[Manga] Gantz: The Manga

GANTZ: THE MANGA

During the last few days, I’ve been absolutely completely hooked on the “Gantz Manga”. I learned about it from another forum and after reading a few reviews, I can see what makes it so addicting. As a matter of fact, I just finished reading up to chapter 226.

This thread is to discuss the Gantz manga. Discussions of the anime will not be the focus, however if you do feel that you need to make comparisons and the like between the anime and the manga, please try to keep it focused on this series. I have not seen the anime yet, but from what I’ve heard, it’s quite lacking compared to the manga.

You may find translated scans here. You must register first, but membership is free. As of now, March 3, 2006, the series is up to chapter 226.

As always, please use spoiler tags whenever appropriate (ie. [ spoil ] ZOMG GANTZ [/spoil ] without the spaces), as this story contains plenty of surprises and plot twists and the like.

THE CREDITS/INFO:

Authored by Hiroya Oku
Publisher: Shueisha, Editions Tonkam, Planet Manga
Serialized in Weekly Young Jump
Original run 2001 – ongoing
No. of volumes 18 (26 pending)
Genre: Action, Horror, Paranormal, Suspense

Source: Wikipedia

THE STORY:

Gantz tells the story about a young boy named Kei Kurono who dies in a train accident and becomes part of a semi-posthumous "game" in which he, and several other people who have recently died have to hunt down and kill aliens (Wikipedia).

While this may sound boring and somewhat clichequed at first (and does borrow a few elements from Battle Royale), it does a surprisingly good job of connecting the reader with the cast. It’s interseting as it makes the reader involved with the lives of certain individuals and perhaps “care” for them. Some of the minor characters are quite expedible and end up dying quick brutal deaths. What’s also intriguing is that there are certain characters which end up in certain situations which you wouldn’t have anticipated.

I'm not much of a big manga reader myself, and after being somewhat bored to death with generic anime series and the likes, I gave Gantz a shot, and damn, I'm happy I did. You will too!


THE CAST:

GANTZ — A large black sphere in the apartment that controls the lives of those who get involved with his game. Inside GANTZ are weapons and personalized skin suits that grant increased strength and reflexes to those "recruited" by GANTZ. The rather peculiar, comatose and bald man positioned inside the black sphere may or may not be GANTZ's true form. GANTZ is an enigma and while more about GANTZ's rules are revealed as the series goes on, GANTZ himself (or itself) remains a mystery.

Kei Kurono (玄野 計 Kurono Kei) — The central protagonist. 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 some points, Kurono actually enjoys the brutal missions since he has a chance to prove his mettle and to use the powers GANTZ's technology grants him to decimate his foes. In the manga, Kurono is eventually regarded as a hero by the other players, who look up to him.

Masaru Kato (加藤 勝 Katō Masaru) — An old friend of Kurono. He calls calls Kurono "Kei-chan". 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 pathetic drunken hobo who had blacked out on the tracks. Kato and his little brother live with their uncaring aunt.

Kei Kishimoto (岸本 恵 Kishimoto Kei) — First appears naked in the Apartment as her death involved her slitting her wrists while in a bathtub. Kurono has a deep crush on her, but she herself has a crush on Masaru Kato,

Joichiro Nishi (西 丈一郎 Nishi Jōichirō) — Nishi is a veteran of the GANTZ world, having arrived there a year ago. Supposedly, he committed suicide and leapt off the side of a building. Much like how Kuruno started out, he is also selfish and believes in every man for himself.

Shion Izumi (和泉 紫音 Izumi Shion) — A psychotic, yet powerful teenager. He could easily be seen as Kei Kurono's "unfeeling" and arrogant antagonist whose only ambition is to live his life striving to be the best Gantzer and may evidently take [innocent] lives, whom stand in his way, to make it happen. GANTZ refers to him as simply "Izumi".

Tae Kojima (小島 多恵 Kojima Tae) — Kurono's first actual girlfriend. A "plain-looking" girl, who Kurono initially starts dating because of a dare. But he actually falls in love with her.

Reika (レイカ) — A beautifully young and popular idol. She develops a crush on Kurono after seeing him in action during her first night as a participant in the Game. 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 foes (possibly on par with Kurono and Izumi).

Daizaemon Kaze (風 大左衛門 Kaze Daizaemon) — A tall and powerful man, with a solid physique, looking for a good fight in Tokyo. Gantz calls him "Countryside General", and later on "Muscle Rider (Not Really)".

Source: Wikipedia, edited for spoilers.

THE SOURCE:

You may find translated scans here. You must register first, but membership is free. As of now, March 3, 2006, the series is up to chapter 226.

Jazz has posted a few more links:

Originally Posted by Jazz Flight

http://shocwave.caticus.com/index.html -- Shocwave's page. He's translated the bulk of Gantz.

http://www.bur.st/~loserbait/index.htm -- Has from 143-221 on direct download if you need it.

What are your thoughts and comments for the Gantz manga series?

Most amazing jew boots

I've tried looking around for batches, but unfortunately to no avail, it looks like the server restricts the downloads to only two chapters simultaneously. What's even worse is that it takes generally 8 to 20 minutes to download a 4 MB chapter. What kept me back logged with this was the download speed, honestly. If I were to give a ratio of downloading time vs reading time, it'd be close to 10 minutes of downloading to 1 minute of reading. It's sad, but heh, the price is right.

Originally Posted by Jazz Flight

Best manga I've ever read. It's just a shame that it comes out so sparingly, the author keeps taking weeks off and each issue only covers a small amount of time. Love the twists and turns and never knowing if a main character is going to be killed off (although by the most latest issues, it's not as tense).

I found the fight scenes somewhat tiring when they were back to back. I'd love to see more character development between Kurono and Tae since you see many flashbacks of what they did, however it seems to skip over that. Also, I like how there's an element of the "teenage romance" of which girl Kurono is after. It seems at the moment it's still Tae, but we can't forget about the lovely short haired chick, Kei.

From what I know so far about the release, it looks like its one chapter ever week that is being released.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I still do have "feelings" for Kei, even thought she seemed pretty useless in fights and generally just ran away and hides, crazy "Tits" lol. The manga did mention about Kei that:

Spoiler:

there was another Kei out and about. I believe it was her "double" or some effect like that. I personally believe she will be brought back by someone's 100 points, most likely Kurono's. We've seen her on like 50 or even more of the opening cover pages of each chapter.
However, I doubt that the "Lora Craft" chick will be as fortunate.

And for the release dates, I got this information from another forum as I read the whole 226 chapters in 6 days, so I wouldn't have experienced how the pacing is like for the release.

As I'm caught up now with the story, I'll probably be sitting back and reading them one by one, just as much of you guys have been doing.

EDIT:

Thinking about it now with Kei:

Spoiler:

I do believe she's going to be ressurected and will probably hook up with Masaru Kota since it looks like they had some chemistry brewing together. I wouldn't be surprised if Kota used his future 100 points to resurrect her. There we go- two nice couples: Kurono with Tae/ Kota with Kei. As for Reika, I've got a feeling perhaps there might or might not be another love interest brought into the game

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

About Kurono around chapter 220ish.

Spoiler:

Yeap. I find it pretty obvious that he'll be joining back into Gantz, somehow. Perhaps when the rest of the gang aren't on any missions, they'll pursuade him to join again. Plus, I bet something will click into both their minds (Kurono's and Tae's) about the conversation they had when Tae was the target. Remember when Kurono explained to Tae about the game and she was the target? I've got a feeling that some event will trigger this memory back into both their minds again.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

A thought regarding the aliens:

Spoiler:

So far we've seen the progression of aliens which our "special forces" have fought. I've noticed that the difficulty of defeating these aliens have increased substantially since the very first Onion aliens up to the Oni aliens.

I'm wondering what type of aliens were fought prior to Kurono's coming. What sort of aliens did Joichiro Nishi (the so-called Veteran who seemed to be the only survivor from the last couple Gantz games before being killed in the Tanaka mission) have to deal with?

Perhaps Gantz adjusts the difficulty according to the one individual character with the highest experience (ie Kurono), so all the newbies that joined just recently were at a disadvantage since Kurono would be at such a high level.
However, if that were the case, then Nishi himself shouldn't have had problems with the Tanaka alien, since this particular alien would be at his skill level.

I'm not too sure if Gantz chooses aliens which "he" wants the people to defeat, or if it's a total random draw of which aliens are the next targets. One clue that Gantz chooses the targets is when Tae gets targeted for accidentally taking pictures of the game.

Also, I think Gantz randomly chooses a slim selection of people who have lost their lives in the real world to participate in the game. If Gantz were to choose every single soul that was killed in Japan/Tokyo for that matter, then imagine how many people would be stuffed into that apartment during Izumi's Shinjuku raid.

There are still a lot of questions, but one speculation I have is perhaps Gantz is the final alien. I'm not too sure, but maybe Gantz promised the group some sort of offer near the end of the series, but fails to deliver. This triggers a rebellion by Kurono and they choose to fight Gantz. I just wonder how they'd be able to transport themselves home since they would be in Gantz's world. Interesting. I guess we just have to keep reading.

I was speaking idiomatically.