Originally Posted by
georgemarvin
Gantz is nothing like a prison; it's more like an army. The troops go in to do battle against the enemy, then get a furlough to go home until they are needed again. If they are successful, they get weapons instead of promotions. They can leave after they have served their tour of duty, in this case it's not a set length of time but after they have contributed a certain amount to the war effort. Most of them will grumble about being conscripted against their will, but most of the veterans will re-enlist when they are offered a token incentive (better weapon).
Nishi, Kaze, Izumi and Kei in particular don't think of Gantz as a prison. Nishi loves the game too much to ever leave. Kaze lives to fight. Izumi literally both killed and died to return. Before the 1000 arms mission, Katou had nightmares about the room, while Kei couldn't wait to go back. Notice in the call to Cherry, Nishi said that there were too many vampires for his "off-duty life" and he "wouldn't get any points". He thinks of Gantz like people think of their military service.
Nishi would be a survivor in most armies; he has the skills to avoid being captured or killed while infiltrating the enemy's strongholds. He's smart, cautious and capable. He is very similar to a member of an elite infiltration squad. They aren't generally very friendly. In fact, they can be downright antisocial. They've seen friends die, so they are stand-offish. They may try to recruit somebody if they think he's really superior, but they look down on most people as totally inferior. They don't want to work with amateurs or rookies. They may hate the job, but it defines their existence, so they keep doing it. They are the ones who re-enlist until they die.
Come to think of it, I figured out who Nishi reminds me of:
1. My uncle. He was a sniper during WW II. Everybody says that before he went to war, he was normal. When I remember him, he had many of Nishi's attitudes and features. A sense of wariness like he thought that an enemy could be around any corner. A sense of fatality, like he was going to die soon, so he didn't care what people thought about his actions. A special kind of guilt, that of somebody who had lived when all of his friends had died. A cruelty, that of somebody who had 46 confirmed kills and thought of human life as a cheap commodity. He wouldn't have thought twice about killing somebody; he shot a man inside a police station.
2. my brother-in-law. He's in Iraq right now. He has a tremendous pride in his service, but he's becoming cold, cruel and suspicious of everybody. It seems to be a hazard of combat duty.
3. my business partner's son. He's on his third tour. Before his first tour, he was one of the friendliest guys you ever met. Now, he stands to the side of the room with his buddies on leave, and they don't socialize much with us civilians. They evidently consider us to be something akin to rabble. Not worth their notice. He has went from a natural born cynic to a true believer, too. And some of his war stories show that "collateral damage" has become acceptable in his eyes. Like parking a jeep in front of the house of a suspected terrorist; if he and his family are dead the next morning, they weren't terrorists. If they are alive, the suspect is arrested. He would never have accepted, much less been enthusiastic about, tactics like that before his first tour.
4. And, to some degree, a friend who survived 6 years of service in Vietnam. That guy's much worse than Nishi, though. He's totally loopy. You'll just be sitting there and suddenly the couch is turned over and he's pulling you down behind it, yelling to get down and looking for some unseen enemy. Paranoid, antisocial, scared of his own shadow. Has a load of medals, though.
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