Gantz 2nd Stage

The anime version of Gantz is split into two seasons, and I'm reviewing the second season; Gantz - Second Stage. Check my earlier reviews as I have already reviewed the first season of Gantz and the manga version of Gantz. Gantz - Second Stage is a mixed bag since it contains one of the best missions that Gantz has to offer (the Buddha mission), but also contains a lackluster ending to the anime that makes people scratch their heads. The Buddha mission continues where the first season left off, and is highly addictive and kick-ass to watch. It contains everything I love about Gantz; the unpredictabilityof who will live; no one is truly safe in the world of Gantz even if you are a main character. The music is even more intense than the first season as you listen to heart pacing guitar licks as the characters battle against the aliens. Everything about this missions is great! Now lets talk about the filler arc. First of all the filler isn't terrible, but it wasn't necessary either. The filler arc is actually pretty good, but left off with a strange ending that most people hated, which leaves the viewer confused with many questions unanswered. A lot of people of people who watched Gantz tell me the same thing: they loved the first three missions featured in the anime but hated the last mission/ ending. *My recommendation is to watch up till episode 21 of the anime series and go straight to CHAPTER 90 in the manga; trust me on this. * The manga will provide you with the answers you didn't have in the anime and becomes even more epic.

Gantz (both first and second season) is a proof that no matter how attractive and original an idea is, it's condemned to a monumental failure if the execution is not proper. I don't know about the manga since I've never took a look on it, perhaps it is a masterpiece without any comparison, but regarding the anime, I couldn't have been more disappointed. First things first: the series tries to show a distorted and exaggeratedly negative view of society on which is based a great part of the storytelling, which consists of the saddest and poorest attempts of plot devices. Seriously, the vortex of stupidity whereinbecomes the argument is massive, and that is seen in the senseless acting of the whole cast under any circumstance. "Wow, this green monster just severed that man's head with its bare hands, I've got a gun right here but I'm not going to use it nor will I run away either, I rather grab the monster from its jacket and yell at it right on its face". That's an humoristic (yet quite literal) interpretation of one of the many stupidities that occur during the first chapters of season one. From the beginning, most of the troubles the characters get into and the subsequent deaths are the result of their apparently NULL common sense. Because of the good reviews I read previously, I kept watching Gantz hoping that nonsenses would eventually come to an end and things would get better. Boy, was I wrong, the absurdities had NO END. Secondly we have all these 'tension and suspense' scenes when you see people aiming their guns at the aliens they must defeat whilst inwardly saying stuff like "I've got to shoot, I'm going to shoot" but you can leave the chapter playing, go for a snack with a coffee, and then take your sit again only to find out the guy hasn't shot yet. This is not suspensive at all, it's just boring and stressful, I wanted to get into the show through the screen to grab the gun and shoot by myself... not at aliens, but AT HUMANS! Not only are they completely incoherent about their decisions and behavior, but also they lack of any trace of personality. All of them are characterized by basically one or two traits, and are depressing beings mostly for the sake of being depressing. No personality, no credible personal conflicts or desires, no initiative, just hollow animated figures that won't pull the freaking trigger until half the team or so is already dead. After having tolerated all this torture (and I still don't know how did I make it) to the final arch of the series, I realized that I was not going to get anything similar to a proper ending. The reward for my patience was an abrupt change of the storytelling, with some empty and pretentious tone of intellectuality and not a single issue about the plot answered. Serioysly, 20+ chapters and you won't get any close to at least a hint about what the hell is going on here, you simply don't know what the main topic of the story was supposed to be, if it ever had one. Besides the relatively detailed animation (thanks to which we can at least get a handful of well conceived action scenes), the fluency and variation in the approach angles and the intriguing of the plot, I can't say nothing in favour to Gantz and I'll never understand why so many people think so high of this show.

I think overall, the second season of Gantz was my favorite. However, I watched it without even realizing there was a second season at first (I watched all 26 episodes straight.) There wasn't really a break in between the first and second season, at least I could barely tell. If it showed in the opening song, I didn't really watch all of that. Otherwise, this is really a great series. I started watching this only a few days ago and I finished yesterday actually and I really wanted to write a review for it but I couldn't access the site for some reason. And goingto work in between watching this series only made me anxious to continue it yet again. In other words, it was good enough for me to want to go home immediately and watch. Story: The story was good. The characters may irk you but the concept of the story was great. It talks about death and sex a lot and with the topic of death, it certainly gets you thinking, well, if you care about it at all anyway. There's a lot of blood, guts, violence, and gore in this. So...if you're liable to vomiting, get sick, or something like that, then you shouldn't watch this. Otherwise, the story's good besides it's only flaw: the ending. And you all know how that goes usually. Starts out great but ends in a questionable manner. Yeah. Of course, I've heard that the manga is better. Art: I liked the art for the most part. It was good. It wasn't choppy or anything like that. However, when compared to the manga, I guess it just didn't make your stomach turn as much. A few years back, I read the first chapter of the Gantz manga. I was a lot younger but I remember it being quite graphical that I didn't like it and I put it down. But I think it was mostly because the drawings don't move like an anime in which you see the scenes for merely less than a second. Since the drawings don't move, you focus on certain images and it makes it more gory and disgusting. Anyhow, I certainly liked the art went it got further making Kei look really cool. Sound: To be truthful, I don't remember much of the sound effects they used but I'm supposing they weren't using effects that made me cringe with incompatibility. I loved the opening song by RIP SLYME. By the way, I watched the Japanese version and I though the voices were compatible. Character: This is one of those series where you really hate/dislike the character at first (at least in moral sense, some may find them amusing instead) but then later you start to really like them. Well, I'm mainly talking about Kei, the protagonist, who went through the most character development. You start to like certain characters but they soon die off making you mad or sad but they are soon replaced by new members of the Gantz team once again. The most puzzling character is Gantz, and this is also a flaw in the story which doesn't tell us what exactly is going on in the Gantz world. Enjoyment: If you can take blood, guts, violence, sex, immorality, and anything related to that then it's all good. (You might hate some things, but you'll get over it) Overall, I give a 9 because I really liked this anime. I hated the ending since it's so obscure but this certainly helped me give a shot at the manga once again.

Overview: Merry Christmas! I'm going to celebrate this cheery and wonderful day by ripping apart a shitty, old anime from 10 years ago that nobody cares about and new otaku have probably never even heard of! Why? Because I am an odd man! Today we look at huge #2! Gantz 2: the filler season. Plot and characters: 2/10 Is it possible to have a REALLY stupid plot that absolutely revels in its own absurdity, but is still entertaining and awesome? Of course it is! A few series that actually pulled this off well would be: Hellsing Ultimate, Afro Samurai, FLCL, etc. Then there is Gantz, which tries togo this route and fails hard! One problem with Gantz the anime is that it often takes itself too seriously for a series that is so poorly written and completely idiotic. What do I mean by this? I mean that this is a series about a giant 8ball with a naked man inside (never explained) which orders recently dead people to put on gimp suits and fight random monsters, for...reasons using ridiculously stupid and inefficient guns. Most of these things do get explained eventually in the manga, but this is NOT a well written series. It is supposed to be a big, dumb, action series and not a sophisticated psychological one. The manga actually understands this fact, but the anime...does not. This is especially true for the 2nd season, which abandons the manga and creates its own final arc. Gantz 2 creates a bunch of god awful filler episodes that desperately try to cram in some morals and philosophical depth to laughable effect. Gantz 2 is like a hybrid of a porno and a Michael Bay film trying to randomly stop mid-explosion or mid-orgasm to spew some freshman level existentialism. It seriously gets so bad that they couldn't think of a real ending, so the assclown writer of this series shamelessly ripped off the Cowboy Bebop ending... WHY?! If you have an absurdist plot that is supposed to be stupid, you need great characters to make up for it. The plot of Hellsing is seriously Count Dracula saving England from Nazi vampires. As amazingly stupid as that is, it works largely because Hellsing has highly likeable and amusing characters. Gantz on the other hand has 2 types of characters: bland and boring, or unlikeable assholes. That is fucking it! None of the characters are cool or badass! None of the characters inspire empathy. None of the characters are even funny! There is not a single...fucking....remotely likeable character in this piece of shit cast. Art: 3/10 The art was made by Studio Gonzo in 2004. Be prepared for HORRIBLE CGI, bad backgrounds, and repetitive character designs. This series looks like shit, which is appropriate because it is shit! Sound: 3/10 At least the corny J-rap in the beginning is charmingly stupid. I actually do find the Gantz opening amusing. Seriously, I have it on my itunes and laugh my ass off whenever it plays. Overall: 2/10 The first series of Gantz was pretty damn bad, but Gantz 2 is just absolute shit! I wouldn't even mind that the series isn't well written or thought provoking if it could actually be entertaining. Unfortunately, it is entertaining in the way that accidentally hitting your thumb with a hammer is entertaining.

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