Anime Analyze: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Dear God, this anime is insane.  I don't mean insane in the awesome sense, I mean insane as in nothing makes sense through almost the entire show.  If you people want a show that makes sense and has the physics of nature follow normal patterns then do not watch this show! However, if you have a more open mind and are willing to bend it in a way that destroys all knowledge as we know it, then feel free to watch it.  This is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, an anime series that was released back in April of 2007 by studio Gainax. With 27 episodes running the average 24 min episode length, it is loved by many and yet pondered over by more than that. It also has won a couple of awards including 7th annual Tokyo's Anime Award in 2008 as well as Excellence Prize at Japan Media Arts Festival in 2007. I had so many people tell me to watch this show that I just had to go into it to see what was up.  With the opening called "Sorairo Days" by Shoko Nakagawa, we head into Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.  

Main Protagonists (from Left to Right) Kamina, Simon,
and Yoko with Gurren Lagann behind

The story begins focusing on a boy named Simon who is a child working as a tunnel digger in a village underground with his pet pig-mole Boota.  It is told that he must keep digging tunnels so that the village can get bigger.  Through his digging he finds a small Mech which he calls Lagann.  Simon has a friend named Kamina however, that believes that this is not the only life for them and that there is something on the surface that can bring them a better life, so through constant trouble making and getting yelled at they give up on their hope to see the surface......till a giant robot crashes through the ceiling and into the village.  What follows the robot is a human girl named Yoko wearing scantily clad clothing and wielding a rifle the length of her body. After Yoko, Kamina, and Simon defeat this robot with the help of Lagann they are told that there is a war on the surface between the humans and the beastmen who are humanoid creatures who are mixed together with animals giving them superhuman traits.  Even though biologically the beastmen are better at fighting, they fight in giant mechs called gunmen that the humans fight a losing battle against constantly.

Simon finding the core drill, the "key" to using
Lagann and Spiral Power 

After Yoko takes Simon and Kamina to the surface, they see for themselves that the surface is mostly a barren wasteland around where there village was and they also take part in a fight against some gunmen which they help defeat with Lagann.  As they meet more surface people they meet an implied homo named Leeron and other main characters who stick around through most of the series.  After another encounter with the Gunmen, Kamina hijacks one of them and takes it over to be able to fight the other Gunmen better, because on the surface, the people had never..thought...to....take.....them......for.......themselves...............

what?

Seriously? The people on the surface never thought to use the gunmen themselves? They have been fighting these things for as long as they can remember, have seen that they are machines piloted by human sized people, and they never thought to use them themselves!! You have got to be kidding me!!! How stupid did the human race have to be to never think to do this?!?!? Wow, this is just stupid, and for those who are reading this, then just gonna warn you it gets even more ridiculous than this farther in, so if you don't want more mental confusion I would turn back now.

So, as more people find out that you can take over Gunmen to use for themselves, Kamina and Simon figure out that with the extendable drill that comes out of the bottom of Lagann, they can shove Lagann into the top of Gurren and they merge to become one robot....this makes no sense and they say that it is hacking but it does not work as a reason for how this works, ultimately even if you do question this, you give up after the like 10th time it happens.  As their team gets bigger (which is called Team Gurren) they get more and more people to their cause and eventually get enough people to challenge the Beastmen government on Earth.  As they make their way towards the capital they fight numerous enemies, including generals from the Beastmen sent to stop them, including one that has a giant walking Gunmen that works like a battleship, but it walks, and wouldn't you know it, Lagann eventually "hacks" that too and so they take it for themselves, again no reason why.


As they go, unfortunately one of the main characters die! Yes, within the first 10 episodes one of the key characters gets knocked off. Although they use it very well with the plot having his legacy be one of the key elements in the story which worked.  They then constantly move towards the capital, and on the way find Nia a daughter of the King of the Beastmen (who is human, again never explained), and he decides to exile her to die because he was bored with her.  So they bring her along and she "fights" with them, and creates kind of a love interest with Simon even though he is only like 14. I don't know, at this point all one can say is, "well it's just Gurren Lagann".

The symbol for Team Gurren 

Well they fight the King and eventually defeat him and take Earth back for the humans, no surprise there.  That was the first arc of the show and takes up about half of the episodes of the series with another arc following to finish it off.  However, I will keep the spoilers to a minimum on that and just say that if you thought the physics were weird in the first half of the show, then you haven't seen anything compared to whats coming.  The second half blows science out of the water and almost gives up when it comes to keeping things in the realm of "normal" science.  While some of you are thinking that its just because its fantasy and that I should let it go, well go away, because this show doesn't even use something that makes sense, even in a fantasy world and you give up asking about it around episode 20.  Here is a hint, the robots get as big as Galaxies.  Yep its that bad and they use other galaxies as weapons.  Don't even bother asking about it because you will not get an answer.  None.  Not one in the show.

All ridiculousness aside, there are other aspects of the show that need to be addressed.  Such as the story.  Despite the stranger than life premise, the story holds up fairly well with the team relying on the memory of a fallen friend to get them through tough times and using their own willpower to encourage them to carry them towards their goal and it works great.

The Animation in this show was great as well, the style of it not being something that you would see in everyday anime today, but it is so individualized that it can't work better enough than what it had.  With the genre of the story that it was working with, the animation was perfect.

Now one thing worth mentioning in this review is the fight scenes.  Though the reasons for most of the battles being won sucked in their relevancy,  the scenes themselves were freakin' sweet.  The fast paced feel of it all worked amazingly with the animation and as a whole helped the story too.

This show, despite its crazyness was a joy to watch.  Everything made no sense and with this show, that is ok and other people seem to think the same thing.  This show is a must watch and cannot be skipped over despite the fact that it makes no sense.  I would give it a 9.5 because of everything else besides the premise.

That is all I have when it comes to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, it was a great show and I loved watching it.  I will be back with more reviews coming up soon. Thanks for reading.

Final Rating: 9.5/10
Total Episodes: 27
RVF: Japanese Dub with English sub, however after you get through the first arc the English dub gets better, at the beginning it sucked.
MRS: for Japanese dub I couldn't find a reliable site and I had to keep switching all the time, however English dub has www.nwanime.com as well as Netflix