This is it. The Ultimate Screaming and Shouting Animation. The loudest show I've ever watched. Gurren Laggan! Okay, that maybe true for the first eight episodes or so, but not for the rest. It's still noisy and loud, but with endurable levels.
However, don't be hasty to judge this. I tell you the first arc of this show is a complete mess of screams, nonsense, stupid plot, cartoon characters, and everything that could go wrong, but the show changes a LOT during its course. It's not a Trigun-level change of focus, but it's stil a lot. The second arc is a more typical and straightforward shounen, but without that much yelling, and the third and last arc feels almost like a Gundam mixed with Evangelion, even with betrayals, character development, and a very welcome time skip.
Art & AnimationGurren Laggan is a very unique show in this department. It has flashy character designs, full of bright colors, weird vestments, acessories, and a very cartoon-like feel to most of them. They can be very detailed when up close, especially with the nice color combination they have, but sometimes are absurdly sketchy and lazy and amateur, like those mind-twisting scenes of Evangelion and Furi Kuri. This laziness is more common in the first crazy arc, and later it's fortunately left aside, giving the whole show a more serious and professional look. The setting is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, something quite common to japanese animation, like in Trigun, The Third, Sunabozu, etc. Ah, let's remind the fans that it's made by Gainax.
- Ah, the old trick
Gurren Laggan uses one of the oldest tricks we have in this department. It starts strong, with a great animation regardless of the moments of laziness mentioned above. However, as the show moves, we mostly have speed lines, static images spinned, guys opening their big big mouths and yelling, and other cheap animation tricks. Finally, when reaching the end the show abuses of flashy special effects and give an overall tune up on the animation quality. It's not as good as the start, but is enough to end the show with a good impression and make you forget the average animation work for most of the part. Surely, characters can be expressive, but that happens because of their cartoon-style art, not because of animation. Gundam 00 and Macross F were both released near this and they are light years ahead in terms of animation. Backgrounds also suffer the same problems. They are mostly wastelands in the first half, but not detailed enough for 2007's standard, and after the first episodes they become even more simple and uninspiring. Stars and space succeed in changing the mood, but don't change the quality.
Sound
This will certainly be influenced by the amount of tolerance you have with the constant yelling. The characters will always open their big mouths in 2-frame animations and spit the loudest talk you can imagine. It's not only yelling, it's about every speech being loud and irritating, especially during the first arc. Aside from that, however, the sound is superb. Background music is epic, fitting for the constant fights, powerups, stylish performances, and catching the exact mood of the show. Openings, endings, sound effects, and themes overall are also the best we could have for a show like this. It's sad to see such a great sound direction being spoiled by this choice of abusing of screams and yells. I know the show is mostly about "the one who scream their will shall win", but hell, they could keep normal dialogues out of this at least.
StoryGurren Laggan has a tale of a young boy named Simon. He lives digging in his underground village, oblivious to anything outside it and only having fun with Kamina, his bro who dreams of reaching the surface, skies, and stars. Everything changes when a big-face robot falls from the ceiling and it's up to Simon to fight it with a small robot he found during his digging. A whole new world awaits the two dreamer brothers, and together with an inhabitant from another village, Yoko, they are about to change far more than just their lives.
- Everything is about scale
Gurren Laggan is about how louder one can scream, how big the robot can be, how strong the super power, how determined is the hero, how big is the gun. Everything that is bigger wins here, nothing else matters, except perhaps for the fact that the ultimate robot is born form a tiny head (Laggan). Impact and remarkable moments are plenty, but they are all very typical to what you see in shounens, only more exaggerated. We still have some nice surprises, but in the end, strategy, smart play, tricks, or anything with more finesse is nearly absent from the show.First Arc: Kamina and Yoko
The first arc is a complete mess of nonsense. Don't expect anything here except Kamina yelling and lots and lots of Yoko's sexy poses and clever camera angles to show her ass or boobs. What we have here is simple: bizarre enemy appears, Kamina wants to fight, he never gives up, he is persistent, he screams every second, and magically things happen because of Simon's drill and they beat their enemies. It's a straightforward tale plagued by loud talks, screams, shouts, and with nothing ever making (or even trying to) any sense. Things just happen because the author think it'll look cool and people will say it's about a man's soul or something like that. But no, it's just kid's stuff with annoying characters all over it. To make this mess even worse, we have Simon as your Shinki Ikari, meaning he will always break and feel useless until Kamina shouts something at him and Laggan does its magic trick.See AlsoTengen Toppa Gurren LagannGurren Lagann (Anime)Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann | Staffeln und EpisodenguideSecond Arc: Things Start to Make Sense
After a fateful event at the end of the first arc, the show changes a lot. It starts to make sense, meaning we have a better explanation of things, the plot grows to be your common shounen stuff, but it still retains some of its shouts and focus on the "believe in yourself" mantra. Yoko moves out of the spotlight, changed by the castway princess, and thus you won't be seeing her boobs and tight shorts every two minutes. Not only that, but Simon's personality start to evolve and he becomes a far better character overall. The cast grows exponentially, but they don't harm this simple, yet fun part of the tale.
Last Arc: And Suddenly We Have a Superb Show
Ah, what a time skip can do to a show. Suddenly everything becomes more mature, the cast becomes older, the setting gains complexity, betrayals, intrigues, revealed secrets, and other uncommon shounen elements are given enough space to shine, characters became more complex and multi-dimensional, etc. Hell, things change completely. It's not about to became the best thing ever, but in the end is a show that reminds a lot of Evangelion with mix of Gundam franchise, meaning we have incoming alien invasion, saving humanity stuff, big final fight, and internal conflicts between humans. All of this while still retaining the super robot flair and simultaneously moving all that stupid screaming and shouting to a secondary position.
The show loses about 50 dB after the first arc
This is worth stating, because this made the show 400% more tolerable for me. Endure until episode 8 and the show has some nice turn of events and we have one of the loudest characters in anime history move out of screen. The show still depends on people screaming at each other faces, but at least it's not as abundant as in the first part.
So, in the end the plot of the show is just a rehash of a typical shounen using super robot in the way. Protagonist is initially useless, reminding of a Shinji Ikari rip-off, find his new awesome power, fights one evil guy, learns about many other evil guys, fight them, earn powerups, find his love interest in the way, etc. Nothing new, but at least it doesn't have school environment, the pace is definetely superb, and we have an welcome change in the mid part.
CharacterWell, surprisingly, we have a good deal of interesting characters. Most are not deep, realistic, or develop in an awesome way, but they have charisma like what shounens shows typically do. Simon is your average weak-willed shounen protagonist, starts as a stupid boy, always cowers in fear, don't care about others when his life is on the line, but whenever he manages to do something, he succeeds. He is obviously inspired in Shinji Ikari (also in a show by Gainax), so his mental breakdowns can get annoying, but he still proves to evolve a lot in the show to earn his points, growing to be a more determined person at the end.
- Cartoon bunch
The rest of the cast is a bunch of clear stereotypes. They have their charisma in their sexy style or comical frame, but aside of that they are very shallow and simple. Kamina is the personification of annoyance and the guy that never give up or flee. He is stupid, never think of anything, never cares about the other's opinions, yet he always succeed because of Simon and fans love him because he is stylish and uses a katana with glasses (yeah?). Yoko is there just for fanservice, hot chick with red hair, bikini, and big gun is obvious from start. She can get her points because at least she is not stupid and learn a thing or two during the show's sequence. Then we have the cute castway princess, a mascot pig, a gay mechanic, some kids, three fanservice girls, another guy that is all about shouting, and many many other lesser characters. The last arc gives us bigger changes to most of the cast, we even have characters that can think out of the typical shounen-screaming idea initially proposed by the show, but still they are not marvelous, just a bit more mature. All of them are basically cartoon versions of japanese stereotypes and they don't have enough timescreen to evolve. Even Kamina, Yoko, and Nia never grow out of their initial settings even though they are supposedly main characters as well.The Villains
Not only the support is just a big bunch of cartoons, but the villains as well. They are your typical evil doer without reason, acting as tyrants just because, and always being funny when they face the heroes, only to suffer defeat after defeat. They won't last in your mind, so you can just remember them as animal-shaped foes with weird robots. In the last arc the new enemies make their stand, but they are just lifeless and uninspiring, serving their purpose to fight the heroes, but nothing else.Stylish Entry
Ah, I give Simon and Gurren Laggan the second place in the most stylish and nicely timed entrances in anime. He always appears in the exact moment to save the day, with vibrant background music and never failing to what he needs to do. The first place in my list? Kira and his Freedom Gundam. It's just a flavor gimmick, but can surely impress and increase the addicting value of the show.
Value
Gurren Laggan is a very unique show. It's the definite super robot show and perhaps one of the only that doesn't feel far too childish or dumb. It's story is straightforward and simple, the cast is cartoonistic but charismatic, the pace is awesome, but the overall work is just average. Considering super robot (or magic robot) shows usually try to be serious and fail miserably, it's a nice plus for Gurren Laggan to take things as some kind of parody at the starting point. The scale the show takes, the use of a nice sound direction, the constant rush, and the big changes in the mid part make up for the terrible abuse of screams and yells, but even so it's hard to endure the first arc of the plot without being annoyed by so many loud talks. Sadly, perhaps because it's Gainax work, people seems to forget to have a critical look and is just lured by a name to label this show as things it is not. The artwork is lazy most of the first arc, backgrounds are simple, animation is just a bunch of tricks merged with lots of constant scream to hide them from you, voice-acting can't even be evaluated with the constant noise and exageration. But well... it's uniqueness is remarkable enough to make you forget all these after watching half a dozen episodes.
EnjoymentThis all depends on how loud a show needs to be to annoy you (see Sound section). If you can take Kamina at the first episodes, then you'll certainly enjoy this. If you can't, try to endure it for the first arc (like I did) and you'll see this show has more to it than screams and shouts. Anyone looking for a good shounen show that grows a lot on the way don't need to look any further. But if you expect a serious show from the start or deep characters, look for something else.
CommentsWhat's most remarkable about this show is not the show itself, but the absurd amount of hype created around it. Suddenly everyone who hated all mechas became fans of super robot shows, gigantic beams, and screams! But the fact is: when it was released we had Yoko (the hot gal in bikini) everywhere. Fan sites, forums, anime news, toys (even I bought one of her figures later!). Hell, it conquered the internet in an instant, maybe even quickier than what Haruhi Suzumiya did. Even the nameless image board of the internet was flooded with Yoko. Joining the hot chick with red hair was the guy called Kamina with his signature glasses and cape.
But that's what the hype was all about: these two characters. Aside from that I never learned a thing about the show from comments of its fans. With the hot girl with big gun I knew the show had the power to attract the standard horny otaku, and from the guy with glasses it was easy to understand the show had lots of shouts and impactful shounen stuff. What else? I couldn't find from the talk around the internet. I didn't know if it was a mecha show, super power shounen, ecchi, parody, Evangelion rip-off, etc. So I tried watching it. I failed two times, reaching episode 6 but never really lured by the loud screams, absurd focus on willpower and talks about never giving up, believing in yourself, and other typical shounen trash increased tenfold by the show's loud talks. Finally, more than three years later I managed to watch it past episode 6. I have to admit the show gets far more interesting and has lots of strong points, but it's certainly one of the most hyped shows I've seen together with Haruhi Suzumiya. Why it was hyped? Easy, easy. Look at the animation work! Gainax! There you have it, one of those companies that even if they shit people will revere it.
Why they put so many screams in the first arc? Man, if you watch episode 2 and immediately plays episode 19 you won't even manage to say the show is the same unless you watch the opening. I've never seen a show that changed this much in 27-episodes since Trigun. At least the change was for better, as the start made me label this show as a thing that I would never ever manage to watch. I hated it when it was released, it evoked anger inside me with all those screams, that nonsense talk about shounen trash multiplied by ten, powerups coming out of nowhere and never even giving an explanation about anything. It looked like an show for a kid to watch in the weekend and go with his friend to scream at one another "GURREN LAGGAN!! AAAAAAH!!".
But, suddenly, the show changed with a nice turn of events. I'm happy that I gave the show a third chance and managed to endure past the first arc. It grew to be far more likeable and more fitting to Gainax's pedigree. Why they didn't make it enjoyable and more serious form the start? I like the parody/tribute thing, but they could at least keep the loud screams limited to the fights, not to every single talk they had. Trigun had a drastic change mid-show, but it's comedy part was funny, not just stupid over-the-top yelling. Remove that and the show would be a lot better from start even with all the other nonsense around.
Anyway, I had to change most of the review. I was writing it as I watched and at about episode 10 my opinions started to change little by little, at episode 20 or so I had to complete change it. My thought was writing this review just as the anime does, screaming and yelling, perhaps even with CAPS LOCK, but well, in the end it deserves better and gained my respect. However, it's still quite an overrated show and I find it hard to see people revering it for all the nonsense it has and spiting on other shows when they have little elements that are complex to make sense.
