This is a preliminary review of Gantz: E. As of the time of writing 51 chapters have been translated to English and six volumes have been released. I feel like seinen manga has an unfair expectation set in the West. Seinen is assumed by default to be nuanced complex something that teaches a lesson. Something that hits home. The biggest caveat to this is that it blinds people to seinen manga that aims to be much less ambitious than that and is ultimately still worth experiencing regardless of any other arbitrary qualification. Gantz is in an odd place where it is both an aggressively shameless scifi action movie and a series that attempts to be much more than that it attempts to ask deep philosophical questions that you may have also seen as a midhigh students Instagram captions. Its ultimately not all that insightful despite Hiroya Okus best efforts and those moments where it tries to be typically end up being the weakest parts of the manga. Gantz is at its best when its effectively just a really edgy battle shonen people die in horrific ways people overcome impossible odds using a combination of shamelessly broken weaponry and characterdevelopment fueled willpower bosses finally die after the 20th seemingly lethal attack and all the while Hiroya Oku is illustrating like his life depends on it. Gantz is at its best a mindless action movie manga and you shouldnt let anyone tell you thats a bad thing. It rules. Gantz is awesome. For those unaware the premise of Gantz is pretty interesting: once someone dies theres a chance theyll get revived and get given a mission to kill an alien target using some badass scifi weaponry. Usually theres a main boss alien and a bunch of lackey aliens too. You get points depending on how many aliens you kill but killing a boss alien alone can net you upwards of 70 points sometimes 100 points. Once a mission is complete you get sent back to the room you reincarnated in and get to live in the human world until youre called back for a new mission so youll get anywhere from a few days to a month between missions. Once you reach 100 points you are given the option to receive some overpowered ass weapon revive permanently and forget about the Gantz program altogether or a third option that isnt immediately revealed that I wont spoil. Its a death game of sorts but a much more action oriented one. Its also chockfull of ridiculously blatant sexism and shockvalue content. Im not all that bothered by it personally its just eyeroll worthy as far as Im concerned but its enough that I would be hesitant to recommend it to anyone without knowing them personally. The rest of this review assumes the reader is familiar with the main series so just know that if you can handle Gantz you can handle Gantz: E. If anything the content has as of the time of writing less offensive content than the original series does. After I finished Gantz I needed more. I read Gantz:G and although I didnt outright dislike it the short runtime definitely killed a lot of the love I couldve had for it. I read Gigant and it was a mess but a fun mess. Not what Id call good but not an experience I regret having. I have yet to read Inuyashiki but its most definitely on my list. When I heard that Hiroya Oku was writing a Gantz spinoff that took place in Edo period Japan my curiosity was piqued. I had been reading a lot more samurairelated series lately: most obviously Vagabond Gintama Blade of the Immortal Rurouni Kenshin etcetera so the idea of seeing samurai action in a Gantz manga was immediately appealing to me. So I began reading it. Now heres a very surface level but also very real complaint I have about Gantz:E. There is about as much samurai action in Gantz:E as there was in Gantz. In an astonishingly low amount of time Gantz:E goes from being a samurai story to being Gantz: Again. At least during the actual Gantz missions theres very little there that could set itself apart from the original Gantz series. Weapons are just as scifi flavored as they were in the original the suits are basically the same the aliens are mostly the same the stakes are the same there are even some action sequences that seem like outright recreations of famous shots in the original Gantz. Every trope you remember from the original manga is back in Gantz: E. Hell after a while even the futuristic mechas and bikes youll recognize from the original manga start showing up with no explanation or even so much as a second look from the oddly unconcerned protagonists. Seriously it doesnt even phase these guys its Edoperiod Japan but after their initial introduction to Gantz weaponry they basically dont get surprised by much of anything tech wise at least. There is one unique aspect of Gantz: E that has been introduced at the end of the second mission but only time will tell how Hiroya Oku plays it. I am cautiously optimistic but Im keeping my expectations measured. Generally speaking Gantz: E is more Gantz. If you like Gantz youll be happy to know theres more of that in here. If you like me expected Gantz: E to evolve the formula in drastic ways youll be sorely disappointed. The time between missions is admittedly different. Although they too suffer a bit from rehashing storylines from the original manga the setting does actually have bearing over how those storylines play out. Not in any particularly exciting ways but enough to keep it somewhat fresh. I do lament the lack of interesting characters though every character seems like an expy for another character from Gantz. OSaki is Kei Kishimoto the Princess is Reika Shimohira Masakichi and Hanbee serve the roles Kei Kurono and Masaru Katou served in the original manga and there are other characters that fill Sakurai old man Suzuki Oka Hachirou and Nishis roles as well. Its pretty much the most shameless example of milking a series that Ive seen and its like that to a ridiculous degree. So why do I ultimately like Gantz: E as much as I do? The reason I like Gantz: E so much is because it is genuinely one of most hilariously selfindulgent manga Ive ever read. I dont think Hiroya Oku means it to be as funny as it is but it really is just so excessive to a point of selfparody. For one even in the original manga the missions were ridiculously difficult to complete. Half the cast would be horribly injured if not outright killed just to defeat one enemy only for another even stronger enemy to show up. Often times the final boss would be ridiculously durable too tanking multiple lethal blows like it was nothing the feeling of hopelessness you would get during these fights could be considered a series staple. I cant even begin to imagine how excruciating this wouldve been to experience during serialization or at least I couldnt but then I started reading Gantz: E...and believe me Gantz: E doubles down TRIPLES down on that ridiculousness. Its no longer intense its just purely absurd. The missions seem to NEVER end. In the four years since Gantz: Es first chapter only TWO MISSIONS have been completed. Roughly one year of serialization was dedicated to a fight against one single enemy that just would not die. Its not a Nobuyuki Fukumoto type of situation where the absurdly slow pacing is justified by psychological deep dives into the characters either its just fights. Pure fights. Its annoying...at first but eventually it starts to become the reason you read it at all. Its like a running gag almost Of course the monster is still alive after getting cut in half why wouldnt it be? Of course that monster we lost most of the team to was one of a squad of six other aliens that have the same amount of power did you expect anything else? Of COURSE all that effort only resulted in the protagonist getting 10 points this is Gantz There is one specific moment in the last missions final boss fight its that year long fight I was talking about earlier that I wont spoil but for me its the moment where it switches from tedium to hilarity. Its so good in its own decidedly notgood way. Thats the best description I can really give for this series really. Its not a good manga but its kind of great at the same time? Theres no restraint to be found anywhere in this manga its shameless its ridiculous its glorious. On Letterboxd there was a talk about how a two star movie you favorited means much more than a five star movie you have nothing to say about. Thats where Gantz:E is to me. I cant follow its release anymore because Gantz: E works best when you can burn through ten or twenty chapters in one sitting but a year from now Ill hopefully have a whole new batch of utterly ridiculous garbage to chew through and remark Wow this is terrible Cant wait for more If I were being objective I think my rating for this series would be 4.5/10 with a huge asterisk adorning it. Its bad in the way I like it. Since I cant add that asterisk though: 7/10