Gantz

Gantz (stylized as GANTZ) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku. It was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from June 2000 to June 2013, with its chapters collected in thirty-seven tankōbon volumes. It tells the story of Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, both of whom died in a train accident and become part of a semi-posthumous "game" in which they and several other recently deceased people are forced to hunt down and kill aliens armed with a handful of futuristic items, equipment, and weaponry.

An anime television series adaptation, directed by Ichiro Itano and animated by Gonzo, was broadcast for 26 episodes, divided into two seasons, in 2004. A series of two live-action films based on the manga were produced and released in January and April 2011. A CGI anime film, Gantz: O, was released in 2016.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) A very interesting premise that combines plenty of different plot styles like Sci-Fi, Highschool Drama, and horror. Gantz itself also has an interesting set of rules as it doesn't just revive everyone and may only revive those who can fight, even if they're evil.
 * 2) Incredible artwork with backgrounds given an amazing amount of detail. Every setting is done in 3D, which is an interesting idea, and looks great because of it.
 * 3) It accurately shows the cruelty, selfishness, and depravity on humanity and what many people are capable of.
 * 4) It has a incredible cast of characters and they are given amount of character development.
 * 5) *Kei Kurono for example, while he may started out as a horny jerk which may make the readers starting to hate him easily, he eventually does gets major character development as when he started to meet Tae Kojima and started to date her he starts to become a more better person and a great leader for the new Tokyo Team.
 * 6) *Masaru Kato tries to find peaceful solutions and ways to save others despite his somewhat violent nature towards more evil characters. He also has a younger brother who he cares for alone and becomes a major plot point in his character arc.
 * 7) *Kei Kishimoto is an interesting case where Gantz made a mistake and "resurrected" her when she wasn't actually dead, making a clone of her instead. This makes her situation even more complex as even if she manages to escape, she's literally got no life to go back to.
 * 8) *Tae Kojima, Kurono's first actual girlfriend, is a nice contrast from his previous ones, being that she's very sweet and innocent, even putting herself at risk to save a child during one event.
 * 9) *Daizaemon Kaze is a vagabond fighter who wants to find his very limits, but has a softer side to himself that he shows upon meeting Takeshi Koumoto, a 4 year old beaten to death by his mom's boyfriend who thinks Kaze is his imaginary friend, "Muscle Rider".
 * 10) *Hiroto Sakurai is a suicidal teen who learns of his psychokinetic powers from Kenzo Sakata, a very morally ambiguous man, and uses it to kill his bullies. After doing so, however, he greatly regrets it and devotes his life and powers to saving other people, even at the risk of himself, and Kenzo regains compassion for humanity as a result of this and follows Sakurai's example, coming to see him as an important person in his life and even sacrificing his own freedom to bring him back.
 * 11) *Even plenty of minor characters get plenty of development and feel very much like real people.
 * 12) Much of the story is separated into missions, which have the characters being forced to fight powerful aliens, many of whom have actual personalities, from just wanting to survive, to angrily seeking vengeance, having primal killing instincts, or even being sentient, evil killers who take sick joy in their actions.
 * 13) In between missions, it chooses to show character drama and the lives they lead outside of Gantz and the personal consequences of their actions and what they had been witness to before. In addition, many of the character's deaths are shown before some missions and give them very interesting character arcs.
 * 14) Awesome actions scenes as thanks to the artstyle the fights feel smooth and clean with many actions scenes taking two pages to do as well.
 * 15) It had several of awesome arcs those not limited too.
 * 16) *The Osaka Arc (often considered the best arc in the series)
 * 17) *Dinosaur Mission Arc
 * 18) *Oni Alien Mission Arc (also count as the best arc)
 * 19) *The Buddhist Temple Mission Arc
 * 20) *The Invasion Mission Arc (A okay and satisfying conclusion to the series)
 * 21) During the 3rd half, we get to learn more about Gantz and why the Gantz teams all around the world has to go on the missions to hunt the Aliens.
 * 22) It spawned 3 fantastic movies.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The series isn't for the faint of heart and use excessive amounts of gore, violence, nudity, and other offensive stuff that could leave readers distasted. Some characters are also quite unlikeable to the point of being a little too much for some, even if that's kind of the point.
 * 2) The last arc, the Invasion Mission while satisfying was divise by many fans due to it being rather rushed and plot points left out leaving out many plot holes, and the lack of a epilouge.
 * 3) Speaking of which, as stated before there are many plot points that are left, The Vampires being a example as they were built up to be a major antagonistic force to the Gantz team but during the 3rd half of the series they were completely forgotten about.

Trivia

 * It spawned Y U No meme face.
 * Hiroya Oku first thought of Gantz's story when he was in high school. He was inspired by the jidaigeki program Hissatsu, and the Robert Sheckley novel Time Murderer. However, he did not decide to make Gantz until after writing the manga Zero One; Zero One had a similar setting, but Oku ended the series, noting it was not very entertaining and that it was too expensive to develop.