[Gurren Lagann Spoilers] In His Memory

Spoilers for TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN after the jump!

“Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!”– Kamina

No, this entry isn’t going to be some sappy tribute to a dead cartoon character. I’m already doing a bit of fanart which fits that bill.

For those of you who may not know, right when I saw the first piece of promotional art for Gurren Lagann, I immediately fell in love with it. I honestly didn’t know what the fuck it would be it about, but I knew it would be awesome. Why? Because it had a robot with two goddamn heads (one with sunglasses), a chick wearing almost nothing, a guy with the coolest sunglasses in the world and a wild eyed youth; all set a against a weird colourful space background with a logo made of FIRE on top of it all. Fast forward about a year to when episode 1 airs, and the show fails to disappoint with its opening number. We’re about nine weeks after that now, and the show is still undoubtedly my best of the season. It’s seen a lot of changes over these nine weeks, one very significant change happening in episode 8, but one thing remains the same– its sense of adventure.

Gurren Lagann is an epic. It’s a story of a boy who will grow into a man through various hardships. It’s the story of a group of people on a quest… an adventure to save humanity. It has what I feel anime has been lacking lately– the attitude of taking everything that comes at you by the balls then riding it like a little bitch while spanking its ass. The show does have its fair share of quiet moments, but I feel this idea is carried subtly throughout, even if it’s just in the style of animation or the character design. That wild-eyed adventure seeking passion is always there. I think Coyote Ragtime Show tried to do this but failed on various counts. It’s because UFOtable was just too moe to tackle something awesome and manly. And they didn’t know how to pace or write a story, and it basically turned into a bunch of comedians being a chased by some boring evil woman. Gurren Lagann however is different. I think it has a solid plan to it. The opening clip of episode 1 and episode 8 convinced me of this. It knows where its going, and hopefully it’ll continue to be awesome doing so.

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