Gantz (ガンツ Gantsu?) 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 are often dangerous. A very low number of people survive each mission but are replaced by others who have recently died.
Plot
The story begins with a pair of high school students (Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato) who are run over by a subway train after saving the life of a homeless drunk who had fallen onto the tracks. Following their untimely deaths, they find themselves transported — alive and well — to the interior of an unfurnished Tokyo condominium, where they cannot get out, from which the Tokyo Tower may be seen, with a number of people who have also just died. At one end of the room is a featureless black sphere we later learn is called "Gantz". After a short amount of time, postwar Japanese exercise radio begins to play from the sphere. 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." This translation makes Gantz seem a bit more controlling.) The sphere then opens up to reveal suits that amplify strength, speed, and have various powers. Along with the suits are various high-tech weapons with different uses for different situations. Next, 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.
Much is still left unknown about the room. It appears to be isolated from the rest of the world through a dimensional barrier. Its door will only open under the condition that the mission is completed. According to the manga, there are reports of similar rooms in Germany, United States and Israel. The appearance of another Japanese team set in Osaka indicate that there is more than one of these in Japan.
In addition to the weapons, suits, and scanners, Gantz holds what appears to be a muscle-bound bald man on life support in the center of the ball. The true identity and purpose of this man is never revealed; but there has been no small amount of implication that he is in some way responsible for the running of the game, selecting players, scoring the individual players' performance, and monitoring the team both during missions and during the 'off hours' in between.
The Rules of the Game
Gantz forces them to participate in what at first appears to be a reality game show, in which they hunt aliens who are secretly living in Japan. GANTZ provides them with strength enhancing-skinsuits, guns, and radar. Each participant has a miniature explosive implanted in their brains that prevents them from wandering outside the designated playing area. The designated area is roughly one square kilometer; if the participants cross this boundary or tell anyone of the secrets of Gantz and the apartment, the explosive will detonate. Curiously, it appears that this trigger only works when the player speaks verbally to someone about it, as Nishi developed a web site with written reports of his missions and apparently no harm was done to him because of it.
If the players manage to survive the mission, they return to the room in perfect health (even if they were nearly dead or missing limbs). An interesting note is that when a player is injured in the game and returns to the room afterwards, he/she will have no memory of what happened after his/her injury and will be standing in the pose he/she was last healthy in. This leads to suspect that Gantz "copies" an entire individual and later "pastes" that into the room rather than restoring an injured individual. Also of note is that it seems that later in the manga, this copy and paste method is replaced by the characters remembering their own injuries. Those who are killed during the mission do not return to the room. Gantz then tallies individual scores based on kills and sets them free, only to have them return to play another time. Points are awarded both according to the number of kills achieved by the player and by the equipment used by the player. On two occasions, Kei Kurono is forced to fight without his Gantz Suit. On both such occasions, he earned a large number of points, causing some to assert that kills made while suit-less are worth more points.[citation needed] In the anime series this is not true, as many people have pointed out, this was because even though Kurono did not use his suit to fight the Tanaka aliens, he still received the same amount of points as he would if he had used his suit, and other argue that even the manga does not show this (He receives 38 points, 35 coming from the six aliens killed when the building crumbled and the Boss he killed, and 3 coming from the alien he teleported when Kato got hold of that alien). Some also believe that the live capture of an alien is worth the same as a kill, although there it has been implied in both the manga and the anime that the point reward for a capture is worth less.[citation needed]
Those who manage to accumulate 100 points are given one of three choices:
- Be set free with their memories of Gantz and the games wiped.
- Receive an "ultimate weapon" (Izumi selected this option but was killed by the vampires before receiving the weapon).
- Be able to bring back to life someone from GANTZ's memory bank.
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). Prior to this the players had assumed that failing to complete the mission in the time allotted would result in the immediate death of the entire team. The following mission, Kurono was informed by Gantz (who addressed him by name) that if he did not achieve 15 points in the current mission that he would be killed.
It is not known for sure if this 15 point requirement is a hard and fast rule, since some missions do not appear to have 15 total available points to be earned, but it seems pretty clear that this was a penalty imposed by Gantz for Kurono's failure the previous round.
Perhaps the most important thing to note about the rules of Gantz's deadly game is that none of the rules are actually explicitly given to the players, 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 the players have learned of their rewards and penalties only after they have been earned.
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 are often not representative of the full complement or ability of their opponents. They are not given any 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 compliment 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.
Gantz sometimes gives hints to the hunters about what they should do, but it rarely happens.
Development
The series introduces new characters constantly and most of them are killed off just as quickly, though a stable cast forms at times. As the series progresses, the viewers are left to ponder what Gantz is and how it is able to provide the characters with such fantastic weaponry and technology. This, along with many other questions (such as who the aliens are or even if they are evil period - after all, the aliens never seemed to actually cause harm to anyone or anything until Gantz sent people to exterminate them) remain unanswered.
Later in the manga, most of Gantz's participants have obtained over 100 points and many used their points to revive various fallen persons, like Tae Kojima and Masaru Kato. Kei Kurono, however, was convinced by his comrades and Kato to use his points to set himself free and had his memory erased. Kurono then returned to his former self before he met Gantz, without any memory at all of his life during the months he was participating in the Gantz game. Ironically, however, Kurono stumbles upon various clues of his past life (like Izumi did previously before coming to Gantz a second time) such as photographs of him and Tae and rumors of him going out with Reika. These forgotten memories begin to haunt him immediately after his return.
It is later confirmed in the manga that Gantz teams of other nationalities exist in the world. It is stated in Issue 229 in a dialogue between Izumi and Nishi when the latter asks if they should leave it to the other countries, with Izumi answering that he wants to show the world Japan's greatness. There also may be a central sphere located in Germany, but nearly all information regarding it is still in speculation.
Characters
Kei Kurono
The story's protagonist, and 10th grader. He was summoned by Gantz, along with Kato, after being hit by a subway train in an effort to help a hobo who had passed out on the tracks. In the beginning, he is a rather selfish character who often ends up being the reluctant hero. At one point, Kurono actually enjoyed the brutal missions since he had a chance to prove his mettle and to use the powers Gantz's technology grants him to decimate his foes, and to receive the admiration of his team members, such as Sei or Kishimoto. In the manga, Kurono is eventually regarded as a hero by the other players who look up to him. Kurono himself looks up to Kato after his death (ironically, Kato looked up to him when they were kids). Gantz initially referred to Kurono as "Bitch" and "Loser," though settled on "Kurono" as the series progressed. Recently, Kei left the game at the urging of his teammates. However, Kurono has begun to remember his old life through pictures in his apartment and has also rekindled his relationship with his former girlfriend Tae Kojima, whom he forgot about because of his memory wipe. A meeting with a tabloid journalist has also stirred up more Gantz-related memories. Later on, he recovers some of his lost memories of the Gantz "fighting time" after being attacked by a group of vampires in his place. He fought bravely, nearly wiping out all of them, but was killed by the same vampire who showed him his dead brother's head. Kei Kurono is dead as of the end of Phase 1.
Masaru "Kato-Cha" Kato
(加藤 勝 Katō Masaru) An old friend of Kurono. He is a noble and heroic person having been inspired by the Kei-chan he knew as a boy. At school, he acts as a guardian to the weaker students who often find themselves bullied. He was summoned by Gantz, along with Kurono, after being hit by a subway train, as a result of helping a drunken hobo who had blacked out on the tracks. Kato and his little brother lived with their aunt, but continued abuse towards his little brother and a stressed family situation later caused Kato to obtain an apartment for the two of them. He was later revived by the 'Old Man'. Frequently, Gantz addresses him as "Katou-cha", after the Japanese comedian, Katoucha.
At the end of chapter 237, in the preview for Phase 2, Katou has stated that he will revive Kurono from his recent death at the hands of the vampires. He and the rest of the team have somehow ended up in Osaka, and not Tokyo. They have recently met up with the Osaka Gantz team. Katou continues to act as leader, despite the team having decided on making Reika leader.
Sei Sakuraoka
(楼丘 聖 Sakuraoka Sei） Sei is proficient in martial arts and bears a striking resemblance to Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. After having sex with Kurono, she died in her first mission (Buddha Mission) while trying to save his life. Because Sei was the first person Kei ever had sex with, and because Sei had a strong attachment to Kurono (asking him to be her boyfriend, among other things), as well as dying to save Kurono's life, Kurono holds a strong attachment to Sei. As of the end of Phase 1, she has not been revived.
"Kurono's #1 Fan" Reika
(レイカ) A beautiful, young and popular idol. Like almost everyone else, she was caught in the line of fire during Izumi's killing spree in Shinjuku. She develops a crush on Kurono after seeing him in action during her first night as a participant in the game (the Dinosaur Mission). Gantz used to call her "Kurono's #1 Fan," but now he just calls her "Reika." Surprisingly enough, she proves to be a formidable opponent against the Aliens. She uses her points to resurrect Tae because she wants Kurono to be happy. It is not until Kurono chooses to be free that she confesses to him that she loves him. After Kurono departed from the game, she was appointed the new team leader of Gantz. She received a phone call from Kurono just before he was attacked by the vampires, but did not arrive in time to save his life; she even tried to hold on to Kurono's body in order to be transferred with him in the hope of reviving him. However, this was stopped by one of the vampires who used her body to transfer to the Gantz room instead.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantz#Anime
My inspiration: The Gantz contain a strange story line with lots of blood and violent. However, the story line of this anime-manga series is very exciting and attractive. In my opinion, the manga series has a more interesting story line than the anime series since the manga series develop deeper in to story as well as the characteristic of each character. The story does not tell the story of hero but it only reflex the bad side of our society with many terrible action between people and people; the story also reflex the strength of individual when they in the verge of death.
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