GANTZ Season 1 Box Set DVD Review

By sothis Published: June 14, 2006

PACKAGING AND MENU

9 / 10

I am consistently impressed with ADV’s thinpak packaging. So far, I’ve yet to see a thinpak box that isn’t a very sturdy and thick material. The GANTZ S1 box is beautifully designer and pleasing to the eye. On both the front and back "cover", there’s a black background with a greenish GANTZ sphere behind either Kei (male) or Kei (female) suited up. The characters overlap with the background for a great 3D feel. The top of each side has one of the Greenonion aliens on a red background, with Katou on one of the sides too. A bright red "GANTZ" overlaps the Kei’s. The spine has the same black background with red "GANTZ" text, with the bird alien on the top. Truly a beautiful piece of artwork, even if you aren’t a fan of the series. Along with Jing I’d say this is my favorite ADV thinpak box to date.

Each individual box has identical artwork to the original discs, which I also rated highly in the separate disc reviews. Each has a full color red/black background with a solid character on the front in a suit. The back contains a central image of GANTZ with text and descriptions located around it. My only concern is that the backs are a bit difficult to read.

Each menu has GANTZ with a pulsating background. The bright green misspelled text is quite appropriate. Also, a splash of blood signals a menu change (hilarious and also so effective).

FEATURES

0 / 10

Like all ADV thinpak releases, the cost is exchanged for a lack of features.

VIDEO

10 / 10

The video looked shockingly good on my uber LCD TV, with no noticable artifacting or other poor effects. Beautiful.

AUDIO

7 / 10

The English 5.1 sounded wonderful, and you can easily hear sounds coming out of all of the speakers, not just for special effects. The dub is good and doesn't sound scripted, though I don't know how happy I am with Kei (male) and Katou's voices. Both sound a little too high compared to their Japanese counterparts. Kei (girl) had the most offensive English voice, sounding low, graspy, and very out of place compared to the cute and innocent Japanese voice actor. Some of the other characters had voices that matched very well, though... but overall, poor choice of some voices.

The Japanese 2.0 is also great, and I loved all the voice actors. In this case I think I'd rather listen to the Japanese, if only because of the better voice actors.

CONTENT

8 / 10

Prior to watching GANTZ, there were only two anime that I had seen that made me think “SHOCK VALUE”: Elfen Lied, and Narutaru. While Narutaru excels in psychological shock value (episode 12, anyone?), Elfen Lied excels in “oh my god I can’t believe that body part just got ripped off of their body” shock value. GANTZ definitely rivals Elfen Lied with its grotesque nature, but is definitely stronger due to how nonstop the gore, violence and sexual undertones are displayed. While Elfen Lied only has sections dedicated to brutal violence, GANTZ is a nonstop assault on the senses with scenes of attempted rape, nudity, and an uncountable number of death scenes which often involve implosions, explosions, and involve a variety of subjects including aliens, animals, old people and children. Truly nothing is safe from the violence of GANTZ, and that definitely has to be the selling point of the series.

Story-wise, GANTZ starts out as violent as it ends up. Childhood friends Kei and Katou are waiting for a subway and see a drunken man on the tracks. Katou is the good guy and tries to save him, and Kei attempts to help, but their bravery costs them their lives. Kei’s decapitated head flying through the air is a harbinger for the violence to come. The two “awake” in a room filled with strangers and a large black sphere known as GANTZ who, unbeknownst to them, will soon send them on harrowing missions to kill strange aliens; missions which carry a notable reward, and a high chance of dying in very nasty ways. The duo is joined by a very large breasted naked woman, a dog who can’t keep its face out of her crotch, and a company of others. And thus, the violence begins.

There are really two main facets to GANTZ: the violence and the sex. While I can appreciate the gratuitous violence to some extent, I definitely couldn’t appreciate the sexual part. Then again, I’m not male. The sexual aspect of the series is also very violent in nature for the most part, and usually involves Kei (the girl) being at risk of getting raped by random people. In addition, Kei (the male) is always thinking of sexual fantasies involving Kei (the girl) and his desire to pretty much force her to have sex with him. Along with the enormously proportioned and unrealistic anime breasts, she is a completely sexual character that is always the target of violence. I guess I just don’t find anything redeeming about that whatsoever. Sex aside, the violence does what it intends; it portrays maximum shock value. Elfen Lied was cool because people randomly get ripped apart; but in GANTZ, the violence is not only brutal, but it’s very uncomfortable to watch at times. I’m down with a random person getting blown up, but not when they are pleading for their lives, or are an old feeble person or a child. As mean as the aliens might have been, I was very uncomfortable watching them plead for their lives while crying, only to have a limb chopped off or killed in general.

And that, my friends, is a perfect lead-in to what I consider to be the real and underrated selling point of the series: the character development. Somehow, the creators managed to develop all of the characters wonderfully, even if the result is an uncomfortable feeling. For the most part, all of the villains (human or alien) are turned around in the end from being evil and hating them, to feeling sorry for them. It’s hard to put a finger on how they did this. All I know is that when certain characters died – characters who I wanted to die – I felt very sorry for them and didn’t want to see it anymore (given how the death was shown, or things revealed at the final moment, etc). After the first alien battle, the next characters to be brought to the “arena” are developed prior to their deaths too, which makes you very anxious because you know some of them will not live out the next battle. Finding out about how each person died is also a strong element of the series, and makes you more empathetic. The best aspect of the character development, in my opinion, is in the times in between the battles where you learn about each character’s history and how they are affected by these new responsibilities.

Kei (the guy) is arguably one of the most hated characters in anime history, which is character development in itself. He whines and has inner dialogues nonstop where he complains about the people around him and the situations he is in. He wants to have sex with Kei (the girl) so badly that he gets irritated and angry every time she a) won’t sleep with him, and b) shows interest in the very kind and compassionate Katou, who clearly deserves the affection of the ladies much more so than the misogynistic and selfish Kei. He’s an asshole, a jerk, and a selfish excuse for a human being… and the story is told through his eyes, which makes for an interesting ride. The female Kei is pretty much what she was intended to be: a somewhat brainless sex symbol. Though the reasons behind her death are compelling, (in this season at least) she doesn’t manage to shake her useless image. Katou is notably the good guy of the series, wanting to help people survive and help them even when they probably shouldn’t be helped. Clearly he’s the character you are supposed to be drawn to, and I’d be fairly unhappy if they kill him off.

Visually GANTZ is an interesting mix of beautiful imagery and unique character designs, and 3D animation. When the characters run through the streets, it becomes 3D. This is interesting, but admittedly looks a little odd and definitely is not seamless. In general though, the colors are dark and gorgeous and the animation is pleasing. As mentioned previously I could have done without the nonstop nudity and ecchi cleavage shots, but I fully admit I’m not the target audience on that one.

I’m a big fan of GANTZ’s music. First of all, I’m a huge DNB fan and the intro is a DNB tune that I ended up loving. The music is mixed with metal, rock, opera, and other elements that make it unique and also very appropriate for the series. The Japanese voice acting is well done, though the dub was less than ideal due to a lot of the voice actors not fitting.

All in all, I was very pleased with how the first season of GANTZ played out. You get to see two battles and a whole lot of character development in between. Plenty of violence to satiate the palate, and pretty visuals on top of it. The only things I didn’t enjoy was the nonstop ecchi and also the pacing; some episodes were based solely on waiting for GANTZ to send them out to fight an alien, reminding me of the multi episode battles in popular shounen series. Extended dying scenes that rivaled the 3rd Matrix also could have been trimmed. Otherwise, I’m very happy with the first 13 episodes of this series and recommend it to watch.

OVERALL

9 / 10

Overall, this is a fantastic thinpak release with great video and content, in addition to a beautiful box. The audio could have used some work in the realm of the English voice actors, but don't let that stop you from picking this up. I loved this release, and if you like violence at all I think you will too.