Preview

Kei is a high schooler who, when set to help an old friend at the subway to save a homeless from certain death, end up being run over by the train along with his friend. For his surprise (and obviously everyone else), he and his friend are 'transported' to a room where other people who claim to have just died are locked. In the center of this weird living room, a big black sphere reports that their lives are now 'his', and they will obey him. Their mission: to eliminate dangerous aliens that live hidden on earth.

Passing

Gantz is slow ... extremely slow - and develops a mystery and suspense plot as the characters actually don't have a clue on what is going on. The main focus is Kei, a main character which main and only trait is to be a complete and utterly pervert whom can only think about woman (preferably naked) and breasts - half the title he is fantasizing or having hard ons about anything that have boobs, specially the cute Kishimoto, who also 'died' on the same day he did and ends up at the room with the black sphere - which we soon learn is called Gantz.

With 26 episodes (2 13 episodes seasons), and based on an incomplete manga at the time, Gantz just drags for 4 missions where the characters have to eliminate some aliens in missions filled with restrictions, dangers and treasons.

If it were not for the very slow pacing (most of the time, the characters are just stunned thinking they will die without doing nothing), and he fact that character development is almost non-existent and based mostly on the pervert ness of Kei, Gantz ends up not getting to be the interesting series it should have been given the interesting concept it hides.

Conclusion

Certainly an attractive title from the point of view of mystery and suspense, but pacing and character development is a huge let down. All characters are just bi-dimensional conventional anime characters, and the few characters that have something that you can call a personality just die before you can spell 'Personal....' (ops, died). By the way, get used to blood, guts flying over, internal organs spreading all over the place and lots, lots, LOTS of blood. To tell you the truth, Gantz is one of those titles in which even the director might get killed.

Probably because it were scripted from an unfinished manga, Gantz also fails to deliver a decisive ending, and although most of the elements for it's comprehension are there, most viewers will just be left hanging. Also, keep in mind that the last mission on the anime does not exist at the manga - and that actually makes sense: it doesn?t make sense at all!

If you like blood, violence, nudity and all that, watch it. However, avoid as if it were the plague if you want anything that makes sense or have a tiny development. If you already watched, be sure to drop by to our essay section