Gigant vol. 2

This is a volume of two halves.  The first half is notable for how it does its absolute damndest to get me to give up on this series with this volume.  That’s because it’s essentially nothing but teenage wish fulfillment involving a porn star who can change her size at will.  All of the weirdness that was bubbling up at the end of the first volume is put on the back burner as Rei decides to make his move on Chiho.  How does he do that?  By asking her out, and then crying as loudly as possible after she says no to get her to finally get in.  No, really.  The worst part is that IT WORKS and they start dating and having a lot of sex as well.  No points for guessing which of those things that mangaka Hiroya Oku decides to focus more on.

Then we get to the volume’s second half, and guess what decides to make an appearance?  The actual premise for “Gigant!”  It turns out that the website whose polls become reality is key to that after its latest results summon a God of Destruction to Tokyo (and similar beings across the world) and it begins to lay waste to the city.  After Rei makes a panicked call to Chiho, saying that he and his family are basically done for, the woman throws caution to the wind and uses her size-changing ability to go toe-to-toe against the God of Destruction.

Actually, it’s more like tits-to-stomach after she tackles the thing while completely naked.  If this is going to be the premise of “Gigant,” that a giant naked porn star gets to fight giant monsters, then it’s fine.  It’ll give Oku a chance to show off his skill with delivering action scenes while letting him channel his pervier tendencies in a way that feels more ridiculous than skeevy.  That said, I have a feeling he’s still going to want to treat the Chiho/Rei relationship with a degree of seriousness that feels like a complete mistake at this point.  So while I’m fine with the monster fighting half of the series, it’s human drama leaves me cold.  I guess I’ll have to check out vol. 3 to see if the latter can trump the former, or maybe transform it into something that’s actually worth reading.