Before I begin this shamozzle, I'd like to apologise beforehand that I didn't deliver on my word that I'd put out 5 pieces of content in a week. Turns out I'm a little less caring about my blog than I am most other things, and I thought I could keep the pace. For whatever reason I can't ,so it wasn't a week of delicious media. Instead, it'll be more like a 3 week-er. Not that anyone cares or listens. Anyway.
Today I'm going to talk about my thoughts on Gurren Lagann (Tenga Toppen Gurren Lagann, to use the full name of the series). To get it out of the way, GL is the current darling child of Gainax (known probably most popularly by their first series, Neon Genesis Evangelion), not to mention without doubt the biggest anime series of 2007, with the DVDs coming out as we speak for the English Dubbed world outside Japan. With such things being thrown around not only major anime news syndicates and forums, but /a/ also, I felt it was time to dig my feet into the murky waters of the genre of mecha shows. Going by my previous sentence, please understand that I do not traditionally enjoy Mecha shows and for 3 reasons -
1) they're horribly formulaic (yes this IS coming from someone who enjoys slice of life shows, but hey, I'm not claiming I'm not hypocritical)
2) There is a tendency for Mecha's to throw a badly veiled pretenses that is almost always some religious theme or Yu-gi-oh esque "you can change the world" crap that appeals to even the children
3) Two Words - Shinji Ikari. Shinji fucking Ikari.
Indeed my perceptions were to be blown away. Gurren Lagann is the story of Simon (pronounced she-mohn for integrity of Japanese phonetics) and his.. mecha. There's no way to avoid it, but like a gigantic elephant, it's a mecha show, and largely the mechas do take center stage when their time comes. Basically the story goes as this -
The world as we know it no longer exists. long ago, humanity forced underground to survive, the surface forgotten.Simon is a driller, drills holes to extend his village's size. His was a meager piece in life, until one day his best friend cum brother Kamina (who is, for the record, QUITE awesome and epic) hatches a crazy plot to head for the surface. The plot fails but then suddenly the roof opens up and a gigantic robotic head falls through. While this was happening, Simoun discovers a glowing head in one of his drillings. He, Kamina and the newly revealed hot gun babe Yoko go on a great adventure that sets it's sights on the impossible, and to kick reason to the kerb. On these notes, Gurren Lagann delivers.The overall story for the two released seasons so far can be broken into two arcs of story: Kamina and Nia. The Kamina arc is a display of Simon's progress from timid nobody to a super-power-toppling hero whom is modelled after the arc's namesake, Where the Nia arc is more of Simon understanding his own destiny beyond his own being (it's a bit more deeper than the first arc, so all you DEEP fans will just lap it up)... also BIG ROBOTS.
The show's progress is entirely linear. While some could perceive this as a bad thing and believe me there are detractors, I don't see it as so much. The show finds a pace, sticks to it and doesn't need that shitty filler that made Ergo Proxy go from quite majorly NEAT to filler 1/2.
Now onto the gears and bolts.
The Character portrayal in the show is excellent, from excellent designs and bold poses with a style to match, to excellent voice acting. It all comes together as a piece of excellent quality stuff. There are a couple of episodes I would like to add that did suffer from QUALITY (QUALITY being the actual absence of it), particularly I think it was ep 6 or 7, which looked very much like they very done by the replacement art department. Otherwise, Bold animation, bold colours, bolt art period. Kinda a reoccurring theme here. The show is bold.
Actually, you know what? That's what I like about it- it's bold, it holds no punches, makes all the right moves and doesn't like to settle with mild or deep. It is so successful at being itself, it's amazing. It is just awesome. Now for a bit of a outside view .
My former sidekick in crime, a Jim lad, when presented with the show gave some of the most interesting comments -
"No real plot"
"weak overall"
"not really that good"
After a long and lengthy conversation to try and convince him that he's not looking at a show that is Suzuka, where everything is pretentious and attempts to be realistic (where Gurren clearly isn't trying to be pretentious or realistic). Then I realised that he's part right.
The plot isn't something that is given to you as a bundle package at the start which only grows a little.. it's more simple than that. They give you a small plot that expands almost exponentially as the show continues. It's handy because the show isn't one that's targeted at literary geniuses, so getting all deep too early would have killed it. Anyway, who's he to talk about plot when he writes fantasy fiction about a guy with who's a part dragon,part vampire, part ranger mage who's got a serious amnesia plot device, and some sidekicks with names that do not consistently follow any one rule of pronunciation consistently. He got a whack over the head for pretending to be a lit fag, and I moved on to ignoring him, all is better. Moving on.
The show is a serious positive energy feed loop that doesn't step back from the plate at all. Holds no bars for plot and style, and let's face it, the end Battle is just too goddamn awesome. Using Galaxies as THROWING WEAPONS in a MECH THE SIZE OF A REALLY BIG GALAXY, POWERED BY HUMAN SPIRIT. How is that not awesome?
Overall, I loved the show, and I'm pretty happy to give this thing a definite recommendation. If I HAD to give it a score, it'd be like 9.5 (-0.5 for the crappy quality episode), however, I won't give it 9.5. Moot, in all his absolute corrupting wisdom, decided to stick up some Gurren Lagann in /b/ recently, which resulted in every OTHER board in 4chan flooded by shit-munchers, and thus entering /b/ and the internet's memeflow. So, I will give it MINUS 9.5 because moot took it and ruined it. What a dick.
Today I'm going to talk about my thoughts on Gurren Lagann (Tenga Toppen Gurren Lagann, to use the full name of the series). To get it out of the way, GL is the current darling child of Gainax (known probably most popularly by their first series, Neon Genesis Evangelion), not to mention without doubt the biggest anime series of 2007, with the DVDs coming out as we speak for the English Dubbed world outside Japan. With such things being thrown around not only major anime news syndicates and forums, but /a/ also, I felt it was time to dig my feet into the murky waters of the genre of mecha shows. Going by my previous sentence, please understand that I do not traditionally enjoy Mecha shows and for 3 reasons -
1) they're horribly formulaic (yes this IS coming from someone who enjoys slice of life shows, but hey, I'm not claiming I'm not hypocritical)
2) There is a tendency for Mecha's to throw a badly veiled pretenses that is almost always some religious theme or Yu-gi-oh esque "you can change the world" crap that appeals to even the children
3) Two Words - Shinji Ikari. Shinji fucking Ikari.
Indeed my perceptions were to be blown away. Gurren Lagann is the story of Simon (pronounced she-mohn for integrity of Japanese phonetics) and his.. mecha. There's no way to avoid it, but like a gigantic elephant, it's a mecha show, and largely the mechas do take center stage when their time comes. Basically the story goes as this -
The world as we know it no longer exists. long ago, humanity forced underground to survive, the surface forgotten.Simon is a driller, drills holes to extend his village's size. His was a meager piece in life, until one day his best friend cum brother Kamina (who is, for the record, QUITE awesome and epic) hatches a crazy plot to head for the surface. The plot fails but then suddenly the roof opens up and a gigantic robotic head falls through. While this was happening, Simoun discovers a glowing head in one of his drillings. He, Kamina and the newly revealed hot gun babe Yoko go on a great adventure that sets it's sights on the impossible, and to kick reason to the kerb. On these notes, Gurren Lagann delivers.The overall story for the two released seasons so far can be broken into two arcs of story: Kamina and Nia. The Kamina arc is a display of Simon's progress from timid nobody to a super-power-toppling hero whom is modelled after the arc's namesake, Where the Nia arc is more of Simon understanding his own destiny beyond his own being (it's a bit more deeper than the first arc, so all you DEEP fans will just lap it up)... also BIG ROBOTS.
The show's progress is entirely linear. While some could perceive this as a bad thing and believe me there are detractors, I don't see it as so much. The show finds a pace, sticks to it and doesn't need that shitty filler that made Ergo Proxy go from quite majorly NEAT to filler 1/2.
Now onto the gears and bolts.
The Character portrayal in the show is excellent, from excellent designs and bold poses with a style to match, to excellent voice acting. It all comes together as a piece of excellent quality stuff. There are a couple of episodes I would like to add that did suffer from QUALITY (QUALITY being the actual absence of it), particularly I think it was ep 6 or 7, which looked very much like they very done by the replacement art department. Otherwise, Bold animation, bold colours, bolt art period. Kinda a reoccurring theme here. The show is bold.
Actually, you know what? That's what I like about it- it's bold, it holds no punches, makes all the right moves and doesn't like to settle with mild or deep. It is so successful at being itself, it's amazing. It is just awesome. Now for a bit of a outside view .
My former sidekick in crime, a Jim lad, when presented with the show gave some of the most interesting comments -
"No real plot"
"weak overall"
"not really that good"
After a long and lengthy conversation to try and convince him that he's not looking at a show that is Suzuka, where everything is pretentious and attempts to be realistic (where Gurren clearly isn't trying to be pretentious or realistic). Then I realised that he's part right.
The plot isn't something that is given to you as a bundle package at the start which only grows a little.. it's more simple than that. They give you a small plot that expands almost exponentially as the show continues. It's handy because the show isn't one that's targeted at literary geniuses, so getting all deep too early would have killed it. Anyway, who's he to talk about plot when he writes fantasy fiction about a guy with who's a part dragon,part vampire, part ranger mage who's got a serious amnesia plot device, and some sidekicks with names that do not consistently follow any one rule of pronunciation consistently. He got a whack over the head for pretending to be a lit fag, and I moved on to ignoring him, all is better. Moving on.
The show is a serious positive energy feed loop that doesn't step back from the plate at all. Holds no bars for plot and style, and let's face it, the end Battle is just too goddamn awesome. Using Galaxies as THROWING WEAPONS in a MECH THE SIZE OF A REALLY BIG GALAXY, POWERED BY HUMAN SPIRIT. How is that not awesome?
Overall, I loved the show, and I'm pretty happy to give this thing a definite recommendation. If I HAD to give it a score, it'd be like 9.5 (-0.5 for the crappy quality episode), however, I won't give it 9.5. Moot, in all his absolute corrupting wisdom, decided to stick up some Gurren Lagann in /b/ recently, which resulted in every OTHER board in 4chan flooded by shit-munchers, and thus entering /b/ and the internet's memeflow. So, I will give it MINUS 9.5 because moot took it and ruined it. What a dick.
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