Gantz 2nd Stage

Despite having seemingly returned to their normal lives, Kei Kurono, Masaru Katou, and Kei Kishimoto are forced back into the lethal game after Gantz's recent activity. The black sphere continues to summon recently deceased people to fight alien invaders. And having survived the two previous encounters, the trio are more than prepared for the upcoming missions.

As they progress through the tournament's stages, the three proceed in their attempt to earn 100 points, which is said to be the only way to leave the parallel dimension for good. However, with the constant onslaught of alien invaders and the threat of imminent death, they must first focus on the task at hand—immediate survival.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kurono, Kei Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Katou, Masaru Main

Oosato, Masashi Japanese

Kishimoto, Kei Main

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Sakuraoka, Sei Supporting

Sonozaki, Mie Japanese

Gantz Supporting

Suzumura, Sadayo Supporting

Kakazu, Yumi Japanese

Muroto, Hajime Supporting

Madono, Mitsuaki Japanese

Hojo, Masanobu Supporting

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Togo, Juzo Supporting

Shirokuma, Hiroshi Japanese

Little Greenonion Supporting

Fujita, Yoshinori Japanese

Itano, Ichirou Director, Storyboard

Oonishi, Keisuke Episode Director

Suzuki, Shingo Storyboard, Animation Director, Key Animation

Nishimori, Akira Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 15, 2010

deleteme234

Recommended

The anime version of Gantz is split into two seasons, and I'm reviewing the second season; Gantz - Second Stage. Check my earlier reviews as I have already reviewed the first season of Gantz and the manga version of Gantz.

Gantz - Second Stage is a mixed bag since it contains one of the best missions that Gantz has to offer (the Buddha mission), but also contains a lackluster ending to the anime that makes people scratch their heads.

The Buddha mission continues where the first season left off, and is highly addictive and kick-ass to watch. It contains everything I love about Gantz; the unpredictability ... of who will live; no one is truly safe in the world of Gantz even if you are a main character. The music is even more intense than the first season as you listen to heart pacing guitar licks as the characters battle against the aliens. Everything about this missions is great!

Now lets talk about the filler arc. First of all the filler isn't terrible, but it wasn't necessary either. The filler arc is actually pretty good, but left off with a strange ending that most people hated, which leaves the viewer confused with many questions unanswered.

A lot of people of people who watched Gantz tell me the same thing: they loved the first three missions featured in the anime but hated the last mission/ ending.

*My recommendation is to watch up till episode 21 of the anime series and go straight to CHAPTER 90 in the manga; trust me on this. *

The manga will provide you with the answers you didn't have in the anime and becomes even more epic.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Aug 3, 2009

Cheespuffs

Mixed Feelings

Wow, what an anime. Lots of good things, but lots of bad things as well. Sometimes it is awesome, sometimes it is boring and tedious.

Story: 5
The show has a good premise and some pretty cool situations, but it is poorly executed, in my opinion. The fight scenes feel like something out of Naruto or DBZ: long and drawn out. The story could have been told much more quickly, and its a bit disappointing that such a cool premise wasn't taken advantage of as much as it could be. There could have been more games than just two per season, instead of having all the characters ... standing in front of the enemy about to pull the trigger but chickening out most of the time.

Either way it was pretty good until the infamous last episode... which was filled with boring and stupid dialogue and not the kind of action you would hope to have in the final episode... and then a completely meaningless ending.

Art: 7
The art was pretty good, and the 3D effect was unique and interesting despite the few times in which it looks ugly, as if it was rendered in 3D and the characters are just flat plains facing the camera (which it probably was). But I think they did a good job on the animation besides those parts.

Sound: 6
The sound was good especially the completely freaky monster voices. Besides that it wasn't too memorable except that it fit well. The music is sometimes ugly and sounds like it was a MIDI file.

The music at the beginning is cool, though.

Character: 6
Besides the three main characters, the rest were completely flat. They were more charactures instead of characters, although that seemed to be the point. Gantz did a great job making completely unsympathetic and people (except for a few) to populate the anime besides the three main characters, showing how evil the human race is. In this part, the show excels, since these were never meant to be developed at all and instead just meant to show how awful some people can be.

The problem with the show's characters are the main ones. Although Kei was a pretty complex character that you can both love and hate and laugh at at the same time, the other two were just annoying. Kei was a fun character, though. At first he is not very easy to like but by the end he is likable and cool. His extreme perversion was funny and lit up an otherwise bleak and brutal anime.

Enjoyment: 4
This is the part that annoys me. It could have been really enjoyable with all the cool fight scenes but it just ended up being tedious and painful. In some parts, it was meant to be that way, like the episodes in-between the games, and it was ok because they are meant to show humandkind's evil, but the fight scenes shouldn't have also been painful. I don't like listing to lengthy discussions in the middle of a battle when everything has paused just to hear them speak predictable and repetitive things, or see flashbacks over and over. I also found myself screaming at them to just shoot already. If you want something more enjoyable, read the manga.

Overall: 5
Gantz is an anime that is genius in some places and just plain stupid in others, plus its just too drawn out. I would only suggest this to fans of the manga or for someone with extreme patience or someone who is planning to do something while watching it. Near the end of the anime I was browsing the web and stuff while watching it because it was just too boring.

I wouldn't suggest it to those who are looking just for gore and violence either because the rest of the show is just too tedious if thats all you are looking for.

I don't regret watching it, though, it just could have been done much better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 6, 2023

Wickardo

Not Recommended

Gantz (both first and second season) is a proof that no matter how attractive and original an idea is, it's condemned to a monumental failure if the execution is not proper. I don't know about the manga since I've never took a look on it, perhaps it is a masterpiece without any comparison, but regarding the anime, I couldn't have been more disappointed.

First things first: the series tries to show a distorted and exaggeratedly negative view of society on which is based a great part of the storytelling, which consists of the saddest and poorest attempts of plot devices. Seriously, the vortex of stupidity wherein ... becomes the argument is massive, and that is seen in the senseless acting of the whole cast under any circumstance. "Wow, this green monster just severed that man's head with its bare hands, I've got a gun right here but I'm not going to use it nor will I run away either, I rather grab the monster from its jacket and yell at it right on its face". That's an humoristic (yet quite literal) interpretation of one of the many stupidities that occur during the first chapters of season one. From the beginning, most of the troubles the characters get into and the subsequent deaths are the result of their apparently NULL common sense. Because of the good reviews I read previously, I kept watching Gantz hoping that nonsenses would eventually come to an end and things would get better. Boy, was I wrong, the absurdities had NO END.

Secondly we have all these 'tension and suspense' scenes when you see people aiming their guns at the aliens they must defeat whilst inwardly saying stuff like "I've got to shoot, I'm going to shoot" but you can leave the chapter playing, go for a snack with a coffee, and then take your sit again only to find out the guy hasn't shot yet. This is not suspensive at all, it's just boring and stressful, I wanted to get into the show through the screen to grab the gun and shoot by myself... not at aliens, but AT HUMANS! Not only are they completely incoherent about their decisions and behavior, but also they lack of any trace of personality. All of them are characterized by basically one or two traits, and are depressing beings mostly for the sake of being depressing. No personality, no credible personal conflicts or desires, no initiative, just hollow animated figures that won't pull the freaking trigger until half the team or so is already dead.

After having tolerated all this torture (and I still don't know how did I make it) to the final arch of the series, I realized that I was not going to get anything similar to a proper ending. The reward for my patience was an abrupt change of the storytelling, with some empty and pretentious tone of intellectuality and not a single issue about the plot answered. Serioysly, 20+ chapters and you won't get any close to at least a hint about what the hell is going on here, you simply don't know what the main topic of the story was supposed to be, if it ever had one.

Besides the relatively detailed animation (thanks to which we can at least get a handful of well conceived action scenes), the fluency and variation in the approach angles and the intriguing of the plot, I can't say nothing in favour to Gantz and I'll never understand why so many people think so high of this show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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