It's Been Long Enough: Gurren Lagann
Mar. 27th, 2026 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerGoing back to an anime movie and on to two OVA series with thoughts of marking that certain length of time I’ve been watching anime involved “second looks at last.” Plenty of other titles fall in the same personal category of having thought it might be nice to see them again but never having quite got around to that; there seem worse problems even when it comes to watching anime. One particular show shouldered forward in my mind for this new year, but there were times when I thought first of sample episodes in a previous “personal anniversary,” then of compilation movies, and wondered if I could quite insist I’d altogether missed out on it after my first experience. Then, I pushed that quibble out of my mind. A certain part of Gurren Lagann, after all, could be taken as “put your worries behind you and just do things!”
Each subsequent title I’ve revisited in this little project has waited for a bit less time, but I suppose I’m still reaching back to a different era. It’s now more a matter of impressions than actual memory to conclude I’d become aware of Gurren Lagann through the excited comments of those watching it via fansubs; I suppose there’s also the evidence having made every effort back then to save the promotional images Gainax put on the front page of its web site. Instead of trying to catch up to those unauthorized online videos I’d resolved to wait for the official licensed release. I do know ADV Films had intended to bring it over here on DVD, just perhaps “getting its hands on a really impressive title again after a troubling dry spell.” The first disc had been scheduled. Then, though, the release was cancelled, one part of the unravelling of ADV. In advance of the larger disintegration and reconstitution of the anime industry over here, the license wound up with Bandai Entertainment. Even if they had an unfortunate reputation of their DVDs seldom meeting the exacting standards of fans over here, their first release of Gurren Lagann, divided into a mere three subtitled-only parts to make something available “after so long and before too long,” had been enough to leave me impressed with the series too.
Going forward it might be best to just discuss the series itself. I went back to it supposing I’d built up a bit more knowledge about previous works it references. The profusion of conical drills the titular giant robot Gurren Lagann uses as weapons were linked to the decades-earlier giant robot series Getter Robo; I’ve also seen comments about the “Getter Energy” collected and used to power the earlier robot wound up inspiring a certain kind of energy in the later series, but there I’m stuck wondering if really understanding that involves seeing Getter Robo’s sequels, which I haven’t. Beyond that, the protagonists of Gurren Lagann starting off by “breaking out from underground” could be seen as echoing the antagonists in Getter Robo, although that does have me thinking about certain complaints about “superheroes defending the status quo” and the potential argument that Gurren Lagann doesn’t include too many complications.
I have impressions a certain part of the general amusement back when Gurren Lagann first showed up could have been that it “pushed back against the ‘deconstruction’ of mecha anime following Neon Genesis Evangelion, and yet it’s from Gainax itself!” One obvious rejoinder is that the studio’s name is less important than the people working at it (with those people leaving afterwards to become Trigger), and it is possible to point back from Gurren Lagann to “Gunbuster 2” and FLCL before it. A part of me, too, is ready to suppose the later series included its own moments of protagonist despair as the stakes escalated ever further, and with Evangelion it was more a matter of that when its own protagonist managed to rally that just played into schemes playing out over his head... I do wonder about “post-Evangelion” series being just as much a matter of secrets being kept from protagonist and audience alike. The dizzying escalations in Gurren Lagann aren’t quite so much a matter of turning things into elaborate puzzles. So far as references to previous works go, two moments brought Gunbuster to mind.
Among the other references I now have an impression of better understanding were some linking the boisterous co-protagonist Kamina to Ashita no Joe/“Tomorrow’s Joe.” Kamina seemed a definite part of seeing Gurren Lagann as somehow “anti-Evangelion.” I have to admit to a certain suspicion of protagonists who come across as “intuitively right; everyone else can either fall in behind them or get out of the way.” (That might have come in part from Macross 7.) This time around I might have tried to make a big deal of every bit of nuance I could detect in Kamina, but I also have to admit I wondered about one bit of him seeming a bit dated now when he reacted with revolted threats to a joking come-on from the obviously queer member of the secondary cast. (Later on, though, a character introduced as an obvious rival for Kamina had pretty much the same reaction to pretty much the same thing...) I suppose I have to admit to also once more paying distinct attention to the female character Yoko, competent and capable but also in a skimpy outfit and very often posed to make an even bigger deal of that. Beyond the main characters, though, I did wonder about “technobarbarian chic” fading back; that does link the super robot action of Gurren Lagann to a certain thought I had about the “real robot” series Dougram. So far as more obvious references went, I did just happen to think of Akira during Yoko’s first appearance, and to how many other references have been made by other works to one moment from that movie.
A part of me now wonders if Gurren Lagann in fact came along in something like the nick of time for me; I can think of a few generally popular anime series just preceding it that I might have bounced off of. In supposing there were also some disdainful period comments that “anime was beyond saving” (just as a certain number of English-speaking fans who’d dove into anime during the 1980s were making a big deal of anime itself, and certainly not them, burning out in the early years of the 1990s), though, I did ponder in advance complaints about the very end of the series. In what might be taken as “let’s not have too happy an ending,” the personal goal of the main character during the final issues is rescued only to pass from the scene content. I’ve seen lamentations that the series had been all about “refusing to give up” before that, but I had got to thinking about “confronting mere antagonists” as opposed to “dealing with mortality itself.” If that means that Gurren Lagann isn’t “the last unchallenged mecha anime,” though, then maybe that just means I can accept my reactions here are my own.
Each subsequent title I’ve revisited in this little project has waited for a bit less time, but I suppose I’m still reaching back to a different era. It’s now more a matter of impressions than actual memory to conclude I’d become aware of Gurren Lagann through the excited comments of those watching it via fansubs; I suppose there’s also the evidence having made every effort back then to save the promotional images Gainax put on the front page of its web site. Instead of trying to catch up to those unauthorized online videos I’d resolved to wait for the official licensed release. I do know ADV Films had intended to bring it over here on DVD, just perhaps “getting its hands on a really impressive title again after a troubling dry spell.” The first disc had been scheduled. Then, though, the release was cancelled, one part of the unravelling of ADV. In advance of the larger disintegration and reconstitution of the anime industry over here, the license wound up with Bandai Entertainment. Even if they had an unfortunate reputation of their DVDs seldom meeting the exacting standards of fans over here, their first release of Gurren Lagann, divided into a mere three subtitled-only parts to make something available “after so long and before too long,” had been enough to leave me impressed with the series too.
Going forward it might be best to just discuss the series itself. I went back to it supposing I’d built up a bit more knowledge about previous works it references. The profusion of conical drills the titular giant robot Gurren Lagann uses as weapons were linked to the decades-earlier giant robot series Getter Robo; I’ve also seen comments about the “Getter Energy” collected and used to power the earlier robot wound up inspiring a certain kind of energy in the later series, but there I’m stuck wondering if really understanding that involves seeing Getter Robo’s sequels, which I haven’t. Beyond that, the protagonists of Gurren Lagann starting off by “breaking out from underground” could be seen as echoing the antagonists in Getter Robo, although that does have me thinking about certain complaints about “superheroes defending the status quo” and the potential argument that Gurren Lagann doesn’t include too many complications.
I have impressions a certain part of the general amusement back when Gurren Lagann first showed up could have been that it “pushed back against the ‘deconstruction’ of mecha anime following Neon Genesis Evangelion, and yet it’s from Gainax itself!” One obvious rejoinder is that the studio’s name is less important than the people working at it (with those people leaving afterwards to become Trigger), and it is possible to point back from Gurren Lagann to “Gunbuster 2” and FLCL before it. A part of me, too, is ready to suppose the later series included its own moments of protagonist despair as the stakes escalated ever further, and with Evangelion it was more a matter of that when its own protagonist managed to rally that just played into schemes playing out over his head... I do wonder about “post-Evangelion” series being just as much a matter of secrets being kept from protagonist and audience alike. The dizzying escalations in Gurren Lagann aren’t quite so much a matter of turning things into elaborate puzzles. So far as references to previous works go, two moments brought Gunbuster to mind.
Among the other references I now have an impression of better understanding were some linking the boisterous co-protagonist Kamina to Ashita no Joe/“Tomorrow’s Joe.” Kamina seemed a definite part of seeing Gurren Lagann as somehow “anti-Evangelion.” I have to admit to a certain suspicion of protagonists who come across as “intuitively right; everyone else can either fall in behind them or get out of the way.” (That might have come in part from Macross 7.) This time around I might have tried to make a big deal of every bit of nuance I could detect in Kamina, but I also have to admit I wondered about one bit of him seeming a bit dated now when he reacted with revolted threats to a joking come-on from the obviously queer member of the secondary cast. (Later on, though, a character introduced as an obvious rival for Kamina had pretty much the same reaction to pretty much the same thing...) I suppose I have to admit to also once more paying distinct attention to the female character Yoko, competent and capable but also in a skimpy outfit and very often posed to make an even bigger deal of that. Beyond the main characters, though, I did wonder about “technobarbarian chic” fading back; that does link the super robot action of Gurren Lagann to a certain thought I had about the “real robot” series Dougram. So far as more obvious references went, I did just happen to think of Akira during Yoko’s first appearance, and to how many other references have been made by other works to one moment from that movie.
A part of me now wonders if Gurren Lagann in fact came along in something like the nick of time for me; I can think of a few generally popular anime series just preceding it that I might have bounced off of. In supposing there were also some disdainful period comments that “anime was beyond saving” (just as a certain number of English-speaking fans who’d dove into anime during the 1980s were making a big deal of anime itself, and certainly not them, burning out in the early years of the 1990s), though, I did ponder in advance complaints about the very end of the series. In what might be taken as “let’s not have too happy an ending,” the personal goal of the main character during the final issues is rescued only to pass from the scene content. I’ve seen lamentations that the series had been all about “refusing to give up” before that, but I had got to thinking about “confronting mere antagonists” as opposed to “dealing with mortality itself.” If that means that Gurren Lagann isn’t “the last unchallenged mecha anime,” though, then maybe that just means I can accept my reactions here are my own.