impfireball
Apr 22 '12 1:14am
Imp Reviews: Gantz, the Manga
So...
Gantz is this dark action/sci-fi manga that's all about people killing aliens and getting killed in turn, as part of some fate of the after-life.
Sounds like my kind of read, so I'm gonna dive into this.
NOTE: I won't bother with pictures. Also, this comic (er... manga), contains nudity, so... yeah. If you're young and you want to read this,
Masura says "I... I hate this!" I don't want to live on this planet anymore!
be warned of that .
Lul hopeless psychotic violence!
Yep .
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I'm gonna talk about this in volumes. Each volume is ten chapters. Chapters are incredibly short, since they represent issues. So, enjoy my narration and opinions, blah blah.
Okay, whatever, let's get started!
The artwork of Gantz is a computer generated 3d background and dialogue (sound effects and speech bubbles) over top of drawn characters. This presents a bit of a uniquely realistic look, although blood splatters, while gorey, aren't all that detailed or messy, until a character is supposed to be looking at a corpse. It's hard to describe - you'd have to read the comic.
Okay, as one example, when a character's head explodes, you don't see any blood. You see a bunch of tangley lines - you are given the idea that there's blood, but it isn't all over the place.
Anyway, enough about the artwork. I prefer to talk about story. Specifically, this is chapter 1.
Chapter 1 - An Incident next page is crediting translators, etc. Which is pointless to talk about it, but since I'm reading it on mangareader.net, might as well refer to it anyway. But it's too much of a pain in the ass to explain. Our hero, everyone!And younger people are even worse. Absolute shit for brains, I swear. Because, they're young people, and we all know that young people are useless and have no future. :PAnd these kinds of guys... ah, who cares... Agh!! It's him! without his face giving any indication to the thought (which is perfectly fine, I don't care). Masaru Kato. I think. Yep. All 7 feet of him.I heard he turned rough after he transferred in elementary school. Probably doesn't remember me. We played a lot... Yeah, he was probably my best friend. And he doesn't remember you? What an asshole! Oh wait, you're just thinking stuff.Oh shit, that guy's way plastered. No station attendants are coming... Nobody's gonna go down there to help him. Not a guy like that. Hey, if this situation just stays like this... I'll see a guy get splattered into pieces. You only see that shit in movies and comics. Hehe, the punk's shakin' in his shoes. Yeah, I guess as long as you can one-up a former friend, it's all good. You aren't gonna be traumatized by witnessing horrible death or anything.Yeah, he always was kinda of a wuss, back as a kid. Oh christ, is there gonna be a flash back in the first issue?Yes. ... ?! .... huh... ?! (there's actually a lot more ellipsis than this, but notice how I was able to convey the same almost the same amount of dramatic tension? Weird, I know.)speed racer where Speed says 'Huuuuuuh... ?' in an over-acty voice.What a moron... What does he think he's doing... ? Trying to show off? **** . And I think, okay, there's a lot of dialogue-less panels here, probably to indicate a big ol' long dramatic pause. Is something gonna happen soon? The train, anything?No, why am I climbing down? Wah-wah-wah. Big deal. And basically, What a dumb asshole Masaru is, serves him right to be decapitated. , as his own head soars across the train station. Ever again. I'll assume he whipped out an electric guitar and played a sweet solo, until the next train arrived with a marching band and cheerleaders to thrice lay him.I had absolutely no idea what just happened. But I could tell (ellipsis!) that I'd never ever be going back.
Chapter 1 - Wrap Up
So the ellipsis usage wasn't completely overdone, although it could have been toned down a little.
I kinda agree with Linkara (though I don't remember his words exactly; it could be that he just hated all ellipsis) when I say that ellipsis should only be there to convey tension. It isn't for dramatic reveals. If you have a nervous or socially disabled character, the usage of their words should feel awkward - there needn't be ellipsis to convey awkward pauses all the time.
Dialogue-less pages are fine, but this issue goes crazy with them. Usually, lack of dialogue is used for action or motion/travel panels, dramatic pauses, landscapes and comedy beats, but most of this just has characters standing around doing absolutely nothing. It's an easy way to convey passage of time, but it feels very filler-ish. No good. Just like on TV, characters staring around doing and saying nothing is still boring.
Also, breathing sound effects are weird. All hahs and no hoos? At first, I thought Masaru was a karate kid, ki-upping all over the place for no apparent reason. Of course, that didn't make sense so I had to wrap my brain around the fact that they were sound effects. A simple *gasp* and *wheeze* here and there is fine, but c'mon. No need for 'hah' in the same bubbles as dialogue. Ah well, that's just the way I feel about that.
Other than that, it's a decent intro. The artwork conveys emotion and realism pretty appropriately. The eyes of the characters are also not as big as in other manga, hair is realistic and non-colorful (no more different hair colours to create distinction in otherwise boring characters), and faces are all the more diverse. The setting actually feels like Japan, as characters actually look Japanese.
Everything I've said about the story was already covered in the play-by-play above. So yeah, I'll return to you with my opinion of the next issue in a bit.
Chapter 2 - An Inexplicable Room Why the hell am I starting? Wait I don't think I actually died. Yeah, you're a ****ing liar. Tell them the truth right now, because it totally matters and stuff! Yeah, it's all this jack ass's fault. Lol! Okay. Okay. That's true. Is Kei going to fully explain or get his revenge or emotionally vent about this? Um... I guess we'll have to see, won't we? Who the **** cares?! Yeah, who the **** - wait, what? "Attacked by a train?" Just as he said it. A train developed consciousness and decided to go on a rampage, running over Kei and Masaru. It's a wonder it didn't appear on the news. Or maybe that's just my overactive imagination, but I suppose every other character is thinking the same thing now aren't they? Masaru should really be more specific. Do you even realize what an idiot you were? ............ Yeah, he's a politician. I think I saw him on a poster, or something. You're right, I should be moving on. You better say your own stupid worthless name, you punk! Now we look like dorks!! I am suddenly angry for no reason! Look at that girly-ass face. They don't call him girly dude for no reason, but what's in a name, dare I ask? Well no one says anything, so... no, **** off, I guess? What's he staring at? What a weirdo! ELLIP SIS !!! *tears out hair* I am being humiliated. But instead of telling him to shut up, I am going to pick up on the budding conversation. You know you've changed a lot too.Well, now. Did Masaru become more like Kei? No, in fact they never show any indication of his learning to be fast or on the ball, so this conversation is pointless! Well... to a point anyway. It only really gives more leeway to how singleminded and two dimensional the character is (granted 'realistic' people in real life do think two dimensionally sometimes), but I digress, moving on! Please tell me he didn't turn out this way because of me. That can't be true. Wait, why do I care? Good question. This conversation is pointless, moving on! The girl teleports on top of Kei, and he gets an erection. That's all folks! End of the issue.
Well let's go over what we've learned today.
- Kei's thoughts are pretty redundant.
- The writer seems to be going for stream of consciousness style, but that seems pretty pointless in a manga.
- From Kei's character, I get the impression that he doesn't like making friends for some reason. No background to this is given. I've read up until issue 14 (so far, I think) and I still haven't gotten anything. I don't need flash backs. A simple conversation of why he's the way he is is fine. It doesn't have to be confrontational. This is pretty easy to fit in during non-fighting scenes or breaks between tension.
- Masaru is slightly self righteous, but I get the feeling he needs to feel like a servant of good for other people. I don't know what's driven him to behave this way or anything. Basically, we get to look at the surface of his personality and everything else is assumed. So... there's not much else going for it right now. I have a feeling that Masaru's going to create a lot of bad situations and Kei is gonna get dragged everywhere. But actually, that isn't shown much at all. Conflicts get resolved quickly, because of the Gantz ball just lying around, waiting to give them a new mission everytime.
- And even so, the story isn't fast paced when it really should be. Unless people that read manga are used to this sort of ellipsis riddled thing. The concept is interesting though. Personally though, tension created by intense emotions are lame unless the audience is given leeway to care about the character. Later on, we're supposed to care about cancer-victim/religious/politician guy when we still know hardly anything about him - so either we feel really bad, or we think 'that was pointless!'. As readers, I think we're driven to extreme emotions over this sort of thing. And somehow, I fear for a lot of pointless off-shoot crap that's going to occur later on.
- I'll cover the next few chapters, but first I'm gonna read ahead beyond chapter 14. See if things get faster paced. And then I can give an overall summary of this thing.
Of course, my opinion might change as I read ahead. There's over 300 chapters of this, so obviously the plot is going to go all over the place, shape shift, and divide into several differnet plots until the over arching premise gets mutilated (which may or may not happen actually; because otherwise, there is less point in continuing to use the Gantz universe unless other things have been established such as long-time foes, items, etc. - yeah, I'm looking at this like an RPG setting, but you sorta have to, in order to eventually make sense of things). Unfortunately, like an RPG universe created by a GM intending it to occupy the time of him and his friends for the next decade, it risks appearing very grandiose without going anywhere.
But, we'll see what happens.
It wasn't until page 9 of
chapter 69 that they finally included panting sounds. What the hell.
- It doesn't get faster paced. There's only more violence and more fighting. And we're supposed to briefly care about the fate of Izuroo Izubuki (forgot his actual name), the bloodthirsty, megalamaniacal uzi slaughtering 'mini-gantz ball told me to do it, without offering any explanation as to its origin or plot point', at one point or another.
- There's some vampires that hate the gantz people for no reason. As expected, no explanation is given to their origin or why they hate gantz anymore than the other aliens or what makes them special. And for that reason, I think their leader makes even less sense. Or more sense? It's hard to tell anymore, when you get to this point. Heck, you probably just wanna see stuff get blown up (in boring non-animated format).
Kei falls in love again, but I felt no real compassion for the romance going on between him and tiny, stereotypically shy school girl. Maybe it's because he was already in love before. Or because the writer totally fails at conveying love, and is much better at just having them say 'I wanna get in her pants', because that AT LEAST makes more sense than just having him envision the girl's face over and over (until I wanna scream 'I get it!' in a public library, because that'd be about as awkward as this is pointless).
Or maybe it's because there was this other chick that wanted him to love her, whom also just happened to be this smoking martial arts girl with a head drawn a bit like street fighter's Cammy. Yep. I mean, no! You can't have her! She isn't real... ! *sobs*
Um. Anyway...
Kei Kurono finally dies. A vampire kills him.
- All of that said, violence is really all this manga is good for. If you like violence, read it. If you like suspenseful violence, go right ahead. If you want development and meaning in characters, or simple happy moments, I wouldn't recommend it.
- Actually... I think I'm gonna take some notes. Then I can do this review more concisely. Stay tuned. I don't care if it's been 3 months! Stay tuned.
Stay tuned? *cries*
