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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Final Thoughts: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Having watched so many anime series ever since starting this blog, this is the first time that I actually bothered to write a blog entry totally dedicated to a single anime.

For the uninitiated, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a Sci-Fi/Action Adventure/Mecha anime telling the story of Simon, a boy who has spent much of his life digging in an effort to expand his underground village and Kamina, who believes that a land exists above ground. One day, Simon finds a small, shiny drill and a mysterious robot when the ceiling collapses and a giant robot appears from the ground above, with a girl fighting it. All these trigger a series of events which eventually lead Simon to fight to save the universe.

Initially, when it was first shown in the month of April 2007, I had missed it because I was too busy with my other shows, Hayate no Gotoku, Romeo X Juliet and Lovely Complex (The latter two I eventually dropped because I lost interest). I came across it again at the end of 2007 in Random Curiosity's 'Best Anime of 2007' blog entry. I was intrigued by what he said - "the scope just kept getting bigger and bigger, up to the point where they were fighting for the entire universe. I think that qualifies this series as being quite epic." Seeing that we both have similar tastes in Anime, I decided to try out this series. Downloading Black-Order's version of the fansub, I started watching it during one of my weekend duties in camp. Despite the somewhat far-fetched (though humorous) situations that some of the characters are put in, I was impressed by how well they scripted and paced the story, together with the overall animation quality.

Most Mecha shows tend to either be too focused on the mecha themselves (Gundam SEED series) or have a over complicated plot (Evangelion TV series). Basically, it either had no depth or had too much depth. Shows like Gurren Lagann (Eureka seveN deserves a mention too...) manages to balance both the mecha action and plot. It keeps the mecha action flowing while having a plot which helps develop the characters, giving them much needed depth, beyond your typical idealistic or angsty robot pilot trying to keep world peace and/or save his friends and family. It even manages to throw in a really unexpected plot twist in the second half.

In conclusion, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann really goes beyond the Mecha, the likeable underdog characters and its great animation quality (despite having its fair share of detractors and controversy, read here), because most importantly, its an anime where you'll cheer them when they fight, laugh when they laugh and cry when they cry. Its an anime with HEART.

Rating: 6 out of 5 stars

Designed and coded by CWYX.