Gantz 339 Discussion/340 Prediction Thread

[mcd693]

All I have to say is that if Tae-chan happens to stay alive throughout this war and ends up with Korono again, it better look God-damn believable with an amazingly genius-like reason. Cause I'm having a hard time believing that a girl with her degree of mental-capacity/moral-quality can witness so much and live through it all to this extent by just running away and screaming the name of her beloved in a world dangerously unfamiliar to her.

Are you talking about the Japanese incident? The American atomic bomb landing on Nagasaki?

Maybe it was not necessary, but I think it was needed to be done. The Japanese were in no mood to bring a quick end to the war - a war in which the number of casualties in Nagasaki was about equal to the number of Chinese civilians the Japanese were murdering in an average week. The Japanese needed to be convinced that they could lose another city, and another, and another. Keep in mind that the Japanese deaths of all causes in the entire war numbered about two million, and half their cabinet felt they could sustain another twenty million if need be.

America tried to negotiate but the stubborn Japanese refused. Therefore we had only 2 other options, invade Japan or launch the atomic bombs. Instead of wasting a bunch of Japanese and American lives, we decided to kill the Japanese and save the Americans. Even after the first bomb was dropped, Japan did not surrender so America bombed them again until they finally agreed. Besides, there would have been almost more amount of casulties if we invaded Japan with an amphibious invasion style instead.

yikes. my advice is to try and learn history so as to not repeat it. but rubbing a, "win" in someones face is really bad form. Lets try not to point fingers when talking about war.... My guess is that we would run out of fingers quickly.

My prediction is that cherry won't kill the gma and kid because he has more control over what he does than the voices in his head telling him what to do. schizophrenia is the only similar REAL thing that i could relate to what cherry is experiencing ATM. Using schizophrenia symptoms and and common outbursts as examples i would wager that cherry still maintains the majority(if need be I would say more than 50%) of his will. Lets hope he doesn't make a spectacle of himself and get himself killed. But trudging along at his current pace I would guess that it is likely the outcome befitting of cherry is immanent death.

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oh. and totally agree with the tae comment btw. she is getting exhausting. Every page and panel i see her on -instantly lose interest.

All i care about when i see her is praying she experiences pain. But never? This whole tae almost getting raped/killed, but narrowly, gotta be a big fucking number:1 of her getting away/saved perpetual bullshit is getting old.

[Damura]

You ever seen parents giving children bread to feed ducks?

Same thing. It isn't a game, not in the literal sense. It's a bit of fun, there's no engaging motive behind it.

Yeah it's a normal reaction for a child to take when regarding a shitty, worthless animal. It reinforces the idea that the aliens don't care about us as a species.

Oh look, a fucking escaped animal. Nevermind that we destroyed their entire race, just give it some food, pat it on the back and send it on it's way.

I'm just saying that there's no real respect for other forms of life. To the kid it's just a game, a bit of fun. Same for the grandmother.

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All I have to say is that if Tae-chan happens to stay alive throughout this war and ends up with Korono again, it better look God-damn believable with an amazingly genius-like reason. Cause I'm having a hard time believing that a girl with her degree of mental-capacity/moral-quality can witness so much and live through it all to this extent by just running away and screaming the name of her beloved in a world dangerously unfamiliar to her.

Are you talking about the Japanese incident? The American atomic bomb landing on Nagasaki?

Maybe it was not necessary, but I think it was needed to be done. The Japanese were in no mood to bring a quick end to the war - a war in which the number of casualties in Nagasaki was about equal to the number of Chinese civilians the Japanese were murdering in an average week. The Japanese needed to be convinced that they could lose another city, and another, and another. Keep in mind that the Japanese deaths of all causes in the entire war numbered about two million, and half their cabinet felt they could sustain another twenty million if need be.

America tried to negotiate but the stubborn Japanese refused. Therefore we had only 2 other options, invade Japan or launch the atomic bombs. Instead of wasting a bunch of Japanese and American lives, we decided to kill the Japanese and save the Americans. Even after the first bomb was dropped, Japan did not surrender so America bombed them again until they finally agreed. Besides, there would have been almost more amount of casulties if we invaded Japan with an amphibious invasion style instead.

I was thinking about the massive civilian casualties in the last decade or so.

But! That shit with the Japanese was not justified. I think whatever the outcome, killing millions of civilians is not justified. We can't throw just away our principles when it suits us.

Killing INNOCENTS is never justified. Even if you're losing the war. You either stick to your principles, or you don't. We like to take the moral highground but it never seems to matter when it really counts.

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I'm not saying that people shouldn't do bad things (especially to protect loved ones), but I think we need to acknowledge them for what they are. Unfortunately this world demands that we can't be moral all the time if we want to survive. We're not at that stage yet, and we're unlikely to ever be.

[ghostunit]

I think the people who say the nuking of Imperial Japan was unequivocally a war crime should read a lot more history. Certainly, the USA's no angel (say, part of the reason to use nukes was to intimidate the soviets) but, for example, the targets were not entirely non-military, as they hosted important military factories and shipyards.

The fact is that just like Nazi Germany, the atrocious Japanese Empire was immensely popular with their population who at best turned a blind eye and at worst fiercely supported the atrocities of their regimes.

Particularly, it was fair to assume the Japanese population would never question their leaders because of very deeply ingrained cultural bullshit so IMO they needed a thorough bitch-slapping to set them straight (note: they still don't question the status-quo though, see their sheep-like attitude towards the suppressed info during the ongoing Fukushima crisis).

There were at least a few Germans who tried to kill Hitler at various stages of his rule. Can you name one Japanese who tried to kill the Emperor? UNTHINKABLE!!! -> exactly. (though, the real masterminds were the military leaders but no one would rise against them either. And the emperor was complicit with it all by tacitly condoning their actions)

Also, very few complain about the Dresden bombings or the hell the German civilians were put through after they surrendered. Because they were nazis and nazi = evil. But somehow everyone thinks it was a crime to do that to the Japanese because the animes portray them as so inherently honorable, innocent and cute. Give me a fucking break.

Ultimately, I think that despite the large number of innocent victims, that horrible lesson by fire was indispensable in order to have the Japanese population change, just like with the Germans. It's not something to be celebrated and I won't claim to know what the best course of action would have been.

But at least it apparently worked in that way, since today the Japanese and the Germans are much better off than when they were obsessed with superiority complexes and take-over-the-world tendencies. (note: East Germany is still messed up because of sadistic Soviet rule but you get the point) (note2: this won't work in the Middle-East, you're never going to get a Germany or Japan outta them no matter how much you bitch-slap 'em)

Note: history is not fair. If it was, England would be a lake of fire right now because of the British Empire, for example.

[cassaruby]

no one's changing america's wicked ways. we will topple ourselves. in gantz at least there are power suits to provide some balance against the new world power.

[Damura]

@ghostunit: Depends on who you ask. I'm sure our side was a lot better off. I wonder how the innocent civilians thought about it.

It's a case of whether we think the end justified the means. I mean we can pretty much say it worked. We got the outcome we were looking for at the time. But I think that's a point of view created by the victor... I really can't believe that the Japanese, or any other group for that matter, welcomed either the change or the loss of lives on their side.

I wonder how this 'war' in Gantz is going to change the human population. To be honest Oku's Japanese are ridiculously gullible, selfish and foolish. I guess most of them are going to stay that way... they'll do whatever they're told.

It's like that game... Lemmings or whatever. Gantzer's save the humans and they just march right on back to the slaughterhouse.

Outsmarted by a looped television broadcast. Bad luck Japan.

[meowykid]

It's fairly clear, that the author is keeping Tae alive purposely for the story.
IMO, tae should die, and Kurono should find the body, and do the same thing cherry did.

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I think the people who say the nuking of Imperial Japan was unequivocally a war crime should read a lot more history. Certainly, the USA's no angel (say, part of the reason to use nukes was to intimidate the soviets) but, for example, the targets were not entirely non-military, as they hosted important military factories and shipyards.

The fact is that just like Nazi Germany, the atrocious Japanese Empire was immensely popular with their population who at best turned a blind eye and at worst fiercely supported the atrocities of their regimes.

Particularly, it was fair to assume the Japanese population would never question their leaders because of very deeply ingrained cultural bullshit so IMO they needed a thorough bitch-slapping to set them straight (note: they still don't question the status-quo though, see their sheep-like attitude towards the suppressed info during the ongoing Fukushima crisis).

There were at least a few Germans who tried to kill Hitler at various stages of his rule. Can you name one Japanese who tried to kill the Emperor? UNTHINKABLE!!! -> exactly. (though, the real masterminds were the military leaders but no one would rise against them either. And the emperor was complicit with it all by tacitly condoning their actions)

Also, very few complain about the Dresden bombings or the hell the German civilians were put through after they surrendered. Because they were nazis and nazi = evil. But somehow everyone thinks it was a crime to do that to the Japanese because the animes portray them as so inherently honorable, innocent and cute. Give me a fucking break.

Ultimately, I think that despite the large number of innocent victims, that horrible lesson by fire was indispensable in order to have the Japanese population change, just like with the Germans. It's not something to be celebrated and I won't claim to know what the best course of action would have been.

But at least it apparently worked in that way, since today the Japanese and the Germans are much better off than when they were obsessed with superiority complexes and take-over-the-world tendencies. (note: East Germany is still messed up because of sadistic Soviet rule but you get the point) (note2: this won't work in the Middle-East, you're never going to get a Germany or Japan outta them no matter how much you bitch-slap 'em)

Note: history is not fair. If it was, England would be a lake of fire right now because of the British Empire, for example.

Just for the lol, some Japanese's people did try to kill the emperor, because they didn't want to surrender. They were stopped though.

[Damura]

Didn't some people also protest things by committing suicide in front of the emperor or whatever, or was that just Shigurui?

[vagabond87]

Didn't some people also protest things by committing suicide in front of the emperor or whatever, or was that just Shigurui?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation

[mote]

The fact is that just like Nazi Germany, the atrocious Japanese Empire was immensely popular with their population who at best turned a blind eye and at worst fiercely supported the atrocities of their regimes.

Particularly, it was fair to assume the Japanese population would never question their leaders because of very deeply ingrained cultural bullshit so IMO they needed a thorough bitch-slapping to set them straight (note: they still don't question the status-quo though, see their sheep-like attitude towards the suppressed info during the ongoing Fukushima crisis).

There were at least a few Germans who tried to kill Hitler at various stages of his rule. Can you name one Japanese who tried to kill the Emperor? UNTHINKABLE!!! -> exactly. (though, the real masterminds were the military leaders but no one would rise against them either. And the emperor was complicit with it all by tacitly condoning their actions)

It's not really fair to call the Japanese sheep-like. There were plenty of dissenters in Japan, but the government had been crushing them into submission for decades before the term "Nazi" even existed.

In the 1920s, Germany and Italy were just fledgling fascists, while Japan had been a totalitarian police state for almost a century. By WW2, even your parents and grandparents would have spent their whole lives being indoctrinated. It was easy for intelligent Germans to say "Hey! 15 years ago we could think for ourselves without being arrested!" But only the oldest Japanese would even remember such a time. And considering how small and isolated Japan is, I'm sure it was easy for them to believe that this was the only way things could be.

[Damura]

Thing is, people are easy to manipulate when you get them young enough.

@vagabond87: Wow. I bet they lived long enough to regret it.

The scene I was thinking of from Shiguri... it was during some ninja/samurai era or whatever, and this guy was in front of the emperor and a bunch of other government-types. He protested the war or something, while he cut open his stomach with a knife and with his bare hands pulled out his own intestines.

Don't see that kind of thing much any more.

[warbandit66]

I'm pretty sure the only people who commit sepaku in this day and age are Yakuza and even then I doubt it's something that is widely practiced.

[Damura]

Yeah I can see why it might not be popular.

[playerdude]

a part of me wants Cherry to kill them all. another part of me doesn't want Cherry to kill them all. why? cause if Cherry kills everyone in the vicinity, it'll attract attention from more soldiers. Cherry will eventually run out of juice and be defenseless and it'll be his inevitable death. either that or die from overusing his powers and not die at the hands of the aliens. Sakurai should calm the hell down and reserve his strength so he can live longer.

those soldiers that rescued Tae......i just can't put my finger on it...but something ain't right about them. i do have some concerns about them though.
1. they know about the meat factory, yet do nothing about it? they have clothes on so it suggests that they didn't come from the meat factory and still maintain the knowledge of its existence. or they came in the meat factory cargo and killed the aliens there before they could melt their clothes off. if they didn't come from the meat factory themselves, then from where?
2. they laughed when they heard that someone escaped from the meat factory. what?
3. it's only 2 lone soldiers? where's the rest of their unit?
there's much more, i just want to name them all.

[ghostunit]

The civilians know what's going on and don't give a fuck.

You can even see them looking into the crushed Tokyo from windows in their ship-thing at the time they arrived.

Their lives are forfeit, hope Cherry kills as many as possible.

[9tails23]

These people are truly stupid actually getting into those cages willingly going up into the space craft to die, the japanese should know its a trap by all the capturing and death that has gone on before I can kind of understand places not hit by the aliens being tricked into trusting them but the rest are just desperate and stupid and wow nishi is still alive