List of Gantz characters
The anime and manga series Gantz features a large number of fictional characters created by Hiroya Oku. The series takes place in a modern Japan, in which several creatures known as aliens start attacking citizens.
The series starts with the teenager Kei Kurono, who dies in a train accident along with his childhood friend Masaru Kato. Suddenly, they appear in an apartment from Tokyo along with several people who have recently died. A black sphere named Gantz revives them and then it sends them messages, telling them they have to kill aliens if they want to live. All the participants are given powerful weapons such as guns, and black bodysuits that increase their strength. As the characters participate in the game, they start discovering more things related to Gantz such as what happens when they defeat several aliens, and why Gantz holds the game.
''Names are in Western order, with the given name before the surname.''Creation and conception
When creating the chapters from the manga, the author Hiroya Oku first makes a draft of the pages. He then creates 3D models of the characters and backgrounds on his computers. Once done, Oku scans the characters draws he made in the 3D models, and the backgrounds are reduced to lines. Finally, he then adds tone to the pages and colors them, and starts adding sound effects as well as dialogues.Central characters
Kei Kurono
Kei Kurono is one of the two main protagonists of the series. Kei is a 10th grader who is summoned by Gantz, along with his childhood friend Masaru Kato, after being hit by a subway train in an effort to help a hobo who passes out on the tracks. In the beginning, he is a rather selfish character, with a penchant for sexual perversity, who often ends up being the reluctant hero. However, after Kato dies in the third mission, Kei starts taking care of other people as well, and he starts to avoid casualties amongst Gantz team members. His innate skills and physical prowess eventually make him a hero to most of the other members. During missions, Kei often uses unconventional tactics to great effect. He lives alone in an apartment complex, as he was not on good terms with his family. After reviving some of his former friends, Kei leaves the game due to a request from his comrades. The vampires group searches and eventually finds Kei, killing him. After the first mission of Phase 2, he is revived by Masaru Kato but remembers nothing beyond his choice to leave after the Oni Mission. After the failed Italian mission, Gantz revives an additional copy of Kurono at Reika's request, unknown to the others. After meeting the original Kurono, he decides to live with Reika. Oku developed Kurono's character with the idea that the readers from the manga could identify themselves with him. However, he was also created to "make a synthesis of the basic conditions for a work of entertainment". His Japanese voice actors are Daisuke Namikawa in the anime and Yuki Kaji in Gantz: O. His English voice actor is Christopher Ayres and Lucien Dodge in Gantz: O. His live-action actor is Kazunari Ninomiya.Masaru Kato
Masaru Kato is one of the two main protagonists of the series. He is summoned, along with Kurono, by Gantz after they were hit by a subway train while helping an unconscious hobo who fell on the tracks. He is a childhood friend of Kurono and serves as a secondary protagonist. At school, he acts as a guardian to the weaker students who often find themselves bullied, getting himself a bit of a reputation for fighting. He initially lives with an aunt who reluctantly adopted him and his brother after they were orphaned. They leave after Kato saved enough money to rent an apartment room for both of them; in the anime version, they moved after he could no longer stand their aunt hitting his little brother. He is killed during the Thousand Arms mission. He is later revived near the end of Phase 1 by Yoshikazu Suzuki who asked Kurono who he wanted to revive. After that, he manages to kill Nurarihyon and gains 100 points, choosing to revive Kurono. In the Japanese series, Kato is voiced by Masashi Oosato and by Daisuke Ono in Gantz: O. In the anime English dub is voiced by Illich Guardiola. In the live-action movie, Kato is played by Ken'ichi Matsuyama.Tae Kojima
Tae Kojima is Kurono's first actual girlfriend, first dated on a dare. He actually falls in love with her, and they build a real relationship, Kurono appearing to be very protective of her. After taking pictures of the Game's participants during their mission, she immediately becomes the next target. To end the mission and preserve his points, Shion Izumi takes the pleasure of murdering Tae, but Reika later on brings her back to life. Similar to Kurono, she also realizes parts of her memory were missing, as hinted by pictures of her with Kurono and her paintings of him. Much of Phase 3 involves Kurono trying to rescue her from the giants.Supporting characters
Shion Izumi
Shion Izumi is a former participant of Gantz's missions. He achieved 100 points, and left the game with his memories erased. Since then, he began to remember the excitement of the missions. Despite his popularity in school, Izumi becomes jealous of Kei Kurono, as he wants to return to Gantz. In an effort to return to Gantz, he commits a mass shooting on a busy street disguised as a black man, killing or injuring 387 before being stopped by Kurono. Before dying, Izumi is transported to Gantz's room and is allowed to participate in more missions. Izumi possesses tremendous fighting skills and, aside from Kei Kurono, proves stronger than any other member on the team. He shows very little regard to ethics and cared only about the missions and reaching the goals. He is ambushed by the vampires near the end of Phase 1 and is able to kill all of them. The four vampire leaders then decide to kill him themselves. Izumi still manage to kill three of them but is killed by the sole remaining vampire while protecting his girlfriend.Joichiro Nishi
Joichiro Nishi is a middle-school student introduced in the first mission of the series. A violent psychopath, he is a veteran of the Gantz world, having arrived there over a year before the beginning of the series. His mother killed herself and after coming home from school he found her body, the next day he ran away from home and jumped off the top of his schools roof and killed himself. When he first introduced, Nishi was similar to how Kurono started out, he is also selfish and has a social Darwinist approach to life. Nishi is reluctant to reveal anything about the Gantz or himself, but he runs a website where he posts information about it. Gantz calls him "Mr. Nishi", which is rather interesting given how informally or derisively he refers to most of the other participants. Nishi is killed at the beginning of the Tanaka/Suzuki Alien mission, but after six months of existing only inside Gantz's memory banks, he is revived by Kaze at Kurono's request following the end of the Oni mission. Ostensibly, Kurono hopes that Nishi will be able to provide information about Gantz to the game players. After being ostracized and bullied by his classmates, which ended with them hurling him out of the classroom window, he has killed all of them. After this, civil armed forces are sent to kill Nishi. Nishi manages to kill many of the men sent to kill him, but after an intense battle with the armed forces he is severely wounded and was only able to avoid death because Gantz called the Hunters for a new mission. Masashi Yabe voices him in the Japanese series and Tomohiro Kaku in Gantz: O. Chris Patton voices him in the English dub. Kanata Hongo plays him in the live-action movie.Kei Kishimoto
Kei Kishimoto first appears naked in the Apartment as her death involved slitting her wrists while in a bathtub. Unlike many of the characters of the series, she did not exactly die. As Nishi revealed, Gantz can make mistakes. Gantz accidentally created a copy of Kishimoto to use in missions while her original self survived. Kurono has a deep crush on her, but she herself has a crush on Masaru Kato. Finding her 'real self' alive, she is forced to live with Kurono who is delighted to see her at first but later resents being used by her as she is clearly not interested in him. Gantz calls her by the names "Boiled eggs", "Titz" and "Miss Melons" due to her fairly large breasts. She dies during the Buddha mission to protect Kato from the acid attack of the boss alien, Thousand Arms. She was later brought back to life and was reunited with Kato. However, the divine being quickly killed her again to show the futility of human existence. Her Japanese voice actress is Hitomi Nabatame, and her English voice actress Shannon Emerick. Her live-action actress is Natsuna Watanabe.Yoshikazu Suzuki
Yoshikazu Suzuki, best known as "Old Man". Not much is known about him except that he is a fairly old widower who has a grandson. Surprisingly, it does not take long for Kurono to grow attached to him and vice versa. He sees Kurono as a role model, and even gives his 100 points to revive his friend Masaru Kato so that Kei may leave the game. He sees Kurono as the world's hope for "survival". He has saved Kei's life multiple times and he emulates Kei. After Kei dies however, it seems as if his morale lowers and he sides with the majority on not trying to help others because it was too dangerous. During the mission in Italy, he is killed by dismemberment while protecting Inaba from a group of new powerful enemies. He was later brought back to life by the divine being only to be reduced to a pile of blood and organs to show the futility of human life.Hiroto Sakurai
Hiroto Sakurai is a psychic who receives instructions on how to unlock his latent powers from Sakata after attempting suicide. He is then encouraged by Sakata to kill his bullies who sexually abused him with the use of his powers, which he does. However, he later regrets it, realizing how it feels to be a murderer. When he and Sakata witness Izumi's Shinjuku massacre, he insists in trying to stop Izumi and convinces Sakata to join him, arguing that it is a good opportunity to redeem themselves for the murders they committed themselves. While they do put up a good fight, Izumi still does manage to kill both, leading them to Gantz. A phenomenal learner, he masters his abilities rather quickly. He dies in the fight against the Flame Oni, but is revived by Sakata. Gantz calls him "Cherry", taken from the Japanese sakura and which is his online handle. He has a girlfriend named Tonkotsu who he first met after he murdered the people who abused him. With her, he is seen trying to catch murderers using his psychic powers, in order to further redeem himself. After the mission in Osaka, Gantz names him "no longer a Cherry ". During the alien invasion, Tonkotsu is killed, leading to Sakurai going on a psychotic mass murder spree against the aliens. He even went as far as to murder innocent aliens as well. He eventually died from his injuries.