2/10
Sorry 6/10 (actually has potential with the ... elements)
Overall 1/10

The anime has a great concept, but that's all it has going for it. The characters are bland and unlikable, and their morals change so quickly. For example one of the man characters has trouble killing one of the aliens yet a minute later he squeezes one to death. None of the characters are likable or realistic, half the time their just standing around debating whether to kill an alien, while the alien does nothing but stand there even though a few minutes ago it had no trouble slicing a few characters in a matter if seconds. Even the voices of the characters are annoying, ... everyone has a really high pitched voice in the dubbed version and it makes my head hurt so bad. A lot of people say that the anime has great gore, but really its just ok and it doesn't happen as often as you'd think. Most of the time the characters are talking about killing an alien or their just standing around and talking about a girls breasts. Overall I wouldn't watch the show if you want to see some intense action and agonizing whether a character will survive. Since the majority of the time its quite obvious who's going to die the main characters have plot armor while everyone seems to be extremely fragile and are as dumb as rock.

Pros: good to watch in the background, gore is ok, the intro is coo, the art is decent but it does fluctuate a bit here and there

Cons: All characters are idiots, none of them are likable, action is meh, the voices in the dub are so high pitched that it made my head hurt, no suspense whether a character will survive, lot of filler with nothing happening. The aliens are very generic and nothing really makes them unique

I honestly had some good expectations for this anime.

The first episode is pretty interesting, the art caught my attention and the opening was exciting. It fell on everything else.

The idea is.. good. You gotta fight for peace after you die? Like a ghost vigilante? With cool suits? You get a second chance? You are but a copy of yourself? There could be a real you outside?
Those are really interesting concepts that are presented on the first episodes.

But this show didn't use them the right way. No character development. You have a huge cast that is decimated in each episode, you bring new guys to replace ... them, and yet not a single person is likeable. Sure, you could say they have "flaws" or that even if they are assholes/idiots, they have redeemable characteristics or you just love them as characters. That doesn't happen here. I really felt no connection at all with any person, and I didn't even try to establish one, knowing they would be replaced on the next episode.
There is lots of fanservice; stupid and long, useless conversations, a bad ending, not explaining sh*t about the origins of Gantz, etc etc.

Gantz was a huge letdown for me, and the anger I felt made me write my first and only review. Perhaps you can enjoy this anime! But it really tries to be intelligent and dark at times, when everyone just seems like an asshole or really stupid for no reason.

Erm... sooo... I think that if an anime triggers some emotions, any emotions in you, than it has its right to live.
But, honestly, this anime is a bloody piece of crap.
Now I'll try to recollect emotions, which nagged me throughout the series.
The very 1st was "Whoa, cool opening, it's definetely gonna be interesting, guns, jumps 'n so on..." The 2nd was "Hey, nice artwork, the story definetly must be interesting." 3d "Yeah, nice twists of the plot, I'm sure good at picking right stuff to watch". 4th " Holy cow, what's happening..." 5th "I want EVERYone of those bloody holy imbeciles die..." 6th ... "I said DIE!!!"
But nevertheless...
The story is really an unpleasant surprise. You would never expected things to go this way after death wouldn't you? What are we portraying usually... clouds, light, heavens or big couldron with some nasty creature stirring some nasty staff in it, and you're in the middle. And here... a really unusual turn, but what the heck. I'm really sure that if the main characters were made a bit different, were not so repulsive and used their brains a bit more often, it would have been really nice show. Those guys are the main problem.
They found themselves in some room with ball. The ball said take guns go kill somebody. They took, they went, then killed each other patheticaly or some nasty aliens killed them pathetically and than came the other ones with exactly the same problems, blood, flesh, guts, crippled parts of body.
And so... the main line is that in our world sure lives a big buch of disgusting idiotic whiners. And they would probably kill each other in stressfull situation. And death is a disgusting thing.

This was super annoying to watch. I was excited because it seemed like a good concept, but it fell flat on its face. Super boring and frustrating. Meaningless dialogue and poor character motivation. A complete lack of character development. There were scenes where I was literally screaming at the TV "Fire the damn gun!" Because it was so frustratingly slow. I thought, wow I didn't think you could get worse about dragging out a scene than DBZ, but this one takes the cake. 13 ep of nothing happening. The final monster fight (much like all the others) was all frustration and no excitement.

I was hoping ... this would get me excited to read the manga but now I'm not sure I want to. I know the animes are rarely better or as good as the manga, but damn this sucked.

In short, I don't recommend this at all. The manga might be better, though I haven't read it. But in this anime version, most of the characters will scream until you have a headache, cry and watch others perish. I'm in honest doubt that so many people would give up in a life or death situation, but I don't exactly know of course. Wasted potential, a whole good idea thrown away that could have been something great.

So unless you want to hear "KATO-KUN" shrieked into your ear for a majority of the time, watch people die with little to no resistance, and spend a lot ... of time not getting plot development or explanations for anything, don't watch this. I hoped it'd get better and watched it since it's short. But it doesn't get better at all. Almost every single character was annoying in more than a single way and the story needs to press the pedal to the medal.

And this anime also had one of the most disgusting characters I've ever seen, the p**** licking dog that served no purpose to anything at all that was happening. Never have I ever hoped the animal dies, except in Gantz.

I just finished watching the 13 episodes. Well it starts off with an interesting concept that keeps me wanting more, then it just get worse. I found myself hating every character that was introduced. Everyone is whiney and highly illogical. If you like gore, tits, and highly annoying characters, I'd say watch it, but if you like gore, tits, and an engaging plotline, dont waste your time.

If you've already decided to watch Gantz, take my advice: Always skip the Opening and End Credits. 1) they're sorta bad, and 2) they (the OP especially) can foreshadow or outright spoil future plot points.

This show's core concept -- random strangers are assembled to play a game in which the rules are not clearly stated -- had great potential. Unfortunately the anime itself was painful to watch. I committed myself to marathoning the whole series over a couple of weeks, and I wish I hadn't.

What's there to like? Well there's:
- Gore. People and aliens blow up and die in horrible ... ways. I couldn't shake the feeling that this manga/anime was a direct influence on Psycho-Pass.
- A bizarre survival plot. Like the 1997 film "Cube", strangers are placed in an inexplicable situation, and are forced to save themselves while struggling to understand and work with each other. Gradually characters discover the rules that bind them, and as they play the game again later, they learn even more.

What's not to like?
- The main character. He's unlikeable, in large part that we're subjected to his sex-obsessed inner-monologue for the entire show.
- The main heroine. Completely useless. Sexualized and victimized in unnerving ways.
- Missed opportunities. So many situations could have been solved if one character would've said one obvious thing or grabbed one known useful item, and its frustrating to watch the characters repeat stupid mistakes when they don't. This could've been a cool, meaningful feature of Gantz's story, if only the characters recognized their mistakes after-the-fact.
- Unbelievable reactions. Characters will think, say, and do things that are inconsistent with their surroundings or recent events. Main characters and side characters stand like a deer in headlights, stupidly ignorant of the mortal threats right in front of them. The main character may see someone die horribly right in front of him -- despite this, he'll be thinking about boobs instead. This might've worked if the anime were a slapstick-comedy, but that tone isn't used here.
- The tone. There really isn't any. Music is notably absent from some scenes. Animation relies heavily on panning and zooming, like a clumsy homage to The Maxx (1995, MTV's Liquid Television)
- The pacing. Dear god, it's abysmally slow at times. In one episode two characters run away from the same alien with the same crappy 4 frames of animation for 10 minutes. (the pacing does improve notably for episodes 14-26)

I've heard about Gantz before and thought it might be interesting.. but uh..
The animation is very sloppy and the characters reactions to different things is unnatural.



Spoiler examples.


The MC randomly sees all girls naked, no reaction except for a boner.
He then can read peoples mind all of a sudden, no reaction.
... They're about to get run over, they don't climb up instead run.. it's a bit odd..
As they get overrun by the train their heads comes off rather oddly since no other harm is made to the bodies.

when they show up at the place they end up once they're dead, they don't freak out about being teleporterad over there, no one is surprised at all.

Once the female show up, she's naked of course since she committed bathtub suicide.
The girls body shows up in the arms of the MC whom randomly kisses her.
Then another guy comes and pulls her with him into the hallway and attempts to rape her, so MC's friend saves her.

While she sits there sobbing and the guys talk, the dog comes in and starts licking her between her legs, she blushes and moans to the dog to stop, rest is acting like nothing's going on.

Guys leaves and so does the dog, after that they get to know they're dead and that they're about to go hunting aliens....

they kill an alien who turns out to be a child.? so his father shows up blowing one guy up, no one freaks out about him getting killed they're all just like.
"Um.. who are you?"



seriously, the characters act very odd and unnaturally to everything that's going on. And the animation is sloppy and not that well made, still frames with a sweeping camera for effect.

gg.. horrible, it could been good... but it's just random and no realistic reactions at all.
I don't even give it 0 as score it's simply -5.

this was an extremely unique idea that was poorly elaborated upon. the characters seemed to have little common sense, not to mention that the main character was huge horny bitch. this anime disgusted me and anyone who will defend this trash is a moron

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!

I am typically an anime only guy, therefore I rarely if ever read any manga (with the exception of Chainsaw Man, since it hasn't been animated yet). But if there is ever an anime I would 10/10 times recommend people to read as a manga instead, then it is Gantz.

Gantz anime is a total shit-show that is caused by a lot of different factors. So why don't we dig into the negatives first?

First of all, there is the art style. I do understand this is a 2004 animation so I can't be too hard on this, but man is it bad. It may be my ... fault for only realizing it actually has a 720p resolution after I've watched the first 5-6 episodes on 480p, but the 720 doesn't do it any favors either. The animation is so linear and boring that it hurts to watch. And then there is the weird and awkward attempts at CGI that just feels and looks super laggy and buggy.

Again, I can't be too hard since the anime is from 2004, but it lacks any sort of charm that older animations excel at. Look at One Piece, Bleach and YYH animation from early days - they have that charm and they seem lively and colorful. I'm not asking for Gantz characters to have 2-3 feet high and wide mouths when they laugh, and I do get that they were going for a more "realistic" portrayal, but it just doesn't do anything for me. There isn't anything unique to it and every single character looks the same with the exception of their hair colors. There are no textures, no detail. I feel like if this was a 3D pop-up book and I stroked my hand over it, it would still feel flat.


Then there is the PACING! Oh god, the pacing. Let me explain it like this: character A tells character B to shoot a villain.
B says he’s going to do it, then B goes into 5 minute inner monologue
The villain attacks, B hasn’t shot yet
A + bystanders again tell B to shoot it
B has a dialogue with the others now for 2-3 minutes,
Villain almost kills B
B finally shoots but misses the first 5-15 shots.
About 5-10 minutes could go where the characters would literally just stand there and dialogue while watching another character getting beat to death, or they are running away for 5-10 minutes without actually doing anything.

It feels like every episode is 50+ minutes long and not 20. They truly have mastered the art of stretching literally everything out in an anime. Several of the episodes have been so awfully slow that I envy everyone that didn't waste their time with this. But since I am someone that gives every anime a chance and fully watches at least 1 season, this was painful.


So, now to the characters. Since the anime is really slow paced, that would at least leave a lot of time for character development, right? Oh, how I was fooled. We have a perverted, good-for-nothing, kinda bad person MC that doesn't really get any development until the last 2-3 episodes of the season. We have a good-hearted side character that's completely blind to the reality he is facing, and then there is the stereotypical big breasted female character that acts like a good person, but is in reality extremely annoying and useless.

We are supposed to feel bad for the male and female side characters Kei and Kato because of their backstories, but we only ever really follow the male one, Kato. And to be honest, I was kind of interested in Kato because of his sweet character and morals + the fact that his parents died and now he's left to his aunt (I believe) that hits him and his little brother. His only goal is to come back from the "Gantz game" and give his younger brother a great life. Oh, and he also received some development when he brutally beat a guy to near death when he tried to *TW* rape and beat Kato up. Too bad it is one of the only instances where Kato actually grows some balls in the first season.

Well our MC is pretty much like any other character that got isekai'd. A guy that never really got anything going in life and therefore grew a "whatever" mentality. One day he got hit by train-kun and died. He is now a part of a "game" called Gantz where this Gantz person creates copies of their otherwise dead bodies and forces them to fight aliens in order to gain points. So that's what they do, despite hesitating in almost every single episode.

It is a shame that the only somewhat interesting characters with potential for development like Nishi (fake villain arrogant boy), Hojo (long-haired pretty boy model nicknamed "fag"), "Sadako" (stalker girl that stalks model) and the biker dude just end up dying without even having that much screen-time or voice-acting lines. Though I do appreciate our MC a bit more because he seems like the only character in this anime to actually be somewhat realistic.


Now to the final and worst part, plot. Is there really an actual plot here? If anyone watches this without knowing about the manga, they would probably be confused as hell. They manage to somehow ruin an otherwise pretty damn solid manga, by giving it the absolute most generic and linear plot of all time. If I were to explain the plot it would probably be something like "People die and are transferred to a room where they get high-tech weapons and suits to kill aliens". That's literally it. I am literally laughing out loud.

The funniest part was when I searched for "most disturbing anime" on google and I saw this anime, they described it as a gory, grotesque and psychological horror anime with rape and murdering. LMFAO!! it may have blood and severed limbs, but the animation for it is so low-budget I wouldn't even categorize it as "gore". And psychological? Where? The Gantz figure that forces them to kill aliens? Please don't make me laugh now.

The anime doesn't offer or give us anything. They just do what they do, because. And it's a shame, because I feel like the anime has so much untapped potential that they absolutely fail to realize until it's too late in the second season - the final season. There is no backstory to who and what Gantz is, why he/she wants them to kill aliens or why people are transferred to a room after death.

And maybe the most important question: is Gantz actually the villain here? Since it is making the deceased people basically fight for their lives without telling them anything in detail, and by killing aliens that pretty much didn't even bother humans until they were bothered with themselves. There is also the sadistic traits Gantz showcases like when the contestants are transferred to the room, the message on a huge black "Gantz ball" says "your lives are now over, you bastard. What happens to you from now on is up to me to decide". They could've easily kept going by giving us at least 1% more about who and what Gantz really is, but they *spoiler warning* don't tell us jack shit from now and up until the end of the anime.

The only things we learned were that if you manage to get 100 points, you are somehow "freed", and that the guns they have have a time lag and they can lock on targets.

And what's with the deaths? Literally a bunch of deaths and bad choices could've been avoided in this show if the people like Nishi actually told the others about everything he knew, before he was about to die at least. Especially our main characters we follow since they already made it alive through the first game. When they got in the game the second time, they could've at least tried to explain the people present about what they knew, instead of hesitating and start taking 10 years before they explain something. The others might've not believed them, but they could've showcased how the suits worked, how the guns worked and about the aliens, and then let it be up to the individual whether or not they want to believe it or not,

The story never really develops or builds any layers so that people would actually want to watch a second season, and again - huge shame.


Now that was a lot of negative points so let's end it on a positive note. I love how they portrayed society realistically. We have all the bad and ugly sides of society, and it is in full effect in this anime, already from the first episode. A hobo falls onto the train tracks and the camera pans over to several random characters and we hear their inner thoughts. A lot of the people act like "oh, someone fell, I hope someone saves that man" but the fact that no one actually acts and helps the man, tells a lot about societies. People know and feel what is morally right, but they won't do it. Whether it be because they are scared, don't care or hope someone else does it, this technique where we hear the inner thoughts was pretty good. Too bad that not even this technique was utilized ever again since the first episode and aside from our MC's thoughts.

And we also see a lot of character types throughout. We have the perverts, the rapists, gang-members, spoiled brats, annoying people, the hesitant people, the "know it all" and the generally good people but with a hidden dark side. They truly don't pull any punches when trying to portray a real-life society.


And where there any good scenes? Sure, yeah. The scene where our MC Kei tries to beat up the first alien we encounter to save his childhood friend Kato and love-interest Kei, was pretty solid.

Then there is the very sad scene that managed to hit me pretty hard. The one where the grandmother and grandkid died and got sent to Gantz game, and when they encounter an alien and the grandmother tells her grandson to run away, only for her to be attacked by the aliens. Her young grandson goes back to try and help her, but it is already too late. Their last moments was the grandmother trying to shield her grandson from the aliens, only for them to die in the hands of each other. Just typing this in makes me absolutely sad. As someone that has an amazing relationship with his grandmother, this scene is equally as sad as it is sweet.

And then there is also the absolute badass scene where our MC Kei beats the second alien villain without the help of his superpower suit. That at least gave us a bit of character development, despite it being near the end of the season.


Overall this was a pretty hard to watch first season, mainly because of all the points I have above, but also because I know about the manga and how the manga ends. And I know how much they shit the bed with this anime, because this really had potential to be a 7 or even and 8/10 anime if they just tried. Overall this was pretty bad, 4/10.

I have almost no idea why I binged this whole series I guess I kept expecting something memorable to happen. They show a lot more nudity than a usual show so that's something.

The premise was actually quite interesting but the execution was more than a little sloppy. I'm sure some 200iq anime fan could explain how this show is actually deep but to me it felt immensely shallow.

I don't expect a protagonist to always be likable but man, in Gantz our main guy really sucks, his motivations lack depth and meaning, his character development is literally equivalent to an on-off switch with no subtlety in ... it's progression, etc etc.

In summary this had some potential and squandered it. Watch a best clips compilation or something don't waste your time here.

Story: 3/10 - Interesting premise and then completely falls apart
Art: 6/10 - It's an older show but fairly well done for the most part, nothing special
Sound 7/10 - best part, great intro/outro music, voice work and sfx do a good job
Character: 2/10 - Almost everyone is 1 dimensional trope at best
Enjoyment: 4/10 - There were bits I was interested in, just constantly got let-down though.

When it comes to anime, I would argue that the Slice of Life genre is an easy punching bag, something that is remarkably popular, yet perceived by a large amount as the epitome of low art. When it comes to live action cinema, I’d say it’s action that gets the same treatment, be it anything directed by Michael Bay, or whatever the fuck Bruce Willis is getting up to these days, and I suppose if I were to draw this out further to video games, then the likes of Call of Duty are rather similar. Now, on the surface, something like K-On and Transformers might ... seem diametrically opposed, but I’d say there’s something they both have in common – a disregard for story, and a carefree tone. Gantz incorporates only one of these, it has story so minimal it makes K-On’s seem convoluted by comparison, but it does not go for the carefree “let’s just kill people and have a good time” attitude that most action employs. Rather, it goes for edginess, to the extreme. And for the record, edginess is one of those internet buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot and so its definition seems to get diluted because of that, I am not defining edginess herein as a reliance on gore, vulgarity, and other provocative content, but rather, the implementation of it to a distasteful degree, and that’s Gantz's main problem, it is not tasteful, I have absolutely no problem with the usage of innocent people being attacked and such, but in Gantz, that is all that happens.

So, to wrap to the beginning, the very beginning, Gantz opens with a typical Japanese high school student fantasising about one of his classmates naked, and they wasted zero time informing me that they had no comprehension of the word subtlety, because though there was a POV shot of it very early on, and I figured the fact she is facing away from him would have obscured most of the nudity, they instead decided to move the camera around so I could see it in all its glory, and there wasn’t much glory to be found, animation was a step below what I expect, even for something from the early 2000’s. Fast forward a bit, and after a bit of narration from the main character who is a complete misanthrope that hates everyone and everything, who then saves a drunk tramp from getting run over by a train, for no reason, he states multiple times throughout that it’s completely unlike him and he has no reason to do it, which I agree with, it was completely contradictory to his character, but anyway, he does that, and then the train comes, and rather than climb up the platform, which didn’t seem too implausible, it wasn’t a huge height, he instead decides to outrun the train, and gets decapitated, because apparently Japanese trains have buzzsaws on them. At least, that’s the only explanation I can produce as to how it happened, was a real clean decapitation, I’m not even sure medieval executioners would’ve been that accurate.
So, he dies, and comes back to life, in some room with a giant bowling ball that tells him if he wants to live then he, among with various other people who have died, have to kill an alien. The first of these is some green Bart Simpson looking motherfucker, and I must say, for an enemy that made so little effort to violently retaliate, it sure took them a long ass time, sci-fi guns and all, and when it comes to sci-fi outfits, I’ve seen plenty of strange ones, but never before have I seen them just be MoCap suits, but anyway, after some slightly badly orchestrated action sequences, including a lot of running on streets that are extremely narrow and devoid of any turns at all, but anyway, radioactive Bart Simpson dies, and that’s the first arc done, and after this point it goes from a bad action to an abysmal fucking nothing. That’s the story of the first arc, and after this point, there is none, it is nothing, it is a compilation of people being mistreated, and nothing more. People getting bullied, people getting extorted, people getting domestically abused, you get the picture, there is nothing going on, it’s kind of common sense, if you want me to feel sorry for the bad situations that these characters in, then you’ve got to actually show me something more than them getting abused, you need more than that. The same reason you can’t just start in medias res and never explain what preceded. Basically, this is the only thing that happens after episode 4 or so, people getting hurt, a little downtime where nothing happens, and then back to more of it, it is tosh.
As a further note, our main character’s a horny teenager like the rest of them, under normal circumstances I’d perhaps praise him for not being terrified at the sight of anything sexual like most anime protagonists are, and fair enough, it’s crude but there’s nothing inherently wrong with being solely interested in having a shag, but there is one problem, when it comes to actually doing anything, he’s as scared of taking action as any other. Consider, for instance, there is a point in which he gets a nekogirl living with him who’s completely subservient and evidently puts up no resistance of any sort. Now, this bloke is someone who is so unrelenting in trying to have a shag I absolutely would not put raping her past him, and it’d fit with the tone of the rest of the show, but he doesn’t, because apparently just like some invisible force in episode 1 caused him to save someone he had no interest in saving, some invisible force stopped him from doing it, just because.
Also, not a huge fan of the trope of having the main characters be trapped in some forcefield, I’d much rather have our main characters be incentivised into staying within this area and actually have a reason to kill aliens for the giant bowling ball, a lot more compelling that way, I don’t think it’d be unreasonable to prefer a character who pursues something he desires but has to acquire through undesirable means, to return to action cinema, the protagonist’s wife being taken hostage is a classic example of that, a lot better than just being boxed in.
So, basically, Gantz is the opposite of art, it starts off weak but barely tolerably so, yet after the first arc devolves into an absolute nothing, people getting attacked and nothing else, maybe I’d feel sorry for them if literally anything fucking else ever happened to these people, but it doesn’t, Vertov might be a boring montage devoid of character or story, but at least it has the integrity to not try and be provocative with constant violence, I enjoy violence in fiction just as much as anyone else, it can be a work’s raison d’etre, but there must be at least something else in there. And, considering the author went so far as to call Gantz the tosh that it is in Inuyashiki, one of his later works, then I suppose that puts things into perspective, it takes a lot to admit that something you spent years working on is in fact terrible, and I can respect that, I’m not sure most people could do it, which exemplifies just how bad Gantz is, so bad that the author felt it necessary to acknowledge it.

THIS IS NOT A FULL REVIEW ~

The faux drama in this series has so far been terribly boring with a constant dialog that consists of a back and forth "I'm gonna do it!.....Any second now!" right up until the credits roll and you have to watch the next episode to find out if he ever actually does it (Pro tip: he always does). Its filled to the brim with some of the laziest techniques of creating tension but at some point or another it stops generating tension and starts generating anger like just shoot the thing already just say what you are going to say ... walk where you are going to walk JUST DO IT ALREADY!

Not to mention its incredibly predictable but there isn't even a good cast to keep you interested. Kato was the only good one but he's treated like a piece of human garbage by the dumpster fire that is the protagonist. There was absolutely no point where I felt pity for the protagonist and several times I wish he would've just genuinely died and maybe took the disgusting excuse for a comedy relief dog out with him. The girl was okay but her character was ruined constantly by the perverted dog that the anime added in for....comedy?? shock?? either way it wasn't funny at all and shock value is a very, very, very lazy way of generating horror. Not to mention, the dog scenes were super unnecessary and way too long. This show takes elements that can be used for horror and converts it into shock value sexual nonsense instead of actually building up anything genuinely scary/horrifying. I mean yeah I guess a horny dog can be horrifying but of all the things for them to choose from, "horny dog" shouldn't have even been on their list.

Last thing I'm gonna say is that the animation is appalling. I don't mind the style itself but the quality is just plain cheap looking. There is a run cycle for Kato in the first episode that is blatantly a loop that skips a frame every couple of seconds and for how much he is moving his legs he is not going nearly fast enough. The whole train scene was a disaster because the train is moving slow motion to show they're about to get hit, but Kato and Kei aren't in slow motion so it left me wondering for a second "how did they die when the train was barely moving?". Another time the girl is running and she is clipping through different parts of the background, her legs are moving faster than how far she is moving, just basic mistakes the studio should've caught in editing.

tl;dr when I saw it was rated R i was expecting naked bodies or brutal murders or torture or literally anything besides a vagina licking dog. The story could've been half-decent if the studio hadn't made every second of it unbearably annoying.