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Gantz
Gantzvol1
Cover of the first tankōbon, released in Japan by Shueisha
GenreAction, Psychological thriller, Science fiction
Manga
Written by Hiroya Oku
Published by Template:Flagicon Shueisha
English publisher Template:Flagicon Dark Horse
Demographic Seinen
Magazine Weekly Young Jump
Original run October 2000ongoing
Volumes 23 (List of volumes)
TV anime
First Stage
Directed by Ichiro Itano
Studio Template:Flagicon Gonzo
Licensed by Template:Flagicon Template:Flagicon ADV Films
Template:Flagicon MVM Films
Template:Flagicon Template:Flagicon Madman Entertainment
Network Template:Flagicon Fuji Television
Original run 12 April 200426 June 2004
Episodes 13 (List of episodes)
TV anime
Second Stage
Directed by Ichiro Itano
Studio Template:Flagicon Gonzo
Licensed by Template:Flagicon Template:Flagicon ADV Films
Template:Flagicon MVM Films
Template:Flagicon Template:Flagicon Madman Entertainment
Network Template:Flagicon AT-X
Original run 26 August 200418 November 2004
Episodes 13 (List of episodes)
Anime and Manga Portal

Gantz (ガンツ Gantsu?) is a Japanese manga and anime series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku. Gantz tells the story of a teenager named Kei Kurono who dies in a train accident and becomes part of a semi-posthumous "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.

The Gantz anime, directed by Ichiro Itano and animated by Gonzo, ran for 13 episodes and had a direct sequel called Gantz: Second Stage, which continued the series for another 13 episodes. Both seasons make up the 26 episode series. It was licensed in North America by ADV Films. The anime series is distributed in the United Kingdom by MVM Films, and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. Dark Horse Comics started releasing the manga in English in June 2008.

Plot

A pair of high school students, Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, are seemingly run over by a subway train, after saving the life of a homeless drunk who had fallen onto the tracks. Following their untimely deaths, Kei and Masaru find themselves transported—alive and well—along with a number of people who have also just died, to the interior of an unfurnished Tokyo condominium from which the Tokyo Tower may be seen—and none of them are able to leave. At one end of the room is a featureless black sphere known as "Gantz". By way of green text that appears on the surface of the sphere, Gantz informs those present that their lives have ended. The following words appear on the black sphere's surface: "Your lives have ended. What you do with your new lives is entirely up to me. That's the theory, anyway." (The ADV translations have it as "Your lives are over, you bastards. What you do with your new lives is entirely up to me. So there you have it.")

Without explaining anything to them, the Gantz sphere opens up to reveal a bald man on life support in the center, and three racks that offer various items for them to use. Information on the Gantz Targets appear on the surface of the sphere, shortly before the Gantz Team are transported to the location of the mission.

The series consistently introduces new characters. Most of them are killed off almost as quickly as they appear, though at times a stable cast of veterans forms.

The hunters can not return from their mission until all enemies have been killed. They are then issued out points and allowed to leave, only to be summoned back whenever Gantz needs them for the next mission. They are given points for everything they kill. Those who manage to accumulate 100 points are presented with the 100 point menu which list three choices:

  1. You will be freed along with your memories erased
  2. You will be given an extremely powerful weapon
  3. You will be able to revive a human being from the memory

Equipment

Gantz gives out individual suits for each person there, giving them great strength, speed, jumping ability, and protection from harm. There are also three types of guns at the start, the controller, and a room with swords and two vehicles. Additional weapons and items are gained from the hundred point menu.

Characters

Gantz Kato Kurono

Masaru Kato (at left) and Kei Kurono (at right) meet again at the subway station

The characters in Gantz change fairly often due to the nature of the plot premise. However, some characters are featured with greater frequency than others. The story appears to center around the relationship between Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, two highschool boys who had been childhood friends, but had lost contact over the years.

As the story begins they meet again coincidentally at a subway station, just before an event that draws both of them into the world of Gantz. As the story goes on, they meet, befriend, and interact with a variety of other Hunters who are drawn into the "game" via untimely deaths similar to those that brought Masaru and Kei to Gantz. While many of the characters have very short parts in in the story, and tend to represent stereotypes one might encounter in Japan, others have longer involvement and thus deeper character development. Allies, adversaries, and others who are simply confused make up the backdrop of an ever changing cast in the story. Of note are the love interests that test Kei's resolve to survive from mission to mission.

The one constant in the series is the enigmatic Gantz character himself, an individual who appears to be in some sort of artificial stasis inside the black sphere and communicates either via broadcasting his voice or images and messages displayed on the sphere's surface. Currently, this character's origins and motivations are still unclear, but it is evident he possesses a great deal of power and control over the destinies of his chosen Hunters.

Before each mission, Gantz provides the Hunters with brief information regarding their next target. This includes an image of the alien, as well as its physical characteristics, likes and dislikes, and a favorite saying. Often, Gantz gives only vague or incomplete target information for reasons that he chooses not to share, leaving the Hunters to discover on their own what is necessary to complete each mission. While in the anime version, there are four targets, including a "Kurono alien" (based on the manga's Buddhist Temple mission), at present, there have been nine different types of alien targets in the manga.:

Aspects of the missions

Gantz brings over the hunters whenever he decides to have a mission. He provides them with equipment, shows them a picture of one of their enemies, and then sends them out with a time limit. Each participant has a miniature explosive implanted in their brains that prevents them from wandering outside the designated area. If Gantz find them telling people about him, or otherwise bringing unwanted attention towards him, he may decide to make theirs heads explode without warning, or give them a warning buzz first. The designated area for missions is roughly one square kilometer, although it can be shrunk as in the Osaka mission to prevent the hunters from simply avoiding all enemies. If the participants cross this boundary they will hearing a ringing in their heads, and if they continue to move in the wrong direction, the explosive will detonate.

If any of the hunters manage to survive the mission, they return to the room in perfect health (even if they were nearly dead or missing limbs). Those who are killed during the mission do not return to the room. Gantz then tallies individual scores based on kills and then allows them to leave the apartment, he bringing them back when its time for another mission. Points are awarded according to the number of aliens eliminated by the player. It has not yet been proven whether the number of points earned is affected by the equipment used.

Those who manage to accumulate 100 points are presented with the 100 point menu which list three choices:

  1. You will be freed along with your memories erased
  2. You will be given an extremely powerful weapon
  3. You will be able to revive a human being from the memory

In the event that the one-hour mission duration is reached without all targets being eliminated, all of a player's points are revoked, and his or her score goes back to zero (as happened to Kurono in the Chibi Seijin mission).

During one mission, Gantz informs Kurono that if he does not achieve 15 points in that mission, he will be killed. Kurono is then sent in alone, instead of with new people as Gantz has consistently done before in other missions. The only reason for this seems to be because Kurono upset Gantz after the previous mission, by pointing a gun at him and threatening him if he did not bring back his friends.

It has been shown that one can slowly remember aspects or memories from the game: Izumi slowly remembered his time as a member of Gantz's team and eventually got himself back into the game, and Kei also remembered that he was the leader of the team for a while when the vampires attacked him at his house.

None of the rules are actually explicitly given to the hunters, with the exception of the 100 point menu, which is either given automatically when a player reaches or exceeds 100 points, or is requested by a player, and the 15-point requirement given to Kurono at the start of the Kappe Seijin mission. In every other case, players learn of their rewards and penalties only after they have been earned.

The hunters sometimes feel an old chill during the day of a mission, letting them know in advance there will be a mission that day. At other times, they are apparently given no warning at all, or don't notice it.

Instead of being given any training or a list of rules, the participants are simply told to kill their target, and are only shown one or two enemy profiles, which often does not fully represent the ability of their opponents. They are not given much useful information on their enemies' capabilities or weaknesses, or the number of enemies to expect. Unfortunately for the players, the rules of the game (as well as the capabilities of the suits, the use of the weapons, and the scoring system) are learned by one of two ways: either by institutional memory (i.e. a veteran explaining to a newcomer how the game works), or by trial and error, the latter usually resulting in the death of one or more players. In the days before the beginning of the series when Nishi was the only surviving veteran, the newcomers were forced to rely solely on trial and error; the result—as Nishi indicated following the Negi Seijin mission—was that Kurono, Kato, and Kishimoto were the only other people to survive to the end of a single mission in "a long time."

The end result is that the newcomers are entirely dependent on the goodwill of the veterans for crucial information that may be their only hope of survival; in the hypothetical event that the entire complement of veterans is wiped out, any future group of newcomers would be utterly at the mercy of their circumstances; their only hope of survival would be their own guile, cunning, and the ability to quickly figure out and utilize the tools provided.

Media

Manga

Written by Hiroya Oku, the manga chapters have been published in the Japanese-language magazine Weekly Young Jump since 2000 and is still ongoing; the individual chapters of the series are being released approximately every fifteen days.[1] Gantz is divided into two main story arcs referred to as phases. After the completion of Phase 1 the author put the series on hiatus for a short time to work on the second Phase. Phase 1 consists of the first 237 chapters. On November 22, 2006, the first chapter of Phase 2, chapter 238, was released.[2][3] The individual chapters are collected by Shueisha in collected volumes; the first volume was released on December 11, 2000. To date twenty-four volumes have been released in all.

Publishing company Dark Horse Comics currently has licensing rights for the release of English translations of Gantz.[4] The first volume was released on June 25, 2008. The series is also published in Spain by Glénat and Germany, Italy and Brazil by Planet Manga.[1]

Anime

Template:Seealso The Gantz anime is divided into two seasons: The first season is known as "The First Stage", while the second season is known as "The Second Stage", which is a direct continuation of the first season. The anime has been licensed in the United States of America by ADV Films.

Video game

On March 17, 2005, Konami published a game for the PlayStation 2 based on the Gantz series. It was named simply as Gantz: The Game. It features the characters and plot up to the Buddha Alien mission (though the vampires and the Shorty Aliens are present). The game may be classified as a third-person shooter, although it does have a little RPG elements put together. More information can be found on the game's website. The game also includes extras including Free Play mode, a Mini Mode, Magazine Browser mode, Gantz Rankings, a special preview movie and the scenario completion statistic.

Reception

The first season, known as the "First Stage", was heavily edited on Japanese TV, but the second season ("Second Stage") remained uncut. The Gantz anime is often criticized for its ending and pacing problems. The anime was made while the manga was still in early production, and thus Gonzo had to produce episodes at an irregular pace, and end the series in a manner a number of fans found unsatisfying—a common occurrence when an anime is made from a manga that has not finished its run.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Gantz (manga) - Anime News Network". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  2. <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Gantz Returns! Gantz: 2nd Phase". comipress.com. 2006-11-22. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  3. <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Gantz 2nd Phase to Begin Serialization This November". comipress.com. 2006-07-19. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
  4. <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Dark Horse Licenses Gantz, Blood+, More". Anime News Network. 2007-07-01. Retrieved 2008-10-21.

External links

fr:Gantz ko:간츠 it:Gantz ms:Gantz ja:GANTZ pt:Gantz sq:Gantz th:กันสึ zh:殺戮都市

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