I have no problems with the basic premise: Two boys—Kurono, a horny, self-absorbed and insecure high school kid, and Kato, his taller and more self-assured best friend, are killed while trying to rescue a homeless man on the subway. They are transported to a strange room with a mysterious black orb that sends them on suicide missions against aliens in the city. Along the way they interact with other people who have also seemingly died. In particular, they befriend a girl named Kishimoto who Kurono lusts after throughout the series.
Gantz is a story of missed opportunities. Whereas most other sub par anime in this genre use flashy or elaborate action sequences to cover up a tacky and cliché plot, Gantz does this opposite. The plot is fine, the tone is fine, the characters (at least before they were screwed up) are fine but Gantz loses the majority of its points for criminally awful action sequences.
I tried to think about what makes Gantz’ action so uniquely bad and I came up with this:
1) Terrible Directing. The fight sequences are boring, drawn out and lazy. There is never more than one thing going on at a time. There is no respect for pacing or continuity. Monsters will literally stand still in the background, as the humans bicker among themselves.
2) Annoying Empathy: One of the pivotal decisions any character in any death game anime has to make is whether he/she is capable of killing in order to survive. This internal struggle and the character’s ultimate decision can take many forms but it’s fascinating to watch. Think Phantom, Fate/Zero, Alice in Borderlands. The way Gantz handles this dilemma is just immature. The choice should be so simple, either you kill the alien who just slaughtered half of your party or you die yourself. I won’t go into specifics but the characters have a serious problem getting into a survival mentality. Even ‘veteran’ characters constantly waver back and forth between whether or not it’s right to fight to survive. This does not add complexity or nuance it simply makes the whole cast impotent and ineffectual.
3) Lack of urgency: It’s no wonder Kato, Kishimoto and Kurono have time to navel-gaze and ponder moral quagmires because even in in supposed ‘life and death situations,’ urgency is in short supply. You’ll literally have groups of characters idly standing around, gawking as trusted friends get murdered. Should we do something? Should we not? <brutal death> Hmm that was awful but I’m still not ready to act so let’s talk about this some more. <another death> Well we have to do something but let’s first give that wounded enemy some time to recover. <another death> . etc. etc. etc.
The overall theme of this anime is unbelievable incompetence. Everyone sucks at what they are doing. Everyone. In juxtaposition to an anime like JoJo where suspense/action are built up by showing the protagonist/antagonist cleverly one-upping each other, the story of Gantz is only driven forward because the good guys and the bad guys can’t stop fucking up so much. Poor aim, missed opportunities, STANDING AROUND, sudden pangs of indecision/empathy are constant roadblocks to actually enjoying the intriguing premise of the anime. When you add mediocre animation to the mix it’s like watching a death match between two retarded, paraplegic and blind gladiators. Good Luck.
