365 Days of Manga, Day 267: Gantz

GANTZ • Hiroya Oku • Dark Horse • 18+
Kei, a cynical teenager, and his noble classmate Masaru are struck by a subway train and apparently killed, only to find themselves resurrected, bewildered, in an unfurnished Tokyo apartment containing a human-sized black sphere which (in messages on the screen on its surface) calls itself Gantz. They are soon joined by other recently dead people, whom Gantz gifts with high-tech weapons and black skintight suits before sending them out on “missions” to defeat different types of strange, often darkly comical aliens lurking in Tokyo. If they gain 100 “points” by killing enough aliens, they can leave the game…if they lose, or try to run away, they die. In between missions, they return to their “normal” lives, while gradually, the violence of their battles with the aliens, at first concealed beneath a barrier of invisibility, starts to creep into the unsuspecting world around them. A splatter-gore science fiction action series, much of Gantz’s tension comes from seeing unprepared, ordinary people (together with a few sociopaths and badasses) deal with fear, stress and morality as they fight for their lives. At first the characters’ situation seems meaningless and absurd, a survival game for its own sake, but to Gantz’s credit (and unlike, say, the 1990s “Cube” sci-fi film series) the mystery builds up to an ambitious, demented big reveal. The long slow build (arguably too slow) gives Oku the time to linger on almost every character in the massive ensemble cast, telling a number of small human stories within the overarching, alien-blasting plot. The exploding guts and flying limbs have a clinical, movie-storyboard, morgue-photo look thanks to Oku’s coldly detailed artwork, a remarkable example of combining digital and analog art (Oku renders all his shots in 3D first, then draws over them). While the violence and sex are willfully exploitative (particularly the title pages, which invariably feature the female cast in naked poses), it’s expertly paced, visually accomplished and hard to put down.
*** 1/2 (three and a half stars)
Today’s winner is Laurie C. of New Jersey. Congratulations, Laurie!