 Hey everybody, welcome back to a week in Geekdom Geo here and today we're going to be taking a look at Hiroya Oku's Gigant Volume 1 Manga First Impressions Time. Where do I even begin with this manga? First, I have to give a massive shout out to the folks at Seven Seas Entertainment for making this review possible. They were gracious enough to send me a copy so that I could talk about it on the channel with you guys. So what did I think of Gigant? Well, I gotta be honest with you, gotta be completely real. I went into this with zero expectations only knowing that Oku's taste in women and fetishes were in full bloom in this manga because boy oh boy is it not safe for work. I have to make that clear before moving on because there are several points I want to talk about. Okay, so where the heck do I even begin with Gigant? How do I explain it in a safe for work environment? All right, so this story is about Rei Yokoyamada, a high schooler who is wanting to be a sort of hot shot big ticket film director when he grows up. And by his standards, he's not necessarily the smartest kid. He has low grades in school that he's struggling. I think it was with math or whatever. I don't know. He likes what everybody likes and you see it in his room from back to the future posters and Iron Man figures and different movie references and a lot of interesting cameo Easter eggs from popular Western culture stuff, which is always appreciated. I always like looking at that stuff when I'm reading manga. It makes it all just more globalized. I like it. So Rei just happens to be a huge fan of the adult home media world with different pornographic films and all that stuff. And he has a famous film actress, adult film star who is Chihou Johansson, but goes by the stage name of Papiko. You see him at the start of this manga buying an actual Blu-ray and from Amazon Japan and actually putting it on his PlayStation 4, putting the headphones on and then you know where that goes. So as the story progresses, Rei has a chance encounter with his favorite adult film star and things just start taking a turn for the weird. You see, not only does she show interest in him because, well, I should say everybody in town starts spreading rumors that she's there and they are slandering her putting up like flyers that, oh, go to find her house or something and she will have sex with you and all that stuff. He being a huge fan is upset about this and one night decides to rip those posters apart. Chihou finds him and they start interacting. At first she thinks it's him but he dismisses that and tells her that he's a big fan and all that stuff so they start getting to know each other and friendship starts to form. So as the story progresses, there are several things happening behind the scenes in the panels of the manga that you're reading. There are certain characters that start showing up and one of them happens to be this old guy who is in his underwear, if I remember correctly, and has a helmet with a propeller fan on his head and a camera if I remember and that character starts appearing on multiple shots, wide shots of the city landscape and all that stuff and you see the people walking and looking straight at that guy and making fun of him and you don't really know what's going on. Eventually Chihou finds him, he was struck by a car and he gives her a strange watch or device in her wrist and a DVD of sorts and he turns into something that I'm not going to spoil. So as Chihou and Rei start to get along, you get some insight and some commentary on the adult film industry over in Japan I guess. You're probably wondering why is this series called Gigant? Well it turns out that the device on her wrist allows her to grow inside and at first glance you would think oh this manga is sort of this Nazi for work fetish material about giant naked ladies. I wouldn't fault you for that because that is straight up what you have with volume one. However there's a lot more to the story. There's this mystery of the old guy and the blu-ray that he had with him was 200 hours or something of footage which cannot fit on a blu-ray disc so it's a mystery. Rei is deepening his friendship with Chihou and at some point that is going to cause problems for her in the book because she has a boyfriend. I'm not going to necessarily spoil what happens with that and that little triangle that forms but overall that is sort of the basis of Gigant volume one. Now the problem I have with this story is that a lot of people are going to confuse it for what it is at face value a Nazi for work kind of porn parody on the whole giant Tokusatsu inspired John Ryan all that stuff. She even compares herself later on as in subsequent chapters as being a huge fan of Ultraman and that is the biggest clue as to the nature of this manga. Unfortunately the first chapter doesn't or the first volume I should say doesn't hint at this at all doesn't talk about it. You just presented this weird mystery with odd characters and a subject matter that is rarely treated on with mainstream manga. I know that there are a lot of manga that do cover certain racy subjects but this one is from a high-profile creator so it is going to be more accessible to Western audiences. Now a lot of people would be upset and would criticize it rightfully so you have again you have every right to criticize what you don't like that is okay but I think the biggest problem is the chapter count and the pacing of the story before we get to the good stuff which I'm going to reveal in a second we don't really know where the story is headed. You have this questionable weird friendship that could turn romantic later on, small spoilers it kind of does, between Rei and Chihou and there's a lot of sexual elements to it. The manga is filled with nudity and sexual content but it's not graphic you don't see the stuff that would make it really NC-17 material and it would make it cross over into hentai manga. It's not like that but Chihou being in the adult film industry kind of gives us a different co-lead to the story. These people are largely ridiculed and ostracized from society and objectified because of the work that they're doing so I do find it really interesting and kind of cool that Oku would pick a character like this to tell her story. Meanwhile the character of Rei he doesn't really know what he's doing he's a high schooler he's about to enter the adult world once he graduates and he's sort of having this clash of ideologies of his normal life and all the sudden being thrown into this weird realm and finding his first love and all that stuff. The fact that he wants to be a film star and the fact that Chihou is in the film industry it perfectly matches for the two of them to you know meet and be friends and all that stuff and potential lovers. I know it is questionable like I said earlier with the age difference but I am going to suspend my disbelief in the name of love I guess. I'm not even going to touch that subject I'll leave that up to you. What I disliked most about the manga is that the really cool aspect of Gigant is that she turns into a giant lady and eventually because we don't really know what's happening with her powers whether it's time travel related or aliens stuff like that but giant monsters do eventually show up and she's going to fight them in a not-safe-for-work homage to Ultraman and that is really bonkers insane and and I love the craziness of that idea. It just so happens that there's a lot of nudity involved and it's not going to be for everybody and I completely understand that but what pains me the most is that a lot of people might dismiss the story right from the get-go from the silly premise and the fact that nothing really happens and you're just going to go in blindly and say oh this is a manga about giant uh what do they call it giantism giant fetishes instead I wish the story of the pacing because I've read beyond volume one I wish the story would have been faster so we could have gotten to that point maybe that would have hooked other people and not and for them to not judge it as harshly because of what it is probably the best the single best thing about gigant is the artwork it is great the characters look real the the mix and mash-up of the backgrounds and utilizing photoshop to sort of blend in real world photography with background drawings it makes it pop and it makes it a little bit more realistic that they're walking through the city streets in japan and they look real obviously all the pop culture references like wearing a instead of a unique low wearing a unique low shirt or the iron man stuff like I mentioned earlier or restaurants or freaking blade runner posters that all blends in and gives it a deeper sense of realism than it probably should have but I appreciate it in other manga that really wouldn't work and I wouldn't like it as much but for stuff like this that of course uh you see it with other creators like inio asado for example I think it does work I think it blends well to have these realistic characters in as close to a realistic background as possible I'm saying realistic a lot but the characters look great and they're all gorgeously drawn whether it's the high schoolers or chiho or whatever it may be I think there is an interest there for the story to evolve and become something slightly greater than it should be I don't know the story's still ongoing so we don't know how it is going to end as of this video but for the most part I did enjoy the art and the concept of course of the old man and the secretive powers and that mystery is pretty good it just so happens that it's filled with material questionable material so that's about it um I tried to be as spoiler free as possible hopefully you guys enjoyed this video have you read gigant if you have let me know in the comment section down below did you like it did you hate it let me know once again I want to give a massive shout out to the folks at seven seas entertainment for making this review possible thank you so much for the continued support as always guys thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a we can kick them if you're new to the channel please consider subscribing and being a part of the family I do videos like this where I talk about manga of course I talk about anime and western comics as well so yeah once again thank you everybody for tuning in I have got to go I will catch all of you on our next video