Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Movie 1: Gurren-hen

[Spoiler-free should-you-watch review for both movies]

I’ll be brief, because I absolutely love the Gurren Lagann series, and my review (which I haven’t written yet to date) would probably read something like “I don’t care who you are, stop what you’re doing and just watch it.”

These movies are are fundamentally a retelling of the same story. They are very good, but 90% or more of them are just reused parts of the show. There are some new sequences they added, and some changes in the plot, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend. However, I do *not* recommend the movies as an introduction to ... the story.

In short, these movies don’t have enough time to do many of the characters and plotlines justice. Instead, they work best as a second viewing, allowing you to fully appreciate the changes, and take in the fantastic newly animated portions. These movies are for *current* Gurren Lagann fans, not for *prospective* Gurren Lagann fans. I’ll admit, the show does have a bit of filler that the movies carefully prune, but even still, the series is the superior narrative experience, particularly for first-timers.

So watch the show, and in a year when you’re craving some drill action, watch the movies. You won’t be disappointed.

Don't get me wrong here.

I fucking LOOOOVE Gurren Lagann! For the past 8 months, it's been my all-time favorite anime. Everything about TTGL is brilliant including the plot, characters, music, and art, which Gainax had done an excellent job of making sure all of these factors were amazing. However, beyond that, I love the themes about evolution and ambition, two values which hold up very high to me. This show inspired and uplifted me, made me think about my life in a different way and made me realize the goals and dreams I had deep within me, that's how powerful this show was to me! ... But, let's not beat around the bush, this is going to be a review on the first movie, NOT on the excellent anime.

This movie is much like a recap movie of the first 15 episodes of the main series. But, it's not a recap movie like e.g the first two Madoka Magica movies. No, the Gurren Lagann movies include new footage and information that wasn't spread out in the main show. I'm going to try to spoil as little as I can, but an example in this movie was that they explored Lorgenomes backstory and how the world of Gurren Lagann came to be. There are many other things like that which get explained here. I think this is a great thing to do because even as amazing as TTGL was, there were still some questions left unanswered that left some wide gaps.

The purpose of these two movies was I think to fill in those gaps like f.ex who was Lordgenome or how the world of TTGL was made while also recapping the most essential parts of the story, which I think these two movies succeeded excellently at. There were quite an alarming amount of things that I hadn't noticed or forgot about in the main series e.g how Yoko came from an underground village with Dayakka, that the whole show was post-apocalyptic or that Dai-Gurren ship was originally enemy property which the gang had invaded.

However, with all that being said, there's not much else to take home. What I disliked about this movie in particular in how rushed it felt. It felt like Gainax knew they couldn't pack in 16 episodes worth of material in a duration of just two small hours, but tried to anyways. It's not as though they only included the most essential moments and the new stuff. No, they also diverged from the main series for the reason to alter the story, which felt totally unnecessary. This was most clear towards the end, where they try to defeat the gunmen.

To conclude, this movie succeeded in adding new and interesting stuff but failed in trying to bring its own thing, instead of just being obedient and faithful to its original source. The result was a mediocre movie which I won't revisit any time soon. But, wait! Don't watch this before the main series please! Watch these two movies AFTER the main 28 episode series, then watch these two moves. I would also recommend giving a lot of time between watching the series and the movies because then it will be easier to contrast and compare the two. Speaking of two, I will now go on to review the other movie!

Gurren Lagann: Childhood's End, is the first Gurren Lagann movie and more or less acts as a recap and retelling of the first half of the plot from the anime combined into one. The movie, as mentioned, mainly serves as a retelling, putting all the major episode plots into a single story which amounts to just under two hours, while the minor elements are either not present or combined into a montage, with one exception by the end. However, depending on how one felt about the main series and their patience level, this can either come off as a blessing or a curse. Themes and ... other elements I mentioned in the main series won't be discussed here to avoid repetition.

Let's start with the good. As mentioned, the movie essentially compacts all of the major scenes of the anime's plot-relevant episodes. As such, if you want a trimmed down version of the main story which could be easily digestible in one sitting, instead of sitting through everything, this could be recommendable. There is also a slightly different ending, and this movie ends at approximately the halfway point of the series.

However, the movie has several unfortunate elements. The first is that as a product of several episodes combining, it needs to mix several plot elements, which require nearly whole episodes to be completely retained. This is pretty bad, as it means that you're essentially watching all the plot elements at once in near their full length runtime, just squished together. This also means important episodes, as well as heartmoving or funny episodes, tend to get skipped over or squished into a montage. In my honest opinion, the movie would be better off if they opted to rewrite the storyline to make the events follow a more compact narrative. As it stands, this is unfortunately just a very large and somewhat disengaging clip show of the series so far. You may be interested in the alternate ending, however. 3/10.