Gantz Manga Ending Review (Part 1)
0I finished Gantz (and then finished editing this video into 3 parts roughly 20 years later...).
About Gantz (per Wikipedia):
Gantz (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku. It was serialized in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump from June 2000 to June 2013, with its chapters collected in 37 tankōbon volumes. It tells the story of Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, both of whom died in a train accident and become part of a semi-posthumous "game" in which they and several other recently deceased people are forced to hunt down and kill aliens armed with a handful of futuristic items, equipment, and weaponry.
Production
Hiroya Oku first thought of Gantz's story when he was in high school. He was inspired by the jidaigeki program Hissatsu, and the Robert Sheckley novel Time Killer. However, he did not decide to make Gantz until after writing the manga Zero One; Zero One had a similar setting, but Oku ended the series, noting it was not very entertaining and that it was too expensive to develop.
When creating the chapters for the manga, Oku starts with a thumbnail of the pages. He then creates 3D models of the characters and backgrounds on his computer. Once done, Oku prints the characters and backgrounds he made in 3D, adds tone and color to the pages, and finishes with sound effects and dialogue. He had already used this style in Zero One, but for that title, there was little work in hand drawing; Oku decided to add more hand drawing to give Gantz a more realistic tone as well as reduce the budget. However, he still notes that such a method is time-consuming and that he has to work quickly in order to finish the chapters on time.
Oku tries to incorporate realism into Gantz and adds that some of the events occurring in the story are based on his opinions regarding the world. During violent or erotic scenes, Oku makes sure to not make them very long to avoid reducing the series' realism. However, he has mentioned that he does not autocensor and that all the drawings he has ever illustrated have been published in the manga. Some plot twists are meant to go against common events that happen in several manga such as the deaths of the major characters like Kei Kishimoto and Masaru Kato. Before the series started serialization, Oku told his assistants that with Kurono's exception, all the major characters from the series would die.
Manga
Gantz, written and illustrated by Hiroya Oku, debuted in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Jump on June 29, 2000. Gantz is divided into three main story arcs, referred to as "phases". After the completion of phase one (first 237 chapters) on July 20, 2006, the author put the series on hiatus for a short time to work on phase two (chapters 238–303), which was serialized from November 22, 2006, to July 2, 2009. The third and final phase (chapters 303–383) started on October 1, 2009, and the series finished after about 13 years of publication on June 20, 2013. Shueisha collected its chapters in thirty-seven tankōbon volumes, released from December 11, 2000, to August 19, 2013. A vertical-scrolling full-color edition of the series, released under the title Gantz: T, started on Shueisha's Jump Toon vertical-scrolling manga service on July 7, 2024. Shine Partners is in charge of the coloring.
Spin-offs
Gantz/Osaka, showing the stories of the Gantz Osaka team, has been published in Japan in 2010 and compiled in 3 volumes released by Shueisha between October 20 and December 17, 2010. A special chapter Gantz no Moto that has Hiroya Oku telling the story on how he got into the manga business and what films influenced him was published in Miracle Jump on January 13, 2011. A one-shot chapter Gantz/Nishi, showing the life of Nishi, was published in Weekly Young Jump on May 12, 2011.
A spin-off, titled Gantz G, was published from November 2015 to March 2017. The manga was written by Oku and illustrated by Keita Iizuka.
A historical spin-off of Gantz titled Gantz: E, written by Oku and illustrated by Jin Kagetsu started in January 2020.
Anime
Gantz was adapted into a 26-episode anime television series by Gonzo, with series composition and scripts written by Masashi Sogo , characters designs by Naoyuki Onda , and music composed by Natsuki Sogawa; Yasuharu Takanashi also composed the music from episode 6 onwards. The series aired for two seasons, labeled as "stages".
Gantz: O, a 3D CGI animated film adaptation, was released in 2016.
Video game
On March 17, 2005, Konami published a game for the PlayStation 2 in Japan named simply as Gantz: The Game. It features the characters and plot up to the Chibi Alien mission. The game mixes third-person shooter and role-playing game (RPG) elements together. The game also includes extras including Free Play mode, a Mini Mode, Magazine Browser mode, Gantz Rankings, a special preview movie and the scenario completion statistic.