Gantz and Battle Royale

I've watched the most gore I've seen in months, but one was an anime so I'm not sure it counts. They were still much more fun to watch then the Saw or Hostel series.

I watched the whole series (two seasons) of an anime called Gantz in over three days. It's about a bunch of dead people being forced to participate in a 'game' to kill aliens in order to survive. I'll admit it was a pretty poorly done anime dialogue and directing wise, but the concept is pretty interesting and brings up a throng of moral dilemmas. The most irritating part of the show was that most of the time the characters are standing around debating about what to do, while the enemies in the meantime do nothing (all the character should be dead by all means). The show was able to create an intense atmosphere of fear and adrenaline for me. There was a lot of head's being chopped and death. I really like the final temple god because it seemed invincible. Some of the moral dilemmas they faced right from the beginning included whether: to risk your life saving a homeless man from being hit by a train, to fight the aliens and if they were really evil, whether to help someone who acted remorseless and heartless towards you, Gantz was just using them and to what purpose, who to trust, etc. The show reminded me of movies like the Cube because they both had groups of isolated strangers put in an absolutely strange situation where they had to learn themselves slowly and often by trial and error what was happening to them. At the same time they are feeling paranoia towards each despite having to cooperate with each other in order to survive. It was sort of like Akira in that virtually nothing was explained while more and more plots were piled on. The show’s ending was provocative, though I didn't really understand it. The ending also reminded me of Donnie Darko. It would have been a brilliant show if it was better executed. (Oh, just so you know, the main character starts off as a very horny teenager so he says and does a lot of ridiculous, immature things.)

Afterwards, I watched a movie called Battle Royale with Dave. It's about a class of high schoolers forced to kill each other to the death until only one is left alive in the course of three days or they all die. There is the obvious shock of seeing kids in a very serious and mature situation as in the movie Kids. But the strongest impression it left was the fact that it wasn't far fetch to assume that people will adapt to the situation even if it's the most inhumane farfetched scenario you can think of.