Gantz (ガンツ) is a sci-fi manga by Oku Hiroya. The manga originally published in Japan between 2000 and 2013 in Weekly Young Jump. The manga has been licensed and released in North America by Dark Horse.
Gantz has been collected into 37 tankoubon, spanning 383 chapters. It is broken into 3 story arcs, Phases, and for the purpose of reviewing it each phase will get its own review. Phase 1 covers the majority of the manga as it goes from chapter 1 to chapter 237.
Beware: There are some broad spoilers in the review.
Moody high school student Kurano Kei finds himself helping a childhood friend, Kato Masaru, rescue a drunk that fell onto train tracks. Against his own selfish ideals he jumps down to help out to end up being killed by an oncoming express train. Both boys find themselves suddenly in a room with a group of other people. No one can leave the room, no one can contact the outside world, even though they can see Tokyo Tower from windows in the room. An ominous black sphere occupies a portion of the space. The sphere, dubbed Gantz, begins to play music and on the surface informs everyone in the room that they are dead and their new found lives are now the spheres property. They are to hunt down an alien using weapons and equipment inside of the sphere. Before everyone can comprehend what is happening they are teleported to a quiet suburban neighborhood, presumably to hunt down the target.
Through a series of trials and errors they learn a few things; the are stuck in a small area of the city, if they leave it, a bomb in their heads explodes. The weapons are more powerful and difficult to control than they appear and the fitted body suits they receive from Gantz will protect them for almost any attack. They have a time limit in which to kill the target...sometimes there are dozens or hundreds of targets. Once the targets are eliminated or the time is up, all surviving members will be transported back to Gantz with any damage taken being healed. Once the mission is over they are free to leave the room and attempt to assume a normal life...until Gantz once again brings them into the room to kill more aliens.
Kurano and Kato learn pretty quickly that the missions have high attrition rates. Only a few people survive the first mission and the grim reality of their second chance on life sets in. The only one from the group who knows whats going on is the dismissive and secretive middle school student Nishi Joichiro. What they do learn is that they are given a set of three choices once they have achieved a score of 100. At the end of each mission Gantz dispenses points based upon each persons actions and successes. The survivors now have the 100 point goal a head of them and what ever it means.
Kurano, being a sulky teenager has other things occupying his mind beyond his new role as forced soldier. His sexual drive runs rampant and opportunities begin to present themselves to him amid the despair and desperation to live. His life soon enough becomes consumed with fighting, fucking/wanting to fuck and the occasional stint at school dealing with being an outcast. Again and again he is dragged into battles for his life, with people dying all around him. He continues to survive, even when people he begins to form bonds with do not. After one particularly brutal mission he finds himself all alone, surviving by a fluke.
In life away from battles and lust a new transfer student, Izumi Shion, takes an interest in Kurano. Much to his horror, the transfer seems to know a few things about Gantz. Nishi had been stealthily running a blog talking about the missions. Fearing that the bomb in his head would explode, he dodges the inquiry as much as possible. At the same time he is being grilled by the impressive Izumi, Kurano is forced to date a quiet otaku in his class named Tae.
Kurano fails a solo mission and has hits points wiped to zero. To make things worse the alien he failed to kill tracks him down and fights him at school, outside of a Gantz mission. Everyone in his class aside from Tae and Izumi end up dead and Kurano has to fight the alien in front of a large gathering of police. Luckily he gets away with his actions and the government ends up wiping the unusual circumstances under the rug. The attack though starts to build a bond between him and Tae. Izumi shows his hand though as things start to calm down.
Izumi had once been a part of Gantz and his wiped memories are trickling through, driving him to yearn for a return to the brutal killing game. In a bid to return he stages a terrorist attack in Shinjuku, killing countless people before being killed himself. The plan works and he, along with many of his victims, find themselves in the room with Gantz. After many survive the first mission Kurano is unwittingly made the leader of the new group. All the people he has lost in the previous month have been affecting his world view. He know strives to prevent as many casualties in the missions as possible, further convincing some of the group that he is the leader of the Gantz team.
As the team begins to coalesce, with few casualties, a new threat arrives. Strange people who are able to see the Gantz team and are hunting them down. This new threat is somewhat vampire in attitude and nature and they begin to cause problems for the team outside of missions. The new threat makes the internal struggles, instigated by Izumi, more dangerous as well. After unintentionally photographing one of the team mates while during a mission, Tae finds herself the next target by Gantz. Izumi takes this as his cue and forces the rift he has been building wide open, telling those who support him the real target is Kurano and to kill both of them.
Kurano fails to save Tae. They learn that you can choose 3 things once you hit 100 points. To leave the game, memories erased. Gain a powerful new weapons or restore someone to life. Kurano is driven more to hit 100 points to bring Tae back as well as continuing to fight in order to bring the other people lost over the months back. The following mission is the most dangerous yet and the survivors are rewarded handsomely. To show their respect for Kurano they each choose to revive people closest to Kurano. They then force him to choose to leave the game.
With Kurano now a 'civilian' with his mind wiped of the past months he spend fighting for Gantz, the team chooses the resurrected Kato as their leader and they continue to work as a well oiled machine, battling stronger and stronger aliens. Their actions become visible as everyone around them can now see what is going on, much for the worse, as more normal people are being caught in the crossfire. The battles become more severe and destructive. This extremely long Phase ends with Kurano, still a civilian, being murdered by the vampires and the team in a strange battle field.
OK, that's a lot to unpack and a lot of story and character development has been glossed over, as well as a few spoilers unleashed. So lets dig in and critique this manga.
The artwork and character designs are highly detailed and well done. Mechanical designs are interesting and they used base layers of CG in the creation to help with some repeated effects in the panels. The problem though is much is lost in scenes of high action, partially due to the lack of color and partially due to the denseness of the line work. Many panels throughout the battles can become muddy and confusing. But, the artwork is very detailed and ever without color there is a plethora of gore and visceral death with in it's pages. There is also a very healthy dose of fan service and outright porn. The women are large breasted and small framed and most of the men are small framed and free of bulky musculature.
Story wise, its hard even at the end of Phase 1 to really get a feel for what is actually going on. Little to no answers are given for the variety of questions and many of the semi-main characters die off sooner or later. The purpose of Phase 1 seems to get the reader familiar with Gantz and what it means for the people that are trapped by it, continuously forced into these highly dangerous missions. The aliens are unexplained as is Gantz it's self. Instead there is focus on the bumpy and rather shallow psychological progression of Kurano. He takes a rocky journey from nihilistic teenager to gaining a bit of compassion and humanity, but still being a moody bitch.
In all the manga is engaging. You keep coming back to see more and more as the characters continue to be thrown into impossible battles. The story hits a snag though when it shifts to focus more than it probably should on normal Kurano and all of his self inflicted head games. You eagerly await the next Gantz mission and a return to what this manga excels at...ultra violence. And boobs...lots of boobs.
This isn't for everyone, its definitely aimed at the teenage boy market. It gives a 16 year old everything he could ever want from a manga. An identifiable character who is alone and against the world. Forced to fight fantastical monsters with alien weaponry in ultra horrific ways while big breasted naked/nubile women fling themselves at him. It's the ultimate wet dream. With it's flaws and its rampant fan service I was drawn to it as well and eagerly poured through each issue with reckless abandon. I'm not sure there is any real re-readability with the story though as you really push through to see who survives and to find out the answers to the mysteries. There are no answers in Phase 1...only death and sex, lots of both, but mostly death.
So there is a look at Phase 1, click here to move on to Phase 2.
Gantz has been collected into 37 tankoubon, spanning 383 chapters. It is broken into 3 story arcs, Phases, and for the purpose of reviewing it each phase will get its own review. Phase 1 covers the majority of the manga as it goes from chapter 1 to chapter 237.
Beware: There are some broad spoilers in the review.
Moody high school student Kurano Kei finds himself helping a childhood friend, Kato Masaru, rescue a drunk that fell onto train tracks. Against his own selfish ideals he jumps down to help out to end up being killed by an oncoming express train. Both boys find themselves suddenly in a room with a group of other people. No one can leave the room, no one can contact the outside world, even though they can see Tokyo Tower from windows in the room. An ominous black sphere occupies a portion of the space. The sphere, dubbed Gantz, begins to play music and on the surface informs everyone in the room that they are dead and their new found lives are now the spheres property. They are to hunt down an alien using weapons and equipment inside of the sphere. Before everyone can comprehend what is happening they are teleported to a quiet suburban neighborhood, presumably to hunt down the target.
Through a series of trials and errors they learn a few things; the are stuck in a small area of the city, if they leave it, a bomb in their heads explodes. The weapons are more powerful and difficult to control than they appear and the fitted body suits they receive from Gantz will protect them for almost any attack. They have a time limit in which to kill the target...sometimes there are dozens or hundreds of targets. Once the targets are eliminated or the time is up, all surviving members will be transported back to Gantz with any damage taken being healed. Once the mission is over they are free to leave the room and attempt to assume a normal life...until Gantz once again brings them into the room to kill more aliens.
Kurano and Kato learn pretty quickly that the missions have high attrition rates. Only a few people survive the first mission and the grim reality of their second chance on life sets in. The only one from the group who knows whats going on is the dismissive and secretive middle school student Nishi Joichiro. What they do learn is that they are given a set of three choices once they have achieved a score of 100. At the end of each mission Gantz dispenses points based upon each persons actions and successes. The survivors now have the 100 point goal a head of them and what ever it means.
Kurano, being a sulky teenager has other things occupying his mind beyond his new role as forced soldier. His sexual drive runs rampant and opportunities begin to present themselves to him amid the despair and desperation to live. His life soon enough becomes consumed with fighting, fucking/wanting to fuck and the occasional stint at school dealing with being an outcast. Again and again he is dragged into battles for his life, with people dying all around him. He continues to survive, even when people he begins to form bonds with do not. After one particularly brutal mission he finds himself all alone, surviving by a fluke.
In life away from battles and lust a new transfer student, Izumi Shion, takes an interest in Kurano. Much to his horror, the transfer seems to know a few things about Gantz. Nishi had been stealthily running a blog talking about the missions. Fearing that the bomb in his head would explode, he dodges the inquiry as much as possible. At the same time he is being grilled by the impressive Izumi, Kurano is forced to date a quiet otaku in his class named Tae.
Kurano fails a solo mission and has hits points wiped to zero. To make things worse the alien he failed to kill tracks him down and fights him at school, outside of a Gantz mission. Everyone in his class aside from Tae and Izumi end up dead and Kurano has to fight the alien in front of a large gathering of police. Luckily he gets away with his actions and the government ends up wiping the unusual circumstances under the rug. The attack though starts to build a bond between him and Tae. Izumi shows his hand though as things start to calm down.
Izumi had once been a part of Gantz and his wiped memories are trickling through, driving him to yearn for a return to the brutal killing game. In a bid to return he stages a terrorist attack in Shinjuku, killing countless people before being killed himself. The plan works and he, along with many of his victims, find themselves in the room with Gantz. After many survive the first mission Kurano is unwittingly made the leader of the new group. All the people he has lost in the previous month have been affecting his world view. He know strives to prevent as many casualties in the missions as possible, further convincing some of the group that he is the leader of the Gantz team.
Kurano fails to save Tae. They learn that you can choose 3 things once you hit 100 points. To leave the game, memories erased. Gain a powerful new weapons or restore someone to life. Kurano is driven more to hit 100 points to bring Tae back as well as continuing to fight in order to bring the other people lost over the months back. The following mission is the most dangerous yet and the survivors are rewarded handsomely. To show their respect for Kurano they each choose to revive people closest to Kurano. They then force him to choose to leave the game.
With Kurano now a 'civilian' with his mind wiped of the past months he spend fighting for Gantz, the team chooses the resurrected Kato as their leader and they continue to work as a well oiled machine, battling stronger and stronger aliens. Their actions become visible as everyone around them can now see what is going on, much for the worse, as more normal people are being caught in the crossfire. The battles become more severe and destructive. This extremely long Phase ends with Kurano, still a civilian, being murdered by the vampires and the team in a strange battle field.
OK, that's a lot to unpack and a lot of story and character development has been glossed over, as well as a few spoilers unleashed. So lets dig in and critique this manga.
The artwork and character designs are highly detailed and well done. Mechanical designs are interesting and they used base layers of CG in the creation to help with some repeated effects in the panels. The problem though is much is lost in scenes of high action, partially due to the lack of color and partially due to the denseness of the line work. Many panels throughout the battles can become muddy and confusing. But, the artwork is very detailed and ever without color there is a plethora of gore and visceral death with in it's pages. There is also a very healthy dose of fan service and outright porn. The women are large breasted and small framed and most of the men are small framed and free of bulky musculature.
Story wise, its hard even at the end of Phase 1 to really get a feel for what is actually going on. Little to no answers are given for the variety of questions and many of the semi-main characters die off sooner or later. The purpose of Phase 1 seems to get the reader familiar with Gantz and what it means for the people that are trapped by it, continuously forced into these highly dangerous missions. The aliens are unexplained as is Gantz it's self. Instead there is focus on the bumpy and rather shallow psychological progression of Kurano. He takes a rocky journey from nihilistic teenager to gaining a bit of compassion and humanity, but still being a moody bitch.
In all the manga is engaging. You keep coming back to see more and more as the characters continue to be thrown into impossible battles. The story hits a snag though when it shifts to focus more than it probably should on normal Kurano and all of his self inflicted head games. You eagerly await the next Gantz mission and a return to what this manga excels at...ultra violence. And boobs...lots of boobs.
This isn't for everyone, its definitely aimed at the teenage boy market. It gives a 16 year old everything he could ever want from a manga. An identifiable character who is alone and against the world. Forced to fight fantastical monsters with alien weaponry in ultra horrific ways while big breasted naked/nubile women fling themselves at him. It's the ultimate wet dream. With it's flaws and its rampant fan service I was drawn to it as well and eagerly poured through each issue with reckless abandon. I'm not sure there is any real re-readability with the story though as you really push through to see who survives and to find out the answers to the mysteries. There are no answers in Phase 1...only death and sex, lots of both, but mostly death.
So there is a look at Phase 1, click here to move on to Phase 2.
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