On the above discussion: while Gurren Lagann had its moments, it also had it's weak episodes, and even it's outright idiotic ones. Saying it had a superb overreaching all-encompassing beautiful storyline is just fanboyism. The story was, as someone has put above, rather basic and nothing all that special. It's strength was not due to a deep plot, or intricate story, but - for the majority - was due to the characterisation and the interaction of those characters.
This is not surprising; most shounen is not known for having great plotlines or a grand story, after all. It's just not in the style of that genre (and it's targeted audience, few exceptions not withstanding). You'll find superior, thoughtprovoking stories with series like GitS, Psychopass or Shinsekai yori, not so much with typical shounen.
So anyway, a shounen derives its strength from other aspects, fighting and getting stronger as an individual being a prime element in it (without that, you basically have no shounen), also the interaction and relationships are important, though a bit less than with shojo. It often also has a "theme" like 'protect those you care about' and 'trust your nakama' and such (sometimes a bit too often repeated, but, well...) Also very important is the characterisation of the protagonists and (in good anime) the antagonists; how well this is done is directionally proportional to how much empathy you feel towards them and what they go through. Shounen also renders itself well to give a silent comment on society; while on the surface it's just regular shounen - and non-threatening to the established rule of society - it can make a social comment on it while pretending to be no more then 'fun'.
I think many aspects of Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill are the same; strong chrater(isation)s, for instance. The 'social comment' in both (remember the episodes when they got to that starving, underground village), but with GL it was more specific, while in KlK it's far more symbolic and is expressed by analogies. This, in turn, makes it a lot less accessible to common watchers - especially foreign ones, who in effect do not comprehend and understand what the analogies mean, and even THAT there are references made.
For instance, I saw someone complain about KlK, and even starting with the title itself: he thought it preposterous and completely nonsensical that it would be called 'kill la kill', which was just a meaningless repetitive iteration and proof of it's worthlessness from the very start. Alas, that poster could not be more wrong. What he didn't realise is, that the title Kill la Kill, in effect IS already a wordplay with hidden meaning. Most don't realise this, but in Japanese the "kiru" in the title can be rendered as Engrish for "kill", or as Japanese which means "to cut" or "to wear (put on)". Furthermore, the words "fashion" and "fascism" look almost exactly the same in Japanese. This is to say, the title, and the whole concept and language used are symbolic, and, more precise, metaphorical in nature for the entire show, and are a persiflage (and a social comment) on militarism/fascism which is set in contrast in regard to the analogy of the 'clothes' which are so prominent a concept in this anime. The obsession with clothes that permeates this anime, thus, is a clear metaphor for militarism (or more generally, stringent social control), which makes the - at first sight - ludicrous behaviour, concepts and names (like 'nudist beach') have more meaning than one would give it at face value, when not realising it's used as a metaphor for something else. And let's not forget that Japanese schools *are* pretty stringent, their basis WAS from the military (KlK explicitly and correctly explained the origins of the schools uniforms for girls and boys) and the social control and social-rule-pressure IS much greater there than in typical Western schools.
This double meaning is totally lost on Joe Doe who just watches a shounen for the fights, however. Therefore, he does not see any meaning or depth, where there is - but implied, not explicitly thrown in your face.
Now, this does not mean certain scenes aren't pretty weak or could have been better. Symbolism, analogies, hidden references, metaphors and all that are all good and well, but on itself it doesn't make a good anime - nothing does, on itself, it's always a mixture of things. But what can't be said, is that KlK lacks any deeper level. It's there, just not noticeable for everyone. |