Gantz is a strange one. I get the feeling that the folks at Gonzo suddenly realized that they were the black sheep of the industry because all of their shows made too much sense, and Gantz is the result. They placed a black sphere in the middle of a small Tokyo apartment, filled the room with dead people, and gave them the mission of fighting aliens - the extraterrestrial kind. At the outset, it leaves me a little weirded out, a little interested, and a little disturbed.

The main characters of the series, or so we're led to believe, are Kei Kuruno and Masaru Kato, who were childhood friends. The story begins with the two being run over by an express train after they save a bum that passed out and fell on the tracks. They're brought to a room with other dead people and a big black ball that warped the floor, Terminator-style. Then after main character #3 drops in completely naked (Kei Kishimoto), the black ball tells them to go kill aliens if they don't want to die a second time.

That's the weird part. The interesting part is that they get to wear funny suits and fire funny weapons. The disturbing part has to do with their personalities. It seems like there isn't a decent human being in the whole lot, with one possible exception. Some have no qualms with getting violent, as we find out rather quickly when the naked girl arrives. The first volume might leave you wondering if anything good is to come from this situation.

Kei and Masaru are beat after running from an express train.	Kei #2 suffers from a clothing shortage at first.

The disc extras include the standard clean OP/ED sequences, a preview video for the second volume, and an interview with Ichiroh Itano, the director of Gantz. Interviews with production staff are always a good thing, so kudos to ADV for that. The interview covers the director's motives for creating the series, and what he hopes for viewers to get out of it. To be honest, I found the interview more interesting than these first two episodes of the show.

Looking at the first volume of Gantz, I see a premise that wants to hide behind graphic footage for fear of embarassment. The series is still young at this point, so anything could happen. Its level of appeal will likely depend on whether it can make something of [male] Kei and Masaru, as those two appear to be its best hope for climbing out of the gutter. Otherwise, it could easily lose itself in the dregs of humanity without making any sort of point. It'll be interesting to see what happens from here on.

Distributor: ADV Films
Creator: Hiroya Oku / GONZO Digimation
Released: 2004

Video Quality: A-
Audio Quality: A-
Presentation: A
Content: B-
Overall: B