GANTZ?

Gantz is a manga and anime series written 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 in which they take place are often dangerous, and very few members of the team survive; they are replaced by others who have recently died.

I’ve been watching this for awhile now. I found it while looking over a PSP forum that deals in homebrew and emulators. They had the entire series uploaded so i thought i would wet my beak a little.

I actually found this anime quite interesting. I mean, beyond the fact that the hero is a sex starved perv and that it takes at least 18 episodes for anyone to accept their situation and do something about it i still found it quite an entertaining ride. Still, i guess most of the entertainment is purely down to intrigue. I never thought i would watch it again after episode one but i’m still going strong fresh off episode 19.

Although it has been quite an interesting series i’m glad it’s nearly over. At this point the characters are becoming annoying, the story is losing it’s original intrigue factor and the battles are becoming less important due to the fact of being drawn out way too long.

On top of that the pacing is terrible. Some episodes will consist of only a few scenes which sometimes leaves me feeling cheated. Of course, hoe can i really be cheated as I’m the one downloading it?. :-*

Gantz does raise some questions though. Beyond it’s ultra-violence lies a few important questions about our society, human survival and the ability to be desensitized to violence. However, i guess i might check out the original manga or better yet get back into Now and Then, Here and There!.

Anyone else catch this anime?

Yes I did watch a few episodes. But I eventually dropped it. Imo it had very much potential. It was very graphic, violent and and full of perversions. And it all took place in a cold and apathetic society. I loved the whole feeling of not knowing what’s going on when Kurono appeared in the room with Gantz for the first time. And I enjoyed the constant cynical undertone.

But then, well, it just went bad. Like you said, the pacing is absolutely HORRIBLE. And the indecisiveness of some characters is just aargh. Eventually you reach a point when all the violence & gore can’t make up for all the thinks the anime was lacking. I wasn’t impressed by the animation either.

It was a typical anime that had an amazing start but after that went downhill. Ahh well, too bad

I completely agree. So much potential, yet so little done! Most of the episodes were like DBZ, where characters simply look at each other and we hear their inner thoughts: "Why doesn’t he do something?" or "How is he still alive?"

The series wasted too much time, and didn’t go nearly as far as it could’ve with the whole "you die and you end up playing the game" idea. The last few episodes, especially, felt rather rushed (and there’s that tribute to Cowboy Bebop at the end, for whatever reason).

Maybe I’ll start reading the manga. I hear that’s much better..

Yeah, i just finished off Gantz last night and the ending felt very rushed. Although, because the fact that the manga is still being made i can’t really blame the creators of the show for not giving us a definitive end.

Also, I’m definitely going to look into getting some of the original manga too. Like you said, it’s meant to be much better.