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.
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…
