Surprisingly for a story that's so grim and gruesome, Gantz has a few genuinely heartbreaking moments.
Tear Jerker pages are Spoilers Off. There are unmarked spoilers below.
- A major moment of tears in the Gantz manga is the death of Tae Kojima. She is the only character who REALLY influenced the personality change in Kei Kurono for the better. She is revived later, but that's besides the point.
- The death of Takeshi. God fucking DAMN is that sad.
- The deaths of the little boy and his grandma during the Tanaka aliens mission. They see the aliens coming for them while hiding in a garage, so grandma tells the boy to run, saying that she'll protect him and get him home safely. Moments later, the boy comes back to find grandma slumped on the ground with her eyes and ears bleeding from the aliens' attack. The boy goes to hug grandma one last time, disregarding the aliens in front of them. And as the aliens prepare to finish them both off, grandma hugs the boy one last time.
- The love declaration of Reika to Kei, who rejects her because he loves Tae. She then hopelessly decides to obtain the 100 points to make a clone of Kurono for her.
- Tae dying in Kurono's arms, and later Kurono finally remembering that he used to lead the Gantz team and attacking the vampires only to be cut down after being distracted by the sight of his brother's head in the lead vampire's hand.
- Not to mention when the Old Man dies protecting Inaba, and we see his dying vision of him reuniting with his dead wife. Just when you thought you'd been completely desensitized to character deaths in this manga...
- What about when after being saved by the old man, Inaba goes on to have his Moment of Awesome, crying as he realized that the old man was the only one who cared for him... and then he gets stepped on by the Monty Python's Flying Circus foot?
- Sakata's Obi-Wan Moment, which doubles as his Moment of Awesome.Don't even think about reviving me!
- Kato's death at the end of the third mission in the anime. Not only is he never brought back, but his little brother will never be able to know what happened to his brother that mysteriously disappeared after promising to always be there for him.
- Ch. 333. The nerdy little cowardly guy from the Osaka team, Virgin-Kun (a fan nickname, since his actual name is never given), the last person you'd expect to be a hero, volunteers to join the Tokyo team in response to Kei and Reika's broadcast (he's the next-to-last person to arrive). He breaks down crying when he sees Kato there. Turns out he Manned Up hard after seeing Kato's example in Osaka, earned himself his 100 points, and tells Kato (in tears) that he kept his promise. The last person to teleport in is Anzu. Then he and Kato (and, probably, the reader) share a Manly Tears moment.
- In ch. 351, Tae finally reuniting with Kei. The alien woman's reaction to this makes this moment all the more heartwarming and tearjerking at the same time.
- Chapter 357: Kei-2 wakes up to see the monster impaled through its head. Next to the said monster is a dead Reika. Desperately trying to save Reika in vain, Kei-2 eventually breaks down big time, as he apologizes to her for not admitting his feelings for her sooner.
- Ch 371, The God aliens prove that people are just things by reviving Reika, Kishimoto, Suzuki, and Sei who seem to have their memories intact, only for the aliens to explode them right in front of the people there. Note that Kei-2 gets to see Reika die a second time.
