Aion
Time-Traveller
Over my seven, eight or however many years I've spent dementing myself on the internet, I've seen a lot. Much of what I've seen I'd have been better off not looking at. I mean, who would've thought an octopus would use its tentacles to sexually assault a woman, and even though horses are well endowed creatures I never would've imagined a horseman would do that to a school girl!
...I'm getting slightly off-track here. My bad. The point I'm attempting to make is that very little surprises me. But Gantz has got a fair few reactions out of me, and today in particular a fairly epic manga moment made me smile.
Before today, I'd never seen a big-breasted woman get into a kickboxing stance to take on a Buddha statue. She dodged one of the statue's many hands as it thrust a sword at her, spin-kicked the sword out of its hands and, just as the statue went to throw deadly acid at her, she kicked what was holding it up in the air; knocking it over the statue. Sadly for her, however, victory wasn't to be hers because the statue had one last trick up its sleeve: a laser beam shot out of a candle-thing (seriously).
Sometimes, just sometimes, you have to throw logic out of the window and be impressed. In the case of Gantz, though, you can't help but do it constantly. Some may call it, among other things, sexist because of Kei2/Tits getting naked and men trying to rape her on a regular basis, but that's just Gantz - it's in your face and unapologetic. The mangaka clearly doesn't have much regard for humans, and that's fine with me.
The whole Buddha mission was, from start to finish, epic. It was almost unfair how new statues kept appearing - some small, others giants. Just when the team of doomed 'heroes' thought they'd won, out came another, far more nasty statue; the last one having the ability to cut through the Gantz costumes like paper and regenerate. After many, many... MANY deaths, it got to the point where a sniper jumped out of the 'corpse' of one of the statues to surprise the near enough invincible last one; stabbing it with a spear. It was pretty ******* intense.
Moving away from the Buddha arc, what makes Gantz awesome - aside from the boobs, pubic hair, artwork, black comedy and cynicism - is its adult execution. For me, what sets apart a childish and mature title is how an author treats his/her characters. If, like in the case of many generic shounen, none of the good guys ever die because they're good, you just know it's aimed at kids/kids at heart who overlook such things. But, when an author has little issue killing off even important characters, that allows the story - to a certain extent at least - to be unpredictable. And that's exactly what older, more experienced fans desire - to be shocked. For me personally, there's little joy to be had reading 100's of manga chapters, knowing full well in in the next 100 or so very little is going to change; nowadays I NEED 'extreme' stories like Gantz to get my kicks.
The only downer of this Gantz lovin' is Dark Horse. As far as I can see, they've done a great job on the translation front (though I'd like more swearing), but that's not my issue: my issue is that only eight volumes are out. Since I now own all eight volumes and don't like the idea of reading 18 pages a week, being the impatient soul I am, I'm going to have to wait until the middle of Feb for my next fix, and the next date to look forward to after that is April. Reading 12 chapters at once every two months is better than reading eight (or less) chapters spread over two months, but it still isn't ideal.
At times like this, I wish I was French. As much as it would irk me to be classed as a coward by the rest of the world because of my nationality, at least I'd be able to buy 20+ volumes of Gantz and all 18 volumes of Eden. Trust France, rather than America, to have the biggest manga community outside of Japan!
...Anyway, enough rambling, methinks. For now, I'll need to put my Gantz volumes in my (far too large) comic book bags and wait for my pre-orders to be sent. Good things come to those who wait, etc etc. Maybe I should try learning French to avoid waiting... or, better yet, become a full-time otaku and actually learn more than what 'dame!~' (translation: Yes! Keep going!) means?
...I'm getting slightly off-track here. My bad. The point I'm attempting to make is that very little surprises me. But Gantz has got a fair few reactions out of me, and today in particular a fairly epic manga moment made me smile.
Before today, I'd never seen a big-breasted woman get into a kickboxing stance to take on a Buddha statue. She dodged one of the statue's many hands as it thrust a sword at her, spin-kicked the sword out of its hands and, just as the statue went to throw deadly acid at her, she kicked what was holding it up in the air; knocking it over the statue. Sadly for her, however, victory wasn't to be hers because the statue had one last trick up its sleeve: a laser beam shot out of a candle-thing (seriously).
Sometimes, just sometimes, you have to throw logic out of the window and be impressed. In the case of Gantz, though, you can't help but do it constantly. Some may call it, among other things, sexist because of Kei2/Tits getting naked and men trying to rape her on a regular basis, but that's just Gantz - it's in your face and unapologetic. The mangaka clearly doesn't have much regard for humans, and that's fine with me.
The whole Buddha mission was, from start to finish, epic. It was almost unfair how new statues kept appearing - some small, others giants. Just when the team of doomed 'heroes' thought they'd won, out came another, far more nasty statue; the last one having the ability to cut through the Gantz costumes like paper and regenerate. After many, many... MANY deaths, it got to the point where a sniper jumped out of the 'corpse' of one of the statues to surprise the near enough invincible last one; stabbing it with a spear. It was pretty ******* intense.
Moving away from the Buddha arc, what makes Gantz awesome - aside from the boobs, pubic hair, artwork, black comedy and cynicism - is its adult execution. For me, what sets apart a childish and mature title is how an author treats his/her characters. If, like in the case of many generic shounen, none of the good guys ever die because they're good, you just know it's aimed at kids/kids at heart who overlook such things. But, when an author has little issue killing off even important characters, that allows the story - to a certain extent at least - to be unpredictable. And that's exactly what older, more experienced fans desire - to be shocked. For me personally, there's little joy to be had reading 100's of manga chapters, knowing full well in in the next 100 or so very little is going to change; nowadays I NEED 'extreme' stories like Gantz to get my kicks.
The only downer of this Gantz lovin' is Dark Horse. As far as I can see, they've done a great job on the translation front (though I'd like more swearing), but that's not my issue: my issue is that only eight volumes are out. Since I now own all eight volumes and don't like the idea of reading 18 pages a week, being the impatient soul I am, I'm going to have to wait until the middle of Feb for my next fix, and the next date to look forward to after that is April. Reading 12 chapters at once every two months is better than reading eight (or less) chapters spread over two months, but it still isn't ideal.
At times like this, I wish I was French. As much as it would irk me to be classed as a coward by the rest of the world because of my nationality, at least I'd be able to buy 20+ volumes of Gantz and all 18 volumes of Eden. Trust France, rather than America, to have the biggest manga community outside of Japan!
...Anyway, enough rambling, methinks. For now, I'll need to put my Gantz volumes in my (far too large) comic book bags and wait for my pre-orders to be sent. Good things come to those who wait, etc etc. Maybe I should try learning French to avoid waiting... or, better yet, become a full-time otaku and actually learn more than what 'dame!~' (translation: Yes! Keep going!) means?
