Gantz

Skip the anime, read the manga. The pacing is awkward and the artwork pales in comparison to that in the manga. The artwork of the manga is drawn over 3d models whereas the animation is completely flat. Also the exquisitely drawn blood and gore of the manga is translated into a few seconds of short unskillfully animated blood squirting. I suppose they could not invest any money into animating most of it since they knew it would be edited out for several releases.

Oh dear God, here comes the train wreck! Ironically, Gantz unfolds after a fatal train wreck kills two of the main characters. It sounds intriguing, yes, but it is really a reflection of the utter barf that is this series.

First and foremost, this series has so much profanity that it's akin to listenning to a teenager who has just discoverd the F-word for two hours. The over the top violence makes your stomach roil. Seriously, it's traumatizing. And finally, there's the nudity and boderline porn. Strick that, I'm going to go ahead and just call it porn because for someone who has never seen a ... "true" porno, this would likely register as one in his mind.

The actual story appears at first glance to be quite interesting. The recently deceased are resurrected by a mysterious being known as Gantz and forced to partake in a high-stakes game of life and death. This interesting concept is completely and sadly butchered beyond all recognition into something utterly pointless and terrible. The "games" in which the characters partake are never fully explained and seem to meerly be the whims of the oddity that is Gantz. Gantz himself is never ever explained.

As far as the characters go, all of them, save Katou are utterly despicable or totally obnoxious. He is the only one that seems to have a moral weight. His blind adherence to his code of ethics ultimatly makes him act stupidly and is garaunteed to make you want to throttle something. So he too, at first glance seeming cool, turns out to be annoying. However, I am embarassed to admit that I was strangly attracted to the character of Nishi, probably because he's such a smart-aleck and very ambiguous when you first meet him. He has way more knowledge than anyone else, but rather than sharing it, he's a malicious, back-stabbing, punk. It does make him interesting.

I will give it points for its unique take on gun design and the element of the suits. The guns, already bizarre in appearance, are peculiar in that there's a delay after firing them. I've never seen something like this before, so the show does get originality points there. The suits that the characters wear to enhance their muscle-strength, agility, and speed have an intriguing appearance and do add a further level of uniquessness.

All in all, if you like mindless violence, sex, aren't turned off by cursing or ambiguity, and enjoy a dash of the utterly bizarre, I guess you'd find some enjoyment here. Personally, I think it was a bunch of depraved trash.

Back in 2004, many Americans including myself liked to watch Anime Network to witness edgier and darker anime. Released in tandem that year were Elfen Lied and Gantz. Elfen Lied became hugely popular and Gantz...did not. This is despite the fact that Gantz had more blood, more tits, and more realistic art than Elfen Lied. Many critics of Elfen Lied say that it is only popular due to tits and gore, but these people are missing a crucial bit of information in their analyses, the utter failure of Gantz! Gantz has a plot so stupid that an 8 year old on a sugar high could ... write a better one in 5 minutes. The characters are either unlikable assholes or bland and forgettable. The soundtrack leaves MUCH to be desired, despite that awesomely terrible J-rap at the beginning. Despite all of this, Gantz could have at least been entertaining if it embraced its own stupidity and became self aware. This worked very well with the absolute batshit insanity that is Hellsing Ultimate. Instead, Gantz too often tries to take itself seriously and fails miserably as a result. The manga at least tries to avoid this, but the anime strives so hard to squeeze in a moral in that insufferable filler arc that the viewer feels like gagging. Don't watch Gantz! If you feel like watching something violent featuring a guy in a black gimp suit, put on Pulp Fiction instead.

I felt that gantz had a weak plot which was an excuse to create a show that contained way too much unnecessary violence.

I felt the same way about elfen lied. However, I felt that elfen lied had a much better story line and the story was attmpting to teach us ideas such as forgiveness, love, tolerance of others, tolerance of what we don't understand or expereince, self-refelction, human rights, morality, and irony.

Aside from the fact that Gantz did not do any of those things to rectify itself, Gantz also displayed the idea that 'sometimes' murder is justifiable...I decided not to waste any more of my ... brain cells absorbing trash.
Like the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out.

Gantz is a manga written by Oku Hiroya. It enjoyed quite a bit of success getting two anime series, a novel, a video game and two live action movie adaptations. Of course, popularity doesn't equate to quality and this is the guy who's known for random fan-service and gore of course you can't judge a person's works just by their reputation. So I guess I'll actually have to watch the anime before I make any judgments. Let's take a look at Gantz: First Stage.

There's not so much a story in this as there is a concept. An electronic bowling ball known as Gantz creates copies ... of people as they die, somehow getting rid of the original bodies in the process. Gantz then sends the duplicates to live their lives, assuming that they can survive fighting aliens. Okay, this is an interesting concept. There's a lot of room for intrigue and plot but, like the anime I reviewed last week, it squanders most of its potential. The first major issue is the aliens. They don't seem to be causing any problems, hell they aren't even hostile until provoked, but the only one who ever questions whether or not it's okay to hunt them is Kato and he quickly forgets about his objections. Are these characters all morons? How could you not question the morality of this situation? Look, it's a child-like alien standing there with a green onion, kill it! You don't know the situation. Maybe Gantz just hates aliens and you're helping it in a genocidal rampage. Stop blindly following the bowling ball with an annoying sense of humour and think for yourselves, Idiots. Another issue is that there are a ton of continuity errors. They'll end an episode with a scene, open the very next episode with that scene but done differently for no apparent reason. Or they'll close an episode with several characters unarmed and in the next one they'll have pulled weapons out of their bags of holding off screen. That's just inexcusable. How do you screw up continuity from one episode to the next? Did they just forget how the previous episode went? Another issue is that the anime moves really slowly. I wouldn't mind that much, but a lot of what they show is completely irrelevant to the important characters or its a different angled shot of things we've already seen or its showing a scene that we already know everything about that we need to. As an example, female Kei's suicide scene. You know right from her introduction that she committed suicide in the bathtub. They don't need to show it. The images add nothing except for the information that she cut her wrists wrong. Dammit Kei, you cut vertically along the vein, not horizontally across it. Kill yourself properly next time. This is what causes you problems, you don't think. Another thing that bugs me is the humour. There's a repeated "joke" where the dog tries to lick female Kei's crotch and someone inevitably comments that he must be owned by a working girl because we all know that women with jobs can't find romance. After all, who would want a significant other with ambition when you can have someone wothless? Wait... what? They also end the final episode with a gay joke. It's funny because................................... gay people exist?

Let's waste no time in looking at the characters. How do they fare, aside from the being too stupid to ask basic questions thing? There are really only three characters worth mentioning. The rest are either one dimensional side characters or fodder. Let's start with our hero, male Kei. I will admit that there are some good things about him. He's pretty courageous and he has a lot of determination. However, he's also a jerk who has no objections to harassing female Kei. To be fair, he never goes over the line into outright sexual assault but he does come pretty close. How are we supposed to sympathise with the guy when he's a terrible person? Kato is by far the best character. He's got a lot of rage but he also tries to keep it under control and cares about helping others. He's a good guy but he also has a darker side. It makes him an interesting character. Why doesn't the anime just keep the focus on him? Then we've got female Kei. I don't even know where to start with her. Her main purpose is to provide fan-service and to get rescued from rape threats. Yeah, that's pretty bad. She has very little personality aside from wanting to support Kato. To be fair, she does get a few good scenes in the very last episode, but it really is too little too late. Come to think of it our only major female characters are her, a stalker with barely any dialogue and an old woman who spoils her grandson. I get the impression that Oku Hiroya has a bit of an unenlightened attitude towards women. Okay, that's a pretty massive under-statement.

The art is mostly pretty strong. The characters look fairly realistic, except for their eyes. The eyes in this are just bizarre. They're almost always drawn so that they're looking in two different directions or staring blankly. The gore just looks silly. It's like watching one of those low budget independent films where they include obviously fake gore effects, except that this was drawn looking like a bad effect so it isn't so much a matter of budget as the artists apparently not knowing what actual blood and guts look like. Another thing that bugs me is the ridiculous amounts of fan-service. Female Kei gets nude scenes in virtually every episode and a lot of them drag on. You know, in case you forgot what breasts look like and need to study them. To the anime's credit the fight scenes are pretty interesting and unique. Even if a lot of them consist of one person fighting while everyone else just kind of watches like a lazy moron.

The voice acting is really strong. Yamaguchi Megumi, Nabatame Hitomi and Namikawa Daisuke all do really well in the main roles. The music is also really good. If you weren't actually watching the screen you might get the impression that afro robots asking for Yuzo is actually dramatic.

The yuri factor is a 1/10. This anime doesn't even pass the Bechdel test, of course it doesn't have yuri.

So, how does Gantz fare? Well the concept is really interesting, there's one really good character, the art is pretty strong even with the bad gore effects and bizarre eyes and the voice acting and music are really good, but the execution is beyond sloppy most of the characters are twits, there's quite a bit of unchecked misogyny and there's just a huge number of flaws. Maybe the second season fixes them somewhat, but the first season definitely has more flaws than positive factors. It isn't bad, but it's certainly not good. I have to give it a 4/10.

Gantz at first sounds amazing by some of the other reviews I had read. The idea of people dieing and then being transported to a place where they basically have to kill to earn points and win their life back sounds interesting enough, plus after hearing that is loaded with violence, sex, and profanity... nuff said had to give it a shot...

But of course this anime went the way of Elfin Lied, alot of hyped up talk, but nothing to back it up. There is no sex in the first 13 episode season.. ill tell you that now, just a lot of fanservice shots, ... and the sex that was in the second season.. pointless and was pretty much just put there to keep people watching. The Violence... not really there, yeah you see a few heads explode here and there, but most of the time the first season is pretty much still shots of people being scared to fire a gun. Also there is no real character development in the first season.

There is almost no REAL character background for the characters, I guess with a series this short they didn't want to waste time and just kinda summed everything up as quick as possible, which would have been fine if they hadn't made them all mentally challenged... it's like watching a really bad horror movie where everyone is retarded and you get all ticked off at the endless stupidity... I feel that this whole anime can be summed up as follows...

Main character: "hey i've got an erection and im just gonna stand here and watch everything go down and let me friend do all the work (which he won't) until the last minute then I'll pretend i was of some help after everyone id dead :D, yay i have an erection :D"

His friend: "I have to do something!!!!..... *Stands around not shooting the enemy and lets everyone die*

The Girl: "I have big tits and just like to stand around crying, while people (and a dog) try to rape me all day, but its okay because 'His friend' will protect me for five seconds then stand around not shooting some more"

Everyone Else: "Hi I'm your average horror movie retard and I'm just gonna do the dumbest stuff you could possibly do at every given opportunity, until i die."

Gantz(person ball thing that controls everyone): "I don't really know why I'm even doing this, we're never gonna tell you, but I'm a rude over-sized bowling ball, that does magic :D"

Yeah that about sums it up, there characters are horribly created and their actions and emotions are lame. Please save yourself the trouble and don't watch this, you will never be able to get those wasted hours of your life back, The second season picks up a little bit, but not enough to be worth how horrible it still is, I could feel myself dieing a little inside with each episode, but i finished the series for you, the readers, that way i could give a proper review and hopefully no one else will ever have to suffer through this like I did.

I was first introduced to gantz manga. When I started to read it I found myself unable to stop. I thrilled me to no end. When I was finished, I was really sad because I wanted more of gantz, until I found out that they made anime.
I started watching it and frankly it ruined the gantz name for me.
Half of the things are left out in anime, the other half was just poorly done.
Just a poor poor imitation of manga.
Ok, I understand. The manga has about 380 chapters,a lot of things are expected to be included, story is huge and they made just 2 ... seasons.
But if you already decided to make 2 seasons of particular manga, shouldn't you at least try to make it as similar as possible as manga?
This part ruined it that much that I was very disappointed and I don't recommend it at all.
Of course you can try to watch it but I highly recommend manga which is much much better.
Not to mention the poor quality of characters as well as series itself.
Very very poor.

This series has everything I could have wanted, blood, gore, graphic and unnecessary violence, even children being forced to fight to the death. This was going to be my next "Battle Royale", yet sadly it missed the mark, flew a few more miles, through a window, and into a thousand dollar vase.

The story was intriguing to say the least, but a lack of any substantial plot development by the halfway mark left me waiting for the series to actually get going. The art and sound were fine, nothing interesting, but nothing terribly negative. Then came the characters, who are some of the least interesting, shallow, ... and simply boring characters I have ever endured in an anime. The fact that they are terrible people wasn't what bothered me, I loved the Droogs from a Clockwork Orange, but they had actual motivation. By the end of GANTZ the protagonist hadn't changed in the slightest, and was still the same whiny coward he was in the beginning. The "monster fights" generally ended on anti-climatic notes, and I couldn't wait to see that ending theme for the last time.

(This review contain minor description of some scenes you may find as spoilers)

Gantz ........ Gantz is an horrible anime.

I will tell you this: the story has a good setting. My first thought reading the anime synopsis was "Ok, this sounds good". Too bad it wasn't like that. Gantz fails in almost any aspect it try to deliver.

Like I said, the story isn't bad, but each episode is extremely slow. The only way I could watch any episode was skipping the much I could from it. The anime start to give a lot information to the watcher without answering any question .

The art is ... just ... meh. I don't know what the budget was but most action scenes were poorly animated ... No, rather, the anime in general was poorly animated. Repetitive scenes, actions scenes where they show the face of each character taking the emotion out, extremely slow camera approaches, and a long et cetera.

The sound was the only good thing I can rescue from this disastrous thing. The Opening and ending were quite good. My only problem was the "Gantz!" sounds between pauses done by kids; I mean, c'mon, it's a gore anime with a lot of blood, nudity and sex scenes, those kids saying gantz just doesn't fit anywhere.

Now let's move on with the characters: The worst shit this anime has. How can some guys that just die and get teleported to a room don't believe anything that people in suits that looks like they know what is going on is trying to say? Why those guys can shoot an alien kid like nothing but can't shoot a giant killer statue that is about to kill one of your friends? Why would someone would want to fight bare handed a killer alien that you saw killing somebody with one hand in an instant? Why would everybody stay calm when that same alien destroyed the torso of a person in front of you but suddenly in some others situations everybody just gets fucking dumb?.
Those are the kind of question you make to yourself in gantz all the time. The character development is horrible: Just a bunch of random memories of the main characters from time to time, that's it.

The enjoyment was bad. Like I said, is extremly slow, random scenes can appear from nothing and the action scenes were bad.

Overall: This thing sucks, this anime sucks, gantz sucks.

Notes:
- My review and my english probably sucks too. This is my first review and I don't have the chance to speak or write in english too much.

TURN IT OFF! I HATED IT!

Of all the shows I've ever watched, Gantz is the only one I mentally realized I found revolting but that I needed to finish as to present a complete picture of the series.

Our hero is Kurono or some sort of spelling close to that, a character that I at first appreciated for that the fact that he was a pervert and we got to see an unapologetic look at him in all his mediocrity.

Then the plot gets started and he ends up in a room full of strangers, learning he has to hunt aliens to survive. Good potential for ... a mixture of conflict within and without the group.

The delivery however fell so flat you could feel your nose getting pushed up into your brain as you hit the concrete.

Do you like recaps? How about characters endlessly repeating what's going on around them ad naseoum and do nothing to change the situation but talk about it? If neither of these appeal to you, for the love of anything don't watch this.

Gantz has a unique, mysterious, dark storyline and premise that could have made for an interesting experience that keeps you wanting to find out more about the inexplicable supernatural situation the characters find themselves in, but the anime is plagued by an unbearably slow pacing. Without this ridiculously slow pacing, I could have potentially rated this a 7, 8, or maybe even higher. Dropping the rating down to a 3 may seem extreme, but the amount of time wasted with nothing happening was bad enough to make me stop watching, even after bearing through many episodes waiting for it to pick up.

First the good. The ... story takes place in darker, grittier version of the real world where everyone seems to be selfish and inhumane. Through some events that can be best described as horrific, the characters find themselves in an unexplained supernatural situation. What is interesting is the despite the absurdity of the situation, the characters must deal with it or die, and they know as little about it as you the viewer does. Those who can't get over how ridiculous the situation is die. This brings you to accept the situation and sympathize with the characters as you and they try to figure it out.

The characters are very unlikeable. They are annoying, stupid, and unreliable, and remind me of horror film characters that act badly, do stupid things, and get killed. So unlikeable characters here is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it may be intentional. I was sometimes so annoyed with the characters that I wanted them to die as I cursed at them. So seeing them get killed wasn't heart-wrenching, but rather was satisfying.

But now the bad... The story goes slower than anything I've ever seen. And it's not just slow advancement of the story. Rather, it is pointless moments of nothing at all happening. Every time something "shocking" happened (shocking only to the characters apparently, not the viewer), you would have to watch each and every one of the 8 or so characters give a surprised look and say "OH!", one by one, with a unnecessarily long delay between each one. Multiple times in each episode, the screen would show something mundane like a street light for about 8 whole seconds, for no reason at all, and not even as a transition between scenes, but truly for no reason. Perhaps they though this added suspense, but it doesn't come close.

What could have EASILY been compressed down to one episode without losing any content (dialogue, action) instead was somehow stretched over 3 episodes. After watching some episodes, I sat there in disbelief over how nothing actually happened in the episode. They are at the same point as they in the last episode, literally in the same spot, with the same objective, in the same continuous time-frame. Whole episodes seemed to consist of watching powerlines/stoplights, characters being indecisive, acting surprised, and watching scenes that were more like still pictures than animation.

So this interesting story which had me curious was destroyed by the emptiness of the episodes. Perhaps the best way to watch this would be to fast forward to the points where something actually happens.

The first episode I was like "DAMN this show is going to be amazing". It really had so much potential with the way it went but it had horrendous execution. I really don't like spoiling key plot points as the mystery in the beginning is what's supposed to draw you in. It did for me until it was bottled down with very slow pacing and irritating characters. Also it unnecessarily throws around naked chics which might seem cool at first but it gets old very quickly. I did not like this fan fair one bit.

Overall I would say pass on this anime. But if ... you can forgive the slow pacing and simply irritating characters, it might end up with a satisfying conclusion. I could not make it through it though.

This was truly the worst show, animated or otherwise, that I have ever watched.
The only thing that kept me watching after the first episode was my unnatural compulsion to binge on any new series I download until it's over, and I managed to finish this in two painful days.
What makes the poor quality of this anime even more depressing is that the manga this is adapted from is actually quite good.
So what could possibly make me give this show a 2/10 when the next worst I can think of would still rate a 6?
Everything.
Right from the beginning I did not like the art.
This may be ... my personal preference, but it just looked bad.
If you watched it(please don't) you would see what I mean; the scenery is rendered in some 3D program separate from the characters and the camera moves through it, it looks really awkward.
Then there are the characters.
They constantly contradict themselves and don't make any fucking sense.
I don't know if this is Gantz's idea of "character development" or something, but sometimes a character will just do something that completely goes against everything they have stood for or said throughout the rest of the episodes with no explanation.
However, much worse than either of those is the pacing.
Some scenes go slower than a DBZ fight... YES THAT IS POSSIBLE.
The characters will stand around doing NOTHING, even while their friends are getting killed, just sitting there asking themselves if they should do anything or crying to themselves full of self pity, when they could easily solve the problem.
This is something that is impossible to understand until it has been seen, the pace is absolutely maddening at times.

Summary:
Pros:
Boobies (why it got a 2, not a 1).
Actually an interesting premise, just horribly executed.

Cons:
EVERYTHING else.

Just read the manga if you are really interested.
If you're here because of the manga, do yourself a favour and don't ruin it's memory by watching this.

Ok. Let me begin. This is my first review on an anime.

Gantz is a very brutal, grusome, gorish anime with a lot of tragic incidents and people dying. They wanted to do an anime like Battle Royal or Elfen Lied, but they couldn't make it, so they did "Gantz".

Character (6/10)

The characters I like it sometimes and sometimes not. They didn't explain and develop well the characters because they were not good characters. They were simply not humans, didn't had emotions or anything. They just kill and kill.

[spoiler] When I think about titles like Elfen Lied and Battle Royale, they're violent, but they succeed because ... the protagonists at least have something to them that makes them human. There's something about them that you identify with, that despite all the horrible things they do, you can tell they're trying to rise above it. Just because circumstances force them to become monsters, they don't have to stay that way -- they can redeem themselves or at least try. [/spoiler]

Art and Music (8/10)

At the same time, this is one of the best animated television shows I've seen in years. The artwork is gorgeous, the character designs are beautiful, and the blending of the CG and cel style just looks good. Technically, it's one of Gonzo's best; they also pushed the envelope in that sense, and did it right. The music om the show, both the score and the songs, are awesome. The opening ("Super Shooter") is by Rip Slyme, one of the most popular and skilled Japanese rap groups out there. (Yeah, Japanese rap -- and it's fun!)

Gantz is really the pinnacle of anime exploitation.

In trying to be edgy and relevant, Gantz glorifies everything that is seen to be bad about manga and anime, and makes you ashamed to be human in the process

Please note that this review reflects my thoughts of the complete series and not the separate halves. With that said, on with the review.

Oh fun, another dud from Gonzo I get to rip apart. Gantz came out in the same year as Elfen Lied in delivering a brutally violent anime with enough gore and nudity to go around. But while Elfen Lied at least had a decent story and meaning to elements of its violence and nudity, Gantz is enough of a mess in its storytelling and what it was trying to depict.

The series is set up to feature those killed in various ways being ... brought back from the dead to be forced into a game of survival by a mysterious metal ball named Gantz to kill off various aliens. Don't bother expecting any answers as to what the survival game is all about and what are up with the aliens, as the series is mostly focused on the various aliens that the Gantz team members have to fight off and there is very little focus on what their purposes are and why they are bringing people back from the dead just to put them through a survival game against aliens. Much of the violence in the series comes from the gory ways in which the various aliens and players of the game get offed, which Gantz makes enough of a spectacle of outside of its nudity and sexual content (with some occasions of near-rape and being molested by a dog).

To a great extent, the characters in Gantz are depicted to be the lowest within society from criminals to mentally disturbed teens. With exception to Katou (whose story saves this from being a complete dud for me), mostly every character in this series is either quite shallow in depth, completely worthless and/ or enough of a complete scumbag with their acts where you could care less about them. This is especially bad as the male lead of the series, Kei Kurono, is a selfish pervert of a teen aroused by any attractive woman he encounters and the moment I seen him more turned on from seeing a naked Kei Kishimoto about to be raped than concerned for her well being had me hating him from the start of the series. The series also has a bad enough habit of having some of the latest "additions" to Gantz gawking like a bunch of idiots at the sight of the aliens instead of either fighting them or running off scared. If many of these people are supposed to be depicted as real-life humans, then the makers of Gantz have done a poor job in convincing me these are folks I could identify with.

Visually, Gantz does offer a great amount of visual detail in the designs of its characters and scenery, with the former seeming quite realistic in how they were made. The action scenes are engaging to see with the Gantz players being up against alien threats with occasional implementation of CG animation and some noticeable shortcuts. The music used in this series makes use of a gritty hip-hop song for the OP, a soft ballad for the ED and a mix of orchestrations and clanging sound effects for insert music. They do their part to enhance the mood of Gantz, but they don't really have anything that stuck out for me.

Overall, Gantz is mostly mindless in its focus on the survival game that Kurono, Katou and others go through. With most characters being shallow or unlikeable, a barebones plot and way too much glorification of its gore and sexual content, Gantz isn't a series worth hopping into unless you are going into it for the third mentioned element to its presentation.

I have not seen a show like this in a long while. That's not to say it's good, mind you. I came away from [i]Gantz[/i] with mixed feelings that ultimately ended in dislike. The show follows a perverted, angry-at-the-world teenager who sees an old friend at a train station. They both witness a homeless man fall onto the tracks, and the friend jumps onto the tracks to save him, then yelling for his friend to help. For no good reason that I can figure out (unless it's peer-pressure), the cynic jumps onto the track to help. They save the old man, but are killed by ... a train, and transported to an apartment, where others who have just died seem to be gathered.

I don't want to say more about the plot, but I do like the ideas behind it. The story told in [i]Gantz[/i] is interesting enough that it kept me watching it all the way through. I wanted to know what was going to happen next, especially in the latter four episodes or so. However, the ending left me very unsatisfied, and made no sense at all. I came away from the story ultimately with a sense of pointlessness.

Of course, it doesn't help the show's case that the main character is utterly unlikeable, for me at least. He almost comes off as believable, but is taken too far to really be a believable character.

The same rings true for most of the characters. They're presented as these people in this alternate Earth, but then taken just a little too far in their archetypes to be believable. This isn't necessarily a problem for most of the characters, except the one or two that just become annoying.

This problem is compounded by the art design for [i]Gantz[/i]. Everything is drawn quasi-realistically, but retains enough of the fact that it's an anime that, again, it just becomes a little annoying, rather than giving the impression that I'm sure the people behind this show wanted it to.

Voice acting for the series is, overall, decent. My only real problem with the voices was casting for certain characters, especially a major character, who ended up sounding weird at times. The VA work wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either.

My biggest problem with the show has to be the pacing. For the first few episodes, things go along somewhat slowly, but any time it comes to a scene where the characters disagree about something, they stand around for twenty minutes talking in circles about it. Everything seems like it's taking way too long, to the point where it became a game to guess what would happen episodes in advance, which isn't a fun game, because the answer is always, "They're gonna talk about it for two episodes, and then they'll actually do [spoiler]."

But not only does it move really slowly, but any time stuff does start to happen, the viewer is constantly assaulted by the gory deaths of characters that I guess we're supposed to care about, but I didn't, and by scenes that almost make this show hentai, if not for the rest of the plot.

That's pretty much [i]Gantz[/i] in a nutshell; nothing happens, then gore, then sexual scene, then nothing for a while, then a lot of talking in circles, more gore, and more nothing. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone. [i]Gantz[/i] is not worth spending the ten or so hours to watch the entire series. I give it a one out of five, because the only redeeming quality for the show was the interesting premise.

It had potential but in the end it was absolute garbage.

You'll most likely spend most of your time yelling at the screen for someone to do something. 80% of this anime consists of people with guns in their hands NOT shooting at the threat. Its a cringe fiesta, its like they all want to die.

Character development was shit. Every goddamn one was either bland and stupid, 1-layered evil, or cannon fodder.

The animation was also shit. Lots of frames of close ups of people just standing around, I had to check every now and then if I had accidentally paused.

Soundtrack was not memorable ... at all.
All of this applies to the second season as well, but that one was even dumber.

Conclusion: Waste of time.

Gantz is a show that began with such promise, such a good concept that I was immediately sucked in, but 4 episodes in it became clear I had set myself up for disappointment.

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.

(Editor’s note: This was originally going to be a review of both seasons, however, considering my vastly differing opinions of the two, I will review them separately.)

Gantz…… What an experience. After reading several reviews and reading what the story was about, I had no idea what to expect. It’s a battle royale, for one. Neat! I’ve always been a fan of those types of storylines. But apparently, the show also suffers from Elfen Lied syndrome, where the show consists of little more than brutal violence and female nudity. Going into it, I knew that it was going to be bad (I hated Elfen Lied, ... and Gantz is a Gonzo anime), but I still wanted to like it.


Gantz was a show that I will never forget…… For better or worse.

-Story & Characters-
Taking place in modern day Japan, our protagonist, Kei Kurono, is your typical high school student. The show opens up with…… him sitting in his classroom and fantasizing about all of his female classmates completely naked (I’m not making this up). After the obvious (and pointless) fan service, Kei walks to the subway and meets up with his childhood friend, Masaru Katou. The two of them talk for a bit, and all of a sudden, a homeless man falls onto the train tracks. Being the do-gooder that he is, Katou jumps in to save him, while Kei, out of guilt, follows him. They manage to rescue the homeless man, but Kei and Katou were not able to make it in time, and ended up getting killed by getting hit by the train. In a bizarre twist of fate, however, they wake up in a room filled with people and a giant black ball. It is soon revealed that everyone in the room has died, and must now participate in a battle royale, conducted by Gantz, the giant black ball. Gantz gives everyone a black suit and an arsenal of weapons. These black suits grant the participants great strength, allowing them to jump great heights, and survive attacks that would otherwise kill them. Gantz will transport everyone to a certain part of the city that they live in, and their goal is to kill the target monster(s) that appear within a certain timeframe, and if they manage to do so, they will be transported back to the apartment, and any injuries that they may have sustained are fully healed, and they are free to leave. However, it’s not as simple as all that, as Gantz will randomly transport them from the real world to the apartment to fight in more battles.


The setting and concepts of Gantz are easily one of the most intriguing that I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the execution falls flat on its face due to the awful dialogue, terrible characters, and needless nudity and sex. Let’s star from the beginning: The dialogue.

This anime’s dialogue contains some of the most disgusting and needless cursing to have ever been conceived. Imagine if this review were written something like this:


“This f**king anime is the best mother**king anime that I have ever f**king seen in my entire f**king life. This f**king anime is the f**king best sh*t ever, and god f**king dammit, I f**king loved this mother f**king anime………. F**k.”


That’s what the dialogue consists of, and I don’t mind cursing, but for the love of god, this is a whole new extreme. There’s so much of it, in fact, that it’s actually offensive, and it comes off as juvenile and immature.


Moving onto the characters, these people are some of the most obnoxious, morally reprehensible human beings that I have ever seen. There are maybe one or two tolerable characters, but the good majority of them are awful, and I hated them. The ones from the biker gang are the worst, as the majority of the excessive cursing comes from them, and they’re all selfish jerks. Of course, as stated before, there are some good ones, such as Katou, who has a Shirou Emiya complex (Minus the depth), and feels like he has to save everyone. He’s actually a fairly interesting character, since he goes to such great lengths to help his little brother. The two of them live with their abusive aunt, who constantly physically and emotionally abuses them. Kei Kishimoto, a girl whom the characters meet in episode 1 (And also shares the same first name as Kurono), was also another character who wasn’t reprehensible, and her backstory (Or, at least, the little that we got) was actually fairly sad, and made her sympathetic. Kurono, on the other hand, is rather hard to describe. My problem with him was his sudden change in personality. In episode 1, he is a selfish, egotistical prick, but after that, he becomes a rather nice guy, despite saying and doing some questionable things here and there. It was as if it wasn’t even the same person anymore. To be fair, I would much rather him be this way, as he was a total jerk in episode 1, but his sudden personality shift didn’t sit well with me.


And last, but certainly not least, is the nudity and sex. For the love of all that is good and holy, there is a lot of excessive nudity. One such scene is in the beginning. The first thing that you see (As mentioned before) is Kei sitting in class and fantasizing about every female student and his teacher completely naked. Why are we seeing this? What’s the point? While he’s fantasizing, he becomes sexually aroused, and some girl yells to everyone “Teacher! Kei has a hard on!” Ok, I have several problems with this. First of all, again, what is the point of this scene? Literally the only thing that we’re learning is that Kei is a teenager with natural urges…… That’s it. Let’s also take a second and analyze this scene logically. How was the girl sitting next to him able to spot this? It’s not like it was bulging and coming out of his pants. Also, how was the girl so quick to notice this? Were her eyes on Kei down there the whole time? This whole scenario makes no sense. And this scene happens more than once.


The story of Gantz is broken up into two parts: The real world segments and the Gantz missions. The former delves deeper into the lives of the main characters, and shows their home life, as well as the interactions between each other. Here, we see Katou’s awful backstory. The abuse that him and his brother both endure is hard to watch, and at times even heartbreaking. The lengths that he goes to, to help his brother is one of the best aspects of the show. I also found the relationship between Kei and Kishimoto to be very entertaining. The young, hot Kishimoto has no home, and asks Kei if she can stay with him for a while. Their interactions are very amusing and fun to watch, and are even intense at times. However, we then have the Gantz missions. Whenever Gantz transports the main characters back to the apartment, they meet up with new people each time. The Gantz missions all follow the same pattern: Get transported, explain the situation to the new participants, they don’t believe them, they don’t wear the suits, they die. Rinse and repeat. It’s all very predictable and repetitive. While I didn’t mind the three main characters, I found each new character in the Gantz missions to be absolutely insufferable. What’s ironic is that the concept of the Gantz missions were the most intriguing parts of the show, yet I found it to be the show’s weakest aspect, as they were all very formulaic, with very few interesting things happening in them.


The story of Gantz is a mixed bag. While it has a lot of good ideas and some really great moments from time to time, it also suffers from predictable battles, terrible characters, and cringe-worthy dialogue, and its excessive gore is little more than shock value. It’s a story that I really wanted to like, but just couldn’t. What a shame.


-Visuals & Sound-
I actually have to give Gonzo props here. I won’t lie to you and say that the show looks amazing or anything, but Gantz is actually a fairly decent looking show. The animations, while a bit off at times, are adequate enough, and the monsters, while strange-looking, are all nicely drawn. Slightly above average is the best way to describe the visuals.

Aurally, the show, just like the visuals, is above average. It sports a solid soundtrack with a lot of rockin’ electric guitar tracks, some somber piano pieces, and a nice acoustic guitar tune thrown in for good measure. The dub is a bit of a mixed bag, with a lot of good performances, but a lot of weak ones, as well. Christopher Ayres does a really good job as Kei, and after watching the whole show, I can safely say that I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else doing his voice, and Shannon Emerick does an equally good job as Kishimoto. Katou’s voice, on the other hand, was questionable, and I found the biker gang characters’ voices unbearable (Luckily enough, though, they didn’t stick around for long). Dub or sub, it’s up to you for this one.


Gantz only features on opening, and it’s one of the most irritating openings since Another, which is one hell of an accomplishment. Skip this opening, unless you’re a glutton for punishment. The song that plays during the end credits, however, is beautiful, and is vastly superior to the terrible opening.


-Conclusion-
Gantz was a very…… interesting experience. Despite its good ideas, it falls flat in nearly everything that it does. I wanted to like it, I really did. In fact, I sometimes think to myself “You like Gantz! You like Gantz!” The second season, however, is a vast improvement, and a review will be coming soon.

Gantz is a hard recommendation, unfortunately, and I can only recommend it to people who must watch every anime to have ever been made, ever.


+Story had potential
+Non-Gantz missions are decent
+The three main characters are cool
+Decent visuals
+Good soundtrack
+Solid dub
-Gantz missions are predictable
-Awful dialogue
-Terrible supporting cast
-Excessive blood and gore
-Needless nudity

Final score:
3/10

Gantz. Another low budged anime from Gonzo studio. This studio while having some interesting projects like Basilisk or speedgrapher it is mostly know for it's really bad anime like the first Hellsing anime and this one. Now, Gantz is considered one of the most thrilling and amazing manga of the decade yet this anime is one of the worst adaptations ever made. The story is really stupid. I mean a survival game fighting... aliens? What are we on ''Men in black?'' But I let it that slide because back in the 2000's aliens were a really popular thing in movies and television. But apart ... from that the story doesn't have a descent progress. One time you are seeing the protagonists fighting aliens in a gory survival game and then you are seeing their everyday lives. And they were so stupid that you are actually wondering if the writers were serious when they were writing this. The only thing that restrained me for putting a lower score to the story was because of the last episode . It seemed like the writers did a tremendous try to make a dignified last episode to end the first season. They didn't exactly manage it but the results were certainly better than all of the previews episodes. One other bad thing that I should point out about this anime was it's horrible animation. Even though the anime is a 2004 production Gonzo did a terrible job even for this years standards. The animation and the aesthetics were so bad that my eyes hart in a lot of moments by its bad quality. In the sound sections things weren't better. Daisuke Namikawa in one of his firsts leading roles didn't manage to convince me as the anti-hero Kei Kurono. Same goes with the other two not so well known voice actors Masashi Oosato as Masaru Kato and Hitomi Nabatame as Kai Kishimoto. There were some good performances in secondary roles but nothing really special. The opening was really good when I first heard it I said 'wtf is this shit'' but after a while it becomes really catchy and makes up your mood. The ending was really uninteresting.
The character of this anime were some oof the worst I have ever seen. Kurono is an annoying little prick, Kishimoto is more useless than ten Orihimes and twenty Hinatas together and Kato is just plain and boring as the good guy that doesn't want anyone to die. There were a couple of interesting roles but the anime was not giving them enough screen time to see their development. Speaking of development this anime had zero in it's characters. There was a little bit near the end but it was really rushed and predictable. I hope the characters will be more developed in the second season. To summarize, Gantz is not a good anime but it was kinda enjoyable to watch it and tell how bad it is in every spectacle. That's why I put a five in the enjoyment section. Nevertheless, it manage to make me want to watch the second season mainly because I want to see if this is going to be any better. I wouldn't recommend this anime to anyone but I have to watch the second season too, so that I can have an opinion as a whole.