By Rachel · October 4, 2006 · Topic: Anime Reviews ·
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…
29 Responses to “Gantz, Complete Series”
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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.
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.
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.
-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.
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.
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!
[...] 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 [...]
[...] 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 [...]
are they gone two make more episode
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
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..!!
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.
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
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
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.
@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
ups…it was http://www.onemanga.com
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
sorry does anyone know the words to the song gantz sing. please tell me
sorry for the typo
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?
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.
@Jay, I interpreted the ending to mean the studios ran out of money.