Gantz #1:
Game of Death

50 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 02/08/2005
Reviewed: 05/17/2005

I am a bizarre specimen of a human being. When I have work to do, I do more work than I need to do. When I have no work to do I don't do anything at all. Thus, the perfect medium for me updating this site involves something like 1-2 hours a day of required work for school or employment. Just enough to whet my appetite and give me the desire to do extraneous stuff that doesn't at all pertain to my social or physical well being. As of now I have exactly zero hours of required work. So it's sort of a miracle that I'm updating at all. Two weeks in a row, no less.

The curious reason for this happens to be the exact same one that causes most people hate the American release of Gantz. For whatever reason, whether it be pressure from Japanese licensors, extreme cost of acquiring this little gem, or renegade Jewish space aliens, Gantz is being released on a 13 disc schedule. Two episodes for DVD at an MSRP of $20 is apparently a little more than the American anime market tends to tolerate. At least, the small minority that has always been the most vocal doesn't seem to care for it.

Now, I think this is just too good. Shopping around at the right online retailers you'll end up paying approximately $130 for this show, which is exactly $10 more than you would for a six disc show that MSRPed at $30. Thus the only complaint that becomes even semi-legitimate is that you're going to have to fork over the shelf space for 7 extra DVDs. To this I say: Boo-hoo-hoo, my heart weeps for you! If you spend $10 at Sam Goody's you can get a case that holds well over 200 DVDs. Otherwise DEAL WITH IT. I just measured this: seven DVDs takes up exactly 4.12 inches. That's smaller than the average man's erect penis! It's quickly approaching 1/5 of my modest girth! In other words it's absolutely nothing.

Having just bought a new rack for my ever expanding DVD collection, I can tell you that 360 DVDs-worth of particle board storage capacity (provided by your local Best Buy) will consume $60 from your meager savings, provided you buy the already opened display model. This means that the extra seven Gantz DVDs will consume yet another $1.16 from your checking account.

If you're not as fortunate as I, there won't be any "as-is" items available for purchase and as such you will be forced to pay $70 for your shoddily made Ikea rack, bumping the total up to something more like $1.36 extra, for a grand total of $11.36 for your Gantz purchase over what it would have been had those silly bastards just decided to make it six DVDs like everything else.

Now, if you're outside of college and don't live in a 5x5 room you're probably going to want something more durable than cheaply made Swedish crap. In that case, a quick perusal of secondhand stores will probably net you something worthwhile and on the cheap. Distressingly enough, the average anime fan probably won't want to touch that stuff for fear of transmission of certain venereal diseases. I'm certain the crossover between anime fans and OCD sufferers is rather high. As such, you need only tune to your local Overstock.com for the best deals. Their remarkably attractive spokeswoman** would most likely point you in the direction of this, an absolutely beautiful unit. With the ability to hold 567 DVDs you are paying a more impressive $14.43 for your storage space. This is, of course, with my modest inclusion of an estimated $40 shipping fee. Now we are paying $24.43 extra for the pleasure of watching/owning the entire show.

So the only way I got you to spend the amount of an extra DVD buying the entire 13 disc run of Gantz was by having you spend nearly $300 on a new entertainment center when you could just as easily stack the DVDs on the floor for free if it's that big of a problem. Obviously cost-to-episode-to-storage rates are relatively negligible compared to any series on a shorter release. I find it terribly that amusing these days that anime fans don't have stuff like horrendous dubs or one episode VHS tapes to complain about anymore. They have to complain about storage space. Seriously guys, you're just inventing problems now. Frankly 2 episode DVDs suit me just fine. I'm too lazy to watch more than 50 minutes of TV at a time anyway.

As for Gantz: It is WEIRD. I don't know what to tell you about the show, other than that I'm not really sure what *I* think about it yet. It's ultra-violent, it can be pretty perverse, and the characters are completely immoral. Normally I'd just toss something like this to the side, but Gantz does it in a way that seems to be secretly saying this: You never grew up since high school and if you're getting off to this you're just as bad as the characters in the show. Next time I hope to have enough of an idea of the show to know what to say about it. Because, apparently, two episodes just isn't enough to get a good grasp on it! Huh, after two episodes I wasn't really sure what the show was trying to tell me. Maybe there's a legitimate complaint nestled away somewhere after all. It sure as hell ain't storage space.