Gantz Vol. #01
© Dark Horse

Mania Grade: B-
Art Rating: B
Packaging Rating: A-
Text/Translation Rating: A-
Age Rating: 18 & Up
Released By: Dark Horse
MSRP: 12.95
Pages: 224
ISBN: 978-1-59307-949-9
Size: B6
Orientation: Right to Left
Series: Faust Anthology

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Gantz Vol. #01

Decapitations, suicide, exploding limbs, and other graphic and painful deaths - there's nothing like a little of the old ultraviolence.

Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Hiroya Oku
Translated by:Matthew Johnson
Adapted by:Matthew Johnson

What They Say
The last thing Kei and Masaru remember was being struck dead by a subway train while saving the life of a drunken bum. What a waste! And yet somehow they're still... alive? Or semi-alive? Maybe it's reanimated... by some kind of alien orb with a nasty message: "Your lives are over. What you do with your new lives is up to me!" And what this orb called "Gantz" intends to do with their lives is make them play games of death, hunting all kinds of odd aliens, along with a bunch of other ordinary citizens who've recently met a tragic semi-end. The missions they embark upon are often dangerous. Many die - and die again.

The Review
Packaging:

With a simple yet dramatic cover primarily in red and black that makes excellent use of both positive and negative space, this book practically jumps off the shelf - the design is one of the nicest I've seen on any volume of manga.  The first page of the book uses two-color printing in red and black, another nice touch.  The print quality is excellent, with sharp lines and dark blacks.  The paper quality isn't the best I've seen, but it isn't the worst either.  Overall, this is a book with excellent presentation.

Artwork:

Oku's art is rather odd.  His layouts are fairly static and simplistic, there's almost no feeling of motion at all, and his faces and expressions seem overly simple and almost cartoonish at times.  Several characters have seemingly inappropriate babyfaces, and if it wasn't for differing hairstyles and clothes would be almost impossible to tell apart.  The two Keis in particular looked almost indistinguishable in some panels.  But the characters with older, tougher, or more distinctive looks seemed to have been lavished with much more attention, and more detail.  His grasp of anatomy overall seemed fairly good, although there were a few panels that looked odd, and his backgrounds have an incredible level of detail.  The most time and effort seems to have been spend on the gore, which is given quite a bit of attention.  Despite my criticism, the art overall isn't bad at all - it just feels slightly unbalanced.

Text/SFX:

All sound effects are replaced with the English equivalent, in a font that closely resembles the original.  The adaptation flows very smoothly, and the addition of subtitled cultural notes in a few points was a very nice touch.   

Contents (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):

Kei is a fairly average teenager firmly convinced of his own superiority over just about everyone in the world when his whole world suddenly changes.  While waiting for a train, he witnesses a drunk fall onto the tracks.  Like everyone else, he's standing by and waiting for the man to die when another student jumps down onto the tracks to help the drunk.  As it turns out, this student is Kato, an old friend of Kei, who calls Kei down to help.  They manage to get the drunk to safety, but in the process they end up being hit by a train and killed instantly. 

Or are they?  They suddenly find themselves inside a seemingly ordinary apartment with a strange assortment of people, and even a dog.  Nobody seems to know what they're really doing there or how to get out, but it becomes very clear before long that there's much more going on than meets the eye.  Between the naked girl who materializes out of thin air and the strange black ball that starts playing the theme song of an old radio show and tells them that their old lives are over, Kei and Kato are forced to deal with a situation wildly outside of their wildest imaginings.

Given strange equipment and instructions to kill a strange alien that looks like an onion, the group is transported out to a strange neighborhood, where one of their number reveals that they're participants in some sort of reality show, with a prize of ten million dollars.  Once they actually locate the alien, though, it becomes less and less likely that this is any sort of game at all.  When the killing starts and the players start losing their inhibitions, the situation soon flies even farther out of control.

Comments:

This is a hard series to like.  At the end of the first volume, Kato seems like the only likable character in the bunch (minus the dog, who seems to have more personality than most of the supporting cast) - Kei is a selfish pig, thinking only of himself, and what we see of the others is almost as bad.  It's shocking how quickly they lose their inhibitions - not just the orgy of violence they inflict on the helpless alien, but the attempted rape as well.  "It's none of my business, someone else will deal with it" seems to be a reoccurring theme in the book, making it seem like Oku doesn't have much in the way of faith in humanity.  There's a lot of social commentary in this, and that's really where it manages to shine.  It's not flattering, but it makes you think.

Dark Horse has put together a fantastic release here, and one that's likely to sell well to the comics crowd - with sex, nudity, and more violence than your average Tarantino flick, this is a mature book in every sense of the word.  If you're looking for a scathing commentary on the dehimanization of modern life, you'll find it here, but it plays even better as violent escapism.