Gantz follows the story of Kurono Kei a high school student with complete disdain for the world around (sound familiar Death Note fans?) though he himself is just as pathetic. Through a chance meeting with an old friend he is killed and wakes up in a room with an assortment of strangers and a mysterious black sphere. The group are given instructions to kill an alien by the sphere in order to win their freedom.
The first two episodes of Gantz bring up many questions and hook you in to the series, but sadly it all goes down hill. I found it initially refreshing that Kei was such a humanly flawed character, but he ended up just being a whiny sex maniac constantly either complaining or wanting to f*** something.
THe other characters aren't much better. Kato, Kei's friend is the opposite of Kei. Fully devoted to upholding the good in the world he's got a bit of a stick up his arse and is pretty one note. His brother brings in some interesting aspects to his character which are never really explored.
The third main character is Kishimoto Kei a girl who is a literal rape magnet. Everyone who sees her seems to want to have sex with her and several gangsters do try to rape her on a number of occassions. Her character is totally blank save for one interesting facet introduced later in the series, which, again is not really explored.
After the first few episodes everything goes to hell and the pacing slows to a pace that is agonising to watch. It's paced like a 50 episode anime, but it only has 13 eps (26 if you count the second season). The dialogue is dire, characters all unlikeable or downright hateable and beyond the gratuitous nudity, violence and swearing there is little reason to watch this thoroughly disappointing show.
