Gantz vol. 34

If you’re familiar with the web machinima series “Red vs. Blue,” I want to to remember all the way back to the first season.  Back to the moment when Sarge, taken out of action by a grenade to the face, is revived through the heroic efforts of Grif’s administration of CPR.  Sarge is grateful until he finds out that Grif was the one who revived him, at which point (and true to form) he asks what the hell the soldier was doing in administering CPR to a person who had a grenade blow up in his face.

I bring this up here because we get to witness a similar situation in this latest volume of “Gantz.”  It involves spoilers, so it goes after the break.  Just know that we’re meant to take it seriously, even though it’s as silly as the scene I just described, and boobs are involved too.

Okay.  The clone of Kei who is working with Reika, Kato, and other Gantz team members to escort the naked humans out of the undercity winds up staying behind to fight off a really big monster so the rest of the crew can escape.  Reika, being completely in love with the boy, grabs a gun and runs back after him in the hopes of saving his ass.  After she arrives and Kei shares some very poorly chosen thoughts on who he wanted by his side at this moment, he’s knocked out and it’s up to Reika to save him.  She does this at the cost of her life.  Despite being clearly dead, Kei starts performing CPR on her, after taking the time to unhook her suit so he can do this directly on her bare chest.

Clearly mangaka Hiroya Oku wants us to feel Kei’s desperation and sadness as he comes to realize that the woman who really loved him (and he kinda liked too) is gone forever.  Me, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the above-mentioned scene from “Red vs. Blue” as there’s no good reason why we should think that performing CPR on Reika would bring her back.  Unless Oku’s real aim was to give us one last glimpse of the idol’s massive rack before she departs the series for good.  You can’t rule out something like that.  Stay classy, “Gantz.”

With regard to the rest of the volume, it actually feels like Oku is managing to drag things out as he prepares for the end of the series.  After original Kei and Tae have their reunion, the former is whisked away into a giant mech to continue the fight against the aliens.  I knew that something had to come between them before the end, and I’m at least glad Tae didn’t wind up getting killed (again).  Still, what happens to Kei here feels incredibly random and likely the result of the mangaka wanting to draw a giant mecha battle than something that grew naturally out of the story.

Also hanging around are Nishi and Sakurai.  The former finally manages to get back into the game, yet I’m expecting him to be squished sometime in the next volume.  As for the title’s resident psychic, he’s still nursing a death wish as he winds up in the same kind of giant mecha as Kei.  That he’s able to use the suit to amplify his powers is neat, but then we see that Oku has decided to give the character another power from the “Akira” skillset which allows him to conveniently set up a reunion between Sakurai and a very important person in his life.  It seems like a really transparent attempt to allow the character to get over his death wish.  Then again, having the mangaka wave his hands to set up future plot points and indulge himself at will seems to be the order of this volume.

Yeah, I guess this is what I get for calling “Gantz’s” upswing in quality over the past few volumes a “sustainable trend” last time.  Guess I should’ve continued to maintain my skepticism.