Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann

I think that with the first major saga of this series coming to an end, it's about time that a thread is more than necessary! I'm not going to assume everybody knows what this undeniably great, yet possibly overrated show is about, so here's some info. Gurren-Lagann is a completely over the top mecha anime (deal with it!) from GAINAX, and if the mecha part isn't obvious by the image above perhaps it is time for a visit to the optometrist? It is 26 episodes long and seems to consist of several story "arcs" that each pays a sort of homage to a different period of mecha anime. The first several episodes have some superb animation quality, while after that the quality wavers up and down, which is okay I suppose. Recently, the show has been licensed by ADV films, which means it'll be harder to find any downloads if you haven't yet started to watch the series.

Media: Anyting unless listed otherwise contains spoilers!
Trailer (Spoiler-Free): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC_lSGooF1Y
OP (Video [Spoiler-Free]): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdDNU01_B_U&mode=related&search=
Episode 1 (Part 1): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YgCN5McEmM
Episode 1 (Part 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmzABACn0E0
Kamina Vs Viral (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff4QlLbgz2Y
Another Scene with Viral (Gattai): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuG5kvvEljk
OP theme "Sora Iro days" and "Happily Ever After" (Bittorrent file, no spoilers obviously): http://tracker.minglong.org/torrents/%5BNipponsei%5D%20Tengen%20Toppa%20Gurren%20Lagann%20OP%20Single%20-%20Sora%20iro%20Days%20%5BNakagawa%20Shouko%5D.zip.torrent

Misc
Official Site: http://www.gurren-lagann.net/
Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengen_Toppa_Gurren_Lagann
AniDB Entry: http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=4575

Overview:
This is the story of men fighting against their destiny, etc...</narrator> Instead of actually taking the time to type my own summary, here's the summary from AnimeNfo:

In the distant future, people build their homes and raise domestic animals in subterranean caverns. As a result, they live in fear of the occasional earthquake and cave-in, and have been for hundreds of years. Jeeha is one such village.

One day, a boy named Simon happens to find a small, shiny drill whilst digging to expand the village. At the same time, Kamina, a guy who believes that there is another land above the village, persuades a gangster to break through the ceiling in order to leave the cavern. Suddenly, an earthquake occurs and the ceiling collapses, followed by a big robot breaking through the ceiling.

Kamina is now sure that there is a world above them. Recklessly, he begins to fight against the robot. At that moment, another person appears from the land above. It is a girl by the name of Yoko. With a rifle in hand, she had been tracking the robot. However, all she could do was distract it. Then, Simon shows what he had found to Kamina and Yoko. It`s a mysterious robot whose head is also its body.

Screenshots:

You may be wondering why I only have one screenshot, that's because I'm lazy. Go see the shitty screen ratio'd media above!

So what we basically have here is a very strange show. It somewhat reminds me of Diebuster at times, but a lot of people also compare its bizarre occasional humor to Fooly Cooly (I wasn't really seeing this, and sometimes the humor felt generic?). Don't come into this show expecting another Evangelion, it's nothing like that. Currently, episode 15 just aired. It marks the end of the first major arc in the story, and was filled with a bunch of crazy action scenes and plenty of explosions. People who have seen it? What do you think of the series thus far? Do you agree with the direction it is taking? (If you happen to know what direction that is) and do you feel that the series is great, overrated, or maybe a little bit of both?

I'm looking at Gurren-Lagann as show to watch for the ride. People will eventually realize there's an actual story beneath all the burning justice, and it's turning out to be intriguing as well. It's not the greatest show ever made, but I'm beginning to have a better opinion of Gainax as a studio in general. Perhaps it's still far too early to pass any final judgments! My opinions aside, this show is worth the three episode test.

Ahhhh, Gurren Lagann. Honestly, the first time I saw some promo art and screenshots, I was turned off by the character designs, and the story didn't interest me. But one day I was bored and with no anime to watch, so I did the five episode test thing. (Yeah, I try five episodes, not three. )

And, oh man, was I ever surprised. Not only is the anime filled with enough action to knock the socks off of many of the currently running series, it's also quite plot-driven (and humourous) to boot. I was seriously not expecting Kamina to die. I mean, he was in the opening, for crying out loud. But I totally respect that: not many creators have the gall to bump off a major character within the first ten episodes.

Another crazy thing is that I was totally expecting to hate Nia, just because she was cute and loveable and loliriffic, which normally does not belong in a shounen series. But lo and behold, the writers surprised me again: I actually like her. Even though she's a princess and cute-tastic and all that jazz, which is normally kind of a turnoff to me, I still somehow manage to love her character. Weird.

I came to love all the wacky character designs: I now feel that I couldn't have had it any other way. It's not one of my favorites, but it certainly is extremely enjoyable, something I would recommend to anybody.

(P.S. Don't let episode four turn you off: it was guest directed by somebody else, so the animation style [and ][/and] is completely different from the rest of the series. The next episode returns to its former quality.)

EDIT: Woah, licensed by ADV already?! That was reallllly fast.

Another crazy thing is that I was totally expecting to hate Nia, just because she was cute and loveable and loliriffic, which normally does not belong in a shounen series. But lo and behold, the writers surprised me again: I actually like her. Even though she's a princess and cute-tastic and all that jazz, which is normally kind of a turnoff to me, I still somehow manage to love her character. Weird.

Yes, I felt the same about her, she did come off as surprising!

Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to the next ep, seeing what things are going to be like.

Screenshots really don't do justice as to how good this series is, you really need to watch some episodes to see what it's really like.

It's very fun, but that's really it. I may watch more episodes sometime.

So far, it's almost the reason to watch the show. Most of the time, I prefer to watch something for an intriguing story or gorgeous animation, however Gurren-Lagann doesn't always have either of these. It's just so undeniably fun that it's easy to get caught up in the moment with an episode and think: "I don't know exactly what I watched, but it was....  :incred:"

Or you could go the opposite way and think it's retarded. Either way works!

I used to dislike this' date=' but then I realized I should be watching it as a mecha parody and have come to thoroughly enjoy it. Its less mecha (and less comedic) elements are really well executed, though.[/quote']
It's true. The show feels like it is a mix of parody and tribute to other periods of mecha anime. I'm not really a fan of the mecha genre myself, but I liked Diebuster and watched Geass recently. Aside from those and G-Gundam (Ridiculous premise), I never could keep up with anything in the genre. It was usually too boring to me.

What. Episode 14 and 15 already? Man, and I was putting off watching episode 13 just because I didn't have the next episodes. I suppose I didn't realize they came out because they didn't show up on Baka-Updates (and I've been using that handy-dandy Baka-Notifier to tell me when new episodes come out). New episodes ahoyyyyy!

I'm really looking forward to the major timeskip, which would hopefully be next episode now that this arc is over, but judging by the preview it's probably just a recap episode. Just in case anyone hasn't seen the timeskip scans yet, here they are. Simon has a different outfit and looks a little younger than in the prologue of the first episode, so does that mean there will be more major timeskips in the next arc?.

Perhaps it's possible that What we saw as a prologue was in fact something that happens near the very end of the series. I'm not sure how soon outer space comes into play, because the next several episodes supposedly deal with new challenges that arise on the surface. Aside from that, Gainax has commented they would be willing to do multiple installments of this new franchise if Gurren Lagann did well enough to begin with.

I suppose I didn't realize they came out because they didn't show up on Baka-Updates

You could check TokyoTosho every sunday or monday for the raws and new .ass files that are being released. It's probably the only anime tracker site I visit.

Obviously, but why in particular create inferior beastmen? He's already shown that he can create 'humans' like Nia. Why not give the generals immortal bodies? And how is filling the surface with beastmen different to filling the surface with humans, in terms of the moon and Spiral Star? Of course, the show isn't going to answer all that immediately, but I was hoping Lordgenome would spill out a little more than DOOM PROPHECY before he died.

Isn't Nia his actual daughter and not just another of his creations though? They explained that sometime the king would take human women to him to pleasure himself, and all the discarded princesses are apparantly mistakes resulting from that, unless I understood it wrong.But yeah, he probably should have answered a little more.

Are the latest eps subbed by any group? If yes, by whom.

Wow. The ending of this was really something. I think the action was a little hectic and hard to follow at times, but the whole way the ending was resolved worked generally well. I have some problems with it however.

Nia seemed to be killed off just because Gainax doesn't like completely happy endings! It sort of makes the whole climax of the series worthless. "OKAY GUYS WE'RE GOING TO SAVE NIA AND THIS UNIVERSE!" and suddenly at the end Nia just fades away because it is revealed she is a holographic program. ​

The epilogue also seemed to work well, however I'm not sure what the animators were thinking when they were animating those last scenes. There were some very awkward moments. A good series all in all.

rami:
Not sure if you're reading this, but if you're also looking for earlier subs, go with Black Order, otherwise you'll most likely need to grab the raws and use subtitle files.