Hiroya Oku

After a false start ten years ago reading the first dozen volumes, I've finally finished Gantz, reading all 37 volumes in the thick, 12-book omnibus format. It's quite the thrill ride, with gallons of gore, loads of shocks, and a whole hell of a lot of nudity.

Alas, once the story abandons the gaming concept of the early volumes, it goes off the rails. As Speed taught us when they got off the bus and The Hunger Games confirmed when they broke out of the arena, leaving a strong initial concept behind can be a huge mistake for an action epic.

The first half of this volume devolves into hard to follow giant robot battles with aliens, has a brief talking-head interlude with some other aliens to explain the whole plot of the series, and then goes back to the first aliens for a final battle of the champions with winner-takes-all stakes.

The creator reveals in the afterword that the whole series -- and especially the ending -- is a tribute to some anime I never heard of called Invincible Super Man Zambot 3. To me it just felt like an exercise in Mary Sue storytelling with a naturally-talented protagonist who keeps leveling up in time to face ever-increasing threats. It's all fun until you get to the end, and then it all feels rather pointless.

It's still a pretty fun ride until the fizzle though.… (más)

I feel like I just got rickrolled. I started out reading Gantz, but I ended up reading Manfried the Man. Wild.

The final phase of the series brings epic destruction to the world. And as it burns, the Gantz team is basically tossing teaspoons of water at the conflagration, trying to make a difference but making little progress.

Everything is so over the top now -- especially Tae's odyssey -- that I can only laugh and go along for the ride. The roller coaster has left the rails but it's going to do some loop-de-loops and barrel rolls before it plows into the ground.… (más)

The aliens the Gantz team fights keep getting more and more powerful, so maybe its time to get off that track and start heading toward, oh, say, maybe, hmmm . . . the apocalypse?

But it wouldn't be a Gantz volume without something tasteless and triggering, so how about a school shooting to set the end-of-the-world mood?

Meanwhile a journalist is making progress in his investigation to find out the origin of the black spheres.

It's time for the final quarter of this gonzo sci-fi thriller! What ending could possibly top all that has come before?… (más)