Gantz #2:
Kill or Be Killed

50 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 03/08/2005
Reviewed: 06/21/2005

As you might remeber, I told you a whimsical tale about how people were whining and crying, as anime fans are prone to do. They were all pissy because had to buy 13 DVDs, even though they cost insignificantly more than buying 6 DVDs of any other series. Well good news! ADV heard the laments of all the crybaby fans and reduced the show to a very reasonable 10 DVDs. What's more, now this means the entire series should be released in the span of 10 months, which is less than many 6 DVD shows. So it's faster and cheaper. Still, I'm 100% certain somebody somewhere's gonna find some reason to complain. That's sort of what this genre inspires in people.

I had a lot of fun writing up about Gantz last time. Not only is it enjoyable to lambast the so-called "hardcore" anime fans, but I sort of have a knack for going completely off topic. I don't know about you, but it seems like the best stuff I put out is when I'm not concentrating on anything in particular. But I knew the day would come when I watched the second volume of this series and I'd have to make an opinion. Lord knows how much I hate expressing myself to people.

My opinion about Gantz is that I'm still having trouble forming an opinion.

Over the course of four episodes, which contain maybe one of the best opening arcs of all time, asinine Kei Kurono ends up being smashed to death by a train while trying to help an old elementary school buddy remove a drunken hobo from the subway tracks. Curiously, instead of dying the two boys awaken in a small room with a whole bunch of other people who were also saved from death at the last moment. They are then instructed by a black sphere that there's an alien out there with a green onion for a head that needs killin'. A strangely grim eight grader, one of the occupants of the room, tells the group that his father works for the government and whoever kills this alien first gets a million billion dollars, or something like that.

Suffice it to say, most of the team rushes off to kill the surprisingly benign Green Onion Alien while Kei, Kato, and some weirdo naked chick they picked up along the way try to find a way home. The crew seems to have trouble working the strange weapons provided by the sphere (which we find out is named Gantz and can't spell worth a damn) but eventually do manage to off the alien. That's when the Green Onion Alien's daddy comes around and blows up a mafioso's torso. And that's when the first disc ends.

I have mixed feelings about that, because it's a great cliffhanger to end on. It's also a cliffhanger, which really sucks if you want to see the rest of the show. What also really sucks is that the first three minutes of the second disc, from the alien to the "pump you up" fight music, to the wounded Yakuza boss firing off pistol rounds is maybe one of the most exciting animated sequences I have ever seen.

Once again the disc ends with a massive cliffhanger just as we're about to find out who/what Gantz's purpose is. Suffice it to say there's no big government organization handing out bonus checks for offing vegetable aliens (despite how awesome that would be). I'm still convinced that Gantz is trying to communicate something about how immature everyone is and how we totally beat off to violence on TV, it just worries me that the creepy 8th grader who probably masturbates to autopsy photos basically comes out and says that at the end of the 3rd episode. At best it's probably just going to end up being heavy handed pseudo-intelluctual crap. If the creators of Gantz are being serious, then it's actually a sort of compelling social commentary. If they're not... then I think it's some sort of creepy fetish porn. This screenshot does not bolster my hopes, but I'll keep going until something happens that makes me stop.

I just don't know how I'm going to fit ten whole DVDs on my shelves!