(More) Thoughts on Gurren Lagann

A day or so, I received a text from my friend Dre. For those that don't know (read: all except for maybe five of you), Dre is the guy who suggested I check out Gurren Lagann in the first place, the "random college adventures" guy, the Kamina to my Simon. So, when he said that my initial thoughts were a bit pedestrian, I stopped and thought about it.

I agree, wholeheartedly. And not just because he made me GRIT THOSE TEETH! a few times to snap me out of a funk. See, while writing the TTGL review, I was finishing up Wolf's Rain. But, now that I'm not bawling my eyes out like some of my fellow otaku did at the end of Angel Beats (a series which was good, but disjointed at times), I can give a proper follow-up to the original post. Besides, what good is writing about an unforgettable series in a way that's, well, forgettable?



One thing that the original post lacked was Kamina.

Glasses make everything cooler.

Now, for those who don't know, Kamina is the bad-ass (I can say "bad-ass" and not get flagged, right, Adsense?) leader, a man of spirit! A paragon of total masculinity! The man of indomitable spirit. He's hot-blooded and has faced off with a giant robot with just a handgun and sword. He's also the character who spawned the Kamina Glasses meme (in that placing Kamina's visors on something epic makes it even more epic). For instance, see below.

Heisenberg: The Sequel

Kamina is possibly one of the greatest characters I've seen in anime. The creators of TTGL, they took every possible trope you could think of with a bad-ass big bro/guardian-type character, ramped them up to over 9000 and then still managed to give him a heart, a soul, a reason to not hate his character--and actually love the guy. Which, of course, makes his [spoiler alert] death in episode 8 all the more poignant. I mean, this is a guy who's taken a ragtag group of men and women, turned them into the fighting team which will eventually pierce the heavens against [spoiler alert] every big bad you can think of wrapped into one "straight-out-of-Shinji's-subconscious-in-the-last-two-NGE-episodes" nemesis, the Anti-Spiral,teaches his squad that "close to zero likelihood" and "a 100% chance" are pretty much the same thing (sidenote: probability, logic, and reality get warped, skewered, and thrown out the window many times in this series), and takes Simon from Shinji to Tetsuo in his ability to just cause sheer destruction to his enemies based on will alone. The guy has his own Wikiquote section. Simply put, he's one of the greatest characters I've seen in an anime. And he's not even the actual main character. That honor goes to the man who actually created the heavens with his drill, Simon.

Next up? Yoko. Now, Yoko is, in some ways, Kamina with breasts. That isn't meant to be sexist, as Kamina is one heck of an amazing character. So, to call Yoko "girl Kamina," while somewhat diluting her individual awesomeness, it also expands upon it. She also [spoiler alert] has the nasty habit of having the kiss of death with any man she starts to love, but that's another story entirely. Yoko is part Misaka, part Faye Valentine, and part Major Kusanagi. She uses a BFG in what amounts to her bra and panties (thank you Gainax) and helps Simon break out of his shell/funks/pseudo-Shinji states of infinite sadness. Seriously. I've been unable to find too many safe-for-work illustrations of Yoko. I mean, she also inspired a meme devoted to her "anime hotness," "When I'm Bored" (See, this is just how Team Dai-Gurren rolls. Epicness knows no limits, and awesomeness knows no boundaries). So, here's one in the style of Kill la Kill pitting her against Nia, Simon's girlfriend/catalyst-slash-messenger for the events at the end of the series.

Man, I love fan art.

Oh, wait. Never mind. Here's one.

And finally, what Gurren Lagann post will be complete without the wimp-turned-bad-ass who, because of Kamina, surpassed even Kamina, Simon. And even though Simon surpasses Kamina, it's because of Kamina that it happened. 

A power-up scene that goes to infinity and beyond

So, instead of blabbing on longer than I already have, just check out this scene from the series, the scene where Simon becomes...a man (spoilers if you haven't seen the series).

So, until next time, fight tha powah.

-Johnthan