Review by Frank Plowright

With this second Omnibus volume Gantz slips a little off the boil. The amazing premise of those saved from the very verge of death sent out to battle monsters is now familiar, and while that saw the cast through a first prolonged encounter, the astonishment begins to fade with a second bout of decompressed storytelling. Additionally, what seemed Hiroya Oku’s debatable attitude to the only female cast member is cemented by the addition of another young woman willing to submit to Kei’s deplorable teenage behaviour. Mixing a really intriguing concept involving battling alien monsters with pandering to the sexual fantasies of teenage boys (straight ones, anyway) is a recipe for commercial success. Yet there’s something very sleazy about the compliance when considered alongside Oku’s habit of starting each chapter with a girl in a provocative pose.

Kei and Kato have now survived their first desperate mission, and an interesting aspect of the early material here is how their knowledge of what’s happening is dismissed by older, but more foolish men. The action in which they’re involved began in Omnibus 1, and occupies most of this volume. Page after page of Oku’s astonishingly good art is a treat, even in Dark Horse’s smaller size Omnibus format, but the gradual death of thugs who’ve revelled in the killing is predictable. Even accounting for the concern of Kei lacking his protective armour, there’s just not enough content to warrant the pages used over the first half here.

Oku does eventually pick up the pace, introducing a third set of participants in a strange monster hunt. This time, though, they include some with religious faith who frame their last minute rescue from death in very different terms to folk seen so far. Even when deposited in the field and faced with grotesques they maintain a faith in survival, all evidence to the contrary. Once things have changed, the pace drops back to glacial. There’s no expectation of everything needing to be revealed, but yet another extremely extended fight and flight scene is unsatisfying, especially as it continues into Omnibus 3.

There is an interesting cliffhanger ending introducing a new aspect to Gantz, but it’s reached the stage where it needs something fresh, not continued repetition.