Gantz Volume 1: v. 1 Paperback – Illustrated, 8 July 2008

Delivered in time, and perfect conditions! As well as the other volumes I bought from them! Strongly advise this shop

Quite hard to get a hold of, but the manga is still very enjoyable. It's both surreal and surprisingly realistic.

Fantastic purchase. Unfortunately entirely written in French.

Yes, I've been a fan of this manga for years!I bought the first 8 volumes in Japan a couple of years ago, other than being in english this is exactly the same, Buy it now.I was wondering if they would cut out some of the gore, they haven't so it's perfect.

After high school student Kurono Kei is hit by a train while saving a drunken bum he and his friend Masaru find themselves in a plain room with a number of other recently deceased people and a mysterious black orb. Once everyone is gathered, the orb tells them that it now controls their lives and orders them to hunt down aliens living on Earth.`Gantz' seems to be an interesting and quite dark series and it is definitely one that I will continue to read. The artwork is good and while this first volume doesn't reveal much of the story it does set things up quite nicely. The volume does include some quite gory moments as well as some nudity so it probably will not be to everyone's tastes but there is definitely enough her to keep me interested.

Gantz is a japanese manga, written and illustrated by Hiroya oku it has now been released in english and is published by Dark horse comics, famous for the likes of 300, Sin city and Hellboy.Based on this it almost goes without saying that it is a more adult manga, featuring strong langauge as well as graphic scenes of violence and sex which may turn some off from the otherwise interesting story.Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato are a pair of high school students (16 years old) who die in a horrific collision with a high speed train whilst trying to save the life of a homeless man on the tracks. Strangely though, they then find themeselves in a tokyo apartement and no way of escape, also in this room are several other people, a dog and a big, black sphere.This sphere is Gantz, opening to reveal a dieing bald man hooked up to a mask, the sphere informs the people that their lives now belong to him and that they must take the weapons and suits provided, and to take down the aliens shown by any means necassary.There are a few rules which must be followed.1. They will only be allowed to return to the apartement when the mission is succesful.2. Every alien killed will earn the person points.3. Only when 100 points are gained will the person be able to leave the team.Alongside Kei and Masaru there are several others in the team. 2 members of the Yakuza ( Japanese mafia ), a 14 year old student, a cancer patient, 20 year old addict and a suicidal women. This mismatch of characters, backgrounds and morals make for an interesting set of relationships and quite a few moments of friction between them. Of course in the game they are now playing, team work is key and with decisions being made on the fly and seperations occuring, the dynamic of the group evolves and leads to an almighty cliff-hanger.The narrative is a little slow in this first volume but is steady enough with the characters being introduced and giving a scope of the situation. Regular moments of action are used to top up your interest throughout the first half of the book, mainly the death of Kei and Masaru, but also the mistreatment of the suicide girl when she arrives at the apartment.In the second half of the narrative the speed picks up as we see the team chase down their first alien, but the adrenaline didn't rush as much as I expected it too and although there was a chase and lots of explosions it all just felt too standard, however the final scenes did build well and left a good opening for the second volume.The story does also have a touch of mystery into where they actually are, there are certain things that lead you to beleive it some kind of purgatory, especially with events near the end of the book and the weighing up of points based on actions.The characters didn't reveal too much of themeselves here, personality wise anyway. All the characters for now are meant to be taken at face value, which may well pay off at a later date but at the time it makes them seem very 2 dimensional and hard to connect with.Kei kurono is seen as the stereoptypical angry 16 year old, he thinks very little of those around him and is very begrudgingly pulled in to help rescue the man on the tracks. His bad attitude is pretty annoying and his frame of mind is completely based on himself, even when he forms an attraction to the suicide girl, he manages to make it all about him.Masaru Kato is a lot stronger willed than Kei but shows less raw emotion. As more about their past is revealed we see that Masaru origionally looked up to Kei and now feels a lot of dissapointment as to how he has turned out. He generally ops for the morally correct decision without thinking about the consequences to those around him.Artistically the book is very detailed due to its computer created design. Whilst this adds more depth and detail into the image , you lose some of the personality and attraction of the book due to this artificial feel. The book can be gory at times, close ups of the flying severed heads of the main characters are meant to shock but don't always hit as hard.The opening scene could have been a little more urgent and the lack of variety in panel design fails to build a sense of anticipation or true action. Considering an express train is about to hit what seem to be the main protagonists, it feels as though there is a lot of time passing leaving the end result to be less shocking.At times the books need to shock the reader is a little over the top, the suicide girl seems to be the main outlet for this from the first moment she enters the story. Transported to the apartment completely naked, she is then set upon by one of the yakuza as well as the dog. This is a shame because this will turn many away from the story and with time I think this could build to something interesting.The manga can be finished in an evening and whilst it does have an interesting premise, certain aspects make it a bit of a turn off.