Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann 01
This Review Will Spoil The First Episode!
Okay, so this is my first anime blog, I hope you enjoy it. Just got home, I’m a bit sick, so I’m drinking some rum n coke while I post this, also for a fun time since its my birthday tomorrow. A few weeks ago I was browsing 4chan, I rarely visit it unless I’m super bored. On the wallpaper page I found a very awesome vector of an anime girl (wallpaper up there click on it to see it bigger). I’ve seen a vector of this character on an awesome forum I visit every day. I really like this wallpaper I found, it was vectored very good and the girl was quite the looker for an anime girl. So I decided to do some research and find out what anime she came from. The name of the character is Yoko Ritona, and she’s from a Mecha-Anime, Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. I started looking for subs and found a torrent with all 27 episodes, I downloaded the first three episodes to have a look and see if I may watch it all. I’m not really into Mecha-Anime’s, I’m into Harem-Anime, & so far I’m hooked to this one.
Click ‘Read More’ to read the rest of the review!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2auMj5PFzI&hl=en&fmt=18]
The anime is displayed in awesome 16:9 ratio, I personally love this ratio for viewing anything, it makes scenes more epic. The opening is incredible; it has all the aspects that make the anime more appealing. The song Sora Iro Days by Shoko Nakagawa fits somewhere between alternative rock and jpop, as a fan of both genre’s I can tell you this song is the perfect mix for the opening. The opening is filled with comic relief, and awesome mecha action, watch it for yourself and tell me if it’s not awesome.
The intro takes us to a battle scene in the future with a massive aircraft carrier looking mecha that seems to be outmatched by a lot of enemies in the sky. After that we meet the two main characters. Simon is a shy boy from an underground village, Giha village. This world is one where humans live in hiding underground, to expand their villages they need to dig, and Simon is one of those diggers. Simon during his digging discovers a drill that he later puts on his neck like a necklace. Simon is ridiculed by some girls from his village before he bumps into the second main character.
Kamina, is a confident guy, much older than Simon, he treats him like a brother and tells him not to worry about what girls say about him. Kamina sports an awesome blue tribal tattoo around his arms and his back, he’s a very cool character and you can see how Simon’s shy attitude is amplified when Kamina is on screen. Kamina is the leader of the “Gurren-Dan” or gurren clan, and he dreams of going to the surface, together with the clan and Simon.
For an underground village, its quite sophisticated, with electricity and boars for livestock. Kamina and the clan plan to break out to the surface with Simon’s drill riding the boars. The village chief stops them in their tracks, and places all of them on chains. After a lecture Simon and the other boys are let free Kamina still in chains keeps giving the chief crap about the surface he saw when he was a child. An earthquake then hits the village, these earthquakes apparently happen often in this world and everyone hides except for Kamina who insists they leave to the surface where they don’t have to deal with earthquakes. When the commotion is over Kamina is taken to a jail.
Now we find Simon digging, he finds what appears to be a face on the earth and his drill key necklace responds to his discovery. Ecstatic Simon goes to Kamina, and insists he come with him to see the face in the ground, Kamina breaks the cheap ropes of imprisonment and follows Simon. Before they get to their destination they are caught by the chief who claims to watch everything in the village and begins to hit Kamina rather violently with his katana’s sheath. Here is where things pick up big time with awesome action.
A giant mecha falls form the sky through the ground into the village in front of everyone. These mecha’s are called Ganmen. This ganmen is just sitting there for a bit when Kamina takes the katana form the chief and confronts it. It apparently can talk and talks back to Kamina, who seems to take an ego boost from this and only seems to make matters worse. Before the ganmen can attack we see a girl rappel down a rope from the surface wielding an enormous rifle. With some graceful moves and awesome cut scenes she lands between Kamina and the ganmen. Kamina seems to forget about the ganmen and chases after the girl flirting with her on her way to shelter. The ganmen attacks them where they stand; Simon saves her and Kamina. Simon by the way is just kinda in the background all the time, being scared and without too much dialogue. They proceed to crawl along some holes around the village; they come to the face Simon wanted to show Kamina earlier.
The face is a ganmen, smaller then the one that’s terrorizing the village, Kamina convinces Simon into controlling it and the three of them take off to where the ganmen is. Kamina comes up with a name for Simon’s ganmen: Lagann. With Lagann, Kamina’s enthusiasm and the girl with her rifle they battle with the ganmen. You have to watch the battle for yourself, its comic and exiting. In the end Simon’s Lagann spawns a drill and together with Kamina’s words of encouragement they break through the ganmen into the surface.
Here they spend some time in midair inside lagan, the girl finally introduces herself as Yoko, Kamina introduces himself and Simon. Here we get an aspect of anime that I love the most, the ecchi aspect. Boota a baby boar that appears quite a few times in the episode (I didn’t think much of him so I didn’t write about his parts, but apparently he’s an important character) makes his fourth formal appearance crawling out of Yoko’s breasts, lulz. Shortly after that they fall from the sky, Simon get control of Lagann before they hit they ground, they still fall landing Simon in spectacular front row seats to Yoko’s breasts.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYoV2zxPbuQ&hl=en&fmt=18]
The ending is quite good, it has only tow colors and is quite slower then the intro, I think it’s the prefect combination, a fast action packed intro and a slow black and white ending, good song too.
So basically I’m not a fan of Mecha-Anime’s because unlike Harem-Anime’s, there isn’t the same level of character development, and girls! and the first episode proves that to a certain degree. This is one action-packed, fast paced wild-ride, it’s the basis of its appeal. That’s the reason I’m not dropping it, apart from its main appeal, its awesome animation, exaggerated perspectives (wich make the animation look way good and on 16:9, awesome!), and the ecchi scenes keep me interested. Make sure to follow up here, as of today its been like 2 weeks since I finished it, so I’m gonna review the rest in three parts 
Credit goes to the guy who made that wallpaper up there, Skywardfire who got his hands on the credit-less Opening and Endings and uploaded them to youtube and Black-Order Fansubs.
now like I said up there I’m a bit buzzed edit: drunk now so if there are any errors in my spelling please don’t hesitate to point them out in a comment
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i loved gurren lagan, but the ending is so sad, i almost crying! because i was hoping nia and simon will have a happily ever after married!