First, I'll say I've never read the manga, so no comparisons there. I can say I've watch over half of the series, until I got tired of being irritated to death. I'll do my best to be vague and not give any spoilers. The one thing I rated GOOD was the story. I liked the concept, and initially it made me curious about what I might learn about what Gantz is. But then the irritation set in, and I just stopped caring.

Why irritated? Because on the one hand, you have an occasionally violent story, people dying in gruesome ways to appease the grim satisfaction of some users (i.e. they had it coming...). On the other hand, a pervasive anti-violence message usually put forth at times when violence is clearly called for to save those the main characters care about. At least the anime isn't so sanctimonious as to have the characters miraculously saved at the last minute by good intentions (or singing children). I got no problem with people having differing opinions, but when your in the middle of a life or death struggle, standing there whining about if its right to actually do something just gets your own people killed.

Am I anti-pacifist? No. I understand the need of restraint is stressful times. I like Hayao Miyazaki's work. But in my opinion, this story was written with an extremely polarized view of violence versus pacifism, even compared to Miyazaki. Either you have a bunch of thugs preying on the weak or some hypocrite standing in the middle of a firefight whining about the rightness of action. There is a middle ground where rational humans can fight to survive without being reduced to two legged animals.

End of rant. ;) (show less)

If u didn't read the manga before it, u probably will enjoy it ... this is an usual action anime, with a real-like world of todays Earth, with an excessive amount of blood and violent death, and ofcoz with a lot of "ecchi" (sometimes going into the hentai category) scenes. A story is being present just to roll the fights on, nothing serious, but u get some glimpse thou from the motivation of the characters. It has a good opening and ending, fit to the anime, and the animation is also top-grade.
Interesting thing, and for me the most valuable in this anime, the changing of the protagonist's personality. This evolving is a bit slow and sometimes weird, but it's really a complex and deep one. I can't say more without spoilers.

If u read the manga ... well ... consider this nothing too serious, at least u see the characters in motion. ^^ (show less)

Okay so the anime isn't bad... but compare to the manga.... It does not even compare.... The manga is 1000x better and is actually one of my most favorite mangas of all time so I was actually incredibly disappointed with what they did with this. It wasn't bad in the beginning as they were actually following the plot of the manga... but as soon as they deviated from it.... it just made me wanna destroy the monitor and the wall behind it. I freaked cuz the story completely was ruined. There was no other way to put it. Since spoilers aren't allowed.... I'll just say this. If you really want to watch a mediocre anime and hate comics and reading then, yea sure go ahead... but if you are a manga reader... then my suggestion is to read the manga first since the manga is epic and phenomenal. Then and only then will you know of this gap in greatness.... (show less)