Gantz #9:
Judge, Jury, and Executioner

100 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 11/15/2005
Reviewed: 01/03/2006

Many of you may be familiar with what I call the "Let the Bitch Die" principle, which basically boils down to this: Don't say you're gonna kill someone and not do it. I've been playing Final Fantasy IV for the Gameboy Advance. I owned this game for Super Nintendo, liked it a lot, but never got to the end. It turns out that I stopped at the exact spot before my thoughts on the game would've been changed entirely. See, all throughout the course of Final Fantasy IV your party members die left and right. Two mages turn themselves to stone to save the party, a courageous man sets a tower room ablaze with himself inside to stop the cannons firing on friendly troops below. When I was a kid I thought this was all very heroic. Playing it now, I've reached the point where all these characters come back. So, way to go, some sacrifice.

I'm going to spoil a whole lot of stuff for you, as if I haven't already, so you if you don't want OMG MAJOR PLOT POINTS ruined then I would suggest you turn back. But I don't expect the few readers who actually patronize this site come for my rapt attention towards avoiding spoilers, of which I have precious little. By that token, if I had known the events of this volume in advance I would've been pissed off TO-THE-MAX.

I always feel like I promise myself that every volume of Gantz is going to be my last. You're probably getting tired of it too, aren't you? Yes, you get it, my emotions are see sawing all over the place. "Is it a smart social commentary? Is it a crappy show debasing to both women and action fans?" You groan to yourself as I wax philosophical about a cartoon that you don't care about, probably haven't heard about, and would be happy to never set eyes upon again. And yet I'm gonna continue to do it today and I'm gonna do it one more time. Then finally, finally I'll be free of the monkey on my back that Gantz has become.

Now I'm going to start spoiling stuff. Everybody dies. Literally everybody. Last volume we had a bit of a shock when the movie-star character (named "homo" by the irreverent Gantz ball) was melted to death with his Ring-alike stand-in Sadako. Then the ultimate closer was the ten minute long melodrama that accompanied enormously bosomed Kishimoto's exacerbated melting sequence. Losing one of the most important characters in the show and two arguably major ones during the span of a single episode tends to give one the impression that the crowd is not going to be culled any further.

Not so! The creators of Gantz aren't going to be happy until they kill everyone. And I do mean everyone. Kei Kurono, our insatiably bitchy main character who obviously represents the oversexed Japanese youth that's forgotten their past, has a get out of jail-free tag for now, but everyone else is quickly placed on the chopping block and removed without a second's thought.

Okay. So I could understand the removal of Sei, of the super-sultry raven-tresses, who we love very much despite the fact that she hasn't been around very long and has a bigger penchant for melodrama than any other character, which is bragable if nothing else. The way the woman can bitch so hard when she doesn't even have any backstory past "My brother likes cartoons" is beyond me, but as long as they keep making sexy characters like her say those words then I'm going to put a hold on my complaining. Yes, we like Sei very much, and we were very sad when she got sliced in half by the Buddah laser. But really, when you're fighting a six foot tall golden statue then it's probably not prudent to let your guard down until the deed is done. I suppose this is meant to show us the problems of getting overconfident, or hopping for a better life, or maybe it's just to make Kurono cry even more. There's a lot of options if you really care enough to try and get down and dirty with Gantz.

So I could take the loss of Sei, though I would prefer it otherwise. What really shocks me is that they're gonna wholesale kill off the other main character, the other raison d'être of the show. Much like Kurono is current Japan, Kato represents the chivalrous nature that Japan seems to think they once entertained. I'm not gonna get all historical on you here, so don't worry, but in the context of the show the pacifistic, kind, "let's all get along and work this out!" Kato really worked for me. He was the lynch-pin that held the cast together between the psyho-annoying Kishimoto and the psycho-weiiiiiiird Kurono. Kato was your main man. He was a pain sometimes, but he was a good dude. Plus, as we've already went over, he reads his little brother Fist of the Northstar bedtime stories. No further explanation necessary!

Killing not only Kishimoto, but also Kato, kind of super concretes my "Let the Bitch Die" thing... but I don't know if this is how I wanted it to happen. One thing is certain: I can't say that Gantz doesn't have balls. It might be a little overwrought in trying to pull on your heartstrings, but the core of the actions are absolutely stunning. Seriously, two out of three main characters dead in as many episodes? What are you thinking? I don't know what Gantz has in store for its final DVD, but I am dying to find out.