I was going to take a break from Japanese dramas this week but then I went to see Gantz at the movies and figured I should review since it’s going to be a world wide hit and all. It’s already been released in the US and will no doubt be released in Australia and elsewhere. Although don’t see it with dubbed voices because that’s just wrong.
I went to see it on the 1st because the first of the month is cheap movie day in Japan. Of course everyone else in Japan decided to do the same thing so I could only get a seat in the very front row which was pretty annoying.
The cinema audience was made up of two groups – either nerd boys there because they’d read the manga or Arashi fan girls there because the movie stars Ninomiya Kazunari. There were also some nerd boy/fan girl combos.
I’m not sure if the nerd boy/fan girl combination would work or not. On the one hand, he’d be totally sympathetic if you couldn’t see him because it’s the day the new Arashi concert DVD is released. And, in return, you’d fully get his need for some new Evangelion shit (*note: I know bugger all about Evangelion).
On the other hand, Japanese apartments are tiny and imagine the space wars over your photo books vs his Gundam figurines. I guess though that’s not an issue because I can pretty much beat that both of them still live with their parents and will do so forever.
Anyways, on to the movie. As noted above, Gantz stars Nino as the Japanese Mad Max and Kenichi Matsuyama as Sam Winchester (ie good guy who loves kittens and rainbows and unicorns but is fated to become a killer against his will and may eventually go on to cause Armageddon and release Satan from hell and all that) . It also stars Annoying Girl as Annoying Girl and Token Love Interest Girl as Token Love Interest Manga Drawing Girl.
So Nino and the other dude, who obviously (in sub-text) had some gay fling in school then broke up, randomly meet each other at a subway station. They pretend not to know each other until some idiot falls on the tracks. Seriously don’t they know “because it’s dangerous, stay behind the yellow line” – they say that like 500 times every time you catch a train in this country!
So Nino and other dude, save the guy on the tracks only to be hit by the subway train themselves. This is awesome. So awesome. Of course my family loves shit like TAC commercials and other shit like that.
Anyway, they end up in the afterlife waiting room with a lovely view of Tokyo Tower (therefore it must be hell and they are in Roppongi?) and a giant ball in the room. The ball gives them a case containing leather cat suits and weaponry. This is a wonderful argument for ensuring you leave a beautiful corpse because seriously I’d hate to imagine how I’d look in one of those suits, though they’d be totally awesome.
The ball tells them they have to go on a mission to kill things (aliens?) and they will get points. If you score 100 points you get shit – like someone you love coming back from the dead and other things but nothing to make killing worthwhile like say the really awesome strawberry and banana roll cake from the the 7-11 or tickets to an Arashi concert.
So wimpy Nino and other dude and all the other dead people get zapped back to Earth to kill shit except Nino and Other Dude are far too wimpy to actually kill. They have a time limit and manage to survive to go back to the Gantz room, then somehow go back to their regular lives. Like zombies or something.
Now because they have the magic leather catsuits, they have all kinds of powers and shit. When Nino discovers this he gets all like “OMG, let me kill shit” but the other dude is not convinced. He is more like – “I just want to have kittens and unicorns and crazy gay sex with Nino in his leather cat suit”. Then he tries to pretend his in love with Annoying Girl to hide his gay feelings but he really doesn’t hide them very well.
Then the annoying girl gets killed and that makes me very happy because seriously if she was around me and I had awesome weaponry, I’d be like screw the aliens, you’re dead, bitch. She was that annoying.
After that, they fight some awesome monsters and blow lots of shit up and there is more fighting. Of all the movies I’ve seen with fighting and violence and blowing shit up, this was the BEST and I fully recommend it. I can’t wait until April for part 2.
