Review by Frank Plowright
Those pesky dinosaurs were almost finished off in Gantz/13, but not quite, and as Gantz/14 opens Kei is being chased by the largest of them all. He has the advantage of being comparatively small, so being able to slot into places the dinosaur can’t, but the dinosaur can just stomp them to pieces. The opening chapters also make good use of those taking part in an alien hunt being slightly out of synch with reality, so unable to interact with normal people, but those people can still be harmed by what’s happening, just incapable of seeing the cause.
Given the size of the remaining dinosaur, scale is all, so Hiroyi Oku includes far more full page illustrations and spreads than is usual just to fit the full dinosaur into an illustration. As ever, we should be in awe of Oku’s art.
A skill Oku’s learned over some patchy volumes earlier is that he has to keep Gantz fresh, and he achieves that in style here. There comes a point where everyone looks to be safe, but they’re not, and a completely different danger is introduced.
So far Kei has been the continuing character, followed through all his doubts, terror and fear, and they haven’t entirely disappeared. As he battles, his prevailing motivation is to win through and see Tae again. What he doesn’t realise is how this determination transmits to others, serving as an inspiration to them. It’s a nice touch indicating progress, and Oku shows Kei growing into the role, then contrasts that with Kei back in school.
Once the main section ends, though, Oku’s storytelling becomes confusing for a while, jumping back and forth between people as he provides the back story of new characters who appeared earlier. They return for an all action finale and cliffhanger ending. As explained here they seem completely random, not greatly original and a poor addition, but given the entertainment Gantz continues to provide, we should give Oku a chance and see if Gantz/15 improves matters. Alternatively that volume’s combined with this in the smaller sized Gantz Omnibus/5.
