Gantz: O Movie Review

Gantz: O Movie Review

Within the first few minutes, it becomes apparent that this movie has a hard time determining its audience. Fans of the manga will be peeved by the various edits done resulting in potential favorite scenes being cut out. Viewers who haven't read the manga will feel confused by the fast pacing and lack of explanations. At the end of the day, this movie is an exhilarating thrill ride from start to finish.

How much you enjoy the story is dependant on your familiarity with the manga. As a standalone peice, this movie is the tale of a brave teen who finds himself trapped within a horrific survival game. Manga readers may see this as a rushed and clumsy adaptation of a fan favorite arc. It would've been much better Gantz: O was instead a cinematic miniseries akin to Digimon Tri with more time to flesh out the plot.

The film begins with manga protagonist Kei Kurono being killed off by a huge yokai alien before the scene switches to Kato getting killed by a knife-wielding maniac in the subway. This is the most noticeable change since Kato in this continuity is unfamiliar with the Gantz game while in the manga he had experienced prior to this arc.

The characterization is a bit messy due to the compressed nature of the movie but the core personality traits are still there. Nishi is still a complete sociopath, Kato is a noble hero and the Osaka team are careless hedonists. Reika has weaker characterization than the other due to her spending a lot of time reminiscing over the dead Kurono. This is mostly Hiroya Oku's sexist writing because even in the manga, Reika's personality mainly revolved around Kurono.

The action scenes are the definitive highlight of Gantz O. Every scene is backed up by gorgeous cg animation courtesy of Keiichi Satou. The man is no stranger to cg animation and even worked on the saint Seiya legend of the sanctuary movie prior to Gantz. The character models are expressive and fluid throughout the film which makes them feel like real people. Fight scenes are depicted with all the gore and brutality of the original manga. Bodies are crushed to bloody pulps and limbs are sent flying. Battle junkies everywhere should be able to enjoy this movie.

Aggressive Stupidity is the real challenge of Ousama Game

By now, many people have likely heard of the show that went down as the greatest Trainwreck of 2017. It was a glorious failure that was simultaneously annoying as it was hilarious. The concept of a survival game is simple enough that an average writer could make an entertaining work from it but only a truly horrible writer could mess it up.  

Ousama game is weird in that it adapts two manga at the same time. The sequel manga makes up the majority of the anime while the original manga is adapted in the form of long flashbacks. Trying to adapt two manga in only 12 episodes was bound to lead to a jumbled narrative that feels like it has ADHD.

Being a survival game, the story is naturally full of suspense to attract viewers. The synopsis is that everyone in nobuaki's class receives a message from someone called "king". They must follow all of his order or else they will die. Nobuaki is a survivor of the previous King's game and is determined to finally put a stop to it. Seeing how the students will react to their given challenge is always fun and the stakes were always high. Getting orders from an anonymous person via phone with the promise of death is a solid premise. This would've been a fun show had it not been for the dog shit characters

Let's talk about the characters cause dear God these are the worst written characters to Grace the face of the earth. Since this is character-driven, these assholes are the plot. Everyone here is a dumbass who goes out of their way to antagonize one another. From the original ousama game, there's this mysterious bitch who knows the secret behind the game but refuses to tell anyone. She just waits while the others die off while she acts like the smug piece of shit she is. There was also the asshole bully who ordered some guy to kill himself as a king's order and gets surprised when the boy dies. A girl kills herself when she loses a game, not knowing that the punishment was harmless. To top it all off, Some truly dumbass bitch gets to decide her own king's order and she orders herself to touch the king.

This was based on the extremely weak assumption that the king was definitely in her class. Unsurprisingly, she dies like the fool she is. It takes a special breed of stupid to make characters like these. Aki Honda takes the cake by perhaps being my most hated character in all of fiction besides Bakugou Katsuki.  She introduced herself as being a kind-hearted and upbeat girl who immediately likes Nobuaki but goes from 0 to 100 as soon as the ousama game starts. She immediately morphs into a cartoonishly evil alpha bitch who watches in delight as her classmates die. The students see her act like the vessel of Satan multiple times but some still trust her for some reason. Like her friend who saved her cause Aki was nice to her once. The heartless witch could've been dead but no. Some dumb bitch had to save her.

Then it's revealed the entire reason she acts like a bitch is so the others won't be hurt when she's dies. That's the dumbest fucking ass-backward logic I ever heard. She tortured everyone without remorse and caused them far more grief than her death would've caused. And the whole evil transformation happened at the snap of a finger without any build-up. A+ acting skills for Aki but her performance ruined everything for everyone.

The reveal behind the ousama game is what cemented this show as an aggressively stupid. The whole thing was set up by an intelligent virus that forces the body to kill itself! Sound like the type of crap m night Shyamalan would write. How on Earth a virus could force the human body to combust, send out text messages and other bs is beyond me. The plot twist is just too mind-boggling stupid to take seriously. It would've been better off as a mystery.

Ousama game's only saving grace is the opening song, feed the fire by cold rain. Dear God was that song amazing!! An all English Hardrock song that easily surpassed the entire show. Ousama Game wins a 5/10 for being an entertaining and hilariously bad piece of trash with a great opening but god awful characters and plot twists.

For a manga that actually handled the king's game concept well, read Arisa by Natsumi Anso. It's a shojo series filled with twists and turns to keep the reader in suspense. No b movie horror logic here .

I'll admit that this series had an interesting premise. It's not everyday you see characters manipulate the periodic table elements as opposed to the magical ones. Then you realize that breast milk is the most important element of them all.

I’ll start off by noting that this anime is based off a manga written by Hiroyuki Yoshino; the same man who wrote Guilty crown. That show may have had its fair share of problems, but it was FAR better than this show ever was.

In this setting, there exists a species of people called qwasers who have the power of manipulating of perodic element by absorbing the soma from a maria. This mystical Soma turns out to be breast milk.I really wanna slap the editor who let the creator go through with that idea. Ignoring that, there's still this cool set up with the eastern orthodox church fighting against a group called the adepts. This show could of been good but it chose not to. Instead We Get Another Generic Ecchi Filled To the Brim With OVERSACTURATED Fanservice. I admit the art style and animation is pretty nice but the story barely even develops until the last few episodes. Another pet peeve is katja, a sexualized sadistic little girl who makes one of the other characters her sex slave. I know there are idiots who will say " just ignore it" or " the anime industry would be dead without ecchi" but they're to blame for the declining state of anime in the first place. In other words, stay away from this show. 

Poem 1- How to be a Woman

Straighten your hair, you look unsightly Lose a few pounds, you might look pretty Lighten your skin tone, so we can't fear you Cover the bruises, You're making a scene Don't wear a skirt, You'll lead him on Don't talk back, it poisons the air Kill it in the womb, bastards are overpopulated Don't say no, you'll be back to step four Cry yourself to sleep, it's your latest routine Don't be a woman, you don't want to be me.

Poem 2- Nicotine Demon

˜”*°•.˜”*°• C₁₀H₁₄N₂

That's the formula of death

The nicotine demon

A capitalistic bullet aimed at your lungs

You inject the poison in your mouth

And feed the system built to destroy youth and minorities

Cancer has a price tag and you're buying it

What're you doing? Put it down!

Don't live in the city of fog, where the breaths you take for granted become exotic fantasies

This addiction isn't your friend

It won't save you from momentary problems

It'll lead you to a lifetime of dying every single day

Don't light it up. The fuse of your lifeline is too short to waste. •°*”˜.•°*”˜

The Ethos and Pathos of Aquarion Logos

Aquarion Logos has a lot to say about what we say and how we say it. We encounter words daily and it's how we communicate. This is a show combines sociology and mecha action to create a giant love letter to the written language and logophilia.

Our heroes are all members of the verbalism club, a covert group that operates inside a cafe. Their mission is to fight the M.J.B.K, monsters of the week with the power to corrupt and erase concepts out of existence. These monsters are given life by a man named sougon, someone who feels that words will lead to humanity's Downfall.

The show is just as much about the Mecha violence as it is about sociology. Logos loves to examine how people interact with each other and what outcomes arise from said interactions. Aquarion's philosophy comes from the philosophical concept of logos and the Japanese concept of kotodama. Logos is often defined as reason and discourse. Words are used to provide order and structured knowledge to society and it's absence leads to discord. That's exactly what happens when the mbjk attacks. They ruin humanity's main tool of communication and cause chaos in its wake. Ironically, part of the show's lore involves an ancient war between the truth tribe and the word tribe. The truth tribe opposed the word tribe because words can easily be used to spread lies.  Logos as a philosophical concept embodies logic and reason but this show emphasizes how words can have the opposite effect. It was a lack of communication due to the truth tribe not understanding the written word which augmented both side's hostility.

Kotodama( soul of language) is the mystical belief that words can induce magical effects on people and objects. Ever notice how every battle anime and tokusatsu show has the characters shout out their attacks? It probably links back to kotodama. The mbjk are metaphysical embodiments of certain words/concepts. An early Monster is the embodiment of fire, causing inextinguishable flames to break out in Japan and causes mass flame wars online. The effects of the mbjk attacks are based on Japanese wordplay and metaphoric thinking. 

Sogon's hatred for words is comparable to the hatred of nature the villains of captain planet share. It's comical when taken at face value but it presents a well-developed argument to be had. Words can be used as tools as destruction and far too often do we use them as such. There's a cavalcade of cyberbullying, verbal abuse and hate speech cases every day. Some people can destroy others with words alone. The purpose of the verbalism club is to combat this dilemma by stressing how words can be used to form strong bonds and enlighten others. This is highlighted by the career choices of the main characters. Kokone is an aspiring actress, Hayato wants to be a politician,Tsutomu wants do be a comedian and Karen wants to be a pop star. All of these are professions which require strong speaking skills and making use of language.

On a side note, Aquarion Logos is one of the strongest mechas in all of fiction. It can kill conceptual beings with raw power and even killed the physical embodiment of nothingness, the same mbjk that almost erased the entire earth and, potentially, the universe, out of existence. It has a stronger form called Aquarion Logos Genesis which embodies the concept of definition and holds the power of infinity. It is at the very least universal in power on top of the concept destruction hax.

In a country where illiteracy and texting addiction is on the rise, maybe America could use a verbalism club. It would be a cool mesh of creative writing, reading, and even a little acting. There are so many problems that could be avoided if more people understood the importance of language. Make verbalism a part of your life by always reading and writing. 

                 Sources

https://www.britannica.com/topic/logos The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Logos.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 May 2012, www.britannica.com/topic/logos.

https://jpninfo.com/37451  “Kotodama: Do You Believe in the Power of Words?” Japan Info, jpninfo.com/37451.