The utterly gratituous GANTZ post.
Well.
This post has been a long time coming.
It's not because I was putting a lot of thought into it - this post is actually pretty inane. I just procrastinate too much. Or maybe the sad thing is, having a job and a social life actually means less time for geeking out over stuff I love.
Whichever. 'Nuff said. On to the random picspam.
Caps, spoilers and lame sense of humour under the cut.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Movie starts off with this shot, which nicely ties it to how the first movie and manga open - though Kurono was actually reading a porn mag in the manga.
(Can you actually 'read' porn mags? I suppose 'looking' would be more apt...)
Look Ma, no boobs!
I can't decide if I like the sequence that follows, where we trace celebrity Ayukawa Eriko's mysterious behaviour along with the mini Pokeball GANTZ ball.
Either way, easiest cosplay ever?
We get further flashbacks of what happened, in case you were dragged along to watch Part 2 without ever having watched Part 1.
They should feed Arashi more.
Then we're presented with Kei and Tae playing house, complete with kid to babysit. Note how detailed the set is - I love how they even have the little poster stuck up reminding them which days you're supposed to bring out what trash.
Although you can't ever be too sure who the schoolkid is with Mr Eternally-17.
Kei has to do a Cinderella and run out on Tae because GANTZ is calling. Cue the awesome gratituously skin-tight suits. Men in cat-suits are very manry, okay! XD
Can you blame her?
Tae is the epitome of long-suffering girlfriend who's always being left behind to wait. If a non-Arashi had been cast as Kei, I'd tell her to ditch the ungrateful lout already. He's clearly being deliberately evasive.
Then again in the manga, Kei was quite unlikeable in some ways. He wasn't a clear hero or anti-hero. He was just one of us, complete with all the ugly little personality streaks that all of us have but don't like to admit to.
But the Arashi charm still shines through and Kei reveals that he's bought 2 tickets to an amusement park. Tae suddenly plays shy. C'mon now, when Ninohe's asking you with PREPAID tickets, it's not an offer you refuse!
Standing on a slope to rub in the fact he's short. Sneaky!
So anyway, Kei's been mooning over Katou since forever, but he doesn't exactly jump for joy upon seeing Katou. Possibly because he was robbed of the personal pleasure of being the one to revive him?
Then again, Katou acted pretty strangely.
"Let's randomly talk about balls that are THIS big."
I'm not entirely sure when Kei told Ayumu that Katou was coming home, but the kid made a cake. This is slightly sad because the kid doesn't can't possibly know when 'soon' is, since Kei's been telling him that for 5 months now. And the kid actually still believes him.
How long has he been keeping that cake!?
But enough chit-chat. GANTZ calls again.
This is where I have fun with sign-spotting. Didn't see any Arashi easter eggs, but the poster behind Ayukawa Eriko for Kyoei Business School kinda amuses me because had it been 'Eikyou Business School' (Eikyou = London) instead, this could've been a scene right out of my daily commute. (Sadly sans Nino in catsuit though.)
I marvel at how she manages to balance on a moving train in stilettos.
Love the dramatic irony here - that's a poster of Ayukawa Eriko in the background.
So GANTZ has a sadistic sense of humour and sticks them right in the middle of a crowded place where they can't easily escape. And makes it so that other people are present and can see them all dressed funny.
The stuff that nightmares are made of much?
Spot the odd one out.
Violence ensues. Kei gets flung through a window, but having spotted Tae in the meantime, he does the most impressive version of late-passenger-trying-to-catch-his-train ever. In fact, he's so fast and I encoded so badly that I couldn't get any good caps of that sequence.
But whatever, Kei does his ass-kickin' thing and manages to get there in time for the girls.
*drool*
In case you were in doubt, the aliens confirm their alien-ness by gushing black blood and blinking funny. The rest of the GANTZ team have their share of ass-kicking to do, including a gratituous schoolgirl-fight scene. And of course one of them have to be wearing a translucent blouse with a black bra and a skirt that just so happens to have an uber high slit.
Penultimate boss fight ensues.
Alien? Nah, he's just got a crick in his neck.
When they return, it turns out that Uncle has obtained 100 points! He decides to put an end to Kei's mooning by bringing Katou back.
The two childhood friends have more chemistry than Kei and Tae.
"Is there something in your pocket or are you-- oh."
Like really.
UST much?
Then of course I'm probably biased and corrupted by fandom.
Cake virginity. Just sayin'.
Kei is too stunned by Katou's return to brain properly and so he brings back the irritating Whatsisname. (He irritates me so much that I'm having selective amnesia and can't for the life of me remember his name. Go figure)
Anyway, GANTZ decides Tae is a threat and makes her the next target.
Interestingly enough, since Tae is a human, she gets a non-pixel-art avatar. Though I actually quite look forward to the pixel-art mugshots.
I wonder why the words show up fine but the picture is like it's on an ancient TV screen?
Kei's powers of rhetoric aren't strong enough to convince the rest not to hunt Tae down. So for some reason, Kei gets a headstart to go rescue her while Katou rushes off to Ayumu.
Cue exciting chase scene through the downtown shopping district. The art team sure had fun name-dropping here. Most of the shop signs are references to the actors' names or parodies of actual shop names.
Okay, so I'm desperate for Arashi easter eggs.
Dun dun DUN! Enter Fake Katou. Turns out he's killed Ayumu as payback for how Real Katou killed his dad. Or something. I'm not sure why Fake Katou cares that Real Katou killed his dad. Maybe he's just angry at the world in general. Or angry that Ayumu tried to feed him stale cake.
TWO Katous? That's more than Kei's overloaded system can handle.
I'm amazed at how Nino DIDN'T seem to get visibly fitter given these fighting scenes. Kei and the Katous (why does that sound like some kind of band name?) get to play with each other.
Was I the only one reminded of Aiba in Pikanchi here?
...I-idek any more.
So as if being flipped over like a rag doll isn't enough, Kei gets flung through a window. Again.
(PARSON STATION is probably a parody of LAWSON STATION. Speaking of combini parodies, I couldn't help being reminded of this.)
No Arashi mags in the magazine stand either. Yeah, I looked.
Cue the line I'd been awaiting for over a year ever since I translated that H article. It's one of Nino's ad libs that survived the cut. (There are probably more, but this is the only one they specifically mentioned.)
"SO not my day."
It really isn't Kei's day. Fake Katou decides to play trampoline and catch-ball with him. Literally.
*boing*
The angle of this cap amused me.
Fake Katou is your model villain and knows exactly how to twist the knife in things - also quite literally. And also again.
Not often that you get to kill the same man twice.
I bet Real Katou is kicking himself right now.
Whatsisname shows up and tries to join in the fun. He may be irritating but he's not stupid, so he doesn't bother with the whole sword business and brings a gun.
Who should come to the rescue but Tae, who has remarkable timing.
She doesn't have remarkable reflexes though, so she gets cut down almost immediately by Fake Katou.
Cue the dying-in-your-crush's-arms fantasy. Kei decides to turn model BF and keep his promise of going first-name-basis the next time they met. Better late than never, I guess?
Face still amazingly unmarked, if a little blood-splattered.
Although she's probably read enough manga with miraculous survival scenes, poor Tae unfortunately doesn't wear any convenient metal jewellery or randomly carry Shounen Jump volumes under her clothes. So she actually really dies.
Kei is not impressed, but GANTZ doesn't give a toot.
Nobody wins because none of the team killed Tae. Nobody seems to lose any points though, but I guess GANTZ got distracted by the fact that they accidentally brought aliens back too.
Oopsie.
Bit of a spat ensues and things get blown up a little bit.
If you squint, you could almost imagine that Katou's just sitting there chillin' and Kei's sunning himself at the beach... No?
Cue a neat little happy ending. Kinda. Kei makes his choice to replace GANTZ's batteries and save the world. Everyone is revived and returned to their lives. They all live happily ever after. Except for the nosey investigator chap whom I managed to leave out of all the caps. Oops.
Heck, Kei even manages to retcon it a little so that he declares his feelings for Tae on a Ferris wheel, which is sort of cool and a little creepy given that Tae isn't supposed to remember him.
Although his memory erasing thing is a little defective, so that's okay. Never mind how f-ed up Tae's love life is probably going to be since she'll always have this nagging feeling that she should be waiting for someone but not know who.
But anywho. In case you hadn't figured it out, they handily give you visual confirmation as to what Kei chose.
TUMMY! :D
Um. The End.
I wonder if they have a little circular stand for GANTZ like they do for the balls in VSA's Kicking Sniper?
And so ends my irreverent (and probably quite irrelevant) picspam and commentary.
Incidentally the subbed movie is here if you missed it.
And now to bed before I inflict any more sleep-deprived randomness on anyone else.
This post has been a long time coming.
It's not because I was putting a lot of thought into it - this post is actually pretty inane. I just procrastinate too much. Or maybe the sad thing is, having a job and a social life actually means less time for geeking out over stuff I love.
Whichever. 'Nuff said. On to the random picspam.
Caps, spoilers and lame sense of humour under the cut.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Movie starts off with this shot, which nicely ties it to how the first movie and manga open - though Kurono was actually reading a porn mag in the manga.
(Can you actually 'read' porn mags? I suppose 'looking' would be more apt...)
Look Ma, no boobs!
I can't decide if I like the sequence that follows, where we trace celebrity Ayukawa Eriko's mysterious behaviour along with the mini Pokeball GANTZ ball.
Either way, easiest cosplay ever?
We get further flashbacks of what happened, in case you were dragged along to watch Part 2 without ever having watched Part 1.
They should feed Arashi more.
Then we're presented with Kei and Tae playing house, complete with kid to babysit. Note how detailed the set is - I love how they even have the little poster stuck up reminding them which days you're supposed to bring out what trash.
Although you can't ever be too sure who the schoolkid is with Mr Eternally-17.
Kei has to do a Cinderella and run out on Tae because GANTZ is calling. Cue the awesome gratituously skin-tight suits. Men in cat-suits are very manry, okay! XD
Can you blame her?
Tae is the epitome of long-suffering girlfriend who's always being left behind to wait. If a non-Arashi had been cast as Kei, I'd tell her to ditch the ungrateful lout already. He's clearly being deliberately evasive.
Then again in the manga, Kei was quite unlikeable in some ways. He wasn't a clear hero or anti-hero. He was just one of us, complete with all the ugly little personality streaks that all of us have but don't like to admit to.
But the Arashi charm still shines through and Kei reveals that he's bought 2 tickets to an amusement park. Tae suddenly plays shy. C'mon now, when Ninohe's asking you with PREPAID tickets, it's not an offer you refuse!
Standing on a slope to rub in the fact he's short. Sneaky!
So anyway, Kei's been mooning over Katou since forever, but he doesn't exactly jump for joy upon seeing Katou. Possibly because he was robbed of the personal pleasure of being the one to revive him?
Then again, Katou acted pretty strangely.
"Let's randomly talk about balls that are THIS big."
I'm not entirely sure when Kei told Ayumu that Katou was coming home, but the kid made a cake. This is slightly sad because the kid doesn't can't possibly know when 'soon' is, since Kei's been telling him that for 5 months now. And the kid actually still believes him.
How long has he been keeping that cake!?
But enough chit-chat. GANTZ calls again.
This is where I have fun with sign-spotting. Didn't see any Arashi easter eggs, but the poster behind Ayukawa Eriko for Kyoei Business School kinda amuses me because had it been 'Eikyou Business School' (Eikyou = London) instead, this could've been a scene right out of my daily commute. (Sadly sans Nino in catsuit though.)
I marvel at how she manages to balance on a moving train in stilettos.
Love the dramatic irony here - that's a poster of Ayukawa Eriko in the background.
So GANTZ has a sadistic sense of humour and sticks them right in the middle of a crowded place where they can't easily escape. And makes it so that other people are present and can see them all dressed funny.
The stuff that nightmares are made of much?
Spot the odd one out.
Violence ensues. Kei gets flung through a window, but having spotted Tae in the meantime, he does the most impressive version of late-passenger-trying-to-catch-his-train ever. In fact, he's so fast and I encoded so badly that I couldn't get any good caps of that sequence.
But whatever, Kei does his ass-kickin' thing and manages to get there in time for the girls.
*drool*
In case you were in doubt, the aliens confirm their alien-ness by gushing black blood and blinking funny. The rest of the GANTZ team have their share of ass-kicking to do, including a gratituous schoolgirl-fight scene. And of course one of them have to be wearing a translucent blouse with a black bra and a skirt that just so happens to have an uber high slit.
Penultimate boss fight ensues.
Alien? Nah, he's just got a crick in his neck.
When they return, it turns out that Uncle has obtained 100 points! He decides to put an end to Kei's mooning by bringing Katou back.
The two childhood friends have more chemistry than Kei and Tae.
"Is there something in your pocket or are you-- oh."
Like really.
UST much?
Then of course I'm probably biased and corrupted by fandom.
Cake virginity. Just sayin'.
Kei is too stunned by Katou's return to brain properly and so he brings back the irritating Whatsisname. (He irritates me so much that I'm having selective amnesia and can't for the life of me remember his name. Go figure)
Anyway, GANTZ decides Tae is a threat and makes her the next target.
Interestingly enough, since Tae is a human, she gets a non-pixel-art avatar. Though I actually quite look forward to the pixel-art mugshots.
I wonder why the words show up fine but the picture is like it's on an ancient TV screen?
Kei's powers of rhetoric aren't strong enough to convince the rest not to hunt Tae down. So for some reason, Kei gets a headstart to go rescue her while Katou rushes off to Ayumu.
Cue exciting chase scene through the downtown shopping district. The art team sure had fun name-dropping here. Most of the shop signs are references to the actors' names or parodies of actual shop names.
Okay, so I'm desperate for Arashi easter eggs.
Dun dun DUN! Enter Fake Katou. Turns out he's killed Ayumu as payback for how Real Katou killed his dad. Or something. I'm not sure why Fake Katou cares that Real Katou killed his dad. Maybe he's just angry at the world in general. Or angry that Ayumu tried to feed him stale cake.
TWO Katous? That's more than Kei's overloaded system can handle.
I'm amazed at how Nino DIDN'T seem to get visibly fitter given these fighting scenes. Kei and the Katous (why does that sound like some kind of band name?) get to play with each other.
Was I the only one reminded of Aiba in Pikanchi here?
...I-idek any more.
So as if being flipped over like a rag doll isn't enough, Kei gets flung through a window. Again.
(PARSON STATION is probably a parody of LAWSON STATION. Speaking of combini parodies, I couldn't help being reminded of this.)
No Arashi mags in the magazine stand either. Yeah, I looked.
Cue the line I'd been awaiting for over a year ever since I translated that H article. It's one of Nino's ad libs that survived the cut. (There are probably more, but this is the only one they specifically mentioned.)
"SO not my day."
It really isn't Kei's day. Fake Katou decides to play trampoline and catch-ball with him. Literally.
*boing*
The angle of this cap amused me.
Fake Katou is your model villain and knows exactly how to twist the knife in things - also quite literally. And also again.
Not often that you get to kill the same man twice.
I bet Real Katou is kicking himself right now.
Whatsisname shows up and tries to join in the fun. He may be irritating but he's not stupid, so he doesn't bother with the whole sword business and brings a gun.
Who should come to the rescue but Tae, who has remarkable timing.
She doesn't have remarkable reflexes though, so she gets cut down almost immediately by Fake Katou.
Cue the dying-in-your-crush's-arms fantasy. Kei decides to turn model BF and keep his promise of going first-name-basis the next time they met. Better late than never, I guess?
Face still amazingly unmarked, if a little blood-splattered.
Although she's probably read enough manga with miraculous survival scenes, poor Tae unfortunately doesn't wear any convenient metal jewellery or randomly carry Shounen Jump volumes under her clothes. So she actually really dies.
Kei is not impressed, but GANTZ doesn't give a toot.
Nobody wins because none of the team killed Tae. Nobody seems to lose any points though, but I guess GANTZ got distracted by the fact that they accidentally brought aliens back too.
Oopsie.
Bit of a spat ensues and things get blown up a little bit.
If you squint, you could almost imagine that Katou's just sitting there chillin' and Kei's sunning himself at the beach... No?
Cue a neat little happy ending. Kinda. Kei makes his choice to replace GANTZ's batteries and save the world. Everyone is revived and returned to their lives. They all live happily ever after. Except for the nosey investigator chap whom I managed to leave out of all the caps. Oops.
Heck, Kei even manages to retcon it a little so that he declares his feelings for Tae on a Ferris wheel, which is sort of cool and a little creepy given that Tae isn't supposed to remember him.
Although his memory erasing thing is a little defective, so that's okay. Never mind how f-ed up Tae's love life is probably going to be since she'll always have this nagging feeling that she should be waiting for someone but not know who.
But anywho. In case you hadn't figured it out, they handily give you visual confirmation as to what Kei chose.
TUMMY! :D
Um. The End.
I wonder if they have a little circular stand for GANTZ like they do for the balls in VSA's Kicking Sniper?
And so ends my irreverent (and probably quite irrelevant) picspam and commentary.
Incidentally the subbed movie is here if you missed it.
And now to bed before I inflict any more sleep-deprived randomness on anyone else.