So like usual, this review will have spoilers. If you don't like spoilers, then quit reading reviews. Because it's kind of stupid to read someones opinion of an anime without going into detail of why they like it or don't like it. But that is neither here nor there. Let's jump right into this!
So Gurren Lagann. I've heard a lot about this and like usual, I ignored it BECAUSE people wouldn't shut up about it. It's kind of strange how the natural reaction to popularity is to go the other direction, it does this with music, video games, movies, tv shows... With enough popularity, it's no surprise people hate Obama!*, however work has been extremely boring and during my down time, I am able to pull up some Youtube and I decided, rather than search for something, I'll just watch this. And so I did... and I have to say, I can see why people enjoy this show.
The story centers about two people:
Kamina
This guy is easily what makes the anime interesting. He is the guy you want to be. He leads Team Gurren and managed to help break out of the underground caves with his little brother and in doing so hi-jacked an enemy mecha so he can fight back. Kamina pretty much embodies hope, bravery, and dreams. And by embody, I mean these three words describe him perfectly. That's all he does is dream, hope, and achieves these with his bravery. His entire philosophy is 'if there's a small chance of it happening, i'll make it happen' and despite all odds of failure, he will always succeed. He never runs from a fight, he never backs down a challenge, and he refuses to ever admit defeat. And of course, he has his catch phrases of "Just who the hell do you think I am?" and a few others... Now with all this said, you'd ASSUME with a character like this, there's no WAY there's any bad in this anime.
I'm going to say this once more. SPOILERS. <spoiler>
Well, he kinda dies 1/3 of the way through the anime. Something that... to me... ruined pretty much all motivation of continuing considering he pretty much held the entire show together
</spoiler>
Simon
Pronounced 'Sih'mohn', this is Kamina's younger brother. And my god is he just one big trope for half the anime. He's the "I don't have the courage" trope. He spends literally half the anime doubting himself, worrying, whining, and just plain getting in the way. It's because of Kamina's long morale boosting speeches does Simon ever do anything, and right after he'll just revert back to the way he was; just getting in the way. To sum him up in the first half, it would be "Big bro. I'm scared!", if it weren't for Kamina's incredible charisma. This kid, by himself, would make me turn the anime off. He was just that annoying.
<spoiler>
So after Kamina dies, Simon takes over as the lead of Team Gurren and also the main character of the anime. So, OF COURSE, he has to drop this entire whiny attitude, cause even the writers are aware that we're annoyed of this shit. So what do they do? Give us 4 more episodes of even whinier and more self-loathing shit where he wallows in self pity over Kamina's death. And FINALLY gets over it, with like... little reason other than just "Yea, ok, I'm over it."**
</spoiler>
7 years later, he's now Kamina's age. Which pretty much takes all those tropes we just had to deal with and throw them out the window thankfully, and he eventually grows into an interesting character! Truthfully, he almost feels like a completely new character the way he COMPLETELY reverted his entire personality after this. And let's just say, it's very nice to see this....
There are two others who the story centers around: Nia and Yoko. But to give an analysis on these two would just be silly because they're such underdeveloped characters that you really would be wasting your time. Honestly, you could just look at a picture of the two and know exactly what and who they are:
Yoko wears extremely revealing clothes and wields a huge gun. Her personality is pretty shallow and that's about it.
Nia is the sweetest person in the world and everyone loves her. She isn't knowledgeable, but this doesn't stop her from trying. And she has long hair....
To be fair, I liked Nia. She just came out of no where and kind of helped Simon grow as a character, and without her.... I feel Simon would have been completely empty and pointless to the anime. But Nia's character is just so underdeveloped that I have a hard time growing attached to her outside of just sympathy. And that's pretty disappointing considering I DO like her a lot.
< SPOILERS >
To sum up Gurren Lagann, it's pretty much just that story you had with your friend when you were 13 years old, playing with your action figures. You kept trying to make everything more interesting by one-upping everything your friend did. The entire story is just that, "You know what would be awesome is if the characters were like... these underground people and like.... they busted out!"
"Yeah! And then these people in big machines attack them. And they STEAL it from them! Like, almost effortlessly!"
"Oh my god, yeah. And then they combine these machines and become even stronger!"
"And then we take over an even BIGGER machine and it becomes their base!"
"AND THEN THE MOON IS ABOUT TO CRASH INTO THE PLANET AND THEY USE THOSE MACHINES TO STOP IT"
"Yeah and they stop the galaxy from invading with even BIGGER machines"
"YEAH AND THEN THEY BECOME AS BIG AS THE GALAXY AND FIGHT AGAINST THE OTHER MECHA AS BIG AS THE GALAXY AND THROW GALAXIES AT EACH OTHER"
< /SPOILER >
Gurren Lagann is pretty much an anime where ANYTHING can happen for almost no reason. It happens because it's really cool and we like cool. Like, mechas combining in ways that make no sense and healing themselves, mechas powering just from motivation, mechas growing in power just because you just happen to be more confident in yourself, growing technologically more advanced within mere days of just crawling out of the ground, etc. And this is pretty much why the reason the anime works. It WANTS to be a cliche. It WANTS to yell out these awesome names of Attacking Moves that are completely silly, but gets the job done.
This entire anime sounds like something a child thought up, and after episode 17, you start to notice that the tone of the anime grows too loud and it starts to go from Hope to Absurd and it goes downhill. I guess your suspense of disbelief stops ignoring the flaws and starts saying "Okay seriously, this is just going too far" and I have to say.... the ending of it all was just... terrible. And for an anime that honestly goes out of its way to be cliche, I'm not surprised.
All-in-all, I liked it but I definitely wouldn't rewatch it. If you happen to have the time, nothing to watch, and feel like wasting some time, I'd definitely put it on. It's pretty fun.
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