Gantz

""Gantz is quite possibly the most offensive anime you can get outside of the hentai section. Certainly it's the most transgressive made-for-TV anime to emerge in recent memory...""

- Dan Barry of animeondvd.com

Right. Imagine the bastard offspring of Elfen Lied 's gore and wanton nudity with Neon Genesis Evangelion 's plain insanity and disturbing nature. Then put that on crack and toss it in a septic tank. That's Gantz.

Gantz is a horror/sci-fi series by Hiroya Oku. As it begins, Kei Kurono, a rather unpleasant teenage student, is run over by a train after he and his childhood friend Masaru Kato rescue a hobo from the rails. Instead of being dead, suddenly 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 large black sphere.

The sphere names itself Gantz, sings an exercise song, and explains the situation: They were dead, but Gantz needs them for the mission of killing a weird alien creature (the first of a series, as it turns out). The rules are easy: They have one hour to complete the assignment. If they are hurt but alive at the end of the time, they are fully healed, but if they are killed they'll remain dead. If they get too far outside the hunt area they will die. Their performance will be measured for points; when they get 100, they can be free. With all that said, Gantz gives them high-tech battle suits and some futuristic equipment and armament, and launches them into the mission.

Then giants invade Earth after about 300 chapters...

Essentially, the first nine volumes (and the whole anime series) consist of senseless killings; gory, horrific violence; Fan Service; and sex scenes. Then, the manga began to improve when Kurono was given a romantic interest and an impressive Character Development. And then, "vampires" are introduced, some secrets are revealed, and things become truly weird and extremely convoluted. The fights also become longer and longer, to the point they seem interminable.

The manga is currently in its third and final phase of the story, which Oku plans to end sometime in 2012, things all over the world have become horrifically worse for everyone.

Just recently, the series got a two-part live action Japanese movie, released in the winter and spring of 2011.

Multiple Version Examples

 * Aborted Arc: The plot points involving the real Kishimoto's survival and the vampires fighting back against the Gantz players ultimately don't go anywhere. That we know of yet.
 * 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 . Even Kishimoto got some moments. Sei Sakuraoka is a tremendous secondary character example.
 * Adaptation Distillation: In the anime, Nishi
 * Adult Child: Gantz has an 11-year-old's sense of humor.
 * Aliens and Monsters: The enemies that the team members are forced to fight.
 * 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, and 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 was tremendously modest.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The guns in the series, while extremely powerful and more than capable of beating the targets, take absolutely forever for their fired shots to reach their targets. Even then, 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.
 * Awesome Yet Practical- You can use the suit itself as a weapon. You can even use your body itself as a weapon. You can even steal weapons from the aliens . Also, the Gantz-issued katanas. The Monocycle is between this and Awesome But Impractical, offering speed, mobility, can plow through lesser aliens, has extra seat for a shooter, is easy to control (the old man in the Dinosaur Mission learns to control it effectively within minutes), yet has a fatal flaw of failing to provide adequate protection.
 * 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 . In the movie, 's dying wish is for someone to get 100 points and bring him back.
 * 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
 * Reika also qualifies in a later chapter, as
 * 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 . 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
 * 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 H-Gun.
 * BFS: The katana from Gantz arsenal that can alter its length to ridiculous levels. It was once used to slice
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Unless you're Reika.
 * Or Host Samurai.
 * Bishounen: Early on a model, Masanobu Hojo, whom Gantz called "Homo", then Izumi, "Host Samurai", Akira Kurono and Kyou of the Osaka team.
 * Blinding Bangs: "Sadako", the creepy girl, until she takes a more active role. Then she gets Peek a Bangs, then her face is fully revealed.
 * 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. 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.
 * His name actually ties in nicely to the fact that his second life, as a complete badass, happens during the night. Then in the during he day he's just plain old Kurono.
 * Inaba within the Tokyo Team. If being tricked into doesn't suck...
 * Cartwright Curse: No wonder prefers to cultivate his romantic bonds with his best friend and True Companions.
 * Catch Phrase: 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. . From the aliens. Italy's seemed to be the only place free of Reika's fans thus far.
 * 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.
 * The Chick: Kishimoto, early on.
 * Cloning Blues: Things get even more interesting when.
 * 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: The English dub and the subtitles of the anime. Gantz tends to curse every other line in the manga.
 * Conspicuous CG: the Anime and Manga have their share of it:
 * The anime is more modest about it, only having a few locations and aliens modeled in 3D, which happens to be in Buddhist Temple mission: both Gate Guardians and the Living Armor are mostly in 3D, with a few shots of regular 2D animation in between.
 * The graphical representations of all weapons in the manga, and a good deal of the technologies, are obviously produced using 3D modeling. The artist 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, 3D modeling is increasingly employed 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.
 * David Versus Goliath: Any human vs giant battle.
 * Dead Baby Comedy: What the game apparently is to Gantz.
 * Deadly Game: The truth behind Gantz.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Gantz himself.
 * Dead to Begin With: Somewhat true.
 * Death By Disfigurement
 * Death By Sex
 * is killed the mission after she joins and has sex with . To be fair, most people died that time.
 * Partialy subverted
 * Kuwabara Kazuo, one of the members of the Osaka team is so sex-crazed, that he decides to rape the Nurarihyon's giant feminine form as some sort of goodbye ritual when it's obvious he's about to die. Despite having his arms and legs melted down by the alien, he does manage to survive when the monster,, spits him out and Kato orders Miho and Sumiko to carry him away.
 * 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:.
 * 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 into the same septic 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.
 * Dirty Coward: Nishi and Inaba.
 * Driven to Suicide: Kishimoto ended up in the game after slitting her wrists in her bathtub. Sakurai also was in the way, changing his mind when Sakata showed him another resolution.
 * in the anime,
 * Everybodys Dead Dave: After is the only team member left alive.
 * Expy: Sei Sakuraoka of Lara Croft
 * Eye Scream: Nishi, by a "Mr. Tanaka" alien.
 * Fan Service - Copious amounts of nudity and sexual material in the actual story. Also, see Stripperiffic below.
 * Forgotten Superweapon: While it is not exactly a super weapon, the guns that fire a beam which teleports the aliens away are extremely useful, being a Hit Scan weapon, while all the other types of guns have a delay between pulling trigger and stuff blowing up. It was used only two or three times in the entire manga, mostly by Kato. 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.
 * Frickin Laser Beams: The Thousand Arm Budda statue's weapon
 * Gag Boobs: Kei Kishimoto. She's not too happy about that. Also, Gantz likes to mock the well-endowed Reika, whose breasts get bigger during the series..
 * Gantz Is A Cheating Bastard
 * Gorn: Gantz is a prime example.
 * Hello Nurse: Kei Kishimoto had a bit of this going (read:everyone wanted to rape or harass her), but add the fame to the boobs the beauty, and you have Reika. Everybody's fapping over 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.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Kishimoto taking the acid attack meant for Kato. Far, far later in the story we have saving most of his teammates in that manner.
 * Hollywood Acid: used by the Thousand Arms Budda statue to horrifying effects. Kind of justified, since that corosive substance might not be form 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 . Nevertheless, the team never think 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 gun that fires cables. 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 Oni Monster Arc? The one that Evolved? Yeah, they sniped him, all of them..
 * Hopeless Suitor: Kurono to Kishimoto in the beginning and Reika to Kurono later on.
 * Humans Are Bastards: 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; even eats a Gantzer's brain in order to ask Katou why they've been tearing up their shit. Most of the Osaka team embodies this trope.
 * The giants are basically 4-eyed, supersized humans who like to.
 * Also a case of Not So Different one of them has a typical human teenager discussion with her mother.
 * See the entry for Anvilicious for another example. An entire episode 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.
 * 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 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, so obviously he gets his ass kicked a lot when faced with increasingly dangerous opponents.
 * Innocent Aliens: Subverted.
 * 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 finds himself in the aliens' position. He has his fair share in the manga too, when.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Kill Em All: To start off, most of the cast die at least once, then most of the major characters die again. And when you think it was bad in the Osaka arc, the Italy arc starts. And then we have.
 * 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 and then calmly leaving the room full of his crying teammates.
 * 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 dies.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters are killed.
 * 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,.
 * Ludicrous Gibs: These generally happen when something is shot with the Gantz weapons.
 * Made of Plasticine.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: The "Mr. Tanaka" aliens.
 * A Man Is Not a Virgin: 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.
 * The Messiah: Kato Masaru.
 * Messiah Creep: Kurono.
 * Mind Over Matter: Sakata and Sakurai, complete with Psychic Nosebleed.
 * Mistaken for Gay: Hojo. Maybe.
 * According to the Licensed Game,
 * Most Writers Are Male: Most, if not all the young women in the Gantz universe exist to fall in love and have sex with the male characters, or throw themselves in harm's way to save their loved ones.
 * Reika is a subversion of sorts, in that she becomes a dynamic, well-rounded character and not just Fan Service. Not to mention she is one of the more Badass characters in the series.
 * Ms. Fanservice: Kei Kishimoto.
 * 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.
 * The Obi Wan: Several. Nishi subverts it, displaying open hostility to the team and only divulging information when pressed. Kato is one to Kurono, changing him from a Jerkass to The Messiah. . Inverted at first with Sakurai and Sakata, but played straight when.
 * Official Couple:  Kei Kurono and Tae Kojima.
 * Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Who didn't regret not seeing how Hoi Hoi'd earned its points?
 * One Steve Limit: Averted with
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * Red Shirt: So many that this actually qualifies for...
 * Redshirt Army: The Gantz teams and all law enforcement.
 * Redemption Equals Death:, though more of an Usefulness Equals Death or Action Equals Death, as he'd stopped being a Jerkass a bit earlier.
 * Running Gag: Before he stopped being a Jerkass, Kurono would always be teleported into the Gantz room in compromising positions.
 * Sacrificial Lion: A lot. Probably the most significant example is.
 * Save Point: The apartment, in a sense.
 * Serial Killer: could have become one if it wasn't for Gantz' interference, based on his behavior and
 * Also Hajime Muroto and Kajiura Ryuji.
 * deserves a special mention here folks; . 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.
 * Ship Tease: In the anime' 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..
 * Shout Out: Fist of the North Star, told as a bedtime story by Kato; Ringu with the stalker girl who looks suspiciously like Sadako; the female vampire, whose code name is Kill Bill; and 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.
 * being killed by from behind with a katana may look familiar.
 * Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Why The Messiah 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...
 * Teleporters and Transporters: 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 a 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 of the story shoot it already!
 * In recent chapters,.
 * 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 wrecking 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.
 * 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 Chick of the team, and then became the first person to.
 * Trigger Happy: Quite a few Gantzers are shown to be.
 * Villain Protagonist: The Gantz teams, until Katastrophe. The aliens are inoffensive unless provoked.
 * 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: It's like Men in Black meets the book of Job
 * Yakuza: Two of them are among the first group of hunters.
 * 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 Asplode: 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.
 * Your Head Asplode: 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 Version Only 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: 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: Also,  does this when she takes a blow and dies for Kato.
 * Anticlimax: 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.
 * Anything That Moves: Kazuo Kuwabara will screw anything with a wet hole, to include
 * Apocalypse How: Katastrophe seems to be either a Class 2 or 3.
 * Ax Crazy: . After his classmates throw him out the window of their classroom (on the second story of the school), he comes back.
 * 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:
 * Because You Were Nice to Me: When Nishi
 * Beware the Nice Ones: If you're a Giant alien, you are screwed if Sakurai catches you
 * Big Damn Heroes: Kato spearheads such a moment in ch. 351.
 * Blood Knight: Izumi; Kaze to a much lesser extent.
 * Body Horror: As if there weren't enough horrible ways 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 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
 * Brick Joke: after Gantz declares Sakurai "No longer a Cherry", we see Kurono get a message on his phone from Sakurai - whose email address ends in 'cherry.jp'.
 * Cassandra Truth:
 * 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
 * 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's a lolicon.
 * Cool Old Guy: "Old Man".
 * Doppelganger Replacement Love Interest: The Love Triangle between Kurono, Tae and Reika finally concludes.
 * The End of the World As We Know It: See It Got Worse.
 * Enemy Mine: Two vampires are forced to join the team after they successfully infiltrate the Gantz room.
 * Eye Beam: The leader Nurarihyon alien.
 * Fan Disservice: And it was hidden as Fan Service, to boot.
 * Faux Action Girl: Anzu. We don't get to know, 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 Katou's naïvety. Then she takes an action. And she messes it up, gets rescued by said Katou, is reduced to his Shallow Love Interest and . Not that the rest of her team did significantly better, but still...
 * Female vampire Chiaki borders on Dark Faux Action Girl territory, since despite of her badass looks and nickname, most of her actions ends by her ass being saved by Host Samurai.
 * Fire Forged Friends: The Gantz team that Kurono leads.
 * Five Man Band: Several, but the longest-lasting configuration is;
 * The Hero: Kurono
 * The Lancer: Izumi, Suzuki
 * The Smart Guy: Sakata, Sakurai
 * The Big Guy: Kaze
 * The Chick: Reika, Inaba
 * The Obi Wan: Sakata, Suzuki
 * Tagalong Kid: Takeshi
 * Team Pet: Hoi Hoi
 * From Nobody to Nightmare:
 * 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:  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, then the aliens they fight against. In fact, a big story point during the mission involves
 * 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.
 * Hot Dad: Daizemon "Muscle Rider" Kaze, who seems to have adopted Takeshi as his son.
 * Hot Mom: Anzu Yamasaki from the Osaka team has a three-year old son. She is also one of the sexiest characters in the manga.
 * 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
 * I'm a Humanitarian:  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 has a civilization, but don't care.
 * The Idiot From Osaka: Daizemon Kaze, and some of the Osaka team members.
 * Idol Singer: Reika, in the manga.
 * It Got 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,
 * Just when you think it couldn't get any worse than that, Chapter 342 came out.  To put it bluntly... IT! GETS! WORSE!
 * And now we learn that
 * Not only is  in a bad situation; in chapter 345,  group of merry men
 * 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 seem to be the only effective one. High tech katanas is also part of the Gantz arsenal, and they remain useful even in the most recent chapters, when.
 * 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".
 * Love Makes You Crazy: It seems like is starting to head down this road after
 * Manly Tears: Daizemon Kaze after finding out
 * Mauve Shirt: 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
 * Mugging the Monster: Nishi's classmates. If we don't start with the actual monsters
 * My God What Have I Done: Sakurai experiences this
 * Noble Demon: Vampire 'Host Samurai', to an extent.
 * One Winged Angel: . Lampshaded with one of the characters exclaiming that it just doesn't end.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: Izumi, who
 * Our Hero Is Dead:
 * Panda-ing To The Audience: Hoi Hoi.
 * Papa Wolf: Kaze to Takeshi. When one of the Nura alien's attacks hurt Takeshi, Kaze went apeshit and attacked it, dealing more damage than Oka Hachirou did even with his Power Armor.
 * 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 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 Beevis 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.
 * Say My Name: Oh boy, this trope has really become frequent in the Katastrophe arc. The TAE-CHAAAAN! and KEI-CHAAAAAN! 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
 * Shock and Awe: The Lightning Oni who is the boss of the Oni mission.
 * 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 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: Hoi Hoi.
 * Team Spirit: The entire point of the Nura mission. The Gantz team clear and survive the mission by working as a team while nearly everyone on the Osaka team ends up Dying Like Animals 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.
 * 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.
 * Wham Line: During the Katastrophe arc:
 * What Happened To The Panda?: Hoi Hoi disappears after the Italy arc; presumably he was killed, but it was never shown.
 * Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys: From Gantz.
 * Why Won't You Die: The Nura alien.
 * The Worf Barrage: The entire Osaka team vs. the Nura alien.
 * Yandere:
 * Youkai: The themed creatures in the Osaka arc.
 * The Worf Barrage: The entire Osaka team vs. the Nura alien.
 * Yandere:
 * Youkai: The themed creatures in the Osaka arc.

Anime Version Only Examples

 * Adaptation Expansion: several additional scenes depict the newer Gantzers before they enter the room.
 * Angels Pose: At the end of the Title Sequence, from episode 6 onwards.
 * Anime Theme Song: "Super Shooter" by Japanese hip-hop group Rip Slyme (you might remember them from the "Foo-La-La" Animutation).
 * Chekhov's Gunman: The filler arc does this with several background characters, including
 * Evolving Credits: The anime Title Sequence often changes to add the newest characters.
 * Eye Scream:
 * Filler
 * 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.
 * Gross Out Show
 * 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.
 * Inaction Sequence
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: The end credits
 * 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.
 * Spike Spencer: The voice of "Onion Boy" in the English dub of the anime.
 * Wager Slave
 * Wall Bang Her: have sex like this at the end of episode 15 and begining of episode 16.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Nearly averted-Most characters either have brown, blond, or black hair but Kishimoto's red and the younger hobo murderer's blue hair fall squarely into this trope. Sei Sakuraoka's dark blue may also count, but it may be supposed to be black. Joichiro Nishi's hair also happens to be green.

Film Version Only Examples

 * Hey Its That Guy: The movie contains a pair of Kamen Rider villains. Suzuki-san is Scissors Jaguar. The priest is the Lion-Kurage Yummy's host.
 * Kenichi Matsuyama (L, Negishi and now Kato) is officially Japan's go-to guy for manga movies now.
 * Kurono is a veteran of Iwo Jima.
 * 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.
 * : Crossed with allusions to Messianic finale. finishes Gantz' 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,  must sacrifice his own future and be imprisoned forever.
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Two. Eriko for Reika, and

Game Version Only Examplers

 * Licensed Game: A PS 2 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 in the Gantz PS 2 game 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.