Reviewed on June 30th, 2006

Visually

The animation's sharp detail and fine coloration are quickly put to use in graphic and bloody ways—but at least they can't shrug it off as a same-old same-old show. Instead, it's a peculiarly graphic but quickly intriguing series that doesn't inspire a lot of sympathy for its cruel or rude or helpless protagonists.

Audio

Audio-wise Gantz isn't to bad. The dubbings are quite bearable. But if your a serious anime fan then it's best you watch it with subs which might improve your experience of the show. Either way the audio of this show is superb. Make no mistake though that this is an adult movie cause it contains nudity and profanity.

Storyline

Antisocial 10th-grader Kei Kurono holds the entire world in contempt. When he isn't indulging sexual fantasies about his female classmates, he's judging everyone around him as worthless and shallow. Then he runs into an old elementary-school playmate, Masuru Kato. He instantly dismisses Kato as a probable thug, but when a drunk man falls onto the subway tracks in front of them, Kato is the only one among the crowd who moves to help him. When Kato recognizes Kei and calls him forward by name, Kei reluctantly jumps down to help, but after the boys maneuver the drunk to safety they're struck down and torn apart by an oncoming train.



The next thing they know, they're standing in a Tokyo apartment that's empty except for a huge black sphere and a collection of other people who remember dying: a first-grade teacher who was caught in a traffic accident, a cancer patient, a pair of yakuza who were apparently shot, a dog and an intense eighth grader who simply says "I fell." As they all confirm that they can't leave the apartment—their hands pass through the door and the window latches—a naked girl appears in the room, teleported in one centimeter at a time by the black sphere. One of the mookish yakuza promptly hauls her into a back hallway to rape her, but Kato intervenes on her behalf even as the others stand by fearfully.



Then a glowing message appears on the sphere: "Your lives are now over, you bastards. What you do with your new lives is for me to decide." It gives them an hour to kill a target called "the greenonion alien," pops open to reveal heavy weaponry and personalized skin-tight black suits, then teleports its new employees out into a nighttime street, where they encounter a hapless little green man who talks endlessly about green onions. Kato moves to defend him, the girl sticks nervously by Kato, and Kei stands clear and watches them jealously, but the majority of their fellow afterlifers seem perfectly willing to gun down a weak, unarmed creature, if only to get to play with their lethal new toys.

DVD

The initial Burst Angel DVD barely scratches the surface—the supplementary material explains more about the characters' mysterious past and the series' overall themes than these first four episodes do.

Overall

Overall, I find Gantz pretty good. The process of this whole show moves at a rather slow pace and some points while watching it I'd kind of doze off because some parts just got so boring. But really Gantz is worth to watch for anyone.

by Aidan