Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Pierce The Heavens With Your Drill!
- Mecha, Boobs and Rockstar Gunglasses
OP
Striking animation, character close ups and mecha action set to a Jrock song (Sorairo Days by Shoko Nakagawa) give an appropriately fast and action packed starter to the series. The crisp visual style of this show lends to the high speed panning that’s constantly employed throughout this opening. The jrock song fits the action well and is really quite catchy. Overall I really like this OP, even if it is the animation style rather than the arrangement of scenes and music that set it apart from similar shows.
Introduction
The episode starts with the captain of what appears to be a giant spaceship/mecha using some sort of super weapon against seemingly insurmountable odds. None of this is explained but I am sure it has some significance to the show.
Next we are introduced to the main character of the show, Simon (or Shimon). Simon is a digger, that is, he digs wholes. This wouldn’t be very interesting apart from the fact that he has a large drill which he uses to dig wholes much faster than his fellow diggers, who appear to use a spade. At this point I should probably mention that Simon finds a small artifact that looks like a drill which he wears as on a necklace. Anyway, these people live in an underground city with no access to the surface world, in fact the city elder says that no such place exists. Enter Kamina the young hot head who claims to have been to the surface with his father and who always seems to be causing trouble. For some reason Kamina takes a shine to Simon and decides to take him along in his crusade to reach the surface. Well, after being foiled once and Simon breaking Kamina out of prison they are caught once more. It’s at this time that a violent earthquake strikes and causes everyone to run for cover, forgetting about the escapees. It turns out that it’s not at earthquake at all, it is in fact a giant wolf mecha (the mecha designs seem to stem around massive heads) which bursts through the ceiling of the city and starts going berserk. Naturally Kamina is delighted about this, the existence of the surface world has been proven! As Kamina proceeds to trash talk the wolf mecha, while Simon cowers, a buxom young woman para-sails through the roof and starts blasting the wolf mecha with a sniper rifle come rail gun.
At this point the show does a little nuts. As Kamina admires the young woman’s assets they play a cat and mouse game of guerrilla warfare against the hulking intruder. The young woman refers to the mecha as Ganmen, so i’ll use that in place of mecha till I learn otherwise. Simon rescues them and takes them to a huge face which he discovered while drilling, Simon tells Kamina to pilot it but Kamina insists that its Simon’s destiny to pilot it! After much messing about Simon gets the Ganmen working, the other two jump on and they roll through the tunnel and straight in front of the Wolf Ganmen. Oh, Kamina also names Simon’s Ganmen as Lagann, I’m not sure why. A rather awkward battle ensues where Lagann gets smashed in to a wall while Kamina and the young woman evade the Wolfs giant club, which it eventually knocks itself out with. Simon takes this opportunity to go on the offensive, Lagann instinctively seals the three inside (they are squashed together) and drills come out of its hands and head. Lagann powers up for a final attack and hits the wolf Ganmen with it’s full power, smashing through the solid earth until they burst out to the surface. The wolf Ganmen breaks in to hundreds of pieces and they go soaring in to the sky, we get a panoramic look at the landscape outside which is truly breathtaking.
As they fall back to earth the young woman reveals that her name is Yoko. After hitting the ground hard Simon removes his head from between Yoko’s breasts and they realise that there are much worse things on the surface to worry about.
Impressions
With that out of the way I can tell you that I absolutely love this show. I try to be cautious with first episodes as they can be very misleading, but I can’t help but get excited about this. I’m a huge fan of FLCL and Abenobashi so the art work ticks all the boxes for me, the colours are bold and the lines are crisp, there’s a real quality feel to the visuals. Also watching the show in HD made it even better.
The character designs are really fun and the 3 lead characters all seem to be different and I get the impression they have interesting backgrounds. Kamina’s spontaneous personality and belief in the reluctant Simon along with the feisty yet mysterious Yoko blend together well. There was some good dialogue early on, all be it rather over the top. Here’s hoping there’s more character development and entertaining banter to come.
Over-sized head mecha isn’t something that I would have immediately thought about but it works really well in this show, for me mecha needs something to prevent it from feeling drab and repetitive, hopefully this is it. There are many mecha shows that I have enjoyed, but rarely for the mecha (Eva, Big O, Nadesico). The action is a bit different to the run of the mill sword and gun play, i’ll be interested to see some more of the Ganmen designs and wacky weapons. I also enjoyed the comical elements to the action, as if no-one was really taking the fact that they were about to be killed seriously.
As I mentioned above the visuals are gorgeous and very atmospheric, they give an epic feel to the show which is a good sign. From the cramped and dark subterranean city to the bright and beautiful skies of the surface I was really impressed. The general ‘ethos’ of the show also appeals to me, it’s quite over the top and doesn’t seem to take itself to seriously. I’m really looking forward to the next episode.
However I am worried about plot development, 26 episodes of them running from and defeating various Ganmen could get a bit much. So here’s hoping they have some interesting storyline hidden away. But if the plot does prove lacklustre the fast paced action and character involvement should provide enough meat for me. So if you didn’t realise, I will defiantly be blogging this show.
ED
It would seem that the ED is a sedate ending to a rather wacky 24 minutes. The simple animation and strange vocal of the song (Underground by High Voltage) have a rather reflective feel to it. I feel that its quiet an appropriate ending and the song has grown on me. It would be good to see some more variation in the animation though, even if it is rather quick.
Next Episode
If you’ll do it, I will too!
It seems Kamina will get in on the Ganmen action and generally confuse and annoy everyone. Sounds good to me!
Until Next Time
