Ichiro Itano Gantz (TV series)

Plot

The story revolves around a boy named Kei Kurono. He seems to be your average school student. One day, while meeting his old friend Katou Masaru, he happens to get run over by a train and dies. The next thing he knows, him and his friend are in a mysterious room with other people. There also seems to be a giant black ball in the middle of the room. It tells them that their lives belong to Gantz now and that they will have to hunt down aliens in order to survive. Along the way they make new friends and try to survive through the whole ordeal.

Audio and Visuals

The visuals in this anime are the biggest assets of the whole series. The characters are drawn well, and the bloody battles will be a delight to all fans.

The audio is okay in the series, but seemed average. The opening, "Super Shooter" was catchy in the beginning, but quickly began to annoy me more as the episodes progressed.

The English voiceovers were well done. I did enjoy the Japanese the first time around, but I did like the English cast a little better. The voice of Kei can get annoying at times, especially when he whines in his head.

Story / Character Development

The few main characters were well developed and you begin to see the stress / pressure they have to endure from their second chance at life. There are plenty of minor characters that get killed off quickly, so the change of pace is nice.

Although the story was good, they rushed the ending and ruined it for me. The ending confused me at first, and then just irritated me at how they just threw it together.

If you want a better story out of this series, I suggest you pick up the manga. It continues the story with more detail and will entertain you more.

Final Thoughts

It is definitely for mature audiences only. Quite a lot of blood / gore, nudity, and swearing make this show dark.

I would have liked a little more comic relief or anything to get your mind off of the constant battles and drama that occurred between the characters.

I loved the story and characters, but the ending made me think it is only worth watching one time around.