[Anime] Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Studio: GAINAX
Episodes: 27
Orig. Air Date April 1, 2007
Genre: Action/Mecha

One of the more popular shows airing this season and not a single thread. Decided to finally make one. Delicious copy pasta for most of this!

STORY

Quote:

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann takes place in a fictional far future where human beings have been forced underground and thrive in isolated subterranean civilizations. These "villages" have no contact with the surface world nor other villages. Since frequent earthquakes damage infrastructure, the villages must constantly expand deeper into the earth — individuals designated to this task are known as "diggers".

Jiiha Village is the home of Simon, a fourteen year old digger who was orphaned when his parents were killed in an earthquake. He is respected by the village elder as the best of the diggers, but is ostracized by his peers. After discovering a special drill key deep in the ground, he is recruited by an eccentric fellow orphan named Kamina into his group, the "Gurren Brigade". Kamina dreams of the surface world, which he visited as a child with his father but had to return home because he was too weak to survive.

After a failed attempt at reaching the surface, Kamina is jailed by the elder and Simon resumes digging, only to discover "a big face" deep in his tunnel. As he excitedly fetches Kamina to show him the discovery, he is caught by the village elder, but Kamina's punishment is interrupted by the ceiling of Jiiha Village collapsing as an enormous robot falls into the cavern. A fourteen year old girl named Yoko appears and tries to fight the robot with a large rifle, but initially cannot do much. Simon takes Kamina and Yoko to the "big face" he found earlier and discovers that the small drill key can be used to activate the small robot which he uses to end up destroying the much larger robot and effectively break through to the surface.

It is on the surface that Simon and Kamina discover that there are more large robots known as Gunmen piloted by "Beastmen" that terrorize the surface dwellers during the day. Simon and Kamina help Yoko and her village destroy three more Gunmen and Kamina takes one for himself, naming it Gurren. Eventually, Simon and Kamina decide that they will go on a journey to end the constant struggle between Beastmen and humans. Simon and Kamina are initially accompanied by Yoko and a mechanic from Yoko's village named Leeron as they head out to find the Beastmen's Human Eradication Army main head-quarters.

Major Characters
Simon

Simon is a fourteen year old (though Gainax supposedly removed character ages from the official site, so this may be moot) digger from Jiiha village. One day, he finds a mysterious drill-shaped item, which is later revealed to be the key for a head-shaped robot he dug up some time earlier. With the help of the robot, Kamina, and Yoko, he fights off a Gunmen who broke into the village. While finishing the Gunmen off with a drill-like attack, they reach the surface world.

Kamina

Kamina is a young man from Jiiha village who dreams of leaving the village and go to the surface, which he saw as a kid. He's very passionate about his goals, expressing his wishes through energetic speeches, which seems to affect all those who hear him. He convinces Simon to help him with his plan to drill through the roof of the village and get to the world above, but the plan failed and he was put in prison. He left the village shortly thereafter with the help of Simon and a young girl named Yoko, as a result of fighting a Gunmen, who broke into the village from the surface

Yoko

Yoko is a girl from Jiiha's neighboring village Ritona, who had been chasing the Gunmen which entered Jiiha village. She wields an extensive range of firearms and has previous experience fighting Gunmen. She uses her marksmanship from afar to assist Kamina and Simon, while they pilot their gunmens. Although she is of the same age group as Simon, she is mature and one of the most rational of the group.

Viral

A Beastman and member of the Human Eradication Army. HOT-BLOODED and quickly becomes Kamina's 'rival' in the series.

Nia

SO MOE, I'M GONNA DIE. Nia is a mysterious young girl found sleeping in a capsule in the middle of a dump site by Simon. She has had no prior contact with humans except her father. She is very curious, pure and innocent, because of growing up sheltered in a peaceful environment, away from all the battles occurring in the outside world. During her travels with the Gurren Brigade, she discovers the harsh reality of the world and develops a strong empathy towards Simon.

MECHA
Ganmen

The type of mecha used in the series. The name itself as a whole means "face" and can be broken down into "gun" and "man" — unsurprisingly, the mecha themselves are centered around faces. Gunmen sport a variety of weaponry — the more primitive models only use large clubs or bare hands, while more advanced ones use cannons or beam weapons. Gunmen are apparently powered by "fighting spirit", and prior to the events in the anime none were piloted by human beings.

Lagann

- Simon's personal Ganman. Significantly smaller than most, it's pretty powerful in it's own right. Capable of forming small drills on it's forearms or combining both legs to form a larger, stronger one. This mech also features the ability to 'hack' into other Gunmen by using it's 'leg-drills,' taking over either aspects of the 'victim' or absorbing it's likeness into itself.

Gurren

Piloted by Kamina. Bulky, slow, and cumbersome, but stronger than the Lagann in offensive capabilities. The big, black sunglasses were added to the Gunman per Kamina's wishes.

Gurren-Lagann

As the name implies, the combination of Gurren and Lagann. Lagann literally drills into Gurren and the two form a far more powerful and formidable Gunman, christened Gurren-Lagann by Kamina during its first battle. It's trademark attack is the 'Giga Drill Breaker,' among other ab-libbed, spur of the moment moves.

Enki

Viral's advanced Gunman, pictured here without it's helmet. One of the few mechs to actually use ammunition, this one is a swift fighter wielding two katana-like blades, a sickle-like head projectile, and a headpiece that fires medium-ranged particle beams. So much win.

My Thoughts
I don't like mecha anime much. I'll watch it every now and then if I'm bored but I never actually dedicate myself to a series. Gurren-Lagann's the first time in years that I've thoroughly enjoyed a mecha anime. The fight scenes are well-choreographed and so incredibly over-the-top that it's hard to take your eyes off of them. Animation is top-notch stuff, though may turn a few viewers off. It's kind of wacky, as while the plot gets darker along the way, the show seems to naturally mix comedy into it's more serious moments often. There are several exceptions when shit hits the fan and comedy is completely left on the sidelines, but all-in-all Gainax somehow makes it work.

That said, I'm also not a big fan of Gainax. Evangelion pissed me off and I hate that series with a passion. I've watched a few episodes of Gunbuster 2 and liked it (which is interesting, considering the multiple nods to previous Gainax works included in GL), but as a whole the studio's done little to keep my attention.

The series is currently up to episode 18, but it was recently licensed by ADV. A few fansubbers received 'cease and desist' letters from the publishing group, and thus most groups dropped the series. The only ones who seem unnerved by the warnings are [anon] and BSS. RAWs are typically released Saturday evening or Sunday morning, with soft-subs in the latter's evening or Monday. Hardsubs are usually on/off and a little bit more difficult to come by, but you can always check out veoh.com. People there tend to upload full episodes to view, ala Youfail.

Opening - Sorairo Days by Nakagawa Shouko

YouTube Video

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Ending- Underground by High Voltage

YouTube Video

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Direct Downloads

Spoiler:

Episode 1, ORDER subs
Episode 2, ORDER subs
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Episode 5, ORDER subs
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Episode 7, ORDER subs
Episode 8, ORDER subs
Episode 9, ORDER subs
Episode 10, ORDER subs
Episode 11, ANON subs
Episode 12, ANON subs

By the way, if you're an avid EBAUMSWORLDER don't visit f/a/ilname Saturday or Sunday, as you'll get spoiled out of your minds.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Manly tears.

As I was saying in chat, I actually got teary-eyed. I haven't felt like that since David the fucking Gnome died. Since Optimus Prime died. Cartoons and most media just don't have the same kind of affect they had on me when I was a little kid. Fucking awesome directing, animation, and writing in this episode.

Spoiler:

It's funny though; Kittan was my least favorite character. However, over the last six or seven eps he's been given time to develop more than just 'Kamina's shadow.'

Quite possibly one of my all-time favorite deaths right there. Everything was perfect.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The OST is scheduled for an October 3 release.

Hopefully somebody rips it by then. All I really want is Viral's Theme and 'Eye of the Storm.'

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

Spoiler:

Yeah, it's been pointed out for a while now that in the intro there was a mech that dwarfed CGGL and had mouths everywhere. And now we get the episode preview and there we see it, hellish mouths (one large one for the torso, kind of like the Lasengan that Genome piloted). I'll see if I can upload my picture of it.

Here it is, apparently it has a flaming cape or fire coming out of it. Either way, it looks wild and in the preview it also shows it uses Yoko's rifle which lends some credence to the idea that it might be the specialties of Yoko+Attenborough+Gimmy+Darry along with Simon.

IT FIRES NONOS!

Holy shit.

I saw the top-most image in the previews and it was posted a few times on /m/, but I never saw the fully assembled piece. That's just ridiculously awesome and insane, right there.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

So episode 27 aired today. Gurren Lagann's come to an end.

And I came so many times, but manly, MANLY tears were shed at the end.

...I cried like a bitch.

I was speaking idiomatically.

The ending was fine. Simon did would he set out to do and now it's up to the rest of humanity to guide themselves. While it's still a bittersweet ending, it left enough open to provide room for a possible OVA. I honestly hope they don't bring about a sequel television series.

The only things that I'm looking forward to now are a possible Lord Genome OVA or a GARLock one with Simon hopelessly fighting off billions of enemies at once.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Nikopol, "Libera Me" from Hell, and To Hell with Gattai! are the tracks I've played the most so far. Needless to say, Viral's theme is my favorite out of the three, but the soundtrack as a whole is pretty damn good.

I heard there was an OVA in the works, but not much information other than that was hinted at on a few anime news sites.

FELIPE NO