Review: Gantz dvd series

Review: Gantz anime DVD series

Gantz is an anime series based on the Gantz Manga series written by Hiroya Oku.  

The story line orbits around  Kei Kurono and his friend Masaru Kato who die while saving a drunk who has fallen onto the tracks of the subway.  But instead of nothing, the pair wake in a room with a dark sphere and shortly there after a man dressed in what appears to be a dark latex body suit.  

They are informed that they are not really dead, but in between and as such have to complete tasks devised   by a mysterious Gantz.  As the series proceeds, more people join under the very same circumstances and even more are "killed" under increasingly more difficult tasks.  

The Animation of Gantz which appears in Japan as Manga, is directed by  Ichiro Itano and produced by Gonzo.  The series aired in Japan on Fuji Television and AT-X. The Gantz anime is divided into two seasons: The first season is known as "The First Stage", while the second season is known as "The Second Stage", which is a direct continuation of the first season. The First Stage aired in Japan with several scenes censored due to inappropriate content such as violence or nudity. However, the DVDs from the series contained the scenes uncensored. The Second Stage aired on Japanese network AT-X on August 26, 2004.There are a total of 12 Japanese DVDs, released from August 28, 2004 to June 29, 2005.  The US release contains ALL the scenes as the Japanese dvd release. 

On June 25, 2010, anime distributor Funimation Entertainment announced on their online FuniCon 4.0 panel, that they have acquired the rights to the series, along with 3 other former ADV titles after ADV's collapse in 2009.

That's the basic history of Gantz.  If you want a break from High School antics, Gundam power suits and move into something more sophisticated as say Ghost in the machine, with an even harder edge, you might just want to check Gantz out.  However FAIR WARNING The average character is unpleasant, the action is fast and violent to the point that if it can be cut off or sliced up, it is!  With great gusto.  Gouts of blood and flying body parts are the rule of the day along with...well if you caught the review about scene censoring you have to know where that was headed.  If you want introspection, you are not going to get it here! Graphic violence and nudity, and more, that would get this series canceled except on dvd anywhere you can imagine.  If this is your cup of tea, well you are not going to be able to rent it, so pony up and buy BOTH sets and you will not be disappointed   But if you want introspection for the ages, put the DVD down and run away.  

How would rate this? if looking for edge of your seat action you will get it in spades.  If I had to I would deduct a point for just to damn much! that would still give it an 8 or 9 with the graphics right up there with it.  Hey its' no DC or Marvel but then it ain't trying to be.  If weird weapons and whacked power suits (not gundam but form fitting latex with weird power globes at strategic locations) you will be watching one dvd and have two or three right at hand ready to go, and the world will go away for several hours....

Looper: Trailer

Oh wow, Bruce Willis in a time travel movie! How absolutely unique idea! Ok, I will stop and in truth "Looper" sound interesting as in a few newt twits kind of thing.

Here is the blurb that youtube had on it.

• In Looper, time travel will be invented -- but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a "looper" -- a hired gun, like Joe (Gordon-Levitt) -- is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good... until the day the mob decides to "close the loop," sending back Joe's future self (Willis) for assassination.

BMU #290 Thief of Futures pt1 D. Thomas Minton

While I start this week's program by playing Karma by Kokia which I have not played for a while. This song was of course one of the opening titles used in the anime series Gunslinger Girls.

My first story this week is a flash fiction piece from down under. From the pages of Antipodean is Jason Butterfied’s excellent flash fiction story called “Out of Time” . At the bottom of the hour is part one of Thomas Minton ‘Thief of Futures’. Where in the not so distant future a person’s “Future” becomes a commodity, if it proves to be of exceptional quality. And a X futures thief trying hard to protect what is most important to him, his daughter.

From the Blog: Russia’s failed Mars exploratory rover mission failure mean that scientists and engineers behind the Phobos-Grunt mission could face criminal prosecution. In an update however: The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they will attempt to contact the stranded Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft that became stuck at a low-Earth orbit due to engine failure that followed its launch on November 9. Back in 2010, an out-of-character Stephen Colbert sat down with astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson at Montclair Kimberly Academy to talk for 90 minutes about science, society and the universe. I have the video embedded on the blog. Comic book character Booster Gold is heading towards a meeting with the SyFy channel with a live action series in the offing. The Navy is phasing out its steam based catapult aircraft launching system and will be replacing it with an electromagnetic catapult launching system. Plans are to install the new system on the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier now in production. Intel is hard at work in hopes of bringing augmented reality technology into its’ chips. The Terminator tech of the future….today huh? NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft is hoping for a third extension of it’s mission. Controllers fired the spacecrafts engines to keep all mission possibilities open. From the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a short over-flight of the proto planet Vesta. This 3-D video incorporates images from the framing camera instrument aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft from July to August 2011. There is a lot more on the blog, I just didn’t get a chance to get to it all.

Review: The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the year vol 5 editor Jonathan Strahan

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the year vol 5
editor Jonathan Strahan
533 p pb
publisher Night Shade Books (http://www.nightshadebooks.com/)

I know my book reviews are often wonkie, but I review what I like, and I tell you why I liked it.
So with that in mind lets take a look at The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the year #5 Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Two reasons that drew me to this book published by Night Shade Books (http://www.nightshadebooks.com/) other than the fact that is WAS NSB which have their fingers on the pulse of what is popular, first and foremost was that it contains a goodly amount of top notch Science Fiction (and don’t get me wrong here, the fantasy is REALLY good as well) and editor Strahan. Jonathan unerringly ferrets out extraordinary fiction. No difference here either. 533 pages of literally something for everyone and more often than not, a LOT for the discerning fan. Thirty just plain excellent stories. Some fans will recognize here. Things by Peter Watts, excellently read by Clarkesworld magazine that I played in October which concerned the retelling of the John Campbell “Who Goes There” (movie version The Thing) from the view-point of the alien, JP Kelly’s excellent Plus or Minus. And when I say the fantasy is a notch above I am thinking of Neil Gaiman’s The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains which takes the unreal long view on revenge. How many remember Iteration by John Kessel (BMU episode 244) asking the question if you could make one change in your world, what would it be...and the next? Now, what if EVERYONE could......a great short story this one...yep. Robert Reed’s “Alone” - Imortality perhaps on something akin to a generation ship. Can there be something like loneliness? I make no bones about not really being a fan of alternative History, but who could not love Genevieve Valentine’s “The Zeppelin Conductors’ Society Annual Gentlemen’s Ball”? The great airships never died out and those that care for them become somewhat of a breed unto themselves...

And on and on. I like best of books, Strahan is an excellent editor and this made the book for me. I would highly recommend the read!

Seasons' song "Of Our Discontent" sci-fi short

Here we have a strange little indie Sci-Fi short in which the camera follows a day in the life of Vera a girl with speakers in her skin and no volume knob to control her constantly blaring music.

This short is the video for Seasons' song "Of Our Discontent" from the indie album Winter.

If you are interested in the music, the ep is available on bandcamp here www.sseasons.bandcamp.com/