A tale of two men who have yet to realise their destinies.

I bought the first Gurren Lagann set the other day. Wow. Where to begin? The DVD seems to be selling pretty briskly, so I guess it's okay if I cover the episodes here. Spoilers abound, mates.

(According to the back of the box, Gurren Lagann somehow skates away with a 13+ rating. Therefore, this post and its successors are also rated 13+. Yes, yes, I know it sounds silly, but you can't really have too many disclaimers in this day and age.)

(Due to technical difficulties, no screencaps this time 'round. Sorry.)

Gainax, as a studio, has a chequered past. It's impossible to like everything they've done, so when they announced Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann ("Heaven-Shattering Gurren Lagann"), otaku across the world basically panicked. Throughout the whole anime's run, everyone watching had their fingers crossed: "please, please don't mess up this one".
Did they mess it up after all? Well, that depends greatly on your viewpoint. A few episodes in, I was stunned that Gainax could produce something like this. No matter what you come to the table expecting, it will subvert those expectations—it will subvert them so hard. I guarantee this. It almost seems to exist to undo everything every previous mecha anime has ever done. That was what Evangelion did before it, and now (in a bit of spectacular irony) the same studio that made NGE has made the anime that will counter it. Think of giant robot history in these terms:
There was an evil emperor (generic '60s mecha anime) who ruled over the peasants with an iron fist. A great warrior (NGE) defeated him and took his place, and was a better king in many aspects, but was still a bloodthirsty fighter and ended up causing many wars. Despite the valiant efforts of his cousin (G Gundam), the populace lost hope and fell into despair. But then, the warrior's younger brother (Gurren Lagann) deposed him and became a great, wise, and peaceful king, and everyone lived GAR-ily ever after.
Got it?
OK. Here we go.

(These posts will be divided thusly: a summary, to describe the basic events of the episode; "Steps Forward", for the episode's great accomplishments or improvements on the past; "Here and Now", for general comments on the present status of the series as of that episode; and "Down the Road", for what I'm hoping to see in the future, i.e. the stuff that has no hope of coming true. Given the structure of the series, I think this system is probably the one that will work best for me. With each revolution, we move one step forward!)

Heaven-Shattering Gurren Lagann, episode 1: "Pierce the Heavens with Your Drill"

The main characters of our story are the thoughtful drill-enthusiast Simon and brash delinquent Kamina, both of whom live in an underground village deep beneath the planet's surface. Kamina dreams of seeing the sky of the world above, but Simon is more or less content to dig holes all day, partially because it allows him to find buried treasure. As the series begins, in fact, he's just uncovered something quite strange: a little shining drill, the first of many to appear in this show.
Simon's life sucks on many levels, but fortunately, he has Kamina. Kamina apparently wants Simon to call him "aniki" (it's a sort of rough way of addressing your big bro), because they're brothers of the soul or something. He tells Simon that the drill necklace looks great, and then starts talking about his latest zany scheme to break through the ceiling of their town. It involves releasing the local livestock (known as "pig-moles") and making them stampede; they'll end up crashing into each other, and that'll form a pig-mole tower, kind of like how mountains form when tectonic plates collide. Simon reluctantly joins in, but the plan fails miserably, and Kamina's little gang is threatened with a lack of supper. Everyone repents except Kamina and Simon; Kamina still insists that reaching the surface world is a good thing, and Simon agrees. Of course he wants to stay with his aniki no matter what (even if jail is involved apparently), but the village leader won't let him, as Simon's job as a digger is more important. Kamina appreciates the gesture regardless. Without ceremony, he ends up getting beaten up and tossed into something resembling a jail. Simon, meanwhile, continues digging, and finds something very unusual: a large robot, buried deep under the earth. Naturally, Simon rushes off to break Kamina out of jail and tell him about this discovery.
Well, that's all well and good, but the two of them get caught by the village leader. It looks like Kamina's really in for it now.

Then holy crap, a giant robot comes falling through the ceiling. Everyone is terrified (Simon, in particular, is in top Rincewind form here)— except Kamina, who stands right there with his head held high and tells off the giant robot,armed with nothing more than a little sword and a smile. (Yeah, Kamina's about as GAR as they come.)
It then turns out that the robot brought a friend: a red-haired girl who seems to be trying to engage it in combat. (No, this isn't Shakugan no Shana or Kim Possible). She seems pretty unenthusiastic about Kamina and Simon tagging along with her, but winds up accompanying them as Simon digs around for that robot he found earlier. Apparently Simon expected that Kamina would want to use it, so imagine his surprise when Kamina decides that the robot is Simon's. And Kamina refuses to steal from his "brother", so Simon will have to pilot it and defeat the intruder (by the way, Kamina is perfectly fine with naming the robot without Simon's permission; he calls it "Lagann"). This goes, um, about as well as you'd expect, given Gainax's track record for quiet fourteen-year-old boys who are told to fight using robots.
But ten years have passed since the old Shinji shindig, and it shows. Simon does manage to grow just a speck of hotblood; he, Kamina, the marketable baby pig-mole "Boota", and the sniper girl "Yoko" defeat the enemy robot, then rocket up to the surface. Kamina and Simon see the expanse of the sky for the very first time in their lives. Yay! Everything's just ace, until Yoko has a fanservice moment, which causes the Lagann to start falling (uh, more on that next time). Lagann goes crashing to the earth, and to make matters worse, two more evil robots appear to challenge the merry trio.
But of course, it's cliffhanger time!

Steps Forward

I adore the little introductions Kamina makes for himself (the "when they talk about x, they're talking about me, Kamina-sama!" ones). At this point, my favourite part of the show is either them, Simon's shorts, or the colourwork on the sky.
The sky? Yeah. I love watching the sky in real life, so it's something I pay close attention to no matter what I'm watching or reading. I was floored by the scene where they get to the surface for the first time. The skies in this series are on par with AIR or a Makoto Shinkai film. It really has been ten years since the elevator scene from Evangelion. "With each revolution we move one step forward", indeed.

It's nice to see that Gainax believes in equal-opportunity fanservice. It's been way too long since Evangelion: Iron Maiden 2 (which probably had more fanservice of Shinji than Asuka, Rei, and Misato combined). Kamina never puts on a shirt and Simon can't seem to figure out how to button his jacket (plus he wears shorts all the time), while the outfits on Kittan's sisters and Yoko look like they'd get really cold. Compared to many other series, this is amazingly progressive. And at various different times, we've Yoko, Kiyō, Kinon, Kiyal, Darry, and Nia in terms of females, and Simon, Kamina, Kittan, Rossiu, Gimmy, Dayakka, and Leeron (?) in terms of males. That's an excellent variety of characters, and everyone's sure to find someone they can sympathise with/buy figurines and body pillows of. (I'll probably throw down a Gurren Lagann male character ranking one of these days, since I seem to be one of the only otome covering the series.) Here's hoping that Down the Road, there's still not a Leeron pillow...

(Indeed, would you believe that the only characters to appear even partially naked in Evangelion: Iron Maiden 2, ostensibly a gal-get game, were both male? Yeah, there were some CGs of Rei or Asuka in bloomers, but Shinji lost his shirt with, frankly, astonishing frequency, and there was plenty of Kaworu to go around too. There was also a Kaworu ending. Complete with a kiss scene and some rather, um, suggestive touching. Gainax either really loves or really hates its fans.)

(That's it! Gainax is tsundere for planet Earth! That explains, um, everything they've ever done.)

Here and Now

Quick theme review! The OP is a J-Rock song called Sky Blue Days, and the ED is (at this point) a more loud and driving piece called Underground. I'm quite fond of the opening (it's very hotblooded), but the ending does leave a bit to be desired. Ah well.

Simon=Win. He catches a lot of flak for being so much like Shinji, but I think he's adorable (when he isn't acting like a drug addict at least). Also: short pants.

Has anyone noticed that if Kamina were a little more fun-sized and a little more evil, he'd be a lot like Overlord Laharl (the hair colour, the eyes, the overwhelming self-confidence, and the red cape)? Maybe it's just me.

Yoko needs to wear more clothes—like, five or six more clothes. Seriously. Her outfit looks about as comfortable as the uniform from Gunbuster...or the plugsuits from Eva...or the maid dresses from He Is My Master...wait a second...

However, it's important to note that Kamina wears about the same amount of fabric as Yoko. I think this isn't as noticeable because all Kamina's clothes are concentrated on his lower body, whereas Yoko has a few other things that need coverage; ergo, Kamina appears to be more modest than Yoko because Yoko's clothes are spread out more unevenly.
Meanwhile, Simon, if anything, shows more skin than Yoko. He seems to have inherited Shinji's tendency to lose his shirt, since his cloak flies off at the end of this episode for no real reason other than fanservice. Simon: shorts and open jacket at most (oftentimes not even that much), Yoko: shorts, bikini top, and scarf, at least. But no one ever complains about Simon dressing like a stripper. Interesting.

When I first heard about this series, I assumed that Kamina and Simon were blood siblings, not just two guys who address each other by familial nicknames for vaguely homosexual reasons. (I was probably thinking that Gainax was stepping forward with the "Noriko and onee-sama" thing from Gunbuster.)
Unfortunately, due to that assumption and my dating sim/harem comedy background, I choked on the milkshake I was drinking when Simon said "we aren't siblings". "They aren't really related by blood" has been the excuse for Sister Princesses since the dawn of Kana -Little Sister. No, really, it has its own TV Trope (link contains bad language and suggestive content). Thus, when I hear "we're not related", the first place my mind goes is the gutter. I'm certain that Simon's line was not meant to be followed with "...so it's okay", but I was worried for a minute there. >_>

Am I the only one who's a little curious about the village chief? What's his name? What's his angle? How did he end up setting up a village full o' orphans? What happens to him after the ceiling breaks? When you consider the management of resources and agriculture, just being able to arrange and sustain an underground village like that is no small feat. We're supposed to look at the chief as a "bad guy", but that's just a knee-jerk reaction to how he treats Kamina. In truth, we don't have any information on his motives or thought process.

Down The Road

...Dating sim. This would be fun, since, like I said, there's a character for everyone in Gurren Lagann. There have been no announcements or plans to this effect, but if it comes out that Gainax is planning one, I won't be surprised. And in that event, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there will be yaoi endings available. (No matter how much time passes, they're still the same Gainax that gave us the Kaworu ending in Evangelion: Iron Maiden 2.) Maybe I'll just make a BL dōjin game and be done with it...

Next Time

More robots, more hotblood, and more suspicious subtext. Episode Two: "I Said I'm Gonna Pilot That Thing!"

Guide: 08/12/08 | Posted By: Tally Solleni | 0 comments | Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann