If you’re at all familiar with the source material Gantz is based on, you know it easily earns its reputation as the most hard-core seinin series out there right now. With 26 episodes of anime and 29 volumes of manga filled with some of the most gratuitous amounts of gore, sex and violence of any series out there, Gantz is not a series for the squeamish or easily offended.

When I heard they were making a film adaptation, I imagined something part Battle Royale, part Ichi the Killer, and all awesome. What I got however was something that I (along with other fans) didn’t quite recognize as the series we both knew and loved, but more of a what an American re-make of Gantz would be like.

First lets start off with the basics: the driving force of Gantz in both manga and anime form is sexual frustration, pure and simple. It’s what enables Kei to first master the suits and its what drives our protagonist’s choices throughout most of the series. Kei is a sexually frustrated loser who is given a great deal of power and then uses that as you would expect… to get laid and prove that no one will be picking on him anytime soon. It’s all he cares about and it is the way the audience relates with the character.

All the characters in the series are fatally flawed and if a character displays any other motivation other then pure selfishness, it usually results in a quick death. Gantz is a realist’s story of survival and the central theme is the only one you can rely on is yourself. I will say now that the manga series is coming to a close and we are shown that all these themes have a purpose … but that took over 29 volumes of manga. So how do you expect to do that and compress it into two, 2 and a half hour films?

Kei just wants to be successful!

Now that we have that foundation let’s talk about the film. Almost all the sexual frustration stuff has been scrubbed from the plot. When we first meet Kei, instead of reading a gravure idol magazine (soft-core porn) and sizing up the girls around him, he is practicing for a job interview, wait …. what? Basically Kei just wants to get a job and he is using his experience during the GantzGames hunting aliens for a giant black orb to hopefully improve his leadership skills and score a great job after university. WTF? I hate to say this, but Kei doesn’t get one redeeming quality until volume 14, which is why I enjoy him as a character, because in that way he seems real.

Now that the driving force of the of the series is gone, time to get rid of the violence as well. Gantz is pretty well known for not shying away from violence, not only in the Games but how it affects the people as they play them. While we get a very brief moment of that in the first Game, all the others are much more family friendly in how they handle the carnage of the both the players and the targets. Aliens explode in almost a foam like material when shot, which actually reminded me of something more akin to the Stay Puft Marshmallow man blowing up in Ghostbusters.

Don’t worry our guns turns aliens into marshmallows

Now we have a property known for both sex and violence, both heavily reduced from the plot, and what we have left is two and a half-hours of my life I would really appreciate getting back. The film seems lifeless from start to finish, characters and motivations are under-developed and seem glazed over. The acting is horrible and I think the dub-track we were listening to was not completely finished. This was evident to me by missing music and effects and just overall just sounding like someone needed to turn it up like 3 volume levels.

I am not going to complain about seeing the film which hadn’t even opened in its native country dubbed, because I understand the reason behind this is to quell re-importing the film back to the Japanese audience pirated. If you have any complaints about this just take a look at the state of the anime/manga industry in America thanks to piracy. That is why we can’t have nice things.

The film could have befitted from a solid pair of these. 

While I should note the film looked great visually and the special effects were really well done the film’s story and pacing definitely needed some serious work… and don’t think I am just a purist Otaku with an elitist complex either.  I really enjoyed the film adaptations of Deathnote and found them a great alternative to the anime and manga series, even though they very liberally changed the plot and characters with their take. I know some things don’t work well in film and I understand changing thing for a more compelling film narrative but I also know a horrible film when I see it.

OMG! There is still a sequel?

 Gantz simply is The Last Airbender of manga/anime film adaptations. The screening I attended which seemed full of fans of the series, was full of laughter in all the wrong parts and various jeers and comments throughout.

I don’t care about the sequel and I have a feeling most fans wont either and with that I give Gantz 0.5 stars.
I will teach you to laugh at my death!