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(Tengen Toppa) Gurren Lagann
In the far future, mankind lives underground, in isolated enclaves. A very few people still whisper legends of a "surface" world, one with no ceiling, where life is unconstrained and free, but these people are mocked by the rest of their community.
Simon the Digger is the best driller of Giha village, even though he is only fourteen years old. He is stolid, hard-working, and quiet. His parents died years ago when an earthquake collapsed the ceiling on top of them. Simon would be content to live his life out, drilling new passages for the expansion of his underground town, but his best friend has different plans.
Kamina is the leader of Giha village's delinquents. Kamina seems to remember visiting the surface with his father when he was very young. Kamina returned to the village because he was too young for the challenges of the surface, but his father continued on. Kamina's driving passion is to return to the surface and show his father that he's now man enough for the wide world, but the vast majority of villagers do not believe the surface even exists.
One day while digging, Simon finds a small drill bit buried in the ground. Soon afterward, he uncovers a huge metal face. As he is sharing his findings with Kamina, the mythical surface finally and dramatically comes to Giha village, in the forms of a giant mecha and a beautiful girl, and Kamina embarks upon his quest to find his father, with Simon in tow...
I will grant, I checked out Gurren Lagann for the character designs*:
(Note: those are bullets flying around the young lady, in case you were wondering. Why they're flying around her, rather than speeding on their way toward he targets, I do not know.)
but I found myself caught up in the story, which started out looking pretty formulaic, until it threw a couple of significant wrenches into the works which had me wondering what was going to happen for the rest of the series.
The surface, it turns out, is patrolled by "Beastmen", monstrous humanoids who pilot mecha for the sole purpose of keeping humanity underground by killing any humans who venture out of their caves. The "face" Simon unearthed turns out to be a small mecha, which Simon and Kamina name "Lagann", and the drill bit is the Spiral Key necessary to activate it.
Structurally, the plot is over-the-top combining-mecha action, with significant and obvious leveling-up, the latter of which is lampshaded at least twice during the series.
What makes this show different (for me, anyway) is the way the plot jumps the track every time you think you've got it figured out. Unfortunately, that also means I can't really talk about what I liked in much detail. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the Beastmen are eventually defeated and humanity returns to the surface in droves (this *is* a shonen anime, after all), but that's all taken care of in the first half of the series. After a six-year jump, the second half deals with the establishment of government on the surface, with the fact that the guys who were perfectly suited to lead the fight against the Beastmen turn out to be not very good at all at running a bureaucracy, and with the advent of the threat against which the Beastmen were designed to protect humanity. There are political machinations, hard decisions made for the "greater good", and philosophical clashes where neither viewpoint is completely without merit. And then more over-the-top combining-mecha action, with the fate of humanity and the universe at stake!!!
One significant departure from standard shonen fare is character mortality. People die, and stay dead. And not just supporting cast, either. Nobody can be considered safe. This might be a significant factor in how much I enjoyed the series; I have complained before about the fact that most shonen anime and manga treat death as a minor inconvenience at best, as a total fakeout at worst. (One Piece, I am still looking at you!)
Gurren Lagann never takes itself too seriously, though it does deal seriously enough with its darker events. It also provides a rationale for the ubiquitous shonen trope of "hard work and guts" overcoming all obstacles. It isn't a great rationale, but even a paper-thin justification is better than what's presented in most shonen manga and anime.
I enjoyed it a lot and will be adding it to my list of anime to acquire.
*than which, by now, I should know better--yes, bouncy anime boobies** are nice, but without a story and characterization I can get into, I can't stand to watch a show, no matter how titillating the art. Heck, I could never get through more than five minutes of Xena: Warrior Princess, because every time I tried, the cheesy dialogue and/or plots would make me cringe.
**Made you look.
I rented Gurren Lagann from Netflix, but it looks like all 27 episodes are up on hulu: http://www.hulu.com/gurren-lagann
Simon the Digger is the best driller of Giha village, even though he is only fourteen years old. He is stolid, hard-working, and quiet. His parents died years ago when an earthquake collapsed the ceiling on top of them. Simon would be content to live his life out, drilling new passages for the expansion of his underground town, but his best friend has different plans.
Kamina is the leader of Giha village's delinquents. Kamina seems to remember visiting the surface with his father when he was very young. Kamina returned to the village because he was too young for the challenges of the surface, but his father continued on. Kamina's driving passion is to return to the surface and show his father that he's now man enough for the wide world, but the vast majority of villagers do not believe the surface even exists.
One day while digging, Simon finds a small drill bit buried in the ground. Soon afterward, he uncovers a huge metal face. As he is sharing his findings with Kamina, the mythical surface finally and dramatically comes to Giha village, in the forms of a giant mecha and a beautiful girl, and Kamina embarks upon his quest to find his father, with Simon in tow...
I will grant, I checked out Gurren Lagann for the character designs*:
(Note: those are bullets flying around the young lady, in case you were wondering. Why they're flying around her, rather than speeding on their way toward he targets, I do not know.)but I found myself caught up in the story, which started out looking pretty formulaic, until it threw a couple of significant wrenches into the works which had me wondering what was going to happen for the rest of the series.
The surface, it turns out, is patrolled by "Beastmen", monstrous humanoids who pilot mecha for the sole purpose of keeping humanity underground by killing any humans who venture out of their caves. The "face" Simon unearthed turns out to be a small mecha, which Simon and Kamina name "Lagann", and the drill bit is the Spiral Key necessary to activate it.
Structurally, the plot is over-the-top combining-mecha action, with significant and obvious leveling-up, the latter of which is lampshaded at least twice during the series.
What makes this show different (for me, anyway) is the way the plot jumps the track every time you think you've got it figured out. Unfortunately, that also means I can't really talk about what I liked in much detail. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the Beastmen are eventually defeated and humanity returns to the surface in droves (this *is* a shonen anime, after all), but that's all taken care of in the first half of the series. After a six-year jump, the second half deals with the establishment of government on the surface, with the fact that the guys who were perfectly suited to lead the fight against the Beastmen turn out to be not very good at all at running a bureaucracy, and with the advent of the threat against which the Beastmen were designed to protect humanity. There are political machinations, hard decisions made for the "greater good", and philosophical clashes where neither viewpoint is completely without merit. And then more over-the-top combining-mecha action, with the fate of humanity and the universe at stake!!!
One significant departure from standard shonen fare is character mortality. People die, and stay dead. And not just supporting cast, either. Nobody can be considered safe. This might be a significant factor in how much I enjoyed the series; I have complained before about the fact that most shonen anime and manga treat death as a minor inconvenience at best, as a total fakeout at worst. (One Piece, I am still looking at you!)
Gurren Lagann never takes itself too seriously, though it does deal seriously enough with its darker events. It also provides a rationale for the ubiquitous shonen trope of "hard work and guts" overcoming all obstacles. It isn't a great rationale, but even a paper-thin justification is better than what's presented in most shonen manga and anime.
I enjoyed it a lot and will be adding it to my list of anime to acquire.
*than which, by now, I should know better--yes, bouncy anime boobies** are nice, but without a story and characterization I can get into, I can't stand to watch a show, no matter how titillating the art. Heck, I could never get through more than five minutes of Xena: Warrior Princess, because every time I tried, the cheesy dialogue and/or plots would make me cringe.
**Made you look.
I rented Gurren Lagann from Netflix, but it looks like all 27 episodes are up on hulu: http://www.hulu.com/gurren-lagann