Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Some serious thoughts on this piece…

God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all anime were full of emo. So God looked at the cause, and behold, “Neon Genesis Evangelion” was the root of the corruption. “REPENT!” – said he, pointing at a certain animation studio – “AND SHOULD IT NOT ROCK I WILL CAST YOU INTO OBLIVION!”. And so GAINAX proceeded to make their flagship-anime of this millennium.

Continuing GAINAX’s proud tradition of “full speed ahead and damn the source material” we get “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”, the (literally):

- most epic
- most awesome
- most amazing
- most manly
- most soul and mind gripping

…anime experience you can imagine. I guarantee, the things that you will witness will make you cry… real manly tears.

In the distant future, people build their homes and raise domestic animals in subterranean caverns called “pits”. This way of life has persisted for hundreds of years, and yet, the people are still powerless against the earthquakes and cave-ins which occasionally devastate their villages. Jeeha is one such village…

One day, while digging tunnels to expand Jeeha’s edges, a boy named Simon happens to find a small, shiny drill. Meanwhile, Kamina — Simon’s soon-to-be “bro” — insists that there is another land above the village and tries to break through the ceiling in order to leave the cavern. He fails; however, an earthquake suddenly occurs, the ceiling collapses, and a gigantic robot — a “Ganmen” — crashes to the cave floor!

Kamina is now certain that there is a world above their tiny pit-village. Encouraged, he begins to fight recklessly against the robot, until he encounters another person who has arrived from the land above. She is a beautiful girl by the name of Youko, who has come from a neighbouring village with a rifle in hand. She has been hunting the robot, but her shots only seem to irritate it. Desperately trying to escape its attacks, Simon brings Kamina and Yoko to what he had previously found: A mysterious robot with a head for a body.

And so begins the “epic” adventure…

To best describe this TTGL – it’s like watching a great anime while being totally stoned with the best weed you can get. GAINAX reached the top with this one, I doubt they will be able to go any higher… then again, with enough will you can pierce the heavens.

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