Gantz - Game of Death (Vol. 1)
Thuggish, alienated high school student Kei Kurono and his childhood friend Masuru Kato are killed rescuing a wino who's fallen on the subway tracks. They wake up in a room dominated by Gantz, a black sphere that sends them and other newly dead people to kill aliens hiding on Earth. The senseless plot is little more than an excuse to show all the blood, gore, and nudity the filmmakers can pack into a 22-minute program.Gantzwas heavily edited when it was broadcast in Japan in 2004, but these uncut episodes seem less like the focus of the battle over censorship director Ichiroh Itano describes in his interview than a cheesy exercise in gratuitous violence. Including only two episodes on a disc would usually feel chintzy, but whereGantzis concerned, less really is more. (Unrated, suitable for ages 17 and older: nudity, sexual humor, graphic violence, grotesque imagery, profanity, tobacco use)--Charles Solomon