Gantz Ended

[HolyShadow]

So, Gantz ended. The only other thread of Gantz is like three years old so fuck it.

I thought it was a beautiful ending. Anyone else?

[ITR]

I never understood who Sebastian was :/

[HolyShadow]

I never understood who Sebastian was :/
Was he the mysterious man who quotes that evolutionary alien?

[ggbhtg]

Frankly, I've only been picking up manga on my own for the action or if there's an interesting story with a smidge of fanservice, or if I'm just randomly subjected to it via tv or Shonen Jump and happen to follow it one day. Despite that, I don't stick around unless I care about the story. Luckily, all 3 happened to me for Gantz. The gory battles with the quick flash of smexy tided me over as I spent a day suddenly reading chapter after chapter of the first "season", the Red Phase.

When the main character's "friend" died to set up for the 2nd part, the Blue Phase, it became the best manga story wise I had read since Naruto and Bleach's 1st arcs. The main's growing ingenuity, leadership, and will to make sure he and his teammates survive won me over the same way I loved FMA's final arc where nearly every character plays a part in the end....

Then the final season, the Black Phase starts...the main character is split from his group ALL THE WAY until, technically, the last few chapters, another great character is also split from the team doing nothing that pays off in the end, also effectively ruining his characterization, and there's no time given to develop any of the current or even the new characters further, until they die or not. Sure, that's what the Red Phase was like, but I thought we were past that. This should've been the point where the main cast takes what they've learned to get through this final storyline, but instead they're just pushed from plotline to plotline with little significant action on their part. They get handed everything they need to keep moving on.

In the scheme of actually ending the story, they're basically background characters. At the end, we suddenly have this poorly built-up one on one fight for the fate of two worlds, and because it's one on one until the main cast randomly come to the main character's aid only to get curbstomped long enough to, spoiler warning, win (duh) it's not even reminiscent of the Power Rangers-esque teamwork the series was so great at in the Blue Phase.

That's basically my gripe with Gantz. The Blue Phase was the best part, and not once, NOT ONCE, did anything happen story-wise the entire 3 years I've been reading along that could compare it to the Blue Phase...but I would've been ok with that, if not for how much they went against what happened in the Blue Phase. Any time I invested into reading on after the Blue Phase, like the origin of Gantz, or the final chapter, lead to nothing worthwhile in my eyes, and that disappoints me.

Maybe that was the point. To show that teamwork and all that doesn't work in the real world. There were moments of harsh realism threaded throughout the series already, and every other story in the Black Phase, when something horrifying happens at the end of the chaper, there was some splash text bashing traditional positive outlooks on life. If so, that only makes me feel worse. I feel like an idiot for thinking a seinen series would carry on with such shonen values for long without smashing them to dust, even though it didn't start with such values, so I can't even appreciate the final season on whatever merits it has.

So you take the story and characterization away, and what do you have? A B-movie type gore and freakout fest that wants you to feel bad about life. I could've gotten that in an actual movie's runtime and moved on. I got about as much during the Red Phase, but I thought I'd get more than that. I was right, but then I was just slowly proven wrong. I can deal with plot contrivances, out of nowhere solutions, out of character moments, and all that, to lengths most will drop and bash series the likes of modern day Bleach and Naruto for, because at least, I enjoyed the ride. At least, without putting any thought into those two, I can say I enjoy reading them for what they are. I can't and won't say that for Gantz. Again, maybe that was the point, to be disappointed or sad to some extent..... but I've never been more, or better yet, fully disappointed with a series firsthand in my life.

[HolyShadow]

I believe you're wrong about the depressing things in Gantz... did you ever notice how every single time someone prayed, a miracle happened?

Any time they invoked the name of God, what they wanted happened. I'm not even kidding; every single time.

They even captured the essence of God within this extremely philosophically realistic series. I find that to be a glimmer of hope within this series' depressing elements. And that hope could be argued to be what won almost every battle in the series.

Rather than dividing them into phases, I look at it as a whole, and I was drawn in by the beginning, excited in the middle, and satisfied by the end. It's not a perfect ending by any means, but I still found the whole thing to be a beautiful work of art done by the leading contributor to art in the hentai industry (he invented nipple movement trails).

[killshot]

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii265/Abiogenocide/Holydig_zpse22273d9.jpg

[HolyShadow]

Philosophy lies not in the tits, but the mind, killshot. Or do you think so much with your tiny killshot you can't figure that out?

[killshot]

I've never read the manga, I've only seen the terrible show. I have no idea if you are right or not, but from my experience what you said was hilarious.

[HolyShadow]

You all already went over this in the previous thread. It's a good manga but you've already made up your mind about it. You don't really deserve to post in this topic since this is clearly about the manga, not the anime, and you haven't even read the manga and clearly don't want to. Stop trolling and gtfo.