 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | DARK HORSE | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | HIROYA OKU | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 224 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | M | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 12/31/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 04/02/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
Gantz was a manga before it ever became the popular anime enjoyed worldwide, and Dark Horse is proud to bring you Hiroya Oku’s inspired, sexy, and dangerous work of brutal science fiction. The anime that is available from ADV films - which is already released in its entirety on DVD – follows the same story as the manga, but with enough differences to make both versions of this story worth viewing and reading. Gantz tells the story of a teenager named Kei Kurono who dies in a train accident and becomes part of a "game" in which he and several other recently deceased people are forced to hunt down and kill aliens. The missions they embark upon are often dangerous. Many die on each mission, but others replace them in the same manner as Kei Kurono's appearance from seemingly nowhere after a near-death experience. Volume three finally starts to build a basis for what Gantz is actually about and what is going on. It begs the questions: “What would you do if you were given a second chance on life from a catatonic man stuffed inside a computerized sphere?” Well, that's exactly what the survivors of the first round of Gantz's wicked game have to figure out. Kei, Masaru, and the buxom Kishimoto try to reinsert themselves into their old lives. However, before any of them begins to take comfort in this fact, they're all transported back to the inescapable condo where the whole mess started. With Kurono and the others having returned to their own separate lives after barely surviving the fight to the death with the onion alien, Gantz starts collecting a new group of participants: gang members lured into a trap by a rival group, a grandmother and her grandson killed in an accident, and Hojo and Sadako, who were caught up in the same collision. In the disorientation of the new arrivals, Gantz spills the beans on their new alien extermination target. Now, the stage is set for the next round of Gantz's little contest, but how can you win a game if you are already dead? The violence in the visuals continues with no excuses or apologies in this volume – don’t expect that to go away ever, because it’s highly unlikely it will get anything but “worse” (or better…. depending on how you look at it!) as the story goes on. The art is very detailed, and the artist is very good at depicting some pretty gruesome scenes of violence and the after affects. There is A LOT of nudity in this volume also – it’s an aspect of Gantz that is becoming more and more common, but I doubt anyone will complain. This is a very adult, very “pulpy” series – it’s everything and anything that is “wrong”, and it has fun doing it. It doesn’t try to hide its intentions at any point – so you just love it or hate it and that’s all there is to it. But the visuals are pretty awesome, and the plot is coming together at a pace that keeps you hungry, so all in all Gantz is continuing to prove itself as a good piece of over-the-top entertainment. Gantz is pretty unrelenting in a number of ways, and there’s no better formula than that to have you be entertained in a hurry, if you’re a fan of shocking fiction!
IN SUMMARY:
Gantz is definitely on the more adult side of the fence, and beats up on all the smaller kids that try to hang out with it – it’s that “bad.” But for those of us who see “bad” and think “good!” – Gantz is the book for you! Check it out! |
