Dhruv Sharma
‘Gantz’ lies on two extreme ends of the spectrum. You can either completely despise it or fall in love with it in an instant. Right off the bat, it shows no chill and litters the screen with nudity, profanity and a lot of gore. This can either be a complete turn off for someone or it can just glue your eyes onto the screen. What really stands out about ‘Gantz’ is its unique story which goes beyond the boundaries of most other typical Harem shows these days. Though the execution of this sci-fi story is a little off at times, it is good enough to keep you glued to your screen till the end. But the big problem with this anime is that its source material is just amazing and many manga fans had high expectations.
Another big issue with the anime is how it ends with each season. For an anime that portrays gore, bloodshed and fast-paced action from the beginning, the ending seems to be somewhat dull. There are also a lot of unanswered questions at the end of both season 1 and 2, which clearly shows that there was room for many more episodes. Its lack of character development and straight off brutality is enough to make a lot of viewers turn to a different direction. But if watching bizarre shows is your thing, then I don’t see a reason why you would not enjoy this. Strangely, it’s hard to even “enjoy” it in its typical sense. It’s just that all of its weirdness somehow makes you stick to it even though you may not like too many things about it. So let’s just put it this way: ‘Gantz’ is not the kind of anime you watch every day, so it certainly deserves a shot.
Gantz Season 3 Release Date: When will it premiere?
‘Gantz’ Season 1 premiered on April 13, 2004 and went on till June 22, 2004. During this span, it aired a total of 13 episodes with each one of them being 22 minutes. This was then followed by a season 2 that released on April 26, 2004 and came to an end on November 18, 2004. This season again has a total of 13 episodes and each one of them is about 23 minutes long. On October 14, 2016, a movie adaptation of a side story titled ‘Gantz:O’ was released and since then, we haven’t heard much about this anime.
The anime has not entirely adapted all of the manga and there is enough left for one whole season. But the big problem here is that the show was not well received by most manga readers. The sole reason why the anime is still a little popular is that its manga is phenomenal. But the anime just fails to live up to the standards set by it.
Getting back to ‘Gantz:O’, the movie received much better ratings on most platforms and even from a lot of manga readers. While the possibilities of getting a season 3 of the main series seem to be less, we might get a whole new season-based sequel of ‘Gantz:O’. As of now, this is more or less of speculation, but if we get any updates regarding ‘Gantz’ Season 3 release date, we’ll make sure that we update it here in this section. Till then, you can always watch other similar anime that are more or less as enjoyable as ‘Gantz’.
Gantz English Dub:
The English Dub of ‘Gantz’ is available on Funimation but if you’re more into watching subtitled anime, you can find a pretty good version of that as well on the same streaming platform.
Gantz Plot:
Two high-school students named Kei Kurono and Masaru seem to be having a normal day when suddenly, they come across a drunk homeless man on the tracks of a subway station. Knowing that he is in no state to save himself from an emerging train, the boys try to help the man and end up getting killed by the train instead. The common belief is that life comes to an end after one dies but the boys soon discover that this does not hold true for them. After dying, they find themselves in an unfurnished apartment along with a few others like them. There is also a giant black orb in the room called the “Gantz”.
The giant orb soon opens up and reveals a man who presents them certain weapons that they can later use. Then, the orb suddenly gleams with green letters on it claiming that the lives of everyone in the room now belongs to it. It assigns assassination missions to all those present in the room and promises that they will all be rewarded later. The target of these assassinations is aliens living on Earth, who take all kinds of weird forms. Invisible to normal humans, the dead are sent to their Gantz arena and can only return when they’ve killed all aliens.
The ones who survive these missions are awarded a certain number of points based on how many aliens they’ve killed. Upon reaching 100 points, a “hundred point menu” appears that gives them three choices. The first choice allows them to go back to living their normal lives with no memory of Gantz. The second one gives the opportunity to claim a very unique and powerful weapon. And the final choice allows them to bring back the people who lost their lives on the battlefield. Life is one hell of a gamble in Gantz and only the wise and the strong-willed will be able to survive till the end.
Warning: ‘Gantz’ has an extremely graphic and violent portrayal of greed, violence and other evils that are prevalent in the society. If you are sensitive towards gore, then you might find the anime’s representation of rape and murder extremely offensive and disturbing. So watch this one at your own risk.
Gantz Characters:
Masaru Katou
Masaru, who is known for his altruism and gentle nature, is part of the Gantz team. He is really tall and has long shiny black hair. He hates the idea of conflict and is always willing to find a way to end the game without killing any of the aliens. He also wants to make sure that everyone on the team gets out alive and it really disheartens him when he realizes that it’s not possible. But despite being a pacifist, he can get really violent when he gets triggered and when angry, he completely shuts his brain off and fights.
Kei Kishimoto
Kishimoto is another member of the Tokyo Gantz who tries to commit suicide but survives and ends up creating two versions of herself. She is a beautiful young girl who has short brown hair with big brown eyes and she is also very curvy for a 15-year-old. In the real world, her mother puts a lot of stress on her and forces to study harder to get better grades. But all of this stress really breaks her down and she reaches a point where she decides to kill herself. She slits her wrists in the shower and is later admitted to the hospital in a very critical state. Gantz assumes that she is dead and creates a copy of her in the Tokyo Room. But in her real state, she actually manages to survive and lives a normal life after fully recovering. She is a very kind-hearted girl who is a little naive about boys. She later falls in love with Kato but fails to make him feel the same.
Kei Kurono
Kei Kurono is the main protagonist of the series who is the leader of the Tokyo Gantz Team. He has short brown hair, a lean body, and intense looking eyes. During the initial episodes, he acts really selfish and is hesitant of putting his own life in danger for the sake of others. But after seeing Kato’s heroism and commitment towards saving others, he feels inspired to do the same and that’s when he shows his own heroic side. As the show progresses, new and old members of the Gantz start looking up to him as a leader and as this happens, he becomes more confident about himself. He later starts taking a lot of responsibility and even tries to fight strong opponents all by himself. He fights with all of his strength and this is the only time he feels truly alive.
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