Hiroya Oku

I read the first dozen or so volumes of Gantz well over a decade ago, but had to stop buying manga and comic books for financial reasons, so I never got to see how it ended. I was very happy to see that my local library has stocked up on the omnibus compilations of the entire series, and now I have a shelf here at home full of the big darn bricks. I figured I would skip the opening volumes, and just jump back in, but having read this one, I've decided to backtrack and get fully immersed in the story again.

Gantz is a pretty messed up sci-fi action thriller with all sorts of problematic issues. In addition to the nude female cheesecake portraits that serve as chapter breaks, this volume goes all in on suicide, blackface, and active shooter mass murder. Not for the faint of heart, but a pretty wild ride for those ready to saddle up for, say, some all-out dinosaur battles and buckets of gore from exploding heads.… (mer)

I am reviewing the Panini Mexico 2017 edition of this manga.

As always, Panini delivers a fantastic translation that is well worth the steep 80 MXN pricetag. The Tokyo Gantz team defeated the terrifying aliens in Osaka and saved the scant final survivors of the impressive Osaka team. Kurono has regained his memories and asked his comrades to revive the most unexpected person in the world (much to my glee): the psychotic 14 year old student named Joichiro Nishi.

The newcommers ponder why Kei Kurono wanted to save Nishi instead of Sakura's mentor (who explicitly told everyone he didn't want to be revived in a prior volume to begin with), but Kei knows that Nishi who earned his 100 points to gain the powerful Z gun by doublecrossing the good guys for the thrill of the kill knows some of Gantz's deepest held secrets. Nishi as always proves to everyone why he's one step ahead of everyone else and confesses that he hacked into the internet and unlocked a chronometer in the Gantz Ball that proves that the world is going to end in just 1 more week.

Nobody knows what is going to happen and each character tries to spend their last few days of freedom with feelings of sorrow. Masaru hugs his little brother, the karate guy freak and his adoptive son decide to move into the elderly guy's home, Inaba feels like a complete loser and asks Reika to date him (and then epicly fails when she opens the car door open and runs off to Kei's apartmentm, ouch!) and finally Kei after being harassed by classmates at his school and punched in the face in the street by a former bully that is dating a girl he once had a crush during junior high goes on a date with the sappy Tae-chan.

Now, I think Kei can do much better. Reika is better than Tae in every way and she is a fellow member of the Tokyo team meaning she won't feel annoyed when he vanishes without notice during a mission (don't forget a Gantz member cannot reveal the secrets to the missions or else the bomb in their heads will blow up). She's kind, friendly, decent and all-around a good and brave person. Tae-chan is indeed sweet and kind, but she's a damsel-in-distress archetype with the ugliest round ears ever. I've already read the finale of this manga so I know her fate which always iggered me.

The character development parts of this volume are kinda so/so, Kei spends half of his time whining about how much he loves Tae Kojima, it gets old after a while. Nishi steals the show however when he finally shows up to class after a 6 month absence and takes revenge on his classroom bullies to the next level (he's such an awful person but I can't help rooting for him).

I personally enjoyed the side story of the reporter that is investigating Gantz and enters contact with a German anime otaku that agrees to take him to a secret factory in Berlin that could be pivotal to knowing where Gantz began in the first place...

All in all, I really love this manga and the artwork like always is great. However when you are so used to a fast plot, this volume is rather slow and seems to drag on a bit too much.… (mer)