Gantz
 

I just watched dmhy's sub of this (Chinese). I'm pretty sure the English fansubs will be popping up soon.

Though I have not read the manga, I have heard from various posts here about how interesting it should be. Only restricted myself to certain tidbits to prevent getting too spoiled. The first episode seems very interesting.

The bulk of this episode (or series perhaps) narrates with the thoughts of the characters in the scene. It is an interesting approach to me since I only seen this with manga and rarely with anime. But what is transferred to me is that they are placing a slant on a cynical selfish world (how true).



So it seems we got our cynical lead Kei, his idealistic childhood friend Kato and a voluptous girl who tried to commit suicide as the lead trio.

Gore is not overdone as the decapitation is not overly shown (flashes of bloody necks). Though there are disturbing elements, apathy of the general public and characters, rape, cases of near murders etc.

Very interesting first episode. I'm left wondering at the start if this was going to be a Matrix-like world. With the 'deaths', you would think this would be supernatural. But the sci-fi tech stuff displayed seem to override any supernatural elements on my thinking. With the above disturbing elements, this series might be one that tries to push our buttons.

It is too early to say whether this series would degenerate into a chaotic mess (Hello Matrix!) or turn into a mindless entertainment or be a great show. But from what has been shown so far, I shall be watching future episodes for a while...

In the manga you saw their decapitated heads flying around in great detail.

I've noticed this manga author (also did 'Hen' and 'Zero One') has a tendency to make his characters appear very unsympathetic at first and then later on they become more likeable.

The DVD version will have more details like internal organs and more nudity. I think I'll get that version for sure ;)

This is a very rare manga where the supporting character is more heroic than the main protagonist. I like the main protagonist a lot though, since I think I'm just like him in many ways :p

One thing is sure, this show will have a very dark, twisted, and cruel theme. Somewhat like Battle Royale I guess (though not really that dark...)

Sorry, man, I just couldn't resist. :heh:

Well, I watched the first episode raw. I own the first 5 manga volumes, and except for the new classroom scene in the beginning of the episode, the anime is very close to the manga, which is good, because I could just take the manga and read along. And Gantz's cheesy song is simply hilarious. :heh:

IMO Gonzo has not made a good anime since Last Exile, I hope that this will put them back on track.

I liked the 1st ep, and then checked out the manga. 12 volumes are out, and it's been serialized up to chapter 156, I think. It's weekly as well.

The anime seems to have more detail than the manga, at least for the characters. Unusual.

I really liked the manga. The only thing that was weird that every chapter started out with a half or totally nude pic of a female character from the story, while as the story itself rarely centers on stuff like that. It has sex and nudity, but no fanservice. It's also extremely gory and depressing. Lots and lots of people die, both important and non-important people.

I doubt the anime will follow the manga plot precisely. Too long, somewhat self-repeating, and some of the story twists usually aren't considered to work in anime. Probably will also be toned down in the gory and sex part.


In any case, from the 1st ep this seems to be the best new series so far, IMO. *thumbs up*

Let's be careful not to spoil too much of the story yet because the manga is so enjoyable from the fact that you read it without knowing anything about it. The same probably applies to the anime.

Noones subbed it in english yet right?

I've noticed that the author of the Gantz manga does that same thing with his other manga as well. I was reading another one of his manga called "HEN" and there's nude or semi-nude pictures of the main female character at the beginning of every chapter. And she has huge tits just like the girl in Gantz. I think the author has a big boobs fetish.

But unlike Gantz, HEN futures a lot of sexual scenes and revolves around yuri and things like that.

I sure hope this is subbed soon, I just saw the promo, looks gory!

It makes me wonder if I should wait for the DVDs, but TBH I don't think I will, really adding it some entrails or whatever is not going to add to the story at all.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how can there be sex and nudity but no fanservice?

because the sex and nudity are actually required in the plot rather than put in there for fanservice?

I pretty much consider fanservice to be nudity for non-plot reasons.

You see it in movies alot. A normal movie can have shots of women with perfectly normal clothing, but who are with various tricks like camera movement, lighting, acting etc made to look sexy. Likewise, with the same kinda of tricks a nude woman can be made to look ugly, disgusting or dirty, even though she might be perfectly normal or even beautiful otherwise.

Fanservice is basically doing the first with the only reason being to sexually arouse the reader or viewer. :)

Yup, the manga has a really dark and bleak atmosphere, quite realistic characters too, and very realistically depressing theme. Love can't save anyone, both good and bad people die like insects, you see how people try their best to protect their loved ones but they all die horrible death in the end anyway. that's why I love this series so much :D

A little off topic. Yes, HEN is also a very unusual manga. It's nothing like Gantz but its still pretty original storytelling. It's what got me really interested in Hiroya Oku's works. This guy does amazing stuff. By the way, HEN is one of my favorite mangas. You should be able to tell from my sig and avatar.

well, not to mention that there's a male version of HEN and a female version of HEN... it's very rare to do a yaoi manga and yuri manga at the same time :p

WTF??!?!!!oneoneone. I just watched ep 2 and everything was cut out, it was like watching that Mad TV skit about The Sopranos.

Yeah, it didn't work too well. I was expecting something like that, though, since the manga takes a long time to start out... If they'd do it by the manga they wouldn't get to the real point of the story until ep10 or so, and by then most viewers would have given up.

Hopefully they won't be cutting too much stuff in the future.

After watching two episodes of Gantz, I have come to the conclusion that it is a very, very disappointing anime adaptation. It could have been amazing, but as it is, it just plain sucks.

Steve , I hear it gets more interesting as the series progresses.