After Action Report: 'Gurren Lagann'

A popular childhood favorite when it comes to mecha anime, Gurren Lagann was a television series first aired in Japan on April 1, 2007. Lasting 27 episodes starring a young 12-year-old boy named Simon who grew up poor in an underground village and survived off of working as a tunnel digger, his life changes when he finds a tiny glowing drill, and a machine head called gunmen underground. With his older brother, not by blood, Kamina, and a Bodacious surface girl named Yoko, Simon finds out why his parents were killed in an earthquake, by the oppression of the gunmen fighting on the surface. Kamina gives his little brother's new gunmen a name: Lagann.

The trio set on a journey battling man-beast who operate gunmen, and when Kamina grabs his own gunmen, he names it Gurren. When the two learn to combine and Kamina teaches Simon that his drill is the drill that will "Pierce the Heavens" they become team Gurren Lagann and they go on adventures battling man-beast, making new allies, and pushing up against the spiral king who tries to oppress humanity underground. Their biggest opponents were the man-beast Viral and the 4 generals of the Spiral King, but as team Gurren Lagann's numbers and support grows, Kamina and Yoko's feelings grow, and they plan to take the enemy's biggest battleship, Kamina's life is sacrificed for team Gurren Lagann's success.

As Simon goes into a deep depression over his brother's loss, his gloom rubs off on everyone and even turns his own gunmen to go berserk and reject him. Then Simon meets the young girl in a box, sounds crazy right, named Nia and she later becomes the one person to get young Simon out of his depression and continue to finish the battle Gurren Lagann started, as he aimed to pierce through the heavens, Simon also pierced through Nia's father, the Spiral King himself. As the battle is over, humanity takes back the surface, and in 7 years time humans build civilians again and reach one million people. This could be where in the story you could say part 2 of season one is, but I feel the author could have made 2 seasons really with more episodes in each one. But this is just an opinion one could argue that the creator, Kazuki Nakashima, had his own artist flare for giving Gurren Lagann with one season and two parts to that season where Simon is a kid who grows into a man who literally pierces the heavens.

While in part two Simon is made supreme commander of the surface, and his righthand man a friend from team Gurren Lagann, Rasul, second in command. As Simon pops the question to Nia to marry him, a new enemy known as the anti-spirals set an attack on humanity, sending a new type of space gunmen that blow up when defeated, and using the moon to destroy Earth. The worst part is the anti-spirals use Nia as their personal spokesperson. With her deemed a traitor and Simon blamed for the destruction of his capital city, his righthand man turns and betrays him, and Simon is imprisoned in jail. He meets an old enemy Viral, then befriends the man-beast. As the moon is about to crash into earth, Nia sends Simon a thought of as a last farewell message, as Yoko comes out of nowhere for 7 years and rescues Simon and Viral. Then Di-Gurren is back in action.

After stopping the moon from crashing, getting the real moon the anti-spirals hid from them back, and Di-Gurren getting an even bigger battleship, they head off into space to face the anti-spirals and save Nia. They battle space gunmen in the shapes of hands and feet from the anti-spirals, get sucked into an ocean-like planet, and lose many lives for the sake of their planet, but they drill through the heavens and come out on top, and even defeat the leader of the Anti-spirals, rescued Nia, and saved the Earth. In the end is a happy ending, even if the main character Simon's wedding day is ruined with Nia disappearing as an anti-spiral. As the characters grow into old age they look upon Di-Gurren's success of saving the spiral universe and of course humanity.

In conclusion, Gurren Lagann is a classic that I would like to even introduce to my kids to watch as a cartoon, even if the story plot lasts 27 episodes. It is an entertaining mecha anime and did you know the anime came before the manga? Usually, it is the other way around but I believe it is the number one mecha anime of all time, but that can be easily argued. so far on a scale of one to ten, I give Gurren Lagann an eight. Definitely might put it on my list of top ten anime to watch again, but don't hold me to that, there are a lot more anime shows I would like to finish before I make that claim. Arigato!