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"Your lives have ended. What you do with your new life is entirely up to me. That's the theory anyway."
Gantz itself

Imagine the bastard offspring of the wanton gore and nudity from the 1990s OVAs with Doom's disturbing nature and Warhammer 40,000's outright insanity. Put that on crack and toss it in a septic tank. Finally, throw some heavy social commentary in to justify it all. That's GANTZ.

GANTZ is a Sci-Fi Horror action series by Hiroya Oku. As it begins, Kei Kurono, a rather unpleasant teenage student, is run over by a subway train after he and his childhood friend Masaru Kato rescue a hobo from the rails. Instead of being dead, Kurono finds himself trapped in a small apartment along with Kato, a bunch of weird people (including a hot naked girl, a dog, and a middle-school boy who seems to be the only one who knows what's going on) and a mysterious large black sphere.

The sphere begins to sing an exercise song, and explains the situation: they were dead, but "Gantz" note  gives them a mission: to hunt down and kill a strange alien creature. The rules are easy: they have one hour to complete the assignment. Any injuries that they sustain during the mission will be fully healed upon completion of the task. So long as they're alive, they will be summoned back to the room in a healthy and fully restored state. But if they die before the mission is over, then they'll remain dead. If they stray too far outside the allowed boundaries of the mission area, they will die. After the mission Gantz will score each participants' performance by assigning points. When any hunter reaches 100 points, they are presented with the "100 Point Menu", from which they get to choose one of three different rewards: Be freed from the "game" with all their memories of it erased, be given an extremely powerful weapon, or choose to revive one human from within Gantz's memory bank. With all that said, Gantz gives them high-tech battle suits and some futuristic equipment and armament and launches them into the mission.

Essentially, the first nine volumes (and the whole anime series) consist of (seemingly) senseless killings of a gory, horrific nature as the Gantz ball assigns different aliens for the hunters to hunt; Fanservice; and sex scenes. The manga began to improve when Kurono was given a romantic interest and impressive Character Development. Then "vampires" are introduced, secrets are revealed, and things become truly weird and extremely convoluted. The fights also become longer and longer, to the point where they seem interminable.

In the manga's third phase of the story, things all over the world become horrifically worse for everyone. Oku had planned to end the story in 2012, but it ultimately wrapped up on June 15, 2013.

A two-part live-action Japanese movie adaptation was released in the winter and spring of 2011. A CGI film, GANTZ:O, was released in 2016, covering the events of the Nurarihyon Seijin arc of the manga which takes place in Osaka.

A three-volume spinoff manga, GANTZ:G, was released in 2015. It's stated to be a parallel story taking place around the same time as the original story, albeit this time featuring a group of primarily female Ordinary High School Students as the protagonists (hence the "G," for "Girl" or "Girls"). This series has virtually none of the sexual exploitation of the original series and focuses more on character development. A historical spin-off, Gantz:E, takes place in the Edo period.


Tropes;

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    Multiple Version Examples 
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: the Anime and Manga have their share of it:
    • The anime is more modest about it, and features only a few locations and aliens modeled in 3D. The CG at the Buddhist Temple mission is most notable, as both Gate Guardians and the Living Armor are mostly in 3D, and a few shots of regular 2D animation make up the interim.
    • The artist obviously produces the graphical representations of all weapons in the manga and a good deal of the technologies using 3D modeling. He then applies varying levels of 2D art and other post-production refinements over those models, to make them fit in better with the general art style. (The artist even details the process by which he does this in an early chapter.)
      • In later chapters, Hiroya Oku increasingly employs 3D modeling on top of real photographs to portray scenes of destruction, to the point where on some pages it entirely dominates the scene and hand-drawn art stands out as perverse kind of Conspicuously Light Patch. This technique would lead a reader unfamiliar with the manga to become confused, as the scenes of destruction look like an entirely different comic.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Nishi and Izumi both get touching deaths.
  • Aborted Arc: The plot point involving the vampires fighting back against the Gantz players ultimately is sidetracked by the events of Phase 2, which one-up them in scale.
  • The Abridged Series: Gantz Abridged.
  • Abusive Parents: variation. Kato's younger brother is abused physically and sexually by his aunt.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade
  • Action Girl: Some of the female Gantzers. Reika definitely qualifies, as does Anzu Yamasaki from the Osaka team. Even Kishimoto gets some moments. Sei Sakuraoka is a tremendous secondary character example.
  • Adaptation Distillation: In the anime, Nishi killed himself by jumping from a building rather than being thrown by his classmates.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: Played with. Most aliens seem to just be "there", not causing much trouble for humanity until the Gantz team tears up their shit... but then many become violent, sadistic assholes as soon as they can, and sometimes it's not as if they were completely harmless before being targeted for extermination (the demon aliens for instance are basically a large gang of thugs who, based on their dialogue, probably committed their share of mugging, beating and raping humans). Then in the manga the giant four-eyed aliens come along, and do things like indiscriminate planetwide mass-slaughter, harvesting and snacking on humans in viciously sadistic ways... and happen to be physically and psychologically the most human of all aliens.
  • Anyone Can Die: Twice, even, if you're a Gantz participant. Sometimes more. The manga's last phase extends this to THE ENTIRE HUMAN SPECIES.
  • Apathy Killed the Cat: The characters could be noticing details pertinent to their survival, but they're too wrapped up in personal crises dealing strictly with their own feelings and desires.
  • Asshole Victim: Well, you usually don't feel very sorry for all those yakuza guys, bandits and rapists when they're slashed by aliens.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: starting from the Buddha Temple Mission.
  • Attempted Rape: It happens to Kishimoto soon after she's introduced. Also, Reika by cloned Kurono, except she was in love with him anyway...and had actually invited him into her bed that very night. The realization sort of kills his appetite and he backs off. Also Tae.
  • Author Appeal: If you don't see a naked or virtually naked female and/or a sex scene once every 5 or so chapters, you're reading the wrong series. That being said, the only sex scene with the real Reika was tremendously modest.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The guns in the series, while extremely powerful and more than capable of beating the targets, have a firing speed slower than actual bullets, making quick-moving targets hard to hit. Even once it does hit, there's a time lag before the ammo finally decides to explode. Of course, it's not like the hunters have any other weapons, so what choice do they have? Subverted in the last hunt in the anime, where the timelag was removed on the guns, making them far more deadly.
  • Back from the Dead: Scoring 100 points allows you to bring someone back from the dead. In the manga, this actually gets used to bring back a few of the dead Gantzers, including Kato, Nishi, and Kurono himself. In the movie, Nishi's dying wish is for someone to get 100 points and bring him back.
  • Badass and Child Duo: Daizemon Kaze and Takeshi, more so after Takeshi picks up some moves of his own!
  • Badass Normal: Quite a few characters.
    • Daizemon Kaze. In his first mission he beat a friggin' dinosaur to death without the suit.
    • Kurono qualifies very quickly for this any time he's put in a situation where he lacks his suit. He freaks the hell out about it every time (because the suits increase the odds of living greatly) but still manages to live through battles.
      • In the manga, Kurono later qualifies again when he manages to kill over a dozen vampires lacking both his suit and his memories, having opted to take the choice of leaving the Gantz team.
    • Reika also qualifies in a later chapter, as she manages to jump from 0 points to 100 in a single mission, making her the first main character to reach 100 points twice. This becomes even more apparent when you notice most of the team didn't even get a single point.
  • Bait-and-Switch Boss / Trick Boss: Several missions feature these. The wimpy Onion Alien that was on the readout in the first game had a much bigger, much more dangerous teammate (his father, by the way, in case you missed that). Half the team was dead before it was done. The Buddhist temple mission is another excellent example. Also, the "Mr. Tanaka" aliens, which are nothing more than minions/kids. The Dinosaur Arc sort of subverts it when Gantz identifies the "Boss" from the beginning, then played it straight when the boss grows from the size of a kid to a giant humanoid creature, and even then he is not nearly as dangerous as the final dinosaur in that mission.
    • And the final bosses are not related to the game much.
  • Bath Suicide - Kishimoto; subverted, however, as she actually survives, causing complications later.
  • BFG: Considering what they do to their targets, all of the weaponry could qualify, but especially the huge guns used by the Osaka team and the Z-Gun.
  • BFS: The katana from Gantz arsenal that can alter its length to ridiculous levels. It was once used to slice a dinosaur in half. Vertically
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Unless you're Reika.
    • Or Host Samurai.
  • Blood Sport: These are essentially what the alien hunts are all about.
  • Bloody Tropes: The series prominently features Black Blood, Blood from the Mouth, Blood-Splattered Innocents, Bloody Hilarious (sometimes), Bloody Murder, First Blood, Heroic Bloodshed, High-Pressure Blood and Rain of Blood.
  • Butt-Monkey: Kurono's classmates think he's a "Daytime Lantern", i.e. completely worthless, and generally treat him like crap and start calling him "Mr. Lamp." One of the highlights of this is when an old bully brags to Kurono's face about how he scored the girl Kurono had a crush on when they were younger. In front of both said girl AND Kurono's girlfriend.
    • His nickname actually ties in nicely to the fact that his second life, as a complete badass, happens during the night. Then during the day he's just plain old Kurono.
    • Inaba within the Tokyo Team. If being tricked into having sex with a male alien disguised as his crush Reika and getting seen by the real Reika doesn't suck...
  • Cartwright Curse: No wonder Kato prefers to cultivate his romantic bonds with his best friend and True Companion.
  • Catchphrase: Gantz: "The new morning has come!"
    • "Woah, it's Reika!"/"She looks like Reika!" - wherever the Tokyo team is seen by others, you're guaranteed to hear this. In the Gantz room. During a mission in another city. During the end of the world. From the aliens. Italy's seemed to be the only place free of Reika's fans thus far. Or maybe everyone there is pretty much too dead to care about her.
  • Character Development: Kurono changes from a perverted teenager who only helps someone to save face into a powerful leader that inspires others to keep living.
  • Characters Dropping Like Flies: Everyone is fair game, and since it's a Deadly Game we're talking about here, there's always going to be a good bunch of (named) players around to be killed. Also, since the players end up in the game by dying in the first place, many (or most) of them get to die more than just once. And then the protagonists start to run into other teams with equally named and expendable characters... and then the war starts.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: Without their suits, the "hunters" are nothing more than normal humans with guns that have a long delay between impact and effect.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Both the anime and manga are absolutely full of cursing.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: When Kato rescues a civilian and his family from a youkai alien, the man upbraids him for initially hesitating. Also, many of the civilians that Kei rescues during the giant alien arc criticize him for not doing more for them.
  • Creature-Hunter Organization: The missions are a Deadly Game where the players are equipped with alien technology and sent to destroy aliens of various shapes and sizes hiding on Earth. The players' equipment includes special suits that give the wearer superhuman strength, absurdly sharp, blade elongating katanas, and guns that shoot invisible, Painfully Slow Projectiles powerful enough to turn their target into Ludicrous Gibs. Later it's revealed that the purpose of the game is to train soldiers capable of fighting an upcoming alien invasion by a race of giant-sized aliens. The technology used by the players comes from aliens previously attacked by the invading alien race, sent to Earth out of simple spite.
  • David Versus Goliath: Any human vs giant battle.
  • Deadly Game: The missions are a Deadly Game in all versions of the story, but in the manga, it's the truth behind why the missions are even being held in the first place.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Gantz himself.
  • Dead to Begin With: Somewhat true. While Kurono and the other players are technically alive, they're only clones with the same memories as the original people, not the original people themselves. In other words, Kurono really did die on the train platform along with Kato at the beginning of the series. Hell, we even see Kato and Kurono's severed heads flying through the air before they're taken.
  • Death by Disfigurement
  • Death is Cheap: Both played straight and subverted. Dead players can be revived at the cost of 100 points, but getting 100 points is about as far from "cheap" as Reika is from flat chested.
  • Death Seeker: Kurono, briefly, as the first stage of his Took a Level in Badass transformation. Widower Occhan (Gramps/Old Man), who doesn't seem to mind either way, anxious to rejoin his lost wife, but still in the fight for his pride and his friends. Not fearing death, he is unwilling nonetheless to accept a meaningless one. Also, he seems mesmerized by the can-do possibilities of the suit and playing The Lancer to Kurono's lead, putting his death-seeking on hiatus.
  • The Determinator: Kato became one trying to be more like Kurono. Kurono became one trying to be more like Kato.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After successfully rescuing a lot of humans from the giants and scoring their first real victory, the Gantzers take a group whiz (yes, even the females; it's technically possible, though it can be messy if you're not careful) into the same tanks that were used to decontaminate them like animals. The only way it could be more awesome is if they were whistling the "New Morning" theme as well.
    • Cthulhu kept a grudge. And responded promptly and explosively.
  • Dirty Coward: Nishi and Inaba.
  • Driven to Suicide: Kishimoto ended up in the game after slitting her wrists in her bathtub. Sakurai also was on the way to this, changing his mind when Sakata showed him another resolution.
    • In the anime, Nishi
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: After the Buddha alien mission, Kurono is the only team member left alive.
  • Expy: Sei Sakuraoka of Lara Croft.
  • Eye Scream: Nishi, by a "Mr. Tanaka" alien.
  • Fanservice - Copious amounts of nudity and sexual material in the actual story. Also, see Stripperiffic below.
  • Fanservice Model: Reika is a famous gravure idol.
  • Forgotten Super Weapon: An entire armory of them.
    • While they are not exactly super weapons, the Teleport Guns are extremely useful, being a homing hitscan weapon, while all the other types of guns only fire straight (with a firing speed slower than real bullets) and have a delay between pulling the trigger and their targets blowing up. They are used only two or three times in the entire manga, mostly by Kato, because they're (supposedly) non-lethal and he's the only main character who seems to be morally opposed to killing everything that opposes him.
    • Also, the Monocycle, which provides great speed, mobility, has extra seat for a shooter and can crush lesser aliens; it was used exactly once by Kurono's team.
    • The cloaking devices, too — the few times they use them, they're shown to be unbelievably effective (even against the vampires, who have ways of detecting you while cloaked), but most of the time everyone just seems to forget they exist even though there's no logical reason to ever be uncloaked during a mission. It's probably not a coincidence that the two characters who we're told survived long enough to be veterans, Nishi and Oka, actually do spend nearly all their time cloaked during missions; nobody else seems to catch on.
      • Well, not being able to see your own teammates can be a pretty significant disadvantage, so there's that reason to be uncloaked. They still don't use them nearly as often as they should.
      • Cloaked players see all other cloaked persons in their field of vision. Seen in one mission when they actually manage to fight each other on the alternate frequency. However, the only guy to die due to being seen got photographed while switching frequencies somehow, and his head exploded (due to Gantz exploding the bomb in your head if your involvement with the missions is exposed to the outside world). And, also, it seems real-world vision is significantly diminished/darkened when stealthed.
  • Gantz Is A Cheating Bastard
  • Gorn: GANTZ is a prime example.
  • Head-Turning Beauty: Kei Kishimoto had a bit of this going (read:everyone wanted to rape or harass her), but so did Reika. Everybody wanted Reika, fortunately except most of her teammates, who're too young, too old or too outstanding, so it's not causing major problems...until Reika herself fell for Kurono and discovered she cannot have him, which made her very frustrated.
  • Heroic BSoD: Kato. In the early segments, every time he's faced with a choice to take the shot, he immediately breaks down. In the Buddhist Temple mission in the anime, the team happens across a dead bum and Kato decides that immediately after telling everyone they need to hurry and finish the mission is the perfect time to take yet another angst break. Kurono, who's presumably even more fed up with it by now than the audience is (which is saying something), angrily calls him out on it.
    Kato: [half a minute of carping and moaning, ending with ...] a place where innocent human beings get their heads bashed in for no reason at all!
    Kurono: Kato, get a fucking grip!
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Kishimoto taking the acid attack meant for Kato. Far, far later in the story we have Sakata saving most of his teammates in that manner.
  • Hollywood Acid: used by the Thousand Arms Buddha statue to horrifying effects. Justified, since that corrosive substance might not be from Earth at all.
  • Hollywood Tactics: And how! In many instances, the Gantz team display an odd kind of Mook Chivalry, refusing to gang up on a single powerful alien. Very early in the manga, in the Buddha Temple Mission, a character suggested the sniping tactic, and applied it effectively, yet that tactic was forgotten until the Osaka arc. Although, to be fair, everyone except Kurono died in that arc, so he was probably too traumatized to remember it. Nevertheless, the team never thinks of distracting the aliens from multiple directions with cover fire. Also, Kato never thinks of firing a kill shot after successfully trapping an alien with the trap gun. He just kind of stands there waiting for the thing to break free. And let's not start on how many Gantzers gladly walk within striking distance of the aliens instead of just shooting them.
    • You remember the Demon Monster Arc? The one that Evolved? Yeah, they sniped him, all of them.
    • They also have a habit of entirely encircling aliens at close range before shooting at them, which is a terrible idea since it not only puts them all in reach of enemy attacks, but also raises the risk of friendly fire.
    • Also, they have invisibility cloaks, but almost nobody but Nishi ever thinks to use them. Worse, the few times they do get used, it's heavily emphasized how overwhelmingly effective an invisible attack is. They don't even think to use their cloaks against an enemy that can explicitly only be killed by surprise attacks!
  • Hopeless Suitor: Kurono to Kishimoto in the beginning and Reika to Kurono later on.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: The aliens all seem to be minding their own business when the characters come tearing through in a storm of mass-genocide. Even a few of the aliens themselves point this out from time to time. The final Buddha boss even eats a Gantzer's brain in order to ask Kato why they've been tearing up their shit. Most of the Osaka team embodies this trope.
    • The giants are basically four-eyed, supersized humans who like to have earthlings as snacks.
    • There's an entire episode of the anime devoted to monologues on humans being bastards.
  • Idiot Ball: Whenever someone is in a life-risking battle with civilians, it is the law that someone who is both significant and useless must stand in the way of the enemy. Tae, Izumi's girlfriend, we're looking at you.
    • Sometimes this is just because the early aliens are Invisible to Normals.
    • It's also a law that Gantz teams must at all times demonstrate they have no grasp of tactics. "Hey, everyone, we have long range weapons and most of our enemies are melee only! Let's form a circle around him at close quarters and stand around for five minutes thinking things over before shooting at the guy in the middle with our teammates right behind him with our delayed effect guns!" Somehow they nearly always manage to avoid what should be the natural consequences of this. The one time somebody decides that sniping from cover might be useful, they face the one enemy in pretty much the entire series that has an effective (fast, accurate, deadly) long-range weapon, and of course since it didn't work out so well that time, it must be a horrible idea that should never be revisited again, even when they're back to facing melee-only enemies.
    • The business executives who control Gantz during the alien invasion. "Hey, let's forcibly conscript veteran Gantzers for military missions, give them no briefing or even specific orders, and hope their combat skills and equipment will carry the day."
  • Ineffectual Loner: Nishi and Izumi, among others.
  • Informed Ability: Nishi may very well qualify as this. He has been Gantzing for a year longer than Kurono & co., but dies shortly after the beginning of the story without getting much of a chance to show that he's a skilled player. Even once he's later brought back, Nishi gets his ass handed to him by the Nurarihyon alien and loses an arm before being teleported back. It's tough to say whether or not he really deserves the title of 'Gantz veteran' when most of his scenes have been devoted to showing him getting curbstomped.
    • It should be noted that Nishi apparently spent lots of his time hiding and kill-stealing when his prey was distracted by other Gantzers, and hardly ever fought on his own, hence the crappy fighting skill. Besides, he has been Gantzing for one year, yet has not been freed, has no special weapon whatsoever, and reviving someone else really is not his style, so one can be almost 100% sure he has never accumulated 100 points. On the other hands, the new players (Reika and such) get 100 points in just over a month. Thus, it is probably safe to assume that the aliens he has been fighting on his first year are pretty wimpy and not worth much points or he just hid when the aliens were too much for him, choosing to get his points wiped rather than risking his life, so obviously he gets his ass kicked a lot when faced with increasingly dangerous opponents.
      • Reika is the team's highest scorer, bar none (Izumi with his two wins being long dead...and having taken longer). Kaze and Sakata are rather superhuman even before death and the Gantz. And Gramps is the leader's wingman, getting lots of support help and advice..."Normal" new players all die right away, or at best score like Inaba (beaten by a toddler and a panda both).
      • To be fair though, he earned 100 points in the short Italy arc where Kurono of all people didn't score a single point, so he can't be completely useless. Besides, it's been fairly well established that the Nurarihyon is just about the hardest individual enemy the hunters have ever faced, given that it single-handedly wiped out the entire elite portion of the Osaka team along with putting the majority of the Tokyo team out of commission by the time of its demise. Getting your ass kicked by a 100-point monster isn't all that much to be ashamed of.
    • Wrong and Wronger. Nishi topped off from 75 existing Osaka stealth points kill-poached and cherry picked in that chaos... Reika was the one who got the full hundred in one. Kurono seemingly scored a lot, either 90 something or maybe a full hundred, unknown due to counter failure from glitchy Gantz.
  • Innocent Aliens: There are several.
  • Invisible to Normals: For all of of the anime and most of the "first phase" of the manga.
  • Irony:
    • The "Morning Sun" song played in some of the grimmer moments of the anime fits this trope perfectly.
    • In the anime when Kurono finds himself in the aliens' position. He has his fair share in the manga too, when he chooses Tae over Reika, yet is now with Reika and Tae because of Reika having Gantz create a duplicate of him.
    • And Inaba, who appears to be the luckiest bastard in the universe (well, save the fact he was killed by Izumi and became a player in the first place) and has ridiculously high survival "skills". Once he abandons his Dirty Coward traits, finds his resolve, fights like a man for the first time and kills several powerful aliens, then appears in front of his team, victorious and looking Badass...yes, he gets immediately killed.
  • Jerkass: Kurono is an asshole in the early parts of the story, but gets better thanks to his girlfriend Tae and excellent Character Development. Nishi and Izumi also apply, especially after the latter gets back into Gantz.
  • Lack of Empathy: Nishi, oh so much. Usually yelling at Gantz to score already, while the rest of the players're praying for someone, whose fate is unknown, to be alive and transferred safely. He bests himself when he coldly asks Gantz to give him a new weapon instead of reviving Suzuki and then calmly leaving the room full of his crying teammates.
  • Law Of 100: Upon accruing 100 points, a Gantzer will be given a choice of three options: receive a new weapon (including a BFG, an Absurdly Sharp Blade, or even a Humongous Mecha), reviving any Gantzer who died in previous games, or be released from the game with a Mind Wipe to ensure Gantz's secrecy.
  • Lazy Backup: Characters will gladly just stand around, either tossing out exposition and/or philosophical nonsense, or just outright doing NOTHING while other characters are fighting and dying. This is one of the big reasons Nishi dies.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Kurono. Though, the 'loveable' is disputed among fans.
  • Love Triangle: At first, there's one between Kurono, Kishimoto, and Kato. Later, there's one between Tae, Kurono, and Reika, although the duplicate of Kurono turns this into a Love Rectangle of sorts.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: These generally happen when something is shot with the Gantz weapons.
  • Made of Plasticine: The main bread and butter of the series; all humans without Gantz suits are this by default in the presence of Gantzers, aliens, and vampires. Those three groups are either this or Made of Iron depending on what they're being attacked by, especially prevalent in the cases of Gantzers whose bodies are restored upon successful survival of missions and certain aliens who can regenerate themselves.
  • Mind over Matter: Sakata and Sakurai, complete with Psychic Nosebleed.
  • Mistaken for Afterlife: Gantz collects its players by copying the bodies and memories of people (and animals) that just died and bring them to its room. Most people think this is the waiting room before they go to afterlife until the experienced players explain the situation. One time it especially didn't help when a famous Buddhist priest was brought there too and encouraged everyone to keep praying.
  • Morality Kitchen Sink: The hunters are very different in terms of morality, ranging from an Ideal Hero like Katou to a Sociopathic Hero like Nishi. The same applies to the aliens, as they are pacific (until attacked) in the early missions, but more hostile kinds of aliens appeared later on.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Kei Kishimoto and Reika Shimohira, who gets the brunt of fanservice and are the named characters featured most often on chapter covers of the manga. Pretty much any attractive woman in a Gantz suit becomes this, whether they have small screentime like Sei Sakuraoka or are members of another city's Gantz team like Anzu Yamazaki.
  • Naked on Arrival: Kei Kishimoto. This also happens to Kurono on a couple of occasions, when he's summoned by Gantz while in compromising situations.
  • The Nicknamer: Gantz itself. Gives all the players nicknames based on appearance or behavior.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Tanaka Seijin is a parody of singer Seiji Tanaka.
  • Official Couple: The first Kei Kurono and Tae Kojima.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted with Kei Kurono and Kei Kishimoto, as well as Kurono's Expy Kei Kurona in Gantz: G which takes place concurrently to Gantz.
  • Police Are Useless: Played With. Police and SWAT forces are usually quick to arrive whenever the carnages of Gantz missions are noticed, but the fact Gantzers and the aliens they fight are Invisible to Normals means they can't do much except get slaughtered en masse. They can put up slightly more of a fight against foes that aren't invisible like the survivor Shorty Alien that attacks Kurono's classroom, but they're still Made of Plasticine against them compared to the Gantzers.
    • Played straight during Izumi's Shinjuku massacre in broad daylight, as the police are nowhere in sight for the duration of it or the immediate aftermath when Kurono arrives on the scene looking for Tae.
  • Power Armor: The Gantz suits fit this trope, as they endow incredible strength and durability to the wearer, though they can wear out if they take too much punishment. There is another Gantz armor, as seen in Osaka and Italy, which should be superior to the regular suits, but all the users seen are dead.
  • Pretty Little Headshots: Completely averted, both by the Gantz weaponry and during Izumi's shooting spree.
  • Promotion to Parent: Kato and his younger brother Ayumu.
  • Psychotic Smirk: Nishi's Perpetual Expression.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Since Anyone Can Die, it is to be expected that many of the Gantz-armed people have not been cut to do this while they were alive.
  • Real Men Don't Cry: Averted. Just about every major cast member sobs at one point, either due to the stress of the situation they're in or because of some other revelation. This goes best for Kaze, who is an incarnation of manliness, and yet cries numerous times in the story because of his love for Takeshi.
  • Red Shirt: So many that this actually qualifies for...
  • Redemption Equals Death: Inaba, though more of an Usefulness Equals Death or Action Equals Death, as he'd stopped being a Jerkass a bit earlier.
  • Reluctant Warrior: Several of the Gantz team members (most of whom didn't exactly volunteer) aren't initially real gung-ho about the idea of hunting and killing aliens, but nearly all of the ones that survive eventually get over this. Kato is probably the purest example of the trope, since while he does eventually get accustomed to his teammates' use of lethal force to the point where it doesn't make him suffer a Heroic Blue Screen of Death and break down crying every time, he still personally tends to almost always at least try to use the capture/teleport gun whenever possible as opposed to one of the "ludicrous gibs" type, and risking himself to save others is one of his defining character traits. He does give a bully a pretty savage beatdown (chapter 27 of the manga, episode 7 of the anime), but this seems to be mainly to teach the bullies that he's capable of doing so and that if they keep picking on the weaker kids he'll come after them.
  • Running Gag: Before he stopped being a Jerkass, Kurono would always be teleported into the Gantz room in compromising positions.
  • Rule of Three:
    • The Hundred Points Menu options: Gain a better weapon, leave the Gantz business forever, or bring back a past Gantzer. The Movie leaves out the 'weapon' one though.
  • Sacrificial Lion: A lot. Probably the most significant example is Kishimoto.
  • Save Point: The apartment, in a sense. Participants are "saved" there at their unhurt state, and retain full memory of what they experienced, as long as they are not dead when on a mission
  • Serial Killer: Nishi could have become one if it wasn't for Gantz' interference, based on his behavior and his classmates' comments before he kills them.
    • Also Hajime Muroto and Kajiura Ryuji.
    • Izumi deserves a special mention here folks; after all, he did massacre dozens upon dozens of people in cold blood (including several main characters to be). His reason for doing this? So he could rejoin the Tokyo Gantz team and murder himself some aliens while keeping some meat shields handy just in case. This comes back to bite him on the arse later.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Fist of the North Star, told as a bedtime story by Kato.
    • In a childhood flashback, Kato tells Kurono that he is cool as Goku from Dragon Ball.
    • Ringu with the stalker girl who looks suspiciously like Sadako.
    • The female vampire code named Kill Bill and modeled after Chiaki Kuriyama, the actress who played Gogo.
    • Sei, who looks exactly like Tomb Raider heroine Lara Croft.
    • And as of chapter 326, we have an alien who looks uncannily like Danny Trejo.
    • During the alien invasion, a man and a woman are lying on the ground. The woman is freaking out (understandably so) and the man kisses her to get her to calm down, AND IT WORKS. The exact same thing happened during the 2011 London riots, except in Gantz, the man is shot and then explodes into chunky salsa, which makes the woman freak out again.
    • Tae being killed by Izumi from behind with a katana may look familiar.
    • Inaba says that the Osaka Team enjoys killing aliens so much that they seem to think they are just playing Resident Evil instead of being in a really dangerous mission.
    • Chapter 339 has some people in a cage singing "We Are", from One Piece.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Why Messianic Archetype Kato always has a hot girl willing to blow herself up for him, when alive.
  • Stalker with a Crush:
    • Reika to Kurono - she keeps visiting Kurono's house even when he isn't there and calls Kurono late at night to asks him on a date.
    • Sadayo Suzumura as well who stalks Masanobu Hojo.
  • Survival Mantra: The reason Kurono always wins.
  • Talking Is a Free Action: Holy cow. The enemies will gladly stand around for seemingly minutes at a time while a character debates the ethics of killing, their chances against said enemy, or how they feel about the situation. Somewhat averted later in the manga, however, as the aliens can and DO kill characters in mid-sentence...
    • In the anime, the scene with the thousand arm alien has Kishimoto see the acid heading for Kato, realize instantly what it must be despite having never seen it before, have a brief conversation with Kurono, charge across the room, interpose herself in front of Kato, kneel down, and still have time for an internal monologue about how she's never been happy except when she's with Kato, and how she's sorry for Kurono but Kato really is more important to her, and how she hopes Kurono will help Kato and protect him, before the acid finally hits.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Most teenagers in Gantz are either dangerous, cruel, or just plain assholes, although this is averted with some characters like Kato and even Kurono after his character development.
  • Teleporter Accident: Sometimes it happens that the very slow teleporting process creates a clone of a person. In the anime, one of the girls gets doubled this way, with the original unaware of what her clone has to suffer. In the manga, the protagonist gets cloned, and each clone then starts dating a different girl.
  • Teleportation: The Gantz sphere uses a very slow teleportation process on the team members; it gradually sends their bodies in and out of the apartment, starting at the head and moving downward. The characters' innards are visible while this happens. This is played for grossout horror, and occasionally comedy (Kurono is astonished that while his lower half is in the apartment, his upper half is already outside).
    • Teleport Gun: One of the Gantz weapons is a "Y-Gun" that traps its victims with an Inescapable Net, then teleports them (using the process described above) to an as yet unknown location.
  • Tokyo Tower: Can be seen from Gantz's apartment.
  • Too Dumb to Live: When you have just died and find yourself in a locked room where other people teleport in, explain your situation and tell you to put on that body armour or die a horrible second death, listen to them instead of writing them off as cosplayers. Your survival won't be guaranteed, but at least you'll last more then 5 seconds.
    • The guns blow things up...after a few seconds. So instead of whining about how you can't beat an alien shoot it already!
    • In later chapters, students in Kurono's class all casually go their own separate ways instead of listening to their teacher, who suggests that they should all stick with the one person (Kurono) who just successfully fought off two aliens right in the middle of an invasion.
      • And even the ones that do follow Kurono proceed to laugh about his otaku outfit and question why they are following the one kid who just smashed two aliens into blood pancakes. Secretly, Kurono was attending Too Dumb To Live University all this time, and was a daytime lantern there because he actually had any will to live at all.
    • The "innocent bystanders" in general, whose reaction to aliens wreaking havoc begins with "Cool, let's go there and check it out" (when they see them on the news), then "Cool, let's come closer and take pictures" (when they see it from far away), then "OMG it's horrible, let's just stand here while it kills us", then "OMG someone's fighting, let's stick around and watch". Not to mention the zero common sense (walking home naked, in a war zone, while you don't know what the hell is going on is dumb, folks), and zero respect they have for the heroes. One can almost sympathize with Nishi who just wants to save himself instead of saving the civilians.
      • That's not even the worst of it. You'd think that after the massive, widely televised and reported incident with demons in Ikebukuro where EVERYONE could see the hunters and the aliens, that people would at least have an inkling about what to do when monsters show up. Instead, they act exactly the same in EVERY arc until Katastrophe, assuring themselves that it's all "CG" or a film shooting. It gets worse when you realize half the time that they'll stay right where they are EVEN WITH THE EVISCERATED REMAINS OF THEIR FRIENDS LYING IN FRONT OF THEM.
      • The latter portion of the Katastrophe arc. Despite witnessing the deaths of something like half the human race over the course of two days, suddenly all the civilians are willing to crawl out of their holes and embark on the alien spaceship that-and I cannot stress this enough-JUST MURDERED ALMOST EVERYONE THEY KNEW, because of an incredibly obviously false peace treaty, and start treating the hunters-y'know, the guys who they've seen fighting monsters and saving lives-like cockroaches.
      • How about in the final battle, Kei is fighting what is assumed to be the Giants leader/best warrior/general, and it is televised, humanity is watching and they actively Rooting for the Empire! Against someone who is fighting for their very survival, taunting him to just die.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Kurono, after a disastrous mission.
    • Takeshi, after watching Kaze practice, proceeded to kick some serious alien ass all on his lonesome with the moves he picked up.
    • Reika started out as The Load of the team, and then became the first person to "clear", i.e. win the game twice in-story, without dying even once in process.
    • Subverted with Inaba, in a certain mission, he feels sick of being a coward and finally becames useful, killing a bunch of aliens. Then he is brutally killed in a single frame, in a very cruel twist along with a cynical sentence.
  • Trigger-Happy: Quite a few Gantzers are shown to be.
  • Villain Protagonist: The Gantz teams, until Katastrophe. The aliens are inoffensive unless provoked.
  • Virgin-Shaming: The main character has to score before receving a Character Development. There's also Gantz teasing Sakurai about his 'Cherry' and later 'No-longer-a-Cherry' status, and Akira's Establishing Character Moment.
  • We Are "Team Cannon Fodder": The Tokyo team up to and including the Buddha Temple mission; the Osaka Team in that arc; and presumably many Gantz teams from all over the world in the Italy arc.
  • X Meets Y: Nishi gave a remarkable description.
    "It’s kind of like the The Blair Witch Project and … Men in Black, and Honoo challenge and Franz Harary mixed into one."
  • Yakuza: Two of them are among the first group of hunters.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Whenever anything starts going right, expect things to go south almost immediately. A particularly egregious case comes when Kei finally reunites with Tae on the alien ship, only to be forcibly transferred into the final mecha assault the ''instant' she turns her back.
  • You Must Be Cold: Kato getting Kurono to lend his jacket to the naked Kishimoto.
  • Younger Than They Look: Jouichiro Nishi is only supposed to be 13 or thereabouts, but he looks like an older teenager at least except for his possible smaller size.
  • Your Head A-Splode: This happens when a player tries to leave the mission area or by revealing any information about Gantz to a non-player; also see Pretty Little Headshots.

    Manga Exclusive Examples 
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: sort of. The invisible boundary for the mission zone closes in towards the target as time runs low, though it does not seem to have any noticeable effects on the mission.
  • Alien Invasion: The plotline of the last third of the overall story and arguably the whole manga from a certain perspective.
  • Aloof Big Brother: Akira thinks of Kei's attitude like that, despite having very little respect for him. Also, he's himself sort of Kei's aloof younger brother.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Anzu does this after Kato volunteers to be the bait to lure the Nura alien into a trap. Also, Kishimoto does this when she takes a blow and dies for Kato.
  • Anti-Climax: His Humongous Mecha is mentioned below, but Oka himself turns out to be this. After being hyped up as a trump card for the entire mission, the man who cleared 7 games goes 3 rounds with the final boss, then gives up and runs away only to be killed offscreen later.
  • Apocalypse How: Katastrophe seems to be either a Class 2 or 3.
  • Arc Words: The "catastrophe" that Gantz keeps mentioning. It's eventually revealed to be the countdown to the Alien Invasion by the Giant Aliens.
  • Ax-Crazy: Nishi. After his classmates throw him out the window of their classroom (on the second story of the school), he comes back and slaughters the entire class except for one girl; see Because You Were Nice to Me below.
  • Badass Bystander: A random guy known only as "Old Man" kicks the asses of quite a few parasite/tumor creatures before finally going down. And he does it while completely naked.
  • Battle Couple: Reika and the second Kurono.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: When Nishi killed his entire class, he left the girl who had a crush on him alive. She was also the only one who didn't vote for throwing him out the window.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: If you're a Giant alien, you are screwed if Sakurai catches you snacking on people.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Kato spearheads such a moment in ch. 351.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Far more than being only "bi"lingual, in later chapters, there are characters who speak in German, Italian, Portuguese, various Asian character-based languages, usually without a provided translation. A reader would either have to understand the language or look up what is being said through a translation book or software, and even then you're usually only getting a rough, literal translation, which is often disjointed and awkward.
  • Bland-Name Product: In chapter 189, there's a closeup of a PlayStation 2 controller with "CONYY" printed on it. In chapter 204, there's a large ad for PFC, and chapter 373 has ads for Endiana Burns and The Incredible Marc with... someone as the respective characters.
  • Blood Knight: Izumi; Kaze to a much lesser extent.
  • Brown Note: Humans cry blood when they see the aliens in the Room of Truth. However, this effect doesn't last long and doesn't seem to be too harmless.
  • Body Horror: As if there weren't enough horrible ways to be killed, eaten, and mutilated as a human, in Chapter 347 this takes a more horrible turn when some of the alien lifeforms inhabiting the giants' space-cities are apparently able to release glowing mutagenic spores that turn whoever they touch into a mutating, murderous, monstrous version of themselves with heads, arms, legs and other general appendages and viscera everywhere and nowhere they should be. Interestingly enough this effect seems to apply to nonorganic material as well, as one of the Gantzers affected by it sprouted extra guns, Gantz suit bits and glasses.
  • Cassandra Truth: The creator of Gantz actually reveals the entire truth to reporters who get too close since he knows no one will believe them anyway.
  • The Cavalry: In chapter 311, the suited aliens have Clone Kurono trapped with no possibility of escape, guns pointed at him at point blank range - when suddenly the whole pack of aliens are wiped out in one attack, and a cloaked Gantz team reveals itself.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Subverted in a recent Tear Jerker moment. With Tae abducted along with countless other humans, she's pulled from the water (that was drawing them all off to death) by a middle-aged man. When asked why he chose her specifically, he said it was because he likes young girls. The subversion comes when he reveals that he saved Tae because she resembles his recently-killed daughter.
  • Cool Old Guy: "Old Man".
  • Creepy Gym Coach: Mr. Nagao discovers Sakurai being cornered in a washroom by his bullies, and forces Sakurai to give him fellatio with the bullies' help.
  • Death Means Humanity: Over the course of the manga, dialogue and interactions between the aliens and monsters who are the main enemies for the bulk of the series implied some troublingly human characteristics (family bonding, interpersonal connections) as well as the idea that many of them just want to exist in peace. Some of the monsters even accuse the main characters of Humans Are the Real Monsters. But given the life and death situation they're in, none of the humans seem to care or notice. In the final arc, the team has to fight humanoid, alien giants invading the planet. When his girlfriend is killed, Sakurai goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and uses his Psychic Power to kill a horde of them. Then he sees two giant corpses that look like a grandmother holding a child and he screams in despair. He goes on to later sacrifice himself in order to save two giant children mourning their mother, cementing this change of view.
  • Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: The Love Triangle between Kurono, Tae and Reika finally concludes when Reika cashes in her points for a cloned double of Kurono.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the horror and trauma they endured, Kurono and Kato are able to survive and finally make it back to their loved ones. And it is implied that many, if not all of the characters who died as a result of Gantz are brought back to life... even though, the series still has a case of Four Lines, All Waiting.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: See From Bad to Worse.
  • Enemy Mine: Two vampires are forced to join the team after they successfully infiltrate the Gantz room.
  • Evil Counterpart: The Osaka Gantz team to the protagonist Tokyo team. Kei and his fellow Tokyoites have their issues, but overall they're relatively decent human beings who want to live normal lives and try to make the best out of the tough situation they're in. By contrast, the Osaka team are psychotic, composed of victory-obsessed hedonists who gladly take the second 100-Point Menu option repeatedly and have among their ranks sexual perverts willing to fuck aliens and sadists who delight in recreating Vietnam warcrime pictures with said aliens. The Osaka team cares nothing for civilian casualties, nor would they ever consider taking the first or third 100-Point Menu options, which are decidedly more humane.
  • Expy: Toshio Yazawa, a member of the Hokkaido team who joins Kei's Katastrophe team, is Japanese George Clooney.
  • Extreme Omnisexual:
    • Kazuo Kuwabara will screw anything with a wet hole, to include literally fucking Nurarihyon in the face when it became a giant woman composed of naked women.
    • A Gantzer gets it on with a Giant in chapter 368. And then his friends from the British team kill the Giant when she throws the guy off for ejaculating in her.
  • Eye Beam: The leader Nurarihyon alien.
  • Fan Disservice: And it was hidden as Fanservice, to boot. It turns out that the Reika in a sex scene is actually a shapeshifted alien. A male shapeshifted alien.
  • Faux Action Girl: Anzu. We never learn if she'd "cleared" the game before, but she appears to be an experienced player who knows how to act on the battlefield and is eager to make fun of Kato's naïvete. Then she takes an action. And she messes it up, gets rescued by said Kato, is reduced to his Satellite Love Interest and finally dies for him. Not that the rest of her team did significantly better, but still...she finally does something after being revived by the Osaka nerd before the Katastrophe in chapter 346 by shooting and destroying an alien fish lizard monster thing as it begins to savage a bunch of people they'd just saved from the giants. This then backfires in 347 when Anzu and the nerd destroy another alien; releasing light spores which cause people to mutate into horrid abominations made of their own body parts (you grow extra heads, arms, legs of all different sizes out of your original skull). It also got worse.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: The Gantz team that Kurono leads.
  • From Bad to Worse:
    • The Osaka arc presented an entire army of foul beasts/aliens as well as three immensely powerful boss monsters, one of whom was so strong it wiped out a more experienced, better armed, and brutal Gantz team almost single-handedly, as well as displaying a regeneration ability Wolverine would envy. The main team barely survives...and then finds out that Gantz has a clock that is counting down some sort of worldwide catastrophe which is due in about a week. And just when you think things can't get any worse, the Italy arc starts, and there isn't a sewer big enough to produce all the excrement that has hit the fan.
    • Then Chapter 303 came out. Somehow, it's gotten EVEN DAMN WORSE. Specifically, alien robots with the same visual theming of the Gantz sphere and weapons land worldwide, and begin to level everything. Aliens with the same large Gantz suits seen in the Osaka arc then appear in everywhere and start to do the same, harvesting the civilians. And in Chapter 306 the alien mothership starts coming down... All humanity need is a final blow.
    • Just when you think it couldn't get any worse than that, Chapter 342 came out. After rescuing Takeshi from the explosions, Nishi finds Gantz on the street, impaled through the head. Oh, and Kaze's group is trying to get Gantz to get them back as Giants close in on them. To put it bluntly... IT! GETS! WORSE!
      • And now we learn that the Giants are recreationally fishing humans, complete with bait and rod guns. The fact that Tae is caught in the middle of the group being fished makes the situation worser than ever for Kei.
      • Not only is Kei-1 in a bad situation but in chapter 345, Kei-2's group of merry men have been transported to an unknown region of the alien mothership described as "hell" in the previous chapter, where they've found a mass grave featuring hundreds of humans, including JSDF members and people from other Gantz teams. To top it all off, the civilians they just rescued showed the standard Gantz-esque display of immediately showing zero appreciation and leaving the team only to encounter another group of aliens which can only be described as large creepy crawlies.
    • And by chapter 370, Body Horror gives way to existential horror as everyone is being literally lectured on the most merciless version of materialism by a giant alien with some sort of bizarre shape-shifting head.
      • Just to prove that humans aren't anything special, said alien constructs several of the main cast out of nothing...and then promptly tears them apart, effectively showcasing humanity as nothing but a bunch of parts put together to make an organic machine.
    • And then, just as everything seems to be over...everyone figures out the Gantz balls are inoperable and are now stranded on a space ship without anyway to get back to Earth. The end of the chapter is literally tagged, "The end of despair becomes the end of hope."
      • Then the plot starts flip-flopping at this point. Turns out just one is still active, and literally everyone on the ship rushes to get to it, resulting in a very long line to teleport people out. Meanwhile, the Americans decide to arrange one-on-one fights with the special forces giants to the death to kill time... Right up until one of said giants turns out to be a badass war hero that curbstomps the entire American team, and then demands Kei Kurono, the murderer of his brother, to show himself so they can fight, otherwise crash the mothership into the Earth, basically killing off all of humanity. Everyone on Earth promptly loses their shit (including mass suicides), before Kei steps up to the plate, resulting in one final showdown. Kei nearly wins, only for the giant to manage to get the upper hand and nearly steps on him, only for Kei's teammates to step in and pull his ass out of the fire to join the fight. The author loves building up the suspense to ridiculous levels, it seems.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Sakurai goes from twisting lighter flames to eviscerating giants and humongous mechas with his mind.
  • Funny Background Event: before the Buddha Alien mission begins, you can spot the dog harassing Sadako in the back.
  • Gentle Giant: Daizemon "Muscle Rider" Kaze, towards Takeshi.
  • Gut Punch: Kurono getting killed off at the end of Phase I was upsetting.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Many Osaka Gantz members are just as bad, if not worse, than the aliens they fight against. In fact, a big story point during the mission involves Kato making the conscious decision to help bystanders instead of ensuring his own survival.
    • Invoked in a rare positive light during chapter 352. One of the hunters outright states, "I wouldn't count us out just yet. We may be fighting monsters, but our squad has a few monsters of its own." Cue several images of the team going Berserker pack on the previously nigh-unstoppable abominations.
  • Humongous Mecha: Used by Oka Hachirou in the Osaka arc, although it gets destroyed 3 pages after it is introduced.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Reika uses her 100 points to resurrect Kurono's girlfriend...and then later subverts the trope by resurrecting another Kurono for herself.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The giants have their own agriculture and animal husbandry, but they harvest humans and eat them as snacks because of their culture. They apparently know that humans have a civilization, but don't care.
  • The Idiot from Osaka: The Osaka team takes the "idiot" in the trope to the logical extreme. Almost all of them are Ax-Crazy Trigger-Happy bastards, and their complete lack of Team Spirit gets them brutally slaughtered.
  • Idol Singer: Reika
  • Informed Attribute: Tae is said to be suffering from PTSD as a result of her experiences, but it doesn't seem to have any apparent effect on her behavior.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Kikuchi
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Near the end, Nishi acts like everyone is insane when they decide to use the teleportation ability of the Gantz spheres to rescue captured humans on the enemy mothership rather than immediately striking its weak point to destroy it. He's right, and humanity almost loses because of the delay.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: The vampires are capable of creating/pulling from the hand various human weapons, but when a serious fight kicks in, katana seems to be the only effective one. High tech katanas are also part of the Gantz arsenal, and they remain useful even in the later chapters when they can cut through aliens that guns cannot harm. Zig Zagged in the Italy arc when Kei and Katuo both break their katanas on a pair of alien statues.
  • Lampshade Hanging: The author introduces a whole heap of coward characters, and then writes something like "Those who don't want to fight are useless".
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The life expectancy (read: chances of not being torn in half by a T-Rex) of Jerkass characters is significantly lower than that of decent ones. Somewhat justified, considering it's not that good characters are inherently stronger or better at surviving but rather the fact that they tend to work together much better and are also more likely to be revived.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: It seems like Reika is starting to head down this road after being rejected by Kurono. She resurrected a second copy of him after getting 100 points in Italy.
    • She feels guilty about it immediately afterward though and when the Alien Invasion begins she seems more eager than usual to sacrifice her life in the defense of others as some sort of atonement
  • Manly Tears: Daizemon Kaze after finding out Takeshi's 'stepfather' beat him to death over a pudding cup, while his mother did nothing to stop it.
  • Mauve Shirt: Inaba among others. Interestingly, he was perfectly fine as long as he kept a Red Shirt status, and got killed off right after receiving his Character Development.
  • Mexican Standoff: The Osaka and Tokyo Gantz teams get into one when they first meet; it's defused a page later when some of the Osakans recognize Reika's boobs.
  • Mugging the Monster: Nishi's classmates. If we don't start with the actual monsters...
  • Mundane Solution: Reika reasons that taking Tae to the border of the mission area and having her run from there should save her from Izumi. How do they get there? By taxi.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Sakurai experiences this after realizing that his massacre of giant aliens involved taking the life of an infant and an elderly giant woman in Chapter 340.
  • 90% of Your Brain: Kenzo apparently activates Sakurai's psychic powers by flipping a few switches in his brain, while "leaving the rest intact" (heavily implied to be the ten percent).
  • Noble Demon: Vampire 'Host Samurai', to an extent.
  • No One Should Survive That!: How did Tae and Kei escape the dying giant alien ship? Using a Flying Gantz Bike to go through an airlock and enduring space with all its pressure, cold temperatures, and lack of oxygen. And that's before you get to crossing the atmosphere.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Who didn't regret not seeing how Hoi Hoi'd earned its points?
  • One-Winged Angel: The Nura alien. Lampshaded with one of the characters exclaiming that it just doesn't end.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Izumi, who goes on a shooting rampage just so he can get killed and return to the game. This also bulks up the team's roster.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: Kurono gets killed in a fight with vampires, although it doesn't take that much (in story) time to get him revived.
  • Pet The Panda: Cold-blooded killer Izumi will not hesitate to murder dozens of innocent Tokyo citizens, including Kurono's girlfriend, but he will save Hoi Hoi when escaping a bunch of dinosaurs.
  • Plot Armor: How else do you think Tae survives for so long?
  • Punch Clock Sociopaths: Remarkably enough, the Osaka team. They get their own bonus chapter(s) that show what happened shortly before and shortly after the Osaka hunt. As it turns out...
    • George and Knob are coworkers at a fast-food joint. Their dialogue and uniforms even make them seem like expys of Beavis And Butthead.
    • The three sadists are amiable clerks at an electronics store.
    • Kuwabara is a well-liked English teacher at what appears to be a middle school.
      • In stark contrast to their mission behavior, practically the entire team seems to be composed of well-adjusted members of society.
  • Psycho for Hire: Shion Izumi, Jouichirou Nishi, Kajiura Ryuji and Hajime Muroto.
  • Rape and Revenge: Sakurai kills his school bullies and a PE teacher while being forced to give fellatio to the latter, with the former having forced him to sexually please them in the past.
  • Redemption Equals Death: After being a colossally sociopathic cunt for a hundred chapters Izumi finally dies...saving his girlfriend from vampires. Even he is surprised.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Sakurai goes on one after Tonkotsu dies.
  • Say My Name: Oh boy, this trope has really become frequent in the Katastrophe arc. The "TAEEEEEEEEE!" and "KEIIIIIIIIII!" cries these days are as fundamental to Gantz as Ludicrous Gibs and wanton nudity.
    • It seems that the author recognizes this and makes fun of it as well. In a recent chapter, Kurono and Tae are using these cries as a call and response when an alien girl decides to keep Tae as a pet. The alien gets annoyed and puts her thumb on Tae's mouth to shut up her pet human.
  • Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Kurono is an insecure virgin until he has sex with Sei Sakuraoka. Then he becomes heroic and does awesome things.
  • Shock and Awe: The lightning demon who is the boss of the demon mission. Also, some of the giants, due to these weird watch/wrist band things.
  • Smurfette Principle: Reika within the Tokyo Team. Also, Kill Bill appears to be the only female Vampire.
  • Spin-Off: One each for the Osaka team and for Nishi.
  • Stripperiffic: The Gantz suits consist of several sections of material held together by the straps with the silver sockets. The still art at the end of each chapter likes to take advantage of their design.
  • Suicide by Cop: Done by Izumi who commits the worst mass homicide in history, so that he can be killed and sent to Gantz.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Izumi.
  • Team Pet: First "Butter Dog," then Hoi Hoi.
  • Team Spirit: The entire point of the Nura mission. The Tokyo team clears and survives the mission by working together while nearly everyone on the Osaka team ends up dying because they think it's everyone for themselves.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: That Osakan hunter who cleared Gantz 7 times? He plays ping-pong, bitch.
  • To Serve Man
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: After ranting about how humans are cosmic specks and emotions are nothing but electrical signals and chemical reactions, the Truth Aliens reveal that humans do have reincarnating souls.
  • Trick Boss: The Ring aliens get their asses handed to them quite quickly, thanks to the Gantz team having done some out-of-game training sessions. Next target? Tae. Cue intra-team civil war.
  • Vichy Earth
  • Wham Episode: Chapter 369. It reveals that the aliens the Gantz teams were fighting against all this time were immigrants from a dying Solar System and that the Room of Truth broadcasted the technology capable of defeating the aliens. Add the fact that the humans themselves turned the concept of fighting the aliens into a game, and you suddenly realize that this whole series is The War of Earthly Aggression on Earth.
  • Wham Line: During the Katastrophe arc: "Gantz can't bring people back to life anymore. It can't heal injuries either, nothing like that."
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • The dog (or "Butter Dog") disappears after the Buddha mission. He was likely killed, but it's never shown.
    • Hoi Hoi disappears after the Italy mission. Like the dog before him it can be presumed that he was killed but it isn't shown.
    • The rest of the main cast (excluding Kei, Tae, and Kato) completely disappear from the finale, leaving their fates unknown.
    • The Host Samurai and Kill Bill are still out and about and free to do whatever it is they wish to the rest of Tokyo.
    • The Gantz factory in Germany is still mass producing Gantz balls as far as we know.
    • The governments of the world now know about the Gantz teams, and the equipment and weapons they all use will surely change the face of war on Earth forever.
    • We never see how Kurono's parents react to their favorite son's death, or if they even know he's dead at all.
  • Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: From Gantz. Gantz gets them from Germany. And Chapter 369 reveals that the wealthy German guy's daughter got it from the alien race we see in the Room of Truth.
  • Why Won't You Die?: The Nura alien.
  • The Worf Barrage: The entire Osaka team vs. the Nura alien.
  • Yandere: Well, it certainly seems Reika's recent plan to score Kurono for herself wanders right into Yandere territory.
  • Youkai: The themed creatures in the Osaka arc.

    Anime Exclusive Examples 
  • Adaptation Expansion: Several additional scenes depict the newer Gantzers before they enter the room.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Due to being cut short compared to the manga, Gantz is the series Big Bad, with the hunt merely being its own sick entertainment.
  • Adaptational Wimp: The power suits are much weaker than they were ultimately revealed to be in the manga, capable of being easily penetrated by ordinary bullets. Gantz weapons end up coming across as Awesome, but Impractical compared to mundane human firearms as a result, since they're hard to hit with but their explosive power is overkill.
  • Angels Pose: Kurono, Masaru and Kishimoto strike this pose at the end of the Title Sequence, from episode 6 onwards.
  • Anime Theme Song: "Super Shooter" by Japanese hip-hop group Rip Slyme.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: The filler arc does this with several background characters, including the hobo killers, Kurono's teacher, the owner of the bookstore frequented by Kurono, and a gang member who knew the biker that used the Gantz gun in public.
  • Evolving Credits: The anime Title Sequence often changes to add the newest characters.
  • Eye Scream: Nishi, when he is killed by Suzuki Seiji.
  • Filler: Justified, as Oku himself told the anime's director to create his own ending since the manga wasn't anywhere near finished when the anime was coming to a close. Ironically, the filler is where the up-until-now slowly building social commentary comes full circle and really makes the characters (and viewers) question what true morality really is and whether or not it even exists.
  • Follow the Leader: the anime plays up Kurono's internal monologues a lot, like a more well-known Deadpan Snarker whose name starts with K.
  • Gecko Ending: The anime veers from the manga after the Buddha Temple arc, with Gantz setting the next team to hunt Kurono down, and Kurono being the Sole Survivor. However, he implicitly "beats the game", since the final shot is of Gantz fading away in its room.
  • Gratuitous English: Just listen to the opening song.
  • Grossout Show: Again, because of the intensely bloody violence
  • Improvised Weapon: When the hobo killers get sent to the room and target an unarmed Kurono, he responds in kind with a soaking wet rope of knotted clothes. Add muscular agumentation for an instant Epic Flail.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: The end credits show Kato and Kishimoto disappearing, leaving Kurono alone.
  • Mrs. Robinson: Sei Sakuraoka with Kurono. Between the manga and anime, he states that he is 15 and in 10th grade. She is at LEAST 18, and could be as many as 10-15 years older than him. In the anime (depending on which version you listen to) when talking to him, she refers to herself as "big sister" (Japanese audio) and later questions a potential relationship between the two of them because of "the age thing." (American audio). None of this stops them from having sex, twice.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The "Tanaka seijin" joke is lost as he's renamed to "Suzuki seijin". And thanks to an Art Shift, Sei Sakuraoka's resemblance to Lara Croft is also lost.
  • The Power of Lust: In the manga, Kei Kurono doesn't know how to activate his power suit's abilities. When he gets bullied in the anime, he thinks of Kei Kishimoto's breasts and gets turned on. It's only then that his suit activates and he knocks the bully's teeth out.
  • Ship Tease: After leaving Kurono's home when the two have a falling out, Kishimoto seemingly returns as she has nowhere else to go, a fact that deeply upsets her. She begins crying into Kurono's chest and...the next scene shows them having sex. However, it is then revealed this was all part of a dream Kurono had and it ends when they climax. In the manga, it was made clear from the get go that Kurono was merely dreaming about her, but in the anime the scene is only revealed to have been a dream afterwards.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The ending song "Last Kiss" by Bonnie Pink feels more like something you will hear in a romantic drama rather than in a series like Gantz, having a rather dissonant effect when it starts playing after of the most brutal violent scenes that take place at the end of some episodes.
  • Wager Slave
  • Wall Bang Her: Kurono and Sei have sex like this at the end of episode 15 and begining of episode 16.

    Live-Action Movies 
  • Face Stealer: Vampire Kato does a Sword Plant into Nishi to turn into him.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: To the extent that the final battle of Perfect Answer relies almost entirely on these, both the Gantz-issued ones and the vampire-summoned ones used by Vampire Kato.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Many of the one-time only Gantzers don't appear at all, Tae shows up early, and perhaps most importantly, all the hunts go much differently than their anime or manga equivalents. For example- rather than wander around in only Kato's jacket, Kishimoto is the only person wearing a Gantz suit in the Green Onion alien hunt.
  • Reset Button Ending: Crossed with allusions to Messianic finale. Kurono finishes Gantz's mission and is awarded full points, giving him the power to undo everything bad while all of the good guys manage to retain their character development. The catch, Kurono must sacrifice his own future and be imprisoned forever.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Two. Eriko for Reika, and clone-Kato for Izumi.

    Gantz: O 
  • Bait-and-Switch:
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: The guys end up much bloodier and messed-up looking than the ladies, even when they have a similar level of injury. Special mention goes to Reika, whose hair remains shampoo-commercial perfect for the entire mission.
  • Blood Knight: The most prominent members of Team Osaka—they've all won enough to be released several times over, but they're enjoying themselves too much.
  • Compressed Adaptation: Despite being an adaptation of the Nurarihyon Mission arc, it's adapted in a way to be a stand-alone movie. This leads to majority of the Tokyo Team characters not being included in the movie.
  • Death by Adaptation: Played with in a sense with Kurono. Technically, Kurono was dead at this point in manga. The arc which gets adapted ends with Kato using his points to revive Kurono in the manga while in the movie here, he instead revives Anzu.
  • For Want Of A Nail: The movie follows the basic premise of rather than dying and getting revived like he did in the manga, Kato instead managed to gather the 100 points necessary to free himself.
  • Mythology Gag: The Faceless knife-wielder that killed Kato (and several bystanders) is implied to be Shion Izumi.
  • Part-Time Hero: The team are only required to be at the Gantz base when actively summoned for a mission—the rest of the time, they're free to conduct their lives as normal.
  • Portal Cut: One monster attacking an elderly couple with a child pisses off Kato so much that he turns the Y-Gun on it, waits for just the top of its head to be transported away - then deactivates it.

    Game Exclusive Examples 
  • Licensed Game: A PS2 game based on the manga exists. It's half Dating Sim and half action game. It ends after the chibi alien mission, right before Izumi appears.
  • Tsundere: Nishi if you follow his route. He even says something along the lines of "Don't get the wrong idea; I didn't come here to help you" during one event. This is mind-meltingly weird for anyone who's familiar with the Jerkass Nishi from the manga and anime, to say the least.


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