tehnominator - TTGL

For most your life, all you have ever known is disappointment, loneliness and rejection. Digging yourself lower and lower into the earth is your only comfort. If the chance to burst through the ceiling, seize the world above and claim it as your own arrives, will you take it?

This is a story of a boy who grasps at the skies with his dirt covered hands. A boy who spent his days drilling his way deeper and deeper into the ground, then eventually turns his drill to the heavens above. And he does it not alone, but with the help of those who come to mean more than the universe to him.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is more of an experience than anything else. It is a captivating and entertaining piece of art that will have all your senses in a tangle over it. And like any piece of art, it is up for interpretation. While it is clear that most people are caught up with its strong points, very few notice its weaknesses. It is a masterful anime in many respects, but it is far from perfection.

The story involves a group of rebels led by the charismatic hothead Kamina with his young friend and partner Simon in tow, while in the company of an extremely competent and cool sniper, Yoko. Simon gains control over a mecha called Lagann, and from there, his destiny begins to unfold around him. Their world is overrun by beasts who oppress humans. So they make up their mind to fight. And fight hard. There is no other way to do it, these men and women go all out--who the hell do you think they are!?

What you have here is a fun, energy filled, manly action series with some of the most over the top mecha and fight scenes that at its core is entertainment at its purest. It is witty, funny, and highly simplistic in the way the story unfolds. Mecha battle after battle, ridiculous power ups that are satirical to the genre, and lots of babes to go around without getting in the way and actually contributing than being damsels in distress. It plays out traditionally with the expected mini-boss battles that are even thematic (based on fire, water, earth and air) depending on which evil minion the Gurren Brigade encounters. This is an adventure to its fullest, not holding back at all, shoving everything in your face and blowing you away. It is absolutely incredible.

For the first half.

The second half evolves into something grander and something a lot deeper. The problem with this is that it ultimately turns TTGL into an anime you can barely recognise. It has the skin and bones and guts of the first arc, but its heart and mindset has become something else. It eventually turns out to be like meeting a likeable prankster from back when you were twelve years old once again when you turn nineteen. And he turns out to be mean and horrible but still up to his childish tricks. You are not sure what to think because he still has that nice smile he always had, his laugh is the same one you always liked hearing, and that boyish air to him remains... but you just cannot help but wonder why he has changed but not grown up at all even after all this time. But before discussing all the horrible turns the story takes, the high points of this series should be taken into account.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is for one, a visual and aural masterpiece of an anime. The animation is extremely top notch stuff, and the artwork incorporates several styles. The crayon-y, cartoonish elements works in this anime because most of it is so unreal and over the top anyway that it simply cannot be contained or expressed by neat animation. There is a striking variety in the colours used. You get explosion after explosion and fight after fight, and yet this is presented with such fluidity and freshness in the art that is becomes a pleasure to see endless battles rather than a bore.

The music is absolutely stunning. It is hard to describe a soundtrack as "epic", but it lives up to its name, and TTGL has one of the best scores ever made for anime. It is inspiring, it is hardcore, it is beautiful. It is exactly the sort of music you want to hear when you're forging your destiny. 'Libera me from Hell' is one of the most brilliant pieces of music ever composed. Who can forget the repeated lines, "Fight the power!"? 'All You Bastards, Get Fired Up!' is a command more than just a track title. And if the best piece of music in this entire series, 'Pierce the Heavens with your XXX!' does not make you want to stand and salute it like a national anthem, you have no spirit. The lovely Sorairo Days makes for a wonderful OP theme song as well. The rough and punkish ED themes contribute to the rebellious mood of the series.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has an impressive cast, and impress you they will for the most part. The supporting characters have their own charm, even the "Mary Sue" Nia is hard to hate despite being exactly the type of loathsome character you might find plaguing anime: cute, ineffective, always in the way. She just has a disarming sweetness about her that makes you want to save her yourself. Then there are the constants, characters like Leeron and Rossiu, whose presence provide stability. Plus, you got a myriad of fanservice girls who turn out to be more than just that, and hotheaded guys, who also turn out to be more than that. There's the hapless villain Viral who ends up being one of the more likeable evil tools of anime, perhaps due to how sympathetic you become towards him.

You have Kamina, the man who makes other men seem like boys. It seems hot blood and testosterone runs through his veins, and surprisingly, rather than being insipid or annoying, he is possibly the most magnificent creature in the series. He grabs your attention from the get-go. He is quite the man; if he leads you to the ends of the earth or the depths of hell, you will want to follow him anyway. He is a leader in every sense of the word and has an inspiring amount of charisma and confidence to him. Simon is a sweet although understandably, frustratingly low self esteemed fellow. Part of liking him comes from being able to relate so deeply with his feelings. He is afraid during moments we too will feel fear. He is a conflicted boy, growing through the pains of adolescence and having to deal with a man who tells him not to think but to feel, and to interact with a girl who tells him that he should think and not just blindly act. And this girl is Yoko, possibly the most iconic character in the series. Even people who do not watch anime can recognise her face (amongst other parts of her anatomy), more so than Kamina. Impressive assets aside, Yoko ends up being the most developed out of all the characters.

And yet, she is the character given the shaft the worst by the series. It is almost as if they want to mess with her and then dump her eventually until she is needed again. A character of her calibre does not deserve this sort of treatment by the very story she helped forge in the initial stages. But Yoko, with her playfulness, sensible side, and general attractiveness, is more rounded than Simon, who is the protagonist. The reason for that is she eventually grows up and accepts life while Simon unknowingly suffers through this Peter Pan syndrome that makes the latter half of the series almost unbearable.

And here is where we eventually have problems.

Many people said to turn off your minds and just sit back and let TTGL bombard you with its epic battles and brainless fun. Which is what I did, and I loved the first arc of this series endlessly. The problem is that while this series sets you up in this frame of mind, it completely changes character and becomes something else. Something it is not. A story can take a turn to the more unfavourable and still become better. "Growing the beard", as the trope is named. It does not, in any way, work for TTGL. The second half becomes an entity so unlike the first that the only thing linking the two are the characters, who seem determined not to have changed in any way just to make sure you know that you're still watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. I accepted many ridiculous things in this series easily. This is one thing that is absolutely unacceptable. The masterpiece becomes a disasterpiece.

The story betrays itself and becomes something it is not, and does not even bother to let the characters grow in any way. It is like watching a little child dressing up in his dad's suit for work. It just does not fit or look right, even though it is interesting to look at. It is nearly comical how much darker this series becomes and while most will definitely think this is the story getting better--it is not. This is the story becoming something else.

Most, who saw this as the series' way of reaching maturity, will love the darker and heavier turns of this series. For those who enjoyed the mindless, gutsy, high octane fun of the first arc will find the second to be one of the most tedious things to endure. In essence, the second part dug the first arc a grave and buried it. It is not a bad arc as far as the anime on the whole is concerned--far from it. The writing remains excellent (though the content is just ulcer-inducing), the plotting remains en pointe, the fight scenes get so dramatic and intense that it is truly beyond the realms of this world. But it does not fit. It is as though the characters of the first arc have been dumped into a setting that is completely unlike what we had grown to love and accept as the world of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It is almost ironic how much more humane they seemed when the world was run by beastmen. In the second arc, science and civilisation proves to be this anime's greatest undoing. You literally have to watch a cast of monkeys trying to invent the wheel at most points. It is hard to stomach this since it is sheerly stupid to see that seven years have passed, and nobody seems to have matured at all. The world in TTGL changes vastly, but the people in it remain as backwards and idiotic as ever. While that stupidity and brashness of the characters is endearing, while those are elements of their personalities that powered the series and made it work in the first part, these attributes take away entirely from the second arc.

Given a time skip, you expect certain changes. If anyone has changed, it is guaranteed that they did it for the worse.

It is as though they transplanted a hardcore action anime into an anime with heavy handed politics that wants to rival that of Legend of the Galactic Heroes while maintaining a cast full of bastards like Neon Genesis Evangelion. And that's the problem. What happened to the characters we loved? Why did they either grow up to become completely frustrating fools or not grow up at all? Is this supposed to be irony or terrible scripting? The cast that used their guts and determination to win us over with such ease appears to go out of their way in the second arc to prove that they are still just as loud and moronic in a setting that calls for their maturation. In fact, as much as people may come to hate him, Rossiu is the only character whose growth makes any sense given the context of the second arc. But the fact of the matter is--why must we come to hate someone we once loved or why must we now not give a damn about characters we once cared about? Is this some sort of cruel experiment Gainax wants to pull on the viewers? They should have left that in their other mind fuck anime and leave it out of TTGL.

The strength of this particular series rides on its honesty and sheer forthrightness. Convolution does not work well in this world. It only leads to misdirected ambition. It ruins what the first arc built for us. The first major death in this anime is almost like an invitation for you to just stop giving a crap about what happens to the rest of the characters. Despite said death being the catalyst for the events of the later arc, it is more detrimental than it does good. Inspiration is one thing, but imitation is another. And what happens is that the characters blindly cling to the memory of that person, imitating rather than being inspired.

In any case, you can be glad for the characters who did not make it to the second arc so they would not have to see what a bunch of fakes, losers, ingrates, and tools that everyone has become eventually. Even Kittan seems to be in shock that his own sister turned out to be cruel. What is annoying is he does not realise this in SEVEN YEARS. THAT shows you just how much people have snapped and had a 180 in personality (Simon, Rossiu, Kinon) or how much they haven't changed in the slightest (every bloody body else except Yoko).

Character interaction seems to have been given the shaft as well. Simon's subtle longing for Yoko turns to dust as soon as Nia appears. Is this what "being a man" is all about? Ignoring his emotional burdens and unloading his feelings on a girl who (without fail and without question) approves of him and everything he does? Being devoted is one thing, but her approval of everything Simon ever does makes him start behaving rashly and in ways that destroys his voice of reason. That is not helping him at all. It's like seeing your friend sticking his wet finger into an electric socket, and you just sitting there smiling saying, "It's okay--he knows what he's doing. I trust in him not to electrocute himself!" Yoko kept Simon in check and she just gets dumped to the wayside until she is needed conveniently again in this new setting. So we are supposed to buy, hook, line and sinker, that Nia and Simon are some perfect match for one another? Maybe, since she does not seem to have many needs and he clearly needs someone as palpable and brainless as she is to be at his side. Fearless leaders of course never like to be told they are wrong.

The reason so much emphasis has been put on this is that his relationship with Nia basically becomes the plot for the rest of the anime. Yet, we feel no chemistry in the latter half (what happened to the sweet, realistically budding romance in the first part!?), nothing to say why exactly this man is doing all this for this woman. Not asking for hugs and kisses, chocolates and romance (this is not a series about that)--just asking for some believability. Especially considering the crusade Simon goes on for her eventually.

This is no longer a world where the strength of a man matters. No longer does his power come from the heart pounding in his chest, a good friend at his side, and some food in his belly. It is a world where his words weigh much more than his actions. This is not a world for the men of TTGL who refuse to grow up in any way. It is almost tragic to watch them run around blindly acting like a bunch of children. Simon especially, who you have a lot of hope for as a character, becomes such a failure that not even his heroic actions can make up for it. What happened to Simon? Where did the shy, sweet, lovable boy go?

People often assume that a character of his sort's "true nature" is a hidden badass. Not in Simon's case. The real Simon is thoughtful, a worrier warrior and a sensible, considerate lad. What he becomes in the second arc is Kamina II, and not in a good way. And nobody seems to notice this at all, which is the absolute worst thing--they have accepted his adopted personality and the essence known as "Simon" is left to disappear into nothingness. This is not growth. This is transposing someone else's personality onto his own, wiping out whatever it was that made him "himself".

It's as though he is trying to fill a void and disregards who HE is to become who he wants to be, which is a man like Kamina. This is the worst thing done to Simon, since he does not even seem to be aware that he is no longer himself, but is trying to replicate the behaviour, rationality, and mentality of the man he admires. It is sad that he never gets a chance to be truly Simon. It is only perhaps in the epilogue that we really get a glimpse of a Simon who has found himself.

What we have in the beginning is a tale of rebellion, about the blood and muscle and guts that went into fighting for freedom. It is a story of a boy whose determination to survive is the stepping stone for the survival of mankind. On that alone, TTGL can be considered a masterpiece. Its flaw in the second arc is that it loses its sense of identity. Which is again completely ironic since this is an anime about being true to yourself. It seems TTGL forgot to do that with its own storyline. In contrast to the wild, moving, inspiring beginning, what you have in the end is the story of Simon, who loses himself trying to become someone he is not. What you have is a typical "Rescue the princess!" fuelled plot disguised as a "Save the universe!" story. What began as severely entertaining became fairly excruciating to behold. But then no again!

In an almost insulting manner, the series attempts to revert to what it once was in the beginning. An anime about manly tears, sweat, power ups and camaraderie. Now you really start to wonder how many people were working on this script at the same time, because seems like two different people who wanted to tell entirely different stories ended up working together out of force.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is one of the best anime ever created and yet it happens to be one of the worst viewing experiences I ever had given the extremely sour turn of the second arc. Of course, if your concerns and issues are not similar to my own, then this remains simply a remarkable anime worth all the hype and worth the watch. This is in no way a bad anime. It is an excellent anime, which makes its disappointing moments all the more painful to endure. Thank you for the gigantic middle finger, Gainax. Even though, unlike most of this studio's work, this series actually HAS a resolution and an ending, it seems that they just wanted to make sure that the audience knows with whom they are they dealing.

If Gainax goes out of their way to actually give an anime an ending, you can bet your ass that it might make you want to huddle in a corner, trying to fight off the nausea from being so emotionally involved only to have your heart crushed with a depressing conclusion. Then there's the epilogue which seems like the piece de resistance in making you just want to sob from frustration, sadness, acceptance and perhaps contentedness over what has become of these people who not only pierced the sky, but our hearts as well.

The ending of this epic saga, depending on the interpretation, is one of the most uplifting or downright dismal conclusions ever given to an anime. Either way you take it, you will be left most likely with salty stains streaking your face at the bittersweet ending. Bitter or sweet, whatever you make of it. There is a strange amount of solace you can get seeing that the world continues changing and growing, and even in the minutest of ways, people do too. Maybe not for the better, maybe not in ways you would expect them to, but things can only move forward if they can adapt and evolve.

That's a lesson you can take from this series. Those who refuse to or are unable to change cannot survive. That is the fundamental aspect of evolution, which surprisingly, is what this anime gives you a crash course in. The final moments of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann makes one wonder whether or not this was the only way to put to rest the tale of these men and women whose stories and lives shook the earth below and shattered the skies above them. In some ways, it is beautiful, but so very hard to accept. But such is the life of those who have been to the ends of the earth and the skies and back.

Heroes, after all, are not like the rest of us. They live hard and die young. They are made to sacrifice what they want and love so everyone else can be happy. That's what makes them heroes, after all. Maybe if they can smile in the end while looking back and, of course, while looking ahead, that is their victory.