Gantz #7:
Fatal Attractions

100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 08/09/2005
Reviewed: 11/08/2005

I guess I just couldn't stay away. No big shock, it's not like I'm particularly good at that anyway. I figured after the events of the last DVD my interest in Gantz had sufficiently waned. Very little could have proven me more wrong. I had the DVD anyway and it's not like there's anything to do at one in the afternoon on a Saturday.

If someone tells you they're watching Gantz for anything but the blood and titties, they're probably lying. Those are the two commodities that Gantz has in no short supply. That being said, I'm not watching it for the titties, though the jury is still out on the blood. If pressed, with the experience I have now, I would say this story is passable, but soundly mediocre. I mean, really, we get it already. The girl's got big boobs and the guy's a perv and the other guy's just a smoldering cauldron of rage waiting to go off. They're all caricatures of Japanese people of the current era, but these ideas are never allowed to reach full maturity because they're always waylaid somewhere along the line by a boob shot. The sex scenes in this DVD of the show most likely stir up an unparalleled level of tissue expenditure in its viewership. So what's the point?

And why do I find Gantz's story so compelling when it's so poorly executed?

I don't know, but when Gantz hits me, it hits hard. The death of a certain character voiced by the coolest voice actor in the world (that isn't Mike Reynolds) hit me specifically hard. It was all "chicken soup the soul" in its melancholy, but it was still kind of harsh. After all... he was just a guy trying to make it through this workday world! And that's where Gantz gets you, because no matter how despicable these characters can be, there's usually a good side somewhere. Sure, some of them are just asinine through and through... but those are the ones that are even more of a caricature than the main cast. And they're only there to get blown up by the monsters in the first three seconds of the game anyway. When you get to know someone for seven or eight episodes and then *poof*, he's gone... it's kind of sad. Especially when that guy's a super badass and your favorite character.

But out with the old and in with the new. Maybe the Japanese creators of the show got into a time machine, jumped forward, read my reviews and heard me complaining about the total lack of alien heads popping off. It's a scant two episodes before the characters are back in the room, seething with frustration as they try to once again explain to the newcomers that they're about to be blowed up and, yes, putting one a ridiculous latex suit might just save your life. It's a little irritating to watch, but maybe it's supposed to be.

Everyone but Kurono, that is, our main character has slipped and fallen into a pile of accidental sex with the raven haired, big boobed newcomer, Sei. Sei, who is the sultry, slutty wet dream of every teenager (complete with hotpants!) proceeds to make good on all the collective masturbation fantasies of the viewing public by going at it with Kei in a back room while the rest of the crew try to, you know, figure out how they're not going to die. This is likely accompanied by the guttural cries of a thousand oversexed anime fans, who now again have hope that hot girls will latch onto dorks like them. Obviously this is not the case, but it wouldn't be the first time anime has lied to these poor slobs about women.

Kei and Sei's actions are not very productive, but I can't say that I wouldn't make the same choice were I in the position. Not because I'm another one of those creepy anime fans who goes to sleep at night thinking about the uncomfortably long scenes of copulation contained in this DVD, but more because the girl's job is literally to look perturbed and off center. I took four screen caps of her in two episodes, and I could've easier done a dozen more. It's like all this chick can do is look miffed (frequently while off center). It's amazing! When it comes to looking perturbed, Japanese animators are light years ahead of our pathetic Gaijin abilities.

I doubt the greater anime popular shares my altruistic sentiments, but I guess it doesn't matter as long as Gantz doesn't dive off the threshold of decency it so desperately wants to cross. Though it's clearly not the intent of the work, or the opinion of the majority of its fans, Gantz can be a pretty compelling allegory of Japanese society, hobo-killing Japanese John Cusak would tell you that. Much like most "art", you get from Gantz what you put into it. Unfortunately for most viewers, that probably amounts to a bit more protein in their diet than they'd normally care for.