Content Warning: Domestic violence, teenage stupidity, feces, porn industry, sexual content and nudity.
Gigant is a manga by Hiroya Oku (probably best known for Gantz). Sent in modern day Japan, the story follows Yokoyamada Rei, a high school student who dreams of becoming a film director, and Johansson Chiho, who works as a adult film star under the name PaPiCo.
Our story begins with Rei filming around Tokyo with his phone, shots of crowds and the ground. This brings up one of things I find a bit jarring about the manga. Rei, and most of the other characters, are drawn in a typical manga style, while crowds and minor characters are photorealistic style (and the posters, vehicles, etc). I don't know if there's just a filter applied to pictures, they're traced, or what exactly, but it kind of throws me off when I'm reading.
As our story continues, we're slowly introduced to the characters around Rei: his father, who wants him to do well in school in case he can't fulfill his dreams of becoming a director. His friend, who doesn't even get a name in this volume, who he talks about movies with and is trying to make a movie with. And PaPiCo. Her introduction is a porn BluRay (with the caption: Her Jiggly J-Cups) that Rei buys and watches. The masturbation is implied. Or maybe that's because I was once a teenage boy.
PaPiCo, or Chiho, has a proper introduction a bit later. Rei sees a sign saying she lives in the area and she'll have sex with someone if they ask. Who put this up is as of yet unexplained. After Rei removes the last poster, Chiho comes up behind him and asks if he put up. Soon, she's buying him dinner, telling him her real name (!!!), follows him on Twitter, exchange Line numbers, and leaves both of them happy.
As the story continues, we see much more of Rei, until Chiho sees a strange man get hit by a car. While trying to render aid, he puts some strange device on her forearm, and then turns into a cloth doll. Yeah, you read that right. Anyway, she ends up discovering that she can grow in size. Her piece of shit boyfriend, Ryuji, just kind of checks out. Later, she starts using this power in her porn vids. We also get to follow her around some more, which I absolutely loved, meeting her three brothers and her mother, and also see a picture of her Swedish father, and we learn more about how people in her life treat her. Which is to say, rather poorly. When Ryuji asks her who Rei is, after looking through her phone, he doesn't like her answer and then slaps and kicks her. She fights back and they end up in an odd embrace, with him apologizing and saying he loves her. She also reaches out to Rei to help her see what's on a DVD that was left by the strange man (who I call The Weirdo). He watches it and discovers that the disc has over 168 hours of footage. Which, you know, is kind of impossible.
Next, Chiho invites Rei over to her tiny apartment (as her terrible boyfriend is out of the house after losing tons of money at the Pachinko parlor). When she shows him that, yes, she can become a giant, Ryuji walks in. She's giant and naked. All hell breaks loose. But, Ryuji ends up running away. I think this is where I knew I was going to really like this manga.
After this, we start getting some major hints about what exactly is going on. Where (or perhaps “when” is a better word) The Weirdo came from, what the purpose is of the device now on Chiho, and that this very well could be the end of the world. If you want to Enjoy The End, I suggest you read it for yourself.
I absolutely loved this read. While I enjoyed getting to know Rei, even if I want to reach into the panel and slap some sense into him half the time, I really wanted to get to know Chiho more than we did in this volume. The author uses images to tell us about them, not using any internal monologue. The dialogue is also used to say things and NOT say things at the same time. We get a sense of how shy Rei is and his obsession with films and film making just from the dialogue. With Chiho, we find her using a lot of slang and very informal way of speaking. Her facial expressions are also great. While it's not outright stated, it's kind of obvious that she's got some issues. At one point, she mentions that she takes medication for her anxiety. I also think that her father is dead, given how we get one flashback of them together when she's a child and don't see him when she goes back home and meet the rest of her family. He isn't even mentioned more than once or twice at most.
Suggestion: Buy it.
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