Review: GANTZ

became desensitized to the blood and gore being displayed you got used to seeing it but the first few episode it is a huge statement and at first I thought the show would be a total gore fest just looking for shock value and that's it. The show is billed as the most disturbing anime to come out of Japan. But once the story started and it got more interesting as each episode passed the real meaning of the show started to sink in. It was very easy to get attached to the characters each character was given a decent amount of information on them in their past lives and the actions they did during the missions made them more enduring as the show went on.

The voice acting was great and when the voice actor had to be emotional it was believable, the thing that hurts this series in the biggest way is the lack of an ending. During the production of the anime the producers hit the end of the manga series (at the time) and had to improvise the last 3 or so episodes so the ending was a huge let down not because they didn't follow the manga or anything but because it made no sense. I'm not going to give away spoilers but many things happen that just happen that has no reason to it.

The show is filled with action if you love action shows this is going to up your alley they hold nothing back in terms of violence, limbs are disembowel blood freely flows and point blank headshots are shown this series is by no means meant for children. The show manages to stay fresh because each mission is filled with new players that change the complexity of the mission one way or another and the underlying plots of Kishimoto falling in love with Kato and the relationship between Kishimoto and Kurono help keep the show interesting. Love isn't the center point of the show but it is used to help further and set the relationships in an importance and making some of the major events of the story that much more harder to watch.

The visuals were great, they mixed CGI and 2d and seamlessly intertwined the two though out the show many times it was used in scenery when showing the area of the where the missions were taking place also during action scenes to bring more a dramatic effect also the enemies many times to bring a much easier sense of the size of the enemy the group had to face off against.

Overall I'd give this show a 9.5 out of 10. If the ending wasn't so goofy and just a huge let down after seeing all the events transpire it would be getting a better score. All in all the show makes you think and a lot of ethical questions are raised during the show and many interesting things are used to further make the show deeper that I haven't seen ever used in an anime.

PROS: interesting plot, filled with suspense and has many layers to the main plot line that slowly unfold to reveal more about characters and the storyline. Voice acting was superb and the visuals were very modern and on track for a show of this type.

CONS: A very confusing ending that doesn't really give you what you wanted to see happen many questions are left for us to ponder and speculate.

OVERALL RATING: 9.5 / 10