Gantz: The Terror of the Universe
By: MSJ
Have you ever wondered what life holds after death? Heaven, Hell or the off chance you come back to life only to be forced into a hellish nightmare of hunting aliens in a game of survival which normally leaves most of your team as nothing more than blood splattered stains across city streets. Not exactly what anyone would hope for, but that is the scenario that the main cast of the action/horror manga Gantz finds themselves in. Randomly across Tokyo whenever someone dies there is the chance they may find themselves teleported into a room with the black ball Gantz before it forces them on a hunt for a specific alien. Should anyone refuse to participate they will die. From that alone, anyone can surmise that Gantz is an orgy of blood and gore that would make Dracula drool from excitement. The varied cast of characters expands and shrinks with every mission the team participates in. In lieu of the very little time some characters have in the series to grow, the authentic character writing makes each character come alive within the pages. Even the deaths of minor characters or the inconsequential triumphs that some characters experience will resonate within the reader. Gantz is another series that takes a very humanistic approach to its characters. Rather than being paragons of virtue or one-dimensional muscle-bound powerhouses of justice Gantz's characters are realistic. They live next door to your, they are our coworkers, they could even be the reader at a various point in their life. Characters are written in a grounded fashion that readers will find themselves relating to even the most ancillary characters due to the authenticity they possess.
Take for example Kuwabara Kazuo, a member of the Osaka Gantz team, he possesses absolutely zero aptitude for survival in the Gantz hunts, only surviving due to being on a team full of stronger individuals. After the Osaka arc of the series, he is the last surviving member of his team still forced to participate. He is frightened every time Gantz forces him to participate in hunt until he becomes inspired by one of the main cast, Masaru Kato. After witnessing Kato, a man that has next to zero experience compared to Kazuo, succeed in killing one of the strongest aliens Kazuo has ever seen. A fire ignites in Kazuo's soul. Unbeknownst to Kato, Kazuo pledges to him to succeed in becoming stronger so that he can resurrect one of his fallen teammates. Which he does, in a moment that could have just been a throwaway line in other series becomes one of the greatest moments in the series due to the powerful emotional setup and pay off provided. While there are heartwarming moments such as this Gantz is as stated before very much a horror series. An arc titled the Shinjuku massacre has perhaps the most frightening depiction of a mass shooting ever. Crowds scatter as life blinks out of existence with every bullet fired on the page with the glee of a madman behind the trigger. Most frightening is in the motivation of the shooter, he is a former member of the Gantz team that was freed. After gaining some of his memories back he found that he enjoyed the life or death battle and sought to return to Gantz by any means. Despite the series taking place over several years from 2000 to 2013 it remains relevant to this day from the subject matter it covers namely bullying, gun violence, child abuse, and war. All coalesce into a frightening distorted take on modern society. The artwork in Gantz is a major factor in the series ability to instill terror into the reader. Monster designs range from the unsettling to grotesque body horror creations that look as if they stepped from David Cronenberg's twisted mind.
From the stark contrast of black and white, horrific creature design, and hyper-detailed facial expressions for the aliens every facet of the artwork is meant to terrify. Early in Gantz, the characters go on a mission which amounts to them fighting crow like aliens, one of the characters Kei, finds himself in the hideout of the crow aliens. Alone and under-equipped to face off against the boss of the crows he is surrounded by the aliens he is meant to kill. The aliens pause and stare at him, as he remains unharmed he looks up into an open doorway to find the boss of the crows. Merely sitting in place with his back turned, he is a single black mass that exudes danger from this simple framing. The single panel of the crow boss's menacing figure just sitting without care for Kei and his teammates have stuck with me long after finishing the series.
The horror in Gantz is not exclusive to the threat of violence or death , but similar to Berserk it is an existential horror as well namely, trying to understand if the true villains are the aliens the cast hunts or the Gantz teams themselves as none of the aliens attacked are ever violent until provoked. Spoilers ahead. The Gantz team actually meet and speak with God toward the end of the series. The being does not resemble anything described in various religious texts, but it is an eerie being that has neither face nor stomach that randomly produces images of well-known humans throughout history along with some of the recently deceased members of the team. The most horrifying aspect is the being telling the Gantz teams that any perceived help that it has provided was purely out of spite towards the aliens that team currently faces in the final arc and it has no interest in the struggles of humanity. It is an uncaring God that is as petty as humanity as it shatters the expectations of the world at large that wonder what is God-like.
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Have you ever wondered what life holds after death? Heaven, Hell or the off chance you come back to life only to be forced into a hellish nightmare of hunting aliens in a game of survival which normally leaves most of your team as nothing more than blood splattered stains across city streets. Not exactly what anyone would hope for, but that is the scenario that the main cast of the action/horror manga Gantz finds themselves in. Randomly across Tokyo whenever someone dies there is the chance they may find themselves teleported into a room with the black ball Gantz before it forces them on a hunt for a specific alien. Should anyone refuse to participate they will die. From that alone, anyone can surmise that Gantz is an orgy of blood and gore that would make Dracula drool from excitement. The varied cast of characters expands and shrinks with every mission the team participates in. In lieu of the very little time some characters have in the series to grow, the authentic character writing makes each character come alive within the pages. Even the deaths of minor characters or the inconsequential triumphs that some characters experience will resonate within the reader. Gantz is another series that takes a very humanistic approach to its characters. Rather than being paragons of virtue or one-dimensional muscle-bound powerhouses of justice Gantz's characters are realistic. They live next door to your, they are our coworkers, they could even be the reader at a various point in their life. Characters are written in a grounded fashion that readers will find themselves relating to even the most ancillary characters due to the authenticity they possess.
Take for example Kuwabara Kazuo, a member of the Osaka Gantz team, he possesses absolutely zero aptitude for survival in the Gantz hunts, only surviving due to being on a team full of stronger individuals. After the Osaka arc of the series, he is the last surviving member of his team still forced to participate. He is frightened every time Gantz forces him to participate in hunt until he becomes inspired by one of the main cast, Masaru Kato. After witnessing Kato, a man that has next to zero experience compared to Kazuo, succeed in killing one of the strongest aliens Kazuo has ever seen. A fire ignites in Kazuo's soul. Unbeknownst to Kato, Kazuo pledges to him to succeed in becoming stronger so that he can resurrect one of his fallen teammates. Which he does, in a moment that could have just been a throwaway line in other series becomes one of the greatest moments in the series due to the powerful emotional setup and pay off provided. While there are heartwarming moments such as this Gantz is as stated before very much a horror series. An arc titled the Shinjuku massacre has perhaps the most frightening depiction of a mass shooting ever. Crowds scatter as life blinks out of existence with every bullet fired on the page with the glee of a madman behind the trigger. Most frightening is in the motivation of the shooter, he is a former member of the Gantz team that was freed. After gaining some of his memories back he found that he enjoyed the life or death battle and sought to return to Gantz by any means. Despite the series taking place over several years from 2000 to 2013 it remains relevant to this day from the subject matter it covers namely bullying, gun violence, child abuse, and war. All coalesce into a frightening distorted take on modern society. The artwork in Gantz is a major factor in the series ability to instill terror into the reader. Monster designs range from the unsettling to grotesque body horror creations that look as if they stepped from David Cronenberg's twisted mind.
From the stark contrast of black and white, horrific creature design, and hyper-detailed facial expressions for the aliens every facet of the artwork is meant to terrify. Early in Gantz, the characters go on a mission which amounts to them fighting crow like aliens, one of the characters Kei, finds himself in the hideout of the crow aliens. Alone and under-equipped to face off against the boss of the crows he is surrounded by the aliens he is meant to kill. The aliens pause and stare at him, as he remains unharmed he looks up into an open doorway to find the boss of the crows. Merely sitting in place with his back turned, he is a single black mass that exudes danger from this simple framing. The single panel of the crow boss's menacing figure just sitting without care for Kei and his teammates have stuck with me long after finishing the series.
The horror in Gantz is not exclusive to the threat of violence or death , but similar to Berserk it is an existential horror as well namely, trying to understand if the true villains are the aliens the cast hunts or the Gantz teams themselves as none of the aliens attacked are ever violent until provoked. Spoilers ahead. The Gantz team actually meet and speak with God toward the end of the series. The being does not resemble anything described in various religious texts, but it is an eerie being that has neither face nor stomach that randomly produces images of well-known humans throughout history along with some of the recently deceased members of the team. The most horrifying aspect is the being telling the Gantz teams that any perceived help that it has provided was purely out of spite towards the aliens that team currently faces in the final arc and it has no interest in the struggles of humanity. It is an uncaring God that is as petty as humanity as it shatters the expectations of the world at large that wonder what is God-like.
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