AWTY 135 - Spy Kids 0 (Gantz:O)

I also took karate. It was a correspondent course.

Hello and welcome to our week. There yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dee hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime problematic space charlie's angels.

Oh.

Yeah. I'm not going to explain that one for a bit there.

We've so compelling.

Could you explain the other thing you are today in this specific episode?

A menace.

That's every episode.

Yeah. Okay. That sounds special.

But why is this date in particular? Hint, hint, hint, hint. Special for you.

Oh, well, I didn't think we announced it. Me and dugan are dating.

Oh, my goodness. Congratulations.

Oh, my god. It's brendan's birthday.

Don't expect anything from me ever.

Garbage boy birthday man.

Yeah, we're getting some real trash today.

Yay.

Oh, boy.

I was so ready for you to just dive right into it and then you're like, oh, no. That's plain calling me. I'm not going to say it yet. I'm already dying.

Yeah. He doesn't want to accept the fact that he's growing older, much like we all are.

I'm 30 now. My hair is falling out. I've accepted death a long time ago. I'm on board.

Let's do that. A change of decade.

I've been looking at hats with you hakushu characters on it. I've accepted. I'm always going to be alone in my life.

No one just lean into it.

Just going to embrace the hell out of it because I made it this far. It's a lot more than I thought it'd be. But yeah, today is my birthday, so I wasn't going to make a foolish mistake and pick something I actually enjoy. Why would I want people to just shit on stuff I actually enjoy on my birthday when we can do the.

Rest of the year or possibly why would you want to let us enjoy anything? Never. Your favorite activity is to make us suffer.

It's not to make you suffer specifically. It's through anime. Duke and what's the anime experience? And I'm not going to be biased and show him the good ones. I got to show him the full spectrum. And there's a lot of bad out there.

While I respect your scientific mind and integrity, I interpersonally hate you.

It's like going to someone's birthday part. It's like, happy birthday. Here's a cake. And they bite into it. It's like, oh, and there's a rusty nail in there. I got you tentativeness. That's what life is. I'm that jerk.

It's your 26th birthday. You just passed being off your parents health insurance. Here's some rusty nail cakes. Welcome to the real world. You wanted the real experience of growing up, right?

I am the dark souls of anime. It's not fun. It's real. You see one big monster and he punches your head in in one shot. Like, yeah, that's what would happen. Speaking of big horrible monsters that just have no restraint whatsoever. And me, we're watching some special today. It's on Netflix. Or at least Netflix in the Us. For anyone who wants to watch it easily. It's called gantz.

Oh, no.

Oh, yes. Do either of you know anything about Gantz specifically?

I know, like, one thing about Gantz, and I'm pretty sure Paul told it to me, is that it was similar to akira in some ways. And if there's one thing I know about akira after watching it, it's that it's one thing that has made me incredibly uncomfortable.

I'm trying to think of what would be like there's certainly comparisons.

I think it's the body horror aspect.

Yeah.

I'm just hearing too many keywords. I know nothing about this. I'm just hearing enough keywords to be scared.

Yeah. So Dance is a series, like, traditional. It was a manga, and I got turned into an anime, and then the anime stopped because, honestly, what story was there? So there's like, fuck it, and did whatever they could with it. And then years later, for some ungodly reason, no idea why, they made Gantz o, which is just a very specific battle arc in Gantz. You're not getting any context. It's just one big monumental moment in the series just done with, like, frighteningly high levels of cgi.

I cannot wait for this to happen to my eyeballs.

I held onto this nugget because I knew it was going to be a difficult one to do for the podcast because there's really not a lot to talk like story wise. We don't know these characters. We have no stakes in this. But I wanted at some point to make D and Duke and watch this. So here's my excuse. I'm using my birthday card for this one.

Yay.

Yeah. My only knowledge of this was that it was scheduled at one point, and then you're like, nah. Now we have to say too special. And I've been living in two years since that day.

I scheduled it at the beginning of the year, and it badly kept happening. I was like, you know what? Not today. I don't need this. And they certainly don't. So I held this off until we had a good pace for a while, and I was like, all right, let me ruin this track record. Let me break this up. So it's going to be fun. And because there's a lot of visual stuff that is not great to talk about on an audio format, I got.

A game if we need to find birthday game.

So we'll see in the tail on the kaiju.

Yeah. Tail. That's what that thing is you're holding.

Oh, no. I knew it was too slimy.

Quick, we got to wash our hands. Let's get out of here.

Let's go.

I'm going to decontaminate. We're going to go watch a movie. The movie it is. Here. Quickly, everyone stand and look at it for approximately three minutes before anyone moves.

I think that's enough time. Question mark.

No, he did.

Okay.

Please.

Okay, now. All right, well, this is certainly a movie with a lot of looking at monsters and not fighting them when you probably should be.

But we can get into it, say, right off the bat. It's tricky when the primary weapon for them is a gun that has, like, a good 22nd delay for objectively no reason. It makes everything a little weird. We need combat, but we needed to be a slightly more suspenseful so we could just stare at the monster for, like, two or three beats, and then it gets smushed as a movie. We broke up in the parts, so I'll take part one. And it opens with helicopters flying around a destroyed city, everything's on fire. Commentators are talking about how there's monsters sightings all over, and we see a glimpse of a girl in a like they're basically just mo cap suits for anyone who doesn't know what those are. It's basically a skin tight black suit with little dots all over it. But instead of dots, these are like blue lights on them and just some big old chunky, light up sneakers, which I actually really loved because they actually have, like, a pattern and design on them on the rest of the suit. So it's like, oh, those actually kind of look cool. The rest of it's weird, but yeah.

These are my tactical sketches.

They light up. There is a scene at the end where one character runs to a dark room and you see the shoes, right? It does really look like a six year old playing with sneakers. Anyway, so, yeah, city in Japan, absolutely decimated, destroyed, fire everywhere, apparently monsters. And lo and behold, we see some more people in these skintight latex suits, and we see a big old monster there, and he sees the girl that's running away. This monster is just, let's say an eight foot tall, very muscular man, except he's got a crazy old demon face with spikes coming out of it. And he sees her, and he's like, there's my target, and throws a literal car at her, and she is saved at the last second by this weird, like, circle motorcycle. Imagine it's a motorcycle, but just one really big wheel.

You know, in Star Wars episode Three, fighting General grievous, that big circle motorcycle thing? Yeah, it's that they did that again eleven years later.

Now that you mention it, they really do love just one big wheel. So, yeah, this guy flies in on this weird motorcycle thing and saves her at the last second and saves her on a weird circle bike and two guys. Thank you, Brendan. 2 hours ago that's good to know.

Very informative.

I mean, that's about as much context we, the viewers, have. So, yeah, that's fine.

But so they start attacking the big old crazy, like, spiky monster guy that's attacking, and it doesn't go well. They kind of get their ass kicked in and with these suits, with their weird lights on them. The suits can protect them a certain amount and gives them, like, enhanced speed and enhanced strength and all that bullshit. And once the suit takes enough damage, it effectively turns off and the lights turn off and just black ooze comes out of the lights and it's kind of like, you're on your own. Good luck. And we see that happen to one of the guys. His name is ooh. I wrote it. I'm looking at it. I'm reading it. I know it's spelled correctly. I will not say it correctly.

I didn't even pay attention to it.

I wrote down sorry, immediate spoiler. Dead teammate.

Yeah, this is the protagonist of The Mansion.

Oh, shit.

In this movie, he's dead instantly, but yeah, so he's carino and we see his suit shuts down, and he's like, no, I got to do it. I got to save my team and fight this monster. He was charging back in to kill this spiky monster one last time or attack him one last time. And as he goes charging in, we see he avoids the attack, but hitting the monster with the delayed exploding gun. So, yeah, they got these pistols that when you pull the trigger, it's like three or 4 seconds, and then their head just explodes. So he's able to hit him with that gun, but not before he got smashed himself. So, yeah, his body's all, like, mush and he's dead inside, ripped. So we see him die dead on the outside, too. We see him on the ground dying. He's getting his last words as the protagonist death. And the girl that he saved is there, like, holding his head and like, no, you're the strongest on our team. You got to stick with us. You got to live until we can go back to the room. And as she's saying that, we see her getting digitized like a scanner, like an old Internet page going line by line, being teleported elsewhere. And she's crying as she does that while he dies. And we see. Yeah, see, he doesn't make it back because he's dead. If you're still alive in this, you can get teleported back, but as soon as you actually die, the body stays behind.

It's one of those if you die in the game, you die in real life.

Yeah. And then we get the opening title. It's gantz o. Why is it called o?

I always I read it as Gantz.

It's like whole face.

And we see it's called gantzo because it takes place in osaka. Realize I didn't say that.

Okay. I thought it was legitimately Gantz zero this whole time. And I was like, Why is he saying no?

It's at the beginning of the series. That would make sense. We're like square in the middle, if not the 60%. pardon.

Yeah. I think very soon for all involved, mostly me, the host. We need just a quick summary of what is actually going on. Even if it breaks chronological story of how this movie goes, because this is barely making sense at this point.

That's why I took the first part. Do you want me to just explain the whole premise of gantt just for framework?

Just a real quick real quick. Start the timer.

I'd be faster than that. It's the real world. Everything's fine. Everything is normal as we know it. When you die, you get teleported. Instead of having a hell or purgatory or something, you go into this weird room with just this black ball, and it says, hey, congrats. You're in a game now. I send you out into the field. You kill these aliens for me and come back. And then you can continue living your lives. And if you get 100 points from killing the aliens, you'll get a bonus that's it's like weird purgatory. But you got mission. You got side quest to do Lost.

Plus Spy Kids three D.

I understand.

That elijah Wood is also in this movie. It's great.

Now you're speaking my language.

So, yeah, we get the opening title sequence. We cut back. We see just everyday life, and we see this tall guy with long hair walking down the street. And he sees an advert with a girl on it. That's the girl we just saw that was holding her dead friend's head.

She's in the game.

She's a celebrity. And we see as he's walking by, people are on their phones, texting each other and talking to each other about the big massacre that just happened in Tokyo. So it's not really in a parallel side world or something. This is happening in the real world, and people see the monsters so shit's bad. And we see him on his cell phone talking to his brother, saying he's going to be home late. His brother's like, well, you know what day it is? And his brother's like, oh, I don't know. What day is it? And he's like, oh, whatever. See you later. His brother hangs up and he's like, oh, man, I got him a cake and everything because it's his birthday. How?

You tell us. You are the main character's little brother in this movie.

No, his life is very sad. I don't want that.

Fair.

So, yeah, we see him with, like, a birthday cake, and he's waiting for the train to go home to his little brother. And what's that? Someone at the train station is just stabbing people?

Go.

So everyone runs away scared, and he runs in to help the person that got stabbed. And while he's helping the person got stabbed, the stabber shows up, and guess what? He stabs them.

What?

So he tries to stop the attacker, and the process just gets stabbed to death. And we see it through, like a security camera. The attacker just walks away and say, well, he's dead. And we see as he falls over, the cake falls out of the bag, and it's just like, Happy birthday, little bro. It's, like, devastating sucks. And he wakes up suddenly, and he's in this white apartment. It's just all empty except for this big black ball. And a few other people are in there. And in the room with them is the girl from the average we saw and then from the previous battle. And we'll see, like, a little old man and then some shitty kid in, like, a letterman's jacket. Shitty kid, really doesn't do anything.

Terrible name's nichey.

I just called him Rude Dude because he doesn't deserve a name. And yeah, the old man says, like, oh, welcome. Hey, you died. That sucks. I died of a heart attack. She died of a car accident. Welcome to Purgatory sort of question mark.

And there's a oh, this is the anime good place. Got it.

No, it's much worse. This is a really bad place. And along with them is also another guy who's in, like, a sweatshirt and, like, pants, like, clearly not in the black suit that everyone else is in. So he just died as well. And our main boy, the main protagonist, is keto. He introduces himself to the group and sees a large ball. And the old man says, like, yeah, everyone here died. ah. Especially you. Like, all you two are to the newest one. So you just died. And the other guy in, like, the sweatshirt and pants that gets real pissed off. He's like, what do you mean, I died? I'm bad ass. I never die. I do whatever the fuck I want. It's like, cool. This guy is an asshole. And then all of a sudden, the black ball starts singing this weird children song. It's deeply unsettling. And then when the song stops, text appears on the ball, and it says, like, hey, you died. Now I get to decide what happens with your lives. Have fun. It's. Like what? And the ball also doesn't give much context. The ball is Gantz, the titular Gantz.

Hello, Gantz.

Hello, celebrity.

And the ball says, hey, here's your target. And it just looks like this weird old man with, like, big ear lobes. It's like oh. It's like, kill him within the allotted amount of time. It's like, oh, question mark gantzo.

Everyone makes the face in the title.

Just the emoji face. And as soon as it shows the target, the side of the ball just shoots open and has a bunch of weapons in there and, like, boxes. And the one arrogant guy in, like, the sweatshirt refused to listen. He's like they're like, oh, quick, put on your suits. Like, you each have a custom suit. And the one guy's like, Fuck you. I'm told I do whatever I want. It's like, all right. And rudd Niche just pulls the gun out on him. It's like, you're only going to hold us back, so let's get this over with. Let's just kill him now before he dies in the field. slows us down. And everyone's like, wait, Niche, don't. And he already pulled the trigger like 2 seconds ago. But it takes this long for his head to explode.

This kid I don't understand.

Don't you know he's an elite gamer?

Did you guys actually have the subtitles on? Let me see if I find I took a screenshot of it.

Oh, I watched it in English.

I didn't want this to take any.

Longer than it has to.

I did too, but I turned the subtitles on for dance because the voice is very quiet.

Got you.

The rude dude that dies, he just calls Niche you're just a stupid gamer. So he very much is the rude dude gamer boy with 1000 hours in the game. And it's like, I'm a pro. Everyone else sucks. That's this kid's attitude.

And he's ready to murder. Real murder.

Real murder. He actually killed that guy again. So he kills him. And kato pukes after seeing that because he just saw a dude's head explode. And the old guy's like, kato, quick, get your suit on. Like, you need this to survive. Like, put it on now. Because if they get teleported without it, they don't have it sucks to be them. And he says they're in a survival game to fight monsters and they have 2 hours to do it. And then they get teleported out to some random location. And the location, when they arrive, it's just like a downtown city and just dead bodies everywhere. It's like, cool. This fucking sucks. And the girl notices like, oh, that's fine. Wait. We're in osaka. We're supposed to be in Tokyo. We've always been in Tokyo up till this point. Why are we in osaka? That's weird. Something's off. And all of a sudden they sense something's approached and something's running at them. And it's a faceless geisha woman. And she's just really stubborn and really like, strange movements as she's running. All right, time to kill her. It's like, oh, I guess we're just getting into it. And everyone else is panicking because she's running right at him. But then rude dude gamer boy just picks up his gun and blows her head up as well. And he's like, all right, I'm going to be invisible until the big guy until the boss shows up. And then I'm going to like, kill snipe him and like, steal your points because I'm a little shit. bye. And he walks away. And Kata's like, what's happening? I need some answers. And it's like, he is the audience. He is us.

Please context anything.

This is a very bad tutorial in this game.

They need to do this.

It's still in beta, right?

Get good screw up. Got to learn. On your feet. And yeah, the old man says, he's like, honestly, we don't really know what the fuck's happening. We get summoned by the ball to kill these targets. And then if we live, we get brought back and keep living our lives. And that's about as much as we know. And as they are talking, they see on their radar like, a bunch of targets start appearing all around shit, all right, let's take over and let's hide. We don't want to see what these monsters are or we don't want them to see us quite yet. So they hide behind a car, and we just see these weird, gross, fleshy blobs of creatures just, like, roll over the side of the bridge they're on and start running around as they're, like, running around the car to avoid them. And all of a sudden, we see a giant head, like a giant man's head, just roll out behind him and.

See put you in my mouth.

He just screams and alerts everyone to him. And it's like they're like gross, gremlinly, like little monsters. All of the explanation time, all of the monsters in Gantz are actually aliens from another world, and they take on the different forms of local folklore and legends. So, like, one of the monsters you see is like a cappa. One of them is like a tengu, and it's like, that's where the legends come from, quote unquote, is from these aliens.

Okay? Yeah, because I was like, yeah, these are very clearly, like, Japanese spirit monsters. Aliens. What? Don't question it. Okay, cool.

Doesn't really matter. But yeah, they're actually aliens, and that's what the Miamids are based off of. So, yeah, the giant hit just rolls out and screams, and they all start chasing the humans. So they're all running from these monsters. And Girl and the old guy get caught, and cato runs in to try and help them, but he misses the big old head because he's nervous, and it's a giant fucking head, and it's weird and unsettling. And because he misses the big heads, like, oh, I'm safe. Cool. And it just jumps up into the air, and it crushes cato. But because he sells the suit on, it saved them. And then the big head rolls back and comes back for a second attack and then just spirals out and dies. We see a big chunk of the heads missing because somebody shot him. Turns out it's another team. This is the osaka team, the local branch. So they're just a bunch of people, and they're real loud and cocky and just like, hey, hey, we got to kill some monsters. And are just real into it.

Just a real Call of Duty lobby of a team.

It really is just a lot of real shit kids. And they ask like, oh, you're the Tokyo team. where's kuro? where's the tough guy? You're of your team. I want to fight him. He's pretty good. And they're like, he died. Last mission. He's like, sucks. All right, because we'll take care of everything. Ask some fuck. And yeah, these guys are just real gross and horny horny for murder.

And he's bringing it back.

Yeah. And they see a bunch of the monsters, like, down further in the street, and they're like, all right, let's get to it, boys. And starts clearing out all of the monsters that we're giving the Tokyo team trouble. And they're loving it. They're having a real good time. And then this weird snake bird creature comes slithering out and cuts one of their dudes in half. It's like, oh, shit, this guy is real. But they don't care about their teammate. Why would they? They're called the duty boys. And then the two tough guys, the two leaders, kill the bird snake creature easily with this gun that just like it's like a gravity well, just a circle area. Just crushes them from above. And you see, the old man says, like, oh, yeah, if you kill all the monsters, you get points for them. And if you get 100 points, you win the game. That guy over there won the game four times. No, that comes later. But he says, yeah, if you get 100 points, you win the game. And if you win the game, you can get better items like these guys have. You can bring back a dead teammate, or you can wipe your memory and be free of the game and just go back to living your normal life.

Why anyone wouldn't choose that, I don't understand. But I guess these guys, they just love fighting so much.

He got the blood lust.

Why be happy in your day to day life when you can be murdering with big old space weapons? And that's what those guys chose.

I was the world's biggest loser in my real life. No one talked to me. Here, I have friends. They don't really care if I live or die.

Everybody loves me.

So we also see regular people in osaka are still there and are being attacked by monsters. So kato runs off to help them, but no one else does because they're like, we're trying to survive on our own. We're barely surviving as it is. We're not helping. grande's kata's like. Oh, I'm a good boy. He would be a hymbo, but he's smart. He's too smart to be a hym boat, but otherwise he is he's a good young man, and he goes off to save him. But before he goes, the old man gives him some change. He's like, for your trouble, he gives us a pocket change, and he goes, before you run in there to get yourself killed, somebody's probably waiting for you because you just died, like, an hour ago. So give them a call. There's a payphone nearby. There's probably pay phones nearby you can use. And then we get a shot of the ball telling us there's an hour and 37 minutes left. So the timer is going, and we come back to we see the osaka team just eating dinner and like, a cap of monsters. Like, killing a random guy in the street without even looking. They just like, point the gun over and shoot them blindly. So these guys are good, and they noticed that the target that at least the Tokyo team was supposed to kill, the old man with the big ear lobes is just standing on top of a skyscraper looking down on everything, and there's, like, a big red monster next to him with, like, wings. It's like, those guys are giving off a weird vibe.

Don't like them at all.

Don't like that guy creeper.

Why is there a tiny little red skull over their heads? I don't know. Maybe it shouldn't factor in.

Why does it say 15 team members minimum? And then meanwhile, cato runs and calls his brother on the payphone. He says, like, oh, where are you? He's like, oh, I had to go back into work. Sorry about that. And his brother's like, do you have to go into work? Despite monsters in osaka destroying everything? Like, probably should. Like, I don't know what your work is, but it's probably not that important.

Yeah, dude, I'm an insurance salesman. This is my time to shine.

This is where I thrive. This is my Christmas. And cato promises, and he's like, yeah, you're right. I'll make it home in time. I promise I'll be back. I promise I'll be back with you, supposedly. Yeah, okay, fucking whatever. Cool. bye. He just assumes his brother's at work and not about to die.

You ruin my birthday.

A rough.

So as he gets off the phone, there's a commotion down the street, and a monster well, alien comes chasing people, and cato tries to fight it, and it's not going well, and then someone kills it, thank goodness. And it's this girl with a bob. We've seen her kind of peeking on him from the sidelines. Her name is yamasaki, and she is with the osaka team. And so she's, like, surprised that he actually tried to save people. And he gets upset that she's suggesting to just sit and watch as people are suffering. And he leaves, but she follows him, and she's just like, sorry. I just love observing weirdos. And she says that he won't last here if he keeps trying to save people too.

Soft kid.

Yeah, you got to care only about yourself. And she says that she saw a kid and a couple of old people hiding, and he's like, okay, take me to them. I know you told me you don't want me to save anybody, but you just told me about people that need saving, so let's go. And we see them. It's two old people. They're a couple, and they're like, it's fine if we die, but we want to protect this kid. He's got so much life in him. A big monster shows up. I could never really process what it looked like to me. It looked like a gorilla kind of.

In the face, sort of just like a big troll scorpion, I guess.

Some amalgamation of creature.

Yeah, it's like a big. Green gorilla. It's got, like, a spike tail, and it's got holes in its back where it puts its kidnapped victim.

The worst.

I didn't notice that.

I hate that so much.

Yeah. Also got a little hat, but it's got a hat.

I didn't notice it had a hat.

Yeah.

Wow.

Now it's my friend.

Now I want to ride in its back hole. I hate moving on.

I'll need to promise that's the last time we mentioned that specific anatomical feature.

Yeah, that's awful.

Agreed.

So, yes, big monster shows up, and it attacks the old man, but cato and YAMASAKI arrive to distract it, and she's like, you won't kill it. You can't. And then she leaves. And, like, as she's walking away, she's like, oh, he's so dumb. But he is really cute, and, oh my gosh, I would be sad if he died. What the fuck?

She really struggles with it.

Yeah, she just met him, and she's like, oh, but he seems different.

He's the only player in this game that hasn't set a slur yet. The only cute one, I guess.

The only one who hasn't told me to make him a sandwich.

With osaka team.

So he tells the old people and the kid to leave, and he's, like, standing his ground against the monster, and he is standing there pointing the gun at it for so long, and eventually it slammed him against the wall. And I'm like, bruv, you had so much time to try to shoot it to see what would happen, and you just didn't like whether or not it killed it. Whatever. But you had time to try.

Yeah. This is truly what bugged me the most about this movie, because, yeah, the guns have, like, a reloading feature, but they never say, like, oh, we have limited ammo. We need to conserve it. It seems to just be energy beans. You can just hold down that trigger and just keep on firing. But everyone is like, no, let me stare deep into the size, convince this monster it doesn't want to murder, then get punched, and then go, oh, now I should start shooting, right?

You no longer have a clear shot.

Yes. Now that my gun is halfway across the street.

So YAMASAKI has returned through her guilt, and it grabs her, and cato throws a stick in its eye, and then he traps it with some glowy wire stuff, and then it was blue, and then it turns red, and then its head gets downloaded, gets scanned. Yeah, it starts getting scanned out. And, like, as its head gets scanned out, it dies. Cool. YAMASAKI and everyone else is okay. They lived, bitch. And then they're on their way, and she asks if he's going to keep saving people, and he says, yes. And she's like, what about your parents? And he's like, they're dead. Thanks for asking. And then he talks about his brother, and he says, yeah, I work a job, so we can live in an apartment. And she's like, oh, yeah, okay, I relate to that. I have a three year old son. And he's like and she's like, what? Do I look too young? And he's like, I don't know. And she's like, what the fuck? You're supposed to say yes, but also, yes. She looks very young. They both don't want to die because they have someone to protect, so they have that in common. And then turns out, who knows where this came from? cato was being recorded during that fight, and now people are like, tweeting a blurry picture of him. The game goes on. And they come across these two guys, george and nobuya from the osaka team. And YAMASAKI. That's her name? Yeah. She explains that they've both won multiple times. One of them has won three times. The other one is one four. And then she also mentions this other guy who's won seven times, and he cloaks himself and hides every time until the big bad comes out. And then he comes out and destroys it.

Who's the guy?

The guy. And then the commercial model girl. Her name is rekha. She's thinking about the guy that died, and she's wondering if he would also save people like cato does, and she wants to bring him back if she wins. But the old man is like, we don't stand a chance. Don't get your hopes up, sweetheart. And then a giant monster arrives, and it walks past them into the city, but then it doesn't look like it's actually a monster. nay, nay, nay. It's a giant robot, and it's one of theirs, I think, maybe because it's got the blue lights.

So, yeah, a gun dumb.

A gun dump. And then George and nobuya are talking about the monsters they saw on the tower, thinking they're probably worth a lot of points. And then we do see a giant monster, and the robot is fighting it. And this giant monster does look like the spider monkey from Spy Kids. Too.

Similar. It's like a minotaur spider.

Yeah, it's weird.

And then the military is there because they think they can do something.

They always do, don't they?

They're so good at their jobs. So they have the old man and rekha cornered, and they're like, we want.

To know who you're with.

Who are you working for? And then cato and YAMASAKI show up, and then another monster arrives, and it's that big red demon that was hanging out with the old man on the tower. And the military tries to fight it, but it doesn't work out.

Oh, no.

Who would have felt weird?

Wow.

They don't have your gun. Hit it immediately. You need to wait two to 3 seconds before your gun hits them.

You have to surprise them. And YAMASAKI tries to distract it while cato shoots it. And he tries the same thing as last time, with the wire, but it breaks free before it can get scanned.

It's too strong.

And then George and Nabuja show up and shoot it, but it doesn't die. They keep shooting at it over and over again, but it doesn't die. This one proves that sometimes the guns don't work, but at least they're trying to put in the effort and it grabs one of them and tosses him around. And the other guy is like, how come you can't handle it yourself, loser.

Scrub.

And then he's continuing the streak of just standing around and not actually shooting at the monster.

He's just intentionally being shitty, though, before everyone is just weird and just staring at him.

True, but it just continues. The theme of inaction in this action movie.

Yeah, well, I mean, this guy is getting actively beat up, so understandable. But so as he's, like, grabbing him and the monster has him in his face, he gets one last shot in and he does kill it. His head explodes, but he dies, too. I don't remember which one this is. It's either George or Nabuja. Does it really matter?

No. Nabuja, though.

Okay. And then that weird old man from the tower shows up, the one that the Tokyo team is supposed to kill. And George chops him up with a sword. But bad news, that just makes more of him. So they all, like, walking and mumbling and they all merge back together. And this guy, this creature man, sees the dead monster. He's like, what happened? And George tries to fight him, but he's tougher than he looks. He's, like, ready to I have no comparison. He's an old man that can fight. And then George tries to grab him, but surprise, he turns into a bunch of ladies. And I have seen a picture of this from the manga, I believe. I like it better in the manga. This is bad.

It's hard to imagine any enjoyable version of this monster.

I think it's much more unsettling to see it all fleshy as opposed to black and white.

Hate it when you grab an old man and he turns into a giant, naked, crying woman made up of other naked, crying women.

Happens to me all the time.

We say it's made up of naked women, but really it's made up of mostly titty and leg.

Yeah.

So it's a big lady made up titty and leg. And cato is ready to fight it, and he's like, I'm going to fight it because it's either me or all of you. And now George is dead too, because I think it ate him. Yeah. So they all try to attack her. She does get hit and her head explodes, but she's not dead. So body keeps going. The fight continues. She grabs cato and then she grows a new head. And she's about to eat him when she explodes. And it's the shitty kid. Great. Glad to see him put in some effort. Yeah. And then from this puddle of blood, I think from the red demon thing. Another monster comes out and it's a big thing with tentacles and multiple arms and a skull head. And the shitty kid loses an arm. Somehow in this I didn't realize how it happened. Then the monster causes an explosion.

Oh, no. But yeah, the teammates all jump off the bridge. They grab now one arm boy, they jump in the water to escape this explosion. So the last half hour of this movie is essentially two fights. So let's just go through it pretty quick. So we see the army reacting to the big mech being like, oh, it's on our side. Ha ha. And it pulls out mecha katana and starts fighting that big spider monkey minotaur thing.

Isn't it crazy when the giant kai chu monster isn't the final balls?

Yeah, weird. It's a small old man. It's a small old man and a titty monster.

Great.

So the Minotaur takes down the mech and everyone's watching and they're like, oh, no, nothing can defeat this thing. But we got seven winboy. We got oka. The like, reigning champion are elijah Wood of this universe jumps in, takes down the minotaur, but then it revives itself as a smaller Minotaur the size of oka. So they can fight one on one. How convenient. So they were on the bridge and they're fighting the dialogue in this part of the fight of oka being like, here's why I'm so good. I was on my college ping pong team, and also I took a karate correspondence class. And I'm like, what is happening? Why?

It's intentional, but it fully well, could just be dialogue from any other movie.

It's just like cool hero.

So out of context.

Yeah, just makes no sense. Okay, whatever defeats the monster. But oh, no, it just keeps regenerating. And now it's a buff version of the old dude. He's like 7ft tall and jacked Jojo's form. So oka keeps just like clowning on him. But Buffalo Dude is just staying there, taking it, and keeps regenerating. And then he's studying his moves and he's like, ah, yeah, now I see. So the the monster is about to kill oka. His he's got this like, big, kind of like predator mech suit, complete with the dreads coming off the back.

Wait, what's the thing from Sonjab? The muscle? Anchor arms.

Anchor arms. Yes.

Hence now I'm a jerk and everyone loves me.

Yeah, very appropriate.

So, yeah, he realizes he's about to die, so he just releases all the air from his anchor arms and causes a smokescreen. And in the smokescreen, the monster goes to punch him, but he jumped out of his suit and stabbed him in the back. And he's like, ha ha. You didn't study that move, bitch. And kill them. No.

Personal kid telephone is behind and stuff.

So he starts walking away. He gives kato his sword. He's like, he's not actually dead. He'll be back up. But I did enough. And kato's like, dude, why don't you kill The Boss and just end this all? He's like it's too risky. Explains nothing. Everyone seems to know what's about to happen. Are they going to tell kato? No. So kato is like, all right, since no one is saying this is a bad idea, fuck this, and takes the sword he just got and goes to stab into the corpse of The Boss. But oh no, a spiky ball rises up and just shoots, spikes out everywhere. And old dude suzuki jumps in front of him and saves kato. And sacrifices himself. If only he gave actual information 10 seconds ago, we could have avoided this. So he sacrifices himself. And The Boss regenerates into skeletor motherfucker and challenges. kato Is like, all right, I'm going to kill you and then use my power to resurrect suzuki. Because the two Call of Duty guys were like, yes. Each Boss is worth exactly 100 points. Convenient, right?

Cool.

So of course the Boss is like, haha. You're a level one player. And immediately knocks them down. Doesn't kill him, but enough to get away. So the boss escapes. Now that old man is dead, it's just kato, YAMASAKI and model girl. And they're like, okay, the guy who didn't actually kill The Boss that we have to listen to. He says we have to surprise him. So you two be snipers while I distract it. Okay, cool.

Good plan.

So the Boss jumps back in. Just needed to go grab a cup of coffee real quick. It's been a rough 15 minutes.

I just bought coffee together.

Yeah, this guy's died like five times so far. So he just needed a quick breather. But he jumps back in, carrying the head of the last teammate, the one model girl is in love with and is like, time to die.

No, that was oka. That was like the badass guy.

Oh, got you. Okay, sorry. Weird. We only see these people for like 10 seconds at a time. And a lot of them don't matter. So they all blend together. But yeah. So brings in the only good player, I guess. Dead. He's like, what are you going to do about it? So what does he do about it? You know what he does? He doesn't shoot. He drops his gun and just looks at him. And he's like, Why, boss?

Why would you do this?

Clearly there has to be something more fun you can be doing.

Let me reach out to your humanity. Giant skeleton demon.

He's like, hey. Why? I'm a fucking god. And what else am I going to do? I'm one of many gods. What else can I do?

Got to do something.

Yeah, basically the explanation is bored.

Yeah, cool.

All right, great. Once this exchange happened, the snipers are in place. And the girls start firing at him. And he just starts taking a bunch of damage. He's trying to locate their positions. Would be a great time for kato to start shooting as well. Just have three guns on them at once.

But they still want that's.

No, it's fine. But naturally since he's learning, he's like, okay, got it. I see your positions. You weren't moving. Remember how we just said we have to constantly be surprising him? We should have had a backup plan, right? Just do this until he catches on.

And then do something else.

No. Okay, so he's like missing a few.

Of the sniper shots. So it's not even like they're crack shots of like every shot they're nailing it's like, no, they're missing. They're clearly giving away their position.

Yes. Just firing frantically, not moving, not hiding themselves. So he fires up at the buildings and they're like, he keeps missing. He's not a talented boss, but weird, he also is smart and has an agenda and knocks down a billboard above the model and like pins her leg half dangling off the building and oh no, she's going to die. So they keep fighting dicato perpetually keeps having his gun thrown across the street in every fight he's in. So he has to keep crawling to his guns over and over again. Sorry, this is all like one continuous action. So I technically have like six bullet points for this half hour sequence and like, oh fuck, what did I do to myself?

There's a lot going on, but not at the same time. Also, nothing going on. Yeah.

So as he's crawling for his gun, YAMASAKI sacrifices herself for him. Could it still kept shooting a monster? That could help. But nope, she she takes the damage for him and sacrifices herself. Cool. We then see one arm. gamer boy comes rolling in. He's on he's on the Circle motorcycle. No one else. The last guy dropped his mount, so he had to pick it up. He drives in immediately, gets like cut in half. Doesn't really help at all.

Cool.

Just got to gather all the main characters for the ending. So he goes in for the kill, but kato gets that like, gravity well crusher gun thing and finally just shoots them. What a great answer. Shoots them. Finally he fires a shot when he.

Should it was building up to this point where he can finally fire the.

Gun confidently, but yeah, so he takes this like, gravity gun and just starts what anyone with this gun should be doing. Just starts rapid firing. It just like stamping, just God's invisible boot just stomping over and over on the street. Just making sure this cockroach of a monster is dead. And they did it. They won. They had tennis left and they beat him. So they returned to the apartment and then they're like, okay, score time. Oh cool. The whole team's back again. All the dead people revived because our team won. Great, so old man is back. Don't get a waste of resurrection on him. gamer boy gets his arm back so he's good to go for the next round, but all right, let's see those scores. We see old man and model girl get like, two to four points. gamer boy gets twelve, and kato gets 100.

How convenient.

The plot continues.

This is 100, the upper limit, because he they established the bosses worth 100 points. He then killed several other monsters around that. So were those monsters worth nothing? Or did he get to 100 and then they go, yeah, it doesn't matter at this point.

Dugan, both I nor the series have the amount of logic to tell you the answer to that fair.

But just had to point out, it bugged me.

He killed other ones, too. Yes, he did get confirmed kills. They should have count.

So they're like, oh, sick. You won. You beat it. You can go home. But he's like, no, I made a promise to a stranger who said that they didn't care about saving other people. Let's go again, let's go again. He uses his points to bring YAMASAKI back because she was on a losing team, so she stayed dead. But she wakes up in a different apartment and he's like, that crazy son.

Of a bitch did it. You did it.

So at this point, my understanding was already foggy, but here, right, we have a time jump, I assume, because there's no indicator, there's no flash forward, there's no blink. And we're back. We're just, like, continuing the scene, except in this apartment with the winning. Tokyo team is a bunch of people. Because I guess kato stayed in the game and just decided, my job is to be anime game Jesus and resurrect everyone. Everyone comes back. No one stays dead in this game.

I was under the impression that this was a flashback in which kato had already gotten 100 points and decided to wipe his memory. But now he's dead once more. So now he's in the game again.

Okay, so the the extra people must.

Be dead at this point.

The one guy, corono was kato's friend from before. Like, they died at the same time at the beginning of the series. And then they got 100 points and kato got out because he had a.

Little brother backstory stuff that I would only get from realizing this is a series and not a standalone thing. Well, whatever the fuck happens, he's like, all right, I'm done now. I did my community service in this game, so goodbye. And then he decides to go back into the world and goes to see his brother. He opens the door, credits roll. Okay, cool.

Well, you don't be a satisfying ending. Get the fuck out of it.

No, his brother's a Titty monster now. Oh, no. But yeah, that's the movie.

Right?

Yeah. We mentioned this before. Recording. I wanted to dislike it more, but it's okay.

Yeah, it's just kind of not good. But I wanted to be horrified.

Yes.

Mechanically, it's like, very impressive. Like, the style and the don't look. That guy. It looks amazing. There's so much detail in it. Story wise. It's a random battle in the middle of a series you have no context for. Why would you think the story is good?

Yeah, it's nothing. Yeah, but yeah, obviously we got these characters are held together by tissue paper of connections of I think this me, a 23 year old woman thinks the 17 year old is cute. So let me sacrifice myself so I can have a father for my child, I guess. I don't know.

And because the whole mission was timed, we know for a fact they knew each other for less than 2 hours.

Yeah. All the connecting pieces, I don't know. The animation was executed well. The monster designs, for the most part, very grotesque, but very interesting and cool. So, like, I don't know, this is, like, a pretty solid 50% where it's like, I'll never watch this again. But it had its cool elements. But I don't know.

I liked looking at it.

Yeah, I liked looking at it, except for the parts where I hated looking.

What about you, D?

It was fine. Like I said, I wanted it to be worse. I don't know what I was expecting, but I guess because I've seen not just the Titty Monster lady, I've seen other monsters from it, and I feel like they're worse. But because this is, like, an hour and a half long movie, we don't get to focus on too many of them. So they're cool.

Some of them in the manga can get real grotesque looking. That's a lot of detail for something I do not want to look at.

Yeah. So that's why I was like, oh, boy, I can't wait to see these juicy guys.

And then the last boss just looks like a skeleton Dragon Ball Z character. It's like, okay, he's cool.

All right.

Not groundbreaking character design.

I was sufficiently horrified by the Titty Monster.

That's the money shot.

That's a good one. But, yes, overall.

Hey, that's better than I thought it'd be. I'll take that as a win. It was entertaining. Okay, so let's play the game, see how fast it goes. The game is called at first gantz.

Oh, good.

Don't make me look at things.

No, no, no. You'll have to look at it. But it'll be siding what is ink ants and what isn't? In gantz, this is an overall, like, overall series, not just this movie. So these are things that are either happened or are in the series or things that aren't, and you have to decide which. Okay, so in gantz, there are Psychkics, people with esb telekinetic powers. True.

I'm going to say false. I feel like we would have seen that in the movie. At least.

I'm sure that they're like, okay, let's streamline this movie. Let's keep some of the series bullshit out just to not completely over complicate it. So I'm going to say yes, there are.

That's a point for dugan. There are.

Wow.

They are like two of them. Really not important, but they exist in the world.

They're there shoehorned it in.

They kill, like, one alien and then die of a brain hemorrhage because of their powers.

Oh, man.

They get destroyed by their own powers. Not even a monster. Great. Very useful skill in gantz.

They fight aliens that look like cryptids, like the loch ness monster and bigfoot and all of those good friends. True or false?

Well, we now know that these aliens are based on Japanese cryptids folklore. So are you asking specifically, like, North American and other outside of Japan? Outside of Japan.

Yeah. I'll say they pulled some sort of god of war thing of like, oh, we just need more gods to kill. And they're like, okay, let's start pulling from other places. So I'm going to say yes.

I'll say yes as well.

That's a no.

Damn it.

No cryptids. But do you think they fight statues? Specifically statues of buddha in various forms that are actually aliens? They're all actually aliens. That's a caveat for all of these.

See, my problem with this game is I can see all of this bullshit happening, so I'm just like, yeah, might as well.

I'll say yes for this one.

Yeah, I'll go against my instincts. I'll say no.

They fight buddha statues. It's very traumatic. It's like a near tpk, a near total party kill. Except for the first guy corono.

Wow.

It's a very brutal fight. It's a big part of the story. Now, we've had one statute fight. What about another statute fight? Do you think they fight Roman statues in Italy?

Well, since they don't have other cryptids, I'm going to say no, they would not fight other statues.

Yeah, I agree. If we're not fighting like, Italian cryptids, then we're not fighting their statues.

Is Mario an Italian cryptid?

That is it's a bowser.

That is too much logic and consistency for the series. They fight Roman statues.

Oh, my God.

They fight them in Rome and they go around the world.

Oh, boy.

They go around the world and just continue fighting. No cryptids here. We didn't do any research. It's just more Japanese things or inanimate things. Cool, great.

Let's go back to something more Japanese. Do you think they fight a bunch of aliens that look like cosplayers at an anime event ship?

Oh, my God, I hope so.

They do.

Yeah. I'm going to say yes just out of I want to will it into existence.

I'm going to say no. I don't know, but I'll be the devil's advocate.

Why? Has this series ever given you anything you enjoyed?

That's a no. Damn it.

That would be too much fun. They don't want you to have fun while you're watching this.

This is edgy. This is high school manga.

I would have just loved if they fought actual gantz cosplayers and they're like, I don't know who's on our team or not.

My suit isn't working because it's polyester shit. Now, out of all the people that get pulled up into the gantz games, it's when someone dies and gets sucked out of purgatory for some I don't know how it works. No one does. Do you think along with them, at one point, a panda goes along and fights on their team, gets a little.

Panda suit, a little jujitsu kaisen?

A little bit, yeah. I think you are pulling this from jujitsu kaizen because, you know, we want it so bad, so I'm going to say no.

I'm going to say yes.

Dee is ready again. There's a pan at one point on the team.

What?

Does it ever fight? No, it's just a panda. It's just skating for things.

Who did this?

Leave the lobby if you're not going to play dude.

There's also a literal jojo's character and a toddler that form a very cute bond before. They are also murder.

Oh, my God.

I hadn't even thought about that. The dead children that end up here.

Oh, man.

Do you think one of the characters that gets dragged along with them, not the panda this time, is a character that eats tokoyaki and fights throwing the Tokyoki sticks after he's done eating them. Oh, like that's his signature attack.

Yes.

Yeah. My compass is now just spinning wildly. I don't know which way is up. Yes, of course that happens in this goddamn show.

No, you fuck.

There are no rules.

Just when you think you understand gantts, they say no, you don't stop trying.

Let's bring it back a bit to something we all know. Vampires. You think there's vampires in gantts?

I'll say yes. I feel like that's pretty universal for folklore they can pull from, so I'm going to say, yeah, I'll agree.

Yes, there are. Why are they in there? No one knows. Do they ever come up in the story after their brief cameo?

No.

And also, the main character's brother is a vampire for some reason, but we don't get into that.

So are the vampires I feel like I shouldn't ask. Do they fight the vampires or are the vampires part of the good guys?

I don't know.

Oh, shit.

Oh, man.

I knew it. I shouldn't have asked.

It honestly feels like filler. And then halfway through the filler, the writer goes, Wait, I got the story. Okay, back to the main story. And just cuts off halfway through without explaining anything. And then the vampires help them in the final battle. No explanation excrete.

Okay.

Do you think some of the aliens think disguises as mascots? Japan's got a lot of mascots.

Yes, absolutely. I think they do.

I think that is in the similar of I want it too bad, so I'm going to say no.

Dug and you're learning. That's enough.

If it sounds like an enjoyable aspect of the show and not just bullshit. No. It's fake.

Now. What about dinosaurs? You think they fight dinosaurs at some point?

God, probably.

Yes.

Yeah, they do. You can know they're fighting dinosaurs.

God damn.

You take the skies at the Natural Museum. Natural History Museum.

Wow.

So why is it sometimes they're like, yeah, I'm going to be a fucking kappa. I'm going to be just a fantasy thing. And sometimes they're like, there's a trash can around here, so I'm a trash can monster now?

They like to have fun. The aliens like to have fun.

It's like prop one. What about this old story chestnut everyone loves? How about clones? You think there's a spiderman clone saga somewhere in this gantt?

Oh, yeah, there's got to be.

Yeah. All right.

You know, that would make the story way too complicated, so they had to do it. The main character, colonel, the guy who we seek dead at the beginning, the strong one, he dies, then gets brought back. But then we find out the first one didn't actually die. So there's two of them.

Why? How long game at that point? gantz, you're fucking up.

Is dance all one series. Or is it, like are there, like, offshoots, or is it all one thing?

What I know is all the one thing. There are a few offshoots, but I never got into those.

So this is all in the one thing?

This is the one story.

Man two more.

Do you think they fight the notorious Japanese suicide forest, aki kahara?

The whole forest.

The forest is actually aliens, and that's why people die in there and they fight them. Do you think that is true, that's.

Dark and upsetting enough to be a yes for me?

Yeah, that's a no. Why would they put that much effort into it?

Honestly, that gives me a little bit more hope for this perspective.

A little more.

Yeah.

Let's at least respect these suicide victims.

Last one score right now is D six, dugan five. We can tie it up.

Oh, dang.

Do you think there are celebrity cameos in gantz?

Oh, is it all animated like this? Or is it just a movie that's animated like this?

This is just the movie. This is just like a very high budget movie.

I'm going to say no, then.

I'll say yes. Because after playing Death stranding, I just want junji Edo to be in more shows and games as themselves. So I'm going to say yes.

We got ourselves a tie.

That is a yes.

At the end of the series, they meet the god aliens that have absolute power. And while they're talking to the main characters, their faces are just shifting between an amalgamation of just a bunch of different characters, including dogs and cats and just other aliens and a skull and a bunch of celebrities or famous figures.

Okay?

Some of them include Jesus and Michael Jackson and Gandhi and Morgan freeman. They're all Michael and John lennon and benedict the 16th I thought you were.

Going to say bench.

Albert heinberbatch and Ronald reagan.

He is an alien anyway. Stop.

You have to tell him your Putin.

Happy birthday, Brendan. Please stop.

Anne hitler that's, at first glance, got.

Herself a try first, never playing it again. So we were always live in Thailand.

What a great way to end just neck and neck. But we both still lose. Because, Brendan, you get to pick another episode for neck and neck. Because we're in the purgatory where we didn't kill Brendan at the end of this episode. So we got to start over and try again. So what are we watching next week?

We're going again. We're watching another series. I haven't seen this one. So this is going to be new for me. But I have a strong feeling I'm going to love it. And you're probably going to hate, or at least be a different to it. Another series by our good old friend, the creator of sarah's on May. We're watching penguin Drum.

Okay.

All right.

Actually, less ass play, then.

Penguins play your ass cheeks like a drum. Anyway, if you, the listener, have a show you would like because to watch. That involves booty bongos, you can send your recommendations to us. Our email is rwebveret@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram at rweebveryet on both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan and listen to my fiction podcast, echoed locations.

You can find me on Instagram at honey. Period. D, on Twitter at honey d eight and Honey dart, or on twitch at honeyunderscore D. And Honey is spelled H-U-N-N-I-E.

You can find me on Twitter a bts, brendan I'm mostly reflecting on why I watch or read so much fucking dance. I also have another podcast called Almost Better Than Silence, which is about video games and also me wondering why I've read so much fucking dance.

Thank you to camille ruley for her artwork, and thank you to Louis zong for theme song stories. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

Happy birthday, Brandon.

Happy birthday.

Don't recant. Just talk to subscribe. You.