I mainly watch anime because of its fantasy themes, its science fiction themes, and the way this style of animation can really play with these ideas on a budget and make them look good. I like the way different studios take old ideas and twist them around to make them new. Gantz is a science fiction anime with an “us-versus-the-aliens” theme done in an incredibly realistic style, if that can even be said of a sci-fi anime with a straight face.
I’ve seen “realistic” anime before and by realistic I mean:
- The eyes aren’t super huge.
- The clothes aren’t day-glo stupid
- The character designs were done in house on this planet rather than being outsourced to another one.
GANTZ
When I say Gantz is done in a realistic style, I mean that the emotions and the reactions to an absurd situation are realistic. How often in anime are people confronted with weird ass do-or-die situations they have no experience with and overcome them without breaking a sweat? Would anyone really know how to pilot a mech they found on the side of the road during an alien attack and not have a nervous breakdown watching the world around them be systematically destroyed by another race? In Gantz, “real” people faced with unreal circumstances express their very real emotions while trying to survive.
Gantz begins with the main character Kei Kurono reluctantly helping an old school chum (Masaru Kato) get a fallen drunk off the train tracks in a subway station. They succeed in helping the hobo to safety but are run down and decapitated when the train arrives. Kei and Kato are then teleported (alive and well) to a room filled with other not so lucky people (and dog) where the only furnishment is a giant black ball.
None of the other people know why they’re in the room; some believe that they are in fact dead while others seem to think that they were brought there as a joke. To help figure out the reason for them being in the room they state their names and mode of death. Their ruminations are interrupted by the arrival of a very well endowed, very naked girl (Kei Kishomoto). Three of the men who style themselves yakuza drag Kishimoto to another room in order to rape her but Kato stops them with his bare hands.
Kurono starts to show his unpleasant side with the petty comments he makes in his head about his fellow roommates but even he is upstaged in the creepy factor by a young man wearing a form-fitting black jumpsuit. Joichiro Nishi answers no one’s questions and is reluctant to say anything about the room or what he knows about the ball.
Suddenly the ball comes to life and plays an old calisthenics radio song while displaying the message: “Your lives are over, you bastards. What you do with your new lives are entirely up to me. So there you have it.” Next the ball displays the name and characteristics of aliens the group is supposed to hunt down and destroy. The ball simultaneously pops open to reveal black jumpsuits like the one Nishi is wearing and high tech weaponry.
The group is instructed to go out and kill the Green Onion aliens within a set time limit and is then teleported back outside the room via lasers. The rest of the series then evolves from that point; highlighting each characters personality and reactions to Gantz’s trials. Some reactions are positive, many are negative, but each reaction is human.
The animation for Gantz was superb. Gonzo was the studio behind Gantz and the line art, the colors, the actual animation was top notch. Gantz’s colors were well chosen and fit the brooding tone of the series. The animation itself was smooth, flawless, and a pleasure to watch.
The character designs weren’t too over the top for the series, all things considered. Designs for the hunted aliens were actually pretty cool and not too fruity. While most of the people were well designed, Kishimoto’s and Sei Sakuraoka’s endowments were distracting and unrealistic to say the least. Boob shots, sex scenes (real or imagined), and fan service were liberally placed through out the series, adding (believe it or not) to the humanity of the series. Sound-wise, the music was incredible and made me want to go out and get the soundtrack (I still haven’t but I’m working on it!) The main reason I liked the soundtrack was the opening song “Super Shooter” by Rip Slyme. “Super Shooter” is a high energy hip-hop punk-a-delic tune that showcases the feel of the entire series.
The whole tone of the series was “REAL!!” As in: this is how I really feel about you, this is how I really feel about sex, and this how I would really kill you if I had the chance. Gantz felt sorta like an anime Pulp-Fiction-meets-Mad-Max-and-then-hooks-up-with-Star Trek. Each character had to evolve or die and that’s the way it is in life; change or die and that made Gantz a character driven series as well as an action series.
Gantz’s strengths were also its weaknesses; delivering moral lessons and trying to keep them coherent and interesting is damn tricky. The lines got crossed a few times towards the end of the series that set alarm bells off in the back of my head: WARNING: Evangelion-ending or worse ahead! WARNING!!! Heedless of the impending doom it was making for itself, Gantz unraveled into crap at the end.
The ending of Gantz made me feel like I wasted 10 hours of my life. Even though the series had such potential and even though the story was really unique, I forgot every good point Gantz had after seeing the end.
Gantz ended up being crappy mainly because it relied too heavily on the visuals and the plot as it was at the moment and not enough on where the plot was going to end up at. Too much anime is short-sighted and Gantz was no exception. The last three episodes were rhetorical commentaries on war, bad parenting, murder, and humanity in general. I’m sorry, but I do not need an anime to preach values at me, however well disguised as entertainment. I watch anime as entertainment to distract from the all too real problems we face everyday with murder, bad parenting, and the stupidity of humanity at large.
I buried this review away in my head for three weeks before I worked up the resolve to write it down. I feel better now; lighter, clean: Goodbye bad taste, goodbye Gantz…
outta a possible four Kasugai…
Rachel,
I agree with you – GANTZ is a very high quality anime series. I also enjoyed the character design, music and overall quality of the animation. The violence was a bit much for me, but it still fit with the overall tone of the series.
I’d have liked the series more if there had been an bit more explanation about why there were so many freaky species (like the chicken-like things or the freaky green onion dudes) wondering around.
The end was interesting (no spoilers) but brought back Neon Genesis Evangelion feelings (a mixed bag). Even though I understand why GANTZ ended the way it did, I don’t necessarily agree with the decision.
I agree with you Rachel – for the amount of time we invested to the series, I was expecting GANTZ to end in a much more ‘pleasing’ way…not that I have any decision in the matter.
Overall, I would give it 2.5 outta 4 Kasugai gummies, mostly due to the ending not living up to expectations.
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The “ending” was made up by Gonzo.
The REAL story is still running in Young Jump.
They are now beginning the 9th mission.
The “Kurono Alien” mission was also made up by Gonzo, and they animated it instead of the “Shorty Alien” mission, in which Kurono is the only player.
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Ugh, the ending made me want to puke. When they ended the arc which was in the manga and moved on to the made-up-filler ending I almost just didn’t want to watch it anymore. What was the point of making the weapons “instant”? And why the heck was Kurono a target?? There was just so many mistakes in there it was pretty hard to watch the last few episodes.
Spoiler note here for manga:
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While something VERY similar happened where a human did actually become one of Gantz’s target, there was actually a reason behind it.
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End of Spoiler.
*sigh* I guess I’ll just have to write this off as another badly ended anime.
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-Fel, my friend who is a HUGE fan of the manga was really, really disappointed with Gantz. He didn’t even wait till the end of the series to air his complaints. Too bad the studios mucked it up; it seemed like such a great premise…
-Insanekitten, I can totally understand your beef with the anime, since it seems like you’re a huge fan of the manga. It really is a kick in the teeth when a fave story is screwed over for the sake of a quick dollar. It’s then an even greater insult when the studios make blatant changes to the overall plot to that end.
I saw this series a few weeks ago, and I thought I’d throw my 2cents in. It started out pretty well, with an unlikeable character and seemingly difficult and immoral situations coming up. The main character disgusted me too much for me to care about him much. Kurono was probably the only character I wanted dead moreso than his friends and the people that aid him in the missions.
The entire series was painful to watch, and that’s good and bad. It’s good because I realized I developed somewhat of an attachment to elements in the story and one or two characters, bad because you think ~they cant kill off this character~ and BAM, they do it. The only way I saw the series being saved was by pulling through with a good ending.. But sadly, it failed, worse than Evangelion proportions in my eyes. There was already enough closure in Evangelion to allow the viewers to make their own interpretations of how it ends.
Gantz came through with good animation, terrible dubbing, decent but sometimes slow and frustrating action (some of these characters act like they’ve never played Time Crisis, or a video game in their life), but overall, it was just a pretty cover with empty plotlines, leading you on to a dissatisfactory end.
Seriously that ending killed it.
I’d give it 1 of 4 bag(s) of.. gummies.
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@Visualkei, 1 of 4, ouch! But I do agree with you that the ending sucked. Chikashi says the manga is really good. That might be something to check out if it ever gets over here.
Strange, it looks like I was the only one that enjoyed the entire anime, start to finish. The end served to remind me what a steaming pile of dung a human being can really be, something some people need constant reminding of. The whole bit was a kick in the crotch, especially when I realized -I’d- probably be thinking similar things given the situations. The very very end was a bit confusing, but it ended just as suddenly as it began.
Personally? 4 of 4, but I’ve been known to have bad taste.
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Hmm so I just read Fel’s comment and I was wondering which volume or chapter to start at (I’ve watched all of GantZ anime.) Oh and if there’s a good group of fansubbers for the manga that would help out so I can get the best of the best!
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[...] Red Garden seems incredibly familiar. It feels like an estrogen-driven, high fashion rendition of Gantz. It even says “From the studio behind Gantz…” on the DVD jacket. Seems like Gonzo [...]
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[...] a fantastic anime which happened to be gourmet. An example of gourmet anime that sucked would be Gantz. Gantz fit every one of the gourmet [...]
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are they gone two make more episode
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the anime rocked but when i saw the ending ijust sat there cuz i had no clue why it ended like that. the overall anime was good but the ending shitted it up.
p.s if more eps though thatd be cool
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@gantzfan, yeah, the last three episodes were going in a downward spiral that culminated in that craptacular ending. The manga is supposedly still running in Japan so maybe that would account for the way the series ended.
You are very right on the money when you point out all the things about the realism regarding the characters. I’m just surprised that the sucky ending doesn’t let you down enough to give it a negative review like so many other ppl out there though. It just kills the whole series.
Personally, I think the series is utterly crap because of it. It makes you feel like you’re wasting your time watching it. It just simply give the feeling that the story doesn’t have a point.
Having said that though, i just wanna say that the manga is on a whole other level than the anime. I think people that realize this anime has potential but been let down should give it a read.
The realism of character goes much deeper, and the development of the personality is so breath taking-ly beautiful. It doesn’t have the best story plot in the world. But someone told me once that the story doesn’t matter, it’s how you tells it that counts. And as far as i see it, the author done a veryy verryy verryy good job at telling the story.
I can relate so much to the story in a way that the story is set in a deep, dark, nihilistic world much like today’s world. And we get introduced to variety of psychotic individuals that contribute much as to why this world is so fcked up. But the protagonist, deep down a mildy psychotic person himself, rise up above all that. Out of his own selfishness, his own cynicism, social darwinism culture that’s pretty much the culture of today’s world i suppose.
I cannot reccomend enough for people that look up for this review and are interested in it, to give a chance reading the manga. It’s seriously that good and i’ve read/watch plenty other. Kinda mature contents though, but yeah..!!
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@gantzfan, I thought I did give Gantz a bad review ^^;. The ending did ruin the series for me and I did feel as if I wasted 10 hours of my life.
In the spirit of fairness, I reviewed the series as a whole and not just the ending, which made Gantz utter garbage. If the ending were better, the series would have been a must-see instead of must-avoid.
I guess I’m the only one that dug the ending. I liked the whole Kurono alien, and how the group of people, save for the one girl, all turned on Kei. In fact, it was the one mission where Kei definitely put others before himself — the actions of a true hero. The ending didn’t tell you what to think, and in that sense I loved it. I interpreted it as indicative of Kei’s achieving full redemption.
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Hated it. Hated it a LOT. It was edited badly, badly paced, had a central mystery that was never resolved, and all the characters die horribly. It was a miserable excuse for a video game they hoped to sell.
Some specifics:
Editing: There were several sequences where the main characters are spontaneously shifted from one place to another for no reason.
Pacing: Eight people are confronted by an alien they must kill to survive. They stand around it, with guns in their hands, and they spend nearly a full minute with one or another of them whining ‘will somebody please shoot it”.
Plot: what was point of the exercise? It was never revealed. What happened to the main character at the end? Did he die?
Major suckage. Definitely skip this one
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@Uzik, it wasn’t the pacing which sucked as much as the end. The end was where the majority of the suckage pooled. If anything, skip it for the craptacular epiphany which hits you at the end of the series when you realize you’ve wasted nine hours of your life and have no way to ever get them back.
Hello I for one have yet to watch the anime form of GANTz, but in its defense the manga of GANTz is by far AMAZING! If you get a chance you should definitely find a fan-sub of it (onemanga has it I know) because it sounds like it is 100x better then the anime.
Just my 2 cents
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Personally, I too think that the ending for the anime was a bit awful. But if you read the manga, It’s just amazing. You really get the feel from reading it. I give the anime 2 out of a possible 4 and the manga, a 4 out of a possible 4. OneManga.com is a site that i read it from. They are still updating the maga for gantz so stay alert.
P.S. If you like Gantz you should watch/read Elfen Lied. Again, the manga goes further than the anime, but the ending for Elfen Lied is incredible.
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@ekosz, I’ve heard from a native in Japan that the manga is indeed the awesomeness. I have yet to pick it up and read it, probably because it’s not here yet, but I keep hearing good things bout it.
@Chris, Elfen Lied was a great anime and you say the manga was even better? Hmm, must check it out….
go to http://www.onemanga.com…u have da gantz manga there
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ups…it was http://www.onemanga.com
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I loved this series, the only problem is the ending.
SPOILERS!!!!!——–
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I found it so moving that i was upset after the mission were all his friends died at the temple.
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-END SPOILERS
Does anyone know the Becawords to the song gantz sings… “It’s the beginng of a brand new day, a day filled with hope”? Please place on blog if you do. Anyone know if the train ending was the only ending? because it sucked
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sorry does anyone know the words to the song gantz sing. please tell me
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sorry for the typo
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I don’t watch many animes.. but Gantz was something else! It started good, but it sucked b*lls after the Remien Temple Mission, If only Katou and a couple more survived…and what sucked the most: They didn’t made an ending with the real Kishimoto and Kurono and what about the brother of Katou? They just made 3 FILLER episodes, nothing to do with the story line. Can someone explain me the ending!! and I want to read the manga, what chapter should I begin to read with?
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Hmm, I haven’t read through all the comments but it seems as if the ending is the main concern here. I’m a fan of everything i’ve seen in both the manga and the anime. When Gonzo was making the anime and finished mission 3 they were pretty much caught up with the manga so they decided to make an anime only mission. Some call it filler. Why was the last mission set on such an entity? (trying not to make any spoilers) think of what the survivor(s) of mission 3 did to Gantz and what gantz said on the billboards. No doubt to me that it felt angry. The new rule would only hasten the process, would it not?
And people say they don;t like then ending but I dont usually see or read any great detail concerning this negativity. Usual complaint is confusion and misunderstanding towards the new circumstances. Even i was confused when i first saw it but in a way its a genius way to end the series. You can interpret it in many ways, boycott it and look towards the manga, or hope that one day someone will make sence of it and animate the next mission.
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@Gantz Fab, I don’t think I can explain the ending as it was supposed to be since technically, the manga is still going strong in Japan. The ending for the anime was a “made-up” POS which made no sense. So apologies, I don’t think I can help you out unless you don’t mind more BS, which I’m thinking you don’t want more of.
@Jay, I interpreted the ending to mean the studios ran out of money.
Love’d it, 4.5 out of 5
It was like good medicine, hard to swallow but you’ll be glad you did.
I read the reviews and I have to say I agree. I was watching it and I liked the story but at first I was like man these characters just bitch and moan, but I continued and they grew on me because they did seem so real in how the reacted to everything. The Fact that a life could be “Void” weather or not the character was with us form the beginning or seemingly an extra added gripped me.
The ending didn’t really bother me, I mean I’ve seen ‘Berserk’, Lol. To me that ending screams 2 things.
1: Go read the manga, lol
2: Some times life sucks and there is never any guarantee that it will get any better. Happiness is some thing you must work towards. (lol, pretty deep huh? considering the end.) Anyway it’s mostly the first one.
I suppose the BIG thing that helps me is my firm stand on the Anime Vs. Manga, Movie Vs. Book. Most people Say movies ruin Books or Anime ruins Manga. I go the other way and say the opposite. Yes, I know the order in which they are made, but my reasoning is simple.
If you watch an Anime or movie and you enjoy it you can then read the Book or Manga and Go
“Ah!, man this is even better look how many extra things I get to learn about the story.”
But if you do it the other way all you get is
“Ah!, this sucks why did they change this, Why! did they leave that out!” Which is very unsatisfying
Anyway it is one of my faves as it is not afraid to break the rules and I will look forward for Manga and fingers crossed more Episodes to come, I mean come Hellsing got a second change to follow their manga better why not gantz, eh?
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It seems i’m also one of the few people that enjoyed the series beggining to end. One of the reasons y ppl were so bummed out about the anime ending was because they related it to the manga. I ddnt relate it to the manga cuz either way the same ppl are not editing the manga and the anime. I probably enjoyed the end because my brother told me…………………………………………………..spoiler*
that kurono was going to die, but thats how he understood it. but the way it ends they leave it for you to decide. I believe kei and the girl lived cuz at the very end Gantz dissapears nd kurono’s gray picture ddnt come up on the screen. I personally enjoyed the anime alot including the ending. 100/5 awsome anime
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well.. i loved the anime. I also loved that it was dubed. I mean the ending wasn’t that great but it could have been worst too. Just becase the ending was bad doesn’t mean the whole series was bad. I think that they wanted people to get a taste of the show,you know? They want people to read the manga and that’s why i think they made that anime.
But anyway to sum it up i love the anime. It was awesome 10 thumbs up!!!!!! And for those of you who hate the series becasue of the ending i think its kind of silly.
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oh lol sorry for double posting but i just read King Prophious comment i i agree. He said that the ending screamed 2 things which was
“1: Go read the manga, lol
2: Some times life sucks and there is never any guarantee that it will get any better. Happiness is some thing you must work towards. ”
also to watch the movies and animes first ya know. lol if you like the movie or anime read the book or manga. i mean that worked for twilight and outsiders and other harry potter!
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@King Prophious, people can have multiple stances on the “Book VS Movie”, “Manga VS Anime” debate. One of mine is the anime can be good by itself and not in any way be related to the original manga.
What comes to mind immediately (because it’s been in the news lately) is the Old Boy remake that’s being considered. I’ve never read the manga, but the movie is loosely based on the manga. The Old Boy movie is one of the most twisted, vomit-inducing revenge flicks ever, and I love it. Did it make me want to read the manga? No. Will I like the new movie they’re considering which may be closer to the source material? Hard to say.
But as a fan of certain manga, it does irk me but good when a manga-turned-anime is made into a crap-fest needlessly. If a manga is good, and has a fan-base, why change it? OR the manga has a fan-base, gets made, but the manga is only halfway through its run, or the end is nowhere in sight, and the anime gets made and has a wretched, tasteless ending tacked on ’cause that’s what the budget dictates.
Gantz was the latter and ended badly as a stand alone movie.
@Ryan Aura, I would have loved Gantz if not for that ending….
@ Che, I must disagree that a bad ending doesn’t mean the entire anime is bad. Many anime have high points in them that keep them above average, but the ending of an anime is the part of the series which ties up all the story lines and showcases an anime’s ability. Think of it this way: A gymnast is finishing up her routine on the bars and screws up the landing, royally. Huge demerits are given for a really botched finale. Same thing for anime. Either nail it or kiss that high rating goodbye.
the point of kurono been the main character was because the old lady wanted to teach him something i just can lay my finger on it i think it was helping him self out or just to find that not everything in life you can do it alone like he told her you need friends. gantz was mb her son or relative of his and wanted to teach also a other leason witch it was that humans are the ones that kill not alien’s and just like in the ending blue hair dude said “we just fallow order and kill ppl just to get the mission done” thats true we join wars and fight for things we realy dont understand. we just do it because we are told to do so. My ending is that everything goes back to normal like it was that day. but the characters know how they are going to die and have a sencond chance in life that why they gather 100 points and gantz did not want any one to win. thats what i think. i wish i could really see it with my eyes the ending of how everything turn out i wish more animes would like “busou renkin” ending why do japan anime keep making sad ending?
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I really liked the Gantz anime. I was really tired of all the other animes where the good guys were always knights in shining armor who saved everyone. I really like Kurono the most of all, and I love that some people hate him because he’s not a super good guy. How many 15-year-old do you know that are super good guys who save people?
Seriously, if you take a pole and see how many people think like Katou (typical good guy), and how many people think like Kurono (horny teenage jerk), i’m sure you’ll find that a good 90% of those people think like Kurono. He’s a freaking 15-year old. How many 15-year-olds do you know that would save the world?
This isn’t one of those, “lets win and be friends!” animes. coughNarutoandOncePeicecough. And just because a character is developed doesn’t mean he can’t die. Plenty of developed characters die in Gantz because the aliens don’t care how much emotional turnoil you’ve been in through out your life. All the characters are REALILISTIC. Meaning when they fight aliens with lazer beams they die.
The Gantz ending did kind of suck, but with the action and emotion the rest of the series contained was good enough for me to give this a 3.5/4. The filler ending brought it down the 0.5.
Manga = 6billion times better. It would get a 99/5 in my opinion. The best of the best.
For those of you who’ve seen the anime and want to read the manga you can start on chapter 90. As of right now theres 292 chapters out. And if you can believe it the artwork gets WAY freaking better the further you get into the series…so does the action.
just a side note: Dinosaurs = win…
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I think it’s great how people really care about the anime they watch. That shows it’s importance as a cultural art form. That was a great initial review and all the followups were fascinating too. I don’t care about plot spoilers. In fact I prefer to know the ugly end first. So thanks.
I’m going to go watch this series now.
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