Manga Review: Gantz

Title: Gantz
Author: Oku Hiroya
Release: Biweekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Sci-fi, Seinen
Art: S
Originality: S
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: A

Impression: This is about a group of people who die and later find themselves inside of an apartment with a giant black ball in the middle of the room. The ball is called Gantz and it sends these people to hunt down dangerous aliens roaming in secret on earth using high tech equipment that Gantz gives them. After each round of killing aliens, the unwilling participants are allowed to return back to their normal lives until the next round but if they attempt to reveal the secret of the hunts they're forced to go on, they'll die from a bomb implanted in their heads. The most noticeable aspect of this manga definitely has to be its art. Some of the drawing designs in there resembles CG models used on anime so it looks really odd in black and white on manga pages. The action is a bit of a mixed bag. The battle scenes range from awesome to ridiculous and the pacing is pretty slow for these battles taking up several chapters for one particular enemy. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad but it can really put off someone from following chapter by chapter. It's still good and has a deep story but the pacing can make or break someone's interest in it.