A Drill to Pierce the Heavens - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann



Recently I've shoved myself into a bit of an admittance: I still really like anime.  This is probably the result, at least in part, of me taking a Japanese class this semester at college.  For whatever reason I seem to be regressing back to a time when I was into Dragon ball Z and secretly stayed up late to watch InuYasha.

In fact, it was DragonBall Z that brought me in range of a series called Gurren Lagann.  On Youtube a video featuring a cross section of an anime girl pulling up her shirt was in my suggested videos...knowing this was youtube and it couldn't be nsfw, I decided to watch it.  It featured a red headed character and a really really catchy techno-y song.  For whatever reason that is long irrelevant now, I decided to have a look at the TV Tropes page for the series, which described it as a giant robot series that didn't take itself seriously.  More importantly it was made by Studio Gainax, who I know for making my favorie anime of all time.

The whole series is, for at least the US, available on Youtube.  In the past, I'd watch a few episodes and then quit and move on...i did this with Trigun over the summer, so I decided to just watch a few episodes.  So on Friday night I watched the first three episodes and delightfully learned that Kyle Hebert voices Kamina, one of the main characters.  What I saw was good, so I decided that the next day, I'd casually watch a few more of the 27 episodes.  Cue me spending almost a dozen hours watching the next 24 episodes on Saturday.  For whatever reason, the show got me hooked and then it was one episode after another...after another.  Honestly, I'm proud that I stuck with something like that.

For those unfamiliar with the show, it's a Super Robot anime, meaning there's going to be lots of...super robots...fighting.  I kind of got over that whole genre sometime after G Gundam aired on Toonami, but something was keeping me with this show.  Okay, I admit, I love Adult Gohan's english voice enough to make jokes every time Kamina opened his mouth, but that was only part of the reason.  That character, Kamina, was more of a badass than about 89% of badasses out there.  He's kind of your standard grade idiot hero that relies on strength alone to get things done...so naturally we watch to see when he'll learn his lesson and be forced to back down from a fight.  The thing is, it's established very early on that Kamina just can't DO that, no matter what, and the fact that he's both arrogant and likeable really makes him effective, particularly along with the idea that he has the same effect on the viewer that he does on the characters around him.

So Kamina's presence is absolutely magnetic, even when he spends the majority of an episode naked, with only a little furry creature covering his crotch.  Even better is that by the end of Episode 7, he has a love interest.  Maybe I don't watch enough anime...or television in general, but it's rare to actually have two characters KISSING on screen like an official ship.  I applauded Gainax's move there...but I did even more so when we learn that Simon was watching from the bushes.  Up until this point, Simon, who's Kamina's heterosexual life partner, has been a quiet character who's admittedly come a long way from his timid beginnings to his fights alongside...err...on top of his "bro" Kamina.  The two were joined by a young girl named Yoko (i havent tried this, but if you Google "hot anime chick" she'll probably be one of the first things to come up I've now tried this, and indeed, Yoko is the third image to come up with that exact search query, there's another picture of her on the first page as well.) and later a Camp Gay mechanic named Leeron (who's also very fun to watch).  Yoko, along with every other female we meet, develops a thing for Kamina, and when she finally gets her moment, we learn that poor little Simon had feelings for her too.  His reaction to the scene is so very well done...and truthful.  This was the beginning of the grander allure of Gurren Lagann: it's characters.

It's hard to talk about what happens next without spoilers, so I'll just elaborate on my last point.  Simon is one of the best realized characters I've ever seen.  He's just written very very well.  From his struggles with trying to be just like his "bro" (he develops a pretty nasty complex over this...which is portrayed wonderfully) to his realization that he can stand on his bro's principles while still being his own person gives him REAL character development.  It's something that normally happens instantaneously with this kind of show, if it all.  No, Simon grows and changes to the point where he's a whole different kind of Kamina.  He's not Kamina, mind you, and Kamina tends to be the one that makes all the catchphrases for the show (WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?).  Still, by the end of the series, he's gone, even physically, from a little boy to the kind of anime action hero we're very familiar with. 

Of course, this all happens while maintaining a broader cast of characters.  Quite a few of them are easy to lose track of, but others will shine.  Viral is a great example of an ensemble darkhorse who starts out as the first formidable foe Kamina and Simon have to take on, and later shows himself to be the honorable one amongst the enemy ranks.  Rossiu, a young boy from a highly religious and strict village, is another noteable, especially for his stepping up to become a main character after the 7 year time skip that happens in the show.  The way parallels are drawn to his past and his actions make the viewer question right and wrong are proof of his strong character.  Princess Nia, too, came to be someone I cared about, even though in the beginning most of my delight in her character came simply from the fact that her voice actor had done Starfire in the old Teen Titans series.  At the end of the series, she provides the typical confusing (read: maddening) Gainax moment.

Let's talk about the time skip and division of the show.  The first story sees Simon and what comes to be known as Team Gurren taking on the Spiral King (great name), who has driven humanity underground and kept them there with the use of beastmen, who pilot the mechs known as gunman.  The conclusion of that arc sees a seven year time skip, in which humanity has moved above ground and is expanding at a rapid rate.  So rapid, in fact that it attracts the attention of an alien race seeking to prevent further expansion.  The second story arc is very much like a sequel to the first, and I really like that it's there, because it's story and layout are excitingly different from the first arc. 

The story is, at its core, fairly basic, but its elements like Spiral Power and team spirit that keep this series interesting, particularly in the second arc, where things get a lot more science fictiony (read: ridiculous (read: epicawesomegasm)).  Once again though, the real success here is the characters.  I think I watched so vigilantly because I really wanted to know what happened to them in the next episode, in part thanks to the first few being so well crafted.  I really can't stress enough the ways the characters are brought to fruition here.  The second story is really what accomplishes the realization of the characters.  It makes you think "well why the hell is he/she doing that?" and it won't outright tell you all the time...but if you go back into the first story it's all there.  From Rossiu's hard-fisted politics to Yoko's choice of profession...it all has actual grounds within the series.

With good characters comes good tone though, and Gurren Lagann is exceptional at controlling its tone, always getting its emotion through to the viewer.  It's got lighthearted comedy, moments of sheer darkness, moments of pure triumph, dashes of mystery, and of course, plenty of over the top kickassery.  While the action scenes weren't always my favorite things to watch, a lot of them are really, really well done, especially larger scale battles that we see when the stakes escalate.  Art design was used brilliantly here, and its one of the things that makes the two stories distinguishable from one another in a good way.  It too will control the mood in subtle ways. 

Overall, Gurren Lagann is an absolute delight to watch, and takes viewers on an excellent journey.  From the great fun that pervades the first few episodes, to the heroicism of the later parts, and the mind screwing badassery that starts to build up near the end, the show always proves it has something else to show you.  In the vein of the philosophy of Kamina, this show doesn't believe in limits, and screws the rules time and time again.  If there were ever a real reason for the word "epic" to go out of style, it would be because this series is the standard for it.  While I do have a few complaints about the series, particularly bits and pieces of the ending (which I will probably cover in an upcoming post), they're really not what I'm going to remember about this series.  I'm going to remember the awesome characters, the "screw the rules I have Spiral Power" mentality, the quirky story, and the good presentation.  Oh, and of course, Kamina's quotes.

"JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?"

Just a few sidenotes here: in my reviews, and this is one of them, I won't give a numbered rating.  You should be able to tell what I think from my words.  In most cases, my reviews will be positive, because that's just the kind of guy I am.  Also, I feel like there's a lot more to say about this show, but I tried to keep it a little less long winded this time...which I mostly failed at.  Also, here's this, which for whatever reason, I forgot to mention:

Seriously, Japanese music kicks copius amounts of ass.