I've actually been watching a few "Live Action" Anime adaptations lately, and found myself enjoying them quite a bit, despite the conventional wisdom that they tend to be poor. I think it's down to my not really liking a lot of the general Anime tropes and genre conventions, many of which the films tend to jettison for time. In Tokoyo Ghoul, for example, a lot of the angst is compacted for the sake of the narrative, and it is more about the Ghoul community and existence than the big fights of the Anime, so I enjoyed it a lot more. Years back, I watched GANTZ: O on a whim and could not get into it, because I had no real idea what was going on and it was clearly made for people who were already fans. By contrast, GANTZ is exactly what I wanted, a good introduction to the core concepts of the series, with decent pacing and a lot of the chaff cut away.
After dying helping save a man's life, estranged childhood friends Kato and Koruno awaken in an unfurnished apartment with several strangers and a Black Sphere containing an unconscious man. For those not yet familiar with the GANTZ franchise, people are taken at the moment of death and given a chance to free themselves by battling aliens (most often in the guise of Japanese folklore monsters), with many only dying again in brutal ways. As players kill aliens, they earn points which can be used to free themselves, resurrect dead players or upgrade weaponry. Basically, GANTZ (also the name of the sphere) is a really cool concept for a story (or roleplaying game or video game), but occasionally gets bogged down in its own lore and mythology. Really, the franchise reminds me a little of Hunter: The Reckoning, a roleplaying favourite of mine, in that the characters "chosen" are pretty diverse and tend to have little in common to begin with.
GANTZ is a little more "heroic" than other entries in the series I've seen, with Kato even having a costume and training montage at one stage, though the brutality of the fights does strip this feeling away pretty quick. That said, the suits are cool, the weapons pretty unique and the monsters are memorable, if a little underdeveloped, so if you're intrigued, this film is worth checking out. I'm a little tempted to pull GANTZ into my broader Ultimate Alliance narrative, as a kind of failed technology running rogue, but the Japanese Government not trying too hard to shut it down, because it keeps the aliens under wraps. I may check out the Anime, if I can stream it or get it on sale, but I'm not sure how keen I really am on doing that anytime soon.
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